The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - Carl De Gregorio

Episode Date: February 13, 2019

My guest this week on The HoneyDew is none other than the Drama King with the small patellas, Carl De Gregorio! Carl D is a hilarious comic and a great friend. Born a "love child", Carl D was 10 years younger than his closest sibling. He grew up hanging out with the old folks and adapted to being the baby of the family. Carl D gets personal about his ongoing battle with anxiety and how it affects him. We also discuss being kicked out of college, his father's death and what it's meant to him. Hope you enjoy this episode! http://TheHoneyDewPodcast.com

For just $4.99, you can get a Subway 6-inch Black Forest Ham Sub made with our new Fresh Sliced Deli. But the fresh slicing doesn't stop at beautiful Black Forest Ham. We're talking tantalizing turkey, perfectly piled pepperoni, sensationally sliced salami. So you can lunch legendary, dinner deliciously, breakfast brilliantly. We're talking friggin' fresh slicing and I'm yelling yes way! Get a 6-inch Black Forest Ham for only $4.99. Only at Subway. Price and participation may vary. Extras, taxes, and delivery additional. Expires April 8th.

You're listening to The Honeydew with Ryan Sickler. Welcome back to The Honeydew, y'all. It's Wednesday. You're still doing it over here at your mom's house. I am your host, Ryan Sickler. You can find me on all social media at Ryan Sickler. My website is ryansickler.com.

My album, Get Ahold of Yourself, available, telling you all every week. iTunes, Apple Music, Amazon, Google Play. Make those Spotify channels. hold of yourself available telling you all every week itunes apple music amazon google play make those spotify channels if anybody's even using pandora make those pandora channels it really helps go listen to it on sirius i appreciate all the five star reviews you guys are throwing up on itunes that also helps so thank you very much and again thank you thank you for the positive reviews thank you for the love to the show i'm not going anywhere we're going to keep on doing this and uh we'll be in soon over at your mom's house studio excuse me their studio jeans i'm not sure what the one i'm called is

going to be and we'll find out and um i'll let you know and we'll be posting and everything when the crabby steps are up on their own site which is coming soon as well um there is no more double show on this feed it is now just the honeydew and uh honeydew info the website is the honeydewpodcast.com you can email me at honeydewpodcast at gmail.com you can follow the show on social media, on Facebook. The Honeydew Podcast is the official fan page. And on Twitter, at HoneydewPod. This week, my guest is an old friend, a great comedian, and a Crab Feast favorite. Just a great dude. I'm stoked to have him on this week.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Carl D. Gregorio, y'all. What's going on welcome to the honey thanks man i'm excited i'm i'm more than excited if there's anyone i know that's uh right for the honeydew it's certainly you my friend well i am pleased to be right and right here with you so thanks man well you know how we do it we're keeping it super comfy and uh first before we get into anything please plug and promote anything you want carl d your social media your book on amazon yes the drama king available on amazon you could also shout at me published it is i am published and uh it uh

it had some subtitles it was i was going to call it obviously the drama king stuck but i was going to call carl d get some because it's got a lot of that in it. But no, it's a- You did the right thing. Yeah, I think I did. I think I did. You can catch me on, this is funny because I'm on all social media as I, Carl D. Gregorio. Do I know why?

Just because somebody had my name and I- Who the fuck else is Carl D. Gregorio? I know. Who would pick that catchy ass thing? So yeah, I carl d gregorio on all social media and my website uh where you can get at me is i have a million different domains feeding into it but the latest one i'm kind of happy with is d gregorius.com d gregorius what's the main site site? CarlDGregorio.com. But what other ones do you have? DramakingCarl.com.

You could also get there via CarlDDoesIt.com. That all feeds because I've had so many bad rebrands, and I've given up and just keep buying domains. A bunch of dot-coms that just push to one site. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. All right, well, that sounds like you can get to Carl D anywhere, everybody. Yeah, trying. Well, again, thank you for being here. You know know when when i started doing this i wanted to talk to you

i definitely wanted to have you on because we've been friends for a long time we've done comedy together a long time and of course um you've you've had some fantastic if you haven't heard any of carl's episodes on the craft beach you gotta go there must listens hall of fame apps but you i know we don't we never really talked about it so much and this is what i'd like to start talking to you about um today you are one of how many i'm the youngest of four four yeah but when you say you're the youngest what is the age difference between you and your as so is it all brothers it's two brothers and a sister so who's oldest? Barry is 13 years older.

And then? Steve and Karen. I hope they don't mind I dropped their actual names. Well, I mean, it's probably in the book. They could probably look it up. 13 years, 11 and 10. So your next closest sibling is 10 years from you. So are you an oops baby?

I mean, I jokingly call myself a love child or a happy accident. And I'm pretty sure it was more of an accident. But I guess what happened is they overdid it with affection and broke a lot of maybe the pathologies. What month are you born in? July. Have you timed that back? I haven't. I'm just bad with numbers and what is that november yeah so when was i conceived is what you're trying to figure out i've been like a halloween party just like dick cavett

dick cavett and suzanne plachette or some shit like that right oh man yeah so i never i've never really made that uh i mean a lot of people laugh and they joke and my girlfriend always says you know that means that they were you know they were still into each other you know long into their marriage and well after their third kid yeah yeah and you know it's uh it sounded like it was tough because back in the day uh you know there wasn't I don't know, maybe there was for rich people, but there just wasn't industries for child care. So my mom talks about three kids in about three years and just being overwhelmed. You and I were just talking about this because I'm telling you about my daughter in preschool from two. I was telling you about my daughter in preschool from two.

And I just remember preschool when we were kids being four years old. And then you went to – you did like one year of preschool and then you went kindergarten. I don't remember two, three, four. Yeah, so you were home for many years it seems like. I'm sure for the folks it must have been – and then she had three. And then there was this 10-year hiatus. Where they think they're out of the woods. And then homie pops up. And that motherfucking Halloween party ruined everything.

Yeah, right. So being the youngest, you've said some things to me before too, because everybody else at that point is, as they're gone 18, you're only 8. Yeah, the one sort of math I figured out was that my brother Barrett, the oldest brother, he like left the house when I was five years old so in terms of feeling like I had siblings there was just one after the other would go away to college and you know that was I guess uh early it was sad to be dragged to these colleges and they got and they they you know we went in the car together and

came back and it was just me and the folks and we did you know we went in the car together and we came back and it's just me and the folks and we did that like three times like the family just kept getting smaller and you know you can't i mean we're all uh you're gonna be able to sit up front in a couple more yeah pretty soon it's all your shotgun soon but uh i guess at some point you uh you couldn't put it together so you i i probably internalized it took it personally and just missed having uh all that attention so yeah it's interesting so you do it you have three siblings that you'd never roughhouse with or no yeah i mean you're not right what are they gonna beat up on an infant playing games but i mean the fact that those three are yeah they had

that with each other it sounds like and then And then, yeah, I think psychologically speaking, I was probably raised like an only child. I felt like an only child. I didn't have to share shit. It was a whole decade later. So like the whole, uh, the,

the society changed enough that it was different. And, uh, so I'm like self, I mean, I joke, all my girlfriends, I would say like,

I'm, I need constant attention. I also need to be left the fuck alone at the same time. Cause it's like independently codependent. Yeah. I didn't have to share a fucking bathroom. I could, my homie down clothes,

hand me down clothes. I would have, I really would have looked like Starsky and Hutch. Like they would have been bell bottoms and, you know, earth shoes and shit. And it just would, I couldn't even inherit clothes.

And you know, I'm, I'm actually reading this, uh book the michelle mcnamara book about the the golden gate killer and she had a similar uh age disparity and then she said that her life was saved when neighbors across the street moved in and they had twin girls at the same age you know and i was lucky that there were kids across the street and those were uh you know they were my sort of surrogate siblings and friends became really important and and my dad had a weird schedule so uh what did he do he was a newspaper writer he worked for the new york times sports he edited he did the uh he worked the slot what they which is like getting, is cramming every article into the page. And then he worked Moonlit, like as Information Please Almanac.

And he wrote a book. And so he was always in the city. So authors in your blood. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I'm sure that's part of what, you know, drove me. But, you know, he had a weird schedule. So he'd be out of the house when I got up for school. Or he'd be in bed. Because, like, like in sports the deadline is 11 p.m so you're getting he's getting home from the city at midnight so it felt like at certain times like i was like

raised by a single mom in a way you know but then i had those friends across the street they had younger parents they did more shit you know i got the horseback right i was blessed to have that kind of uh extension you know so how old are your parents at when you're five i guess they're in their 40s right like they had me i gotta do the math on this shit yeah i want to know because i'm 45 my daughter's four 40 when we got pregnant. Forty-one when she was born. Yeah, I guess my dad was 42. I guess I think I did do that for the sake of the book. I figured it out that my dad was 42, 43 when he had you. When he had you. And my mom was 37, so something like that.

So then by five, they're both in their 40s, you know. So I think, and maybe I'm wrong, but i think i was more um that was a more unique scenario than it is today because i think people put it off because of fertility technology and uh our money our money generationally settled and you never have enough money right i mean unless you're you know well off it just shit just comes up yeah you know i learned that too like you you you could put away two hundred thousand dollars and then it'll be some bullshit happens and poof that could be gone so you never have enough but you don't feel like uh you don't feel like a old dad around your kids fuck i'm running through jungle gyms i go i take her to these play places and i finally i had to

buy knee pads because at my first day I was climbing through all these tunnels. My knees were killing me. Now I got knee pads. You should see me shoot through these motherfuckers. Do you get those fucking skate park ones? No, not the hard ones. They don't let you in the nose. I was going to try.

Oh, because you could hurt somebody? Yeah, I got the cushions, and they can snag and rip and shit. You're like Patrick Ewing out there on the fucking. I shoot right through. I'm passing kids in there. I will say this, though. My one fear, because it's not built for people my size, so it's tight, and I'm always worried about an earthquake when I'm in one of those tunnels.

You think about that? Every time, like, get to the bottom. Get to the bottom. That's what I think. Move, kids! Move, kids! Like, if they're all down there, I'm like, go! Go!

You're putting fear into the little kids. I can't even help it in those situations. Wow, that's an acute. You're like an animal. I don't feel like an old dad. And, you know, we do the play date thing, too. But I know from talking to you over the years, you just have always said you were that kid that grew up around all the adults. Yeah.

I mean, you were being taken places. It sucked because, and you know, like I said, I'm trying not to, uh, in my development and trying to self help and do, uh, you know, maintenance on things like you can literally flip a narrative in your head on a dime if you decide to. Right. So you can say that sucked i was around a bunch of old people all the time man it would have been cool to have my brothers on the same basketball team uh to beat up you know whatever those things it would have been great but you

know now i have to sort of see it as it made me the sort of egghead big brain sort of uh the trivia stuff that i'm really kind of obsessed with it gave me that. But yeah I guess the only issue was maybe a little loneliness because I didn't have a pack of siblings. You know what I mean. I mean you had you had a twin. From day fucking one I had one.

And I don't know what that dynamic is. Four minutes. Yeah. I talk about. I like to think I joke about me being older right and that i was conceived first that i just shoved him out so i could get four fucking minutes of he's been there every time wow that's it was there trauma when you separated to move to another coast like the did you have a an emotional parting or anything like that? Oh, God, yeah. I mean, I cried all the way to Tennessee, bro. Oh, that's beautiful.

For real. Yeah, fuck yeah. I mean, I was leaving everyone and everything I knew to go someplace where I had no shit. Right. I had people. I didn't know about anything. I didn't know about the business. I still don't know shit.

And you also gave up on that fucking twin telepathy shit that everybody makes jokes about. Yeah, we never had that. We sound alike. I mean, I'm going to do an episode with him. I told him he has to do an episode with me because I want to talk to him about his memories of the shit I remember. Right. We all remember things differently. Yeah, yeah, 100%.

There's something to it where it's like, well, do you remember this? Because I've had friends who've already listened and called me up and said, man, do you remember this or we did this and i'm like no i don't you know i forget a lot of that that's happening and that you can the cool thing is sometimes you can be right and when you're wrong it freaks you out because you like you you've identified with this either hardship or accomplishment and you're and you're fucking way off on it that's crazy yeah and your brother could fill in some of those blanks or or at least the different sound a lot of like i told him i would like to see if you could get away on the phone with the we always did there wasn't a relative only our parents there wasn't well i should say my dad there wasn't a relative who could call the house and figure out who they were talking to

oh that's that fucking accent exists in another human i mean to a t the cadence the everything well that's he's a little more slower and like he stayed in the fucking yeah because he stayed baltimore um but there were girls that would call and i'm like i don't want to talk to her talk to her and he would talk to her and i'd be playing video games with the kids in the neighborhood my brothers and shit unlike you yeah and uh he would hit me like you're going to movies on friday you don't see police academy i'm like you're a fucking dick oh he would set you up for shitty dates like he was what if he's like uh uh brian i i have a deep connection with you that i've never had with another 14 year old girl in my life like setting you up for like breaking her heart and

shit that's what i mean when you farm that shit out you could get to jam you up big time so how do you what so what happens how do you develop how do you um like you probably learn to start talking to adults quicker you do i mean i was kids my friends used to fucking want to kill me because you know when you're starting drinking and you go out partying and in the suburbs you kind of like. Try and get charcuterie and shit. Yeah, yeah. We want some Miller Lite, by the way. Yeah, we're fucking. The signal.

The best winter jacket wasn't how good it looked. It's like how many beers it could carry. Right, yeah. You know what I'm saying? So, like. And that, yeah. My brother did have one crazy ass down jacket that kind of, I guess, is always in stock. Because it's a big bubble jacket.

Get my smoking jacket. What? My smoking jacket. Yeah, yeah. You mean your winter jacket no my smoke no for when we go retire to the library and drink cognac and shit and get my cognac no but like uh so i would be the i'd always be the kid who uh would like converse with the adults and my boys my buddies would be the, I'd always be the kid who, uh, would like converse with the adults and my boys, my buddies would be like, can we get the fuck out of here? Stop being nice to my parents. And I was just chatty and I related better.

Yeah. You're right. You're related more to that. Sometimes like, you know, I, I don't, I don't know if this is true,

but like until I found some really close friends, most of the, like I would kick with some like neighborhood kids or just kids on teams and i'd be like these these kids are fucking like morons you know what i mean like i don't relate and so and i've never seen it i have a theory this is a total conjecture but like i had a girlfriend the first big one and i think she kind of broke up because i was i was too acceptable to her mom because i, yeah? Like, I'd knock on the door, and I'd be like, it's just, you know, it's, uh, I gotta, you gotta, never mind. I would say, uh, is, you know, is she home?

And she'd be like, no, she'll be here in a minute. And I'd sit in the kitchen and have, like, cookies and shit and just kick it with her mom. That was me, too. I would do that with the moms. I always thought that it was, like, a way to, you know, get after the mom or whatever, but, um. I just always looked at it like i never really had that mom

so it was cool oh that's a good song yeah that's a nice because they'd always be moms they'd be like do you want a sandwich oh wow yeah you would need that exactly yeah wow yeah see i'm with you on that because it was very hard for me to relate um in both worlds by the time i was 16 my father's dead wow my mom's left i i had i had gone through more than most of my friends parents had at that age and they didn't even know how to talk to me you know i could see that they were uncomfortable yeah yeah they made every attempt to be an adult but they didn't there was no hindsight there was no you know this or this yeah and then on the other flip side is these kids have i'm talking to their parents they don't know what the fuck i'm going through so they can't relate so that's why wow yeah my family my cousins the

good ones that i'm really tight with my brothers that we were so close because we were the only ones that could relate to what we were going through and dealing with. So that's when I started, like, really meeting the friends. Like, oh, your dad bounced or, you know, you're adopted or whatever. And these honeydews all over the place. And that's why I've always had that, like, my Achilles heel is always feeling for the fucking. Down. The bad guy.

The underdog. Yeah. The bad guy. So sometimes they treat you like shit and flip on you like of course you did you're well do you think that you had a um a maturity that was born out of that trauma versus like my maturity was more out of like getting data or data whichever the fuck it is data getting data thrown at you uh i thought you're about to say from adults.

I was at a step maybe with my peers because of my odd background or at least an age disparity. And you were maybe at odds with your peers because of the things you'd suffered. That's a different kind of maturity. Because I would say as I got older, I thought I was mature, but I also probably didn't handle traumas or setbacks as well as I should have because I was also a spoiled baby in the family. And just because I was verbal, you know, that's a big growing up and you get tested and all that shit. Sometimes you get miss. What's the word like? You get misrepresented, mislabeled or like being verbal doesn't necessarily mean you have any fucking coping skills you know i mean being an extra i was like a classic extrovert introvert and so you know being

able to do a presentation doesn't mean everything's hunky-dory and that you're not you know or you're a positive attention seeker you know they say the bad kids are uh they're just looking for attention right yeah but i was looking for positive attention and you know it's just i don't know but that you know you really came through glowingly i would say just well look man thank you i and to answer your question i feel like all of that that trauma it it made me smarter in a way, street smart. I'm able to read people. It made me adapt, but I didn't have the financial education.

For a long time, I just saved money or spent money. Just the last couple years, I started just saving. I got my daughter and life insurance, all that. That's crazy. We didn't have any of that. my dad didn't even have a will you know wow yeah well he also probably didn't he didn't think he was going he was dropping a 42 so there's no life insurance there's no any of that um that might have come through like work or something like that i don't know but again a lot of that was taken so um yeah and i guess i got all that was sort of paved out for me and my thing was i worried about shit constantly worried about shit everything and you i mean you still i still

do i'm maybe improving i'm trying to but like it was really unnecessary i was well taken care of what do you mean you'd worry about what sort of thing like trivial things yeah i mean i had like a i literally had a college yeah every every life change was going to be a like i i literally thought i wasn't going to get into college period not just not get into the one i wanted why grades just the panic of like yeah stacking up measuring up and and unfortunately the thing that fucked me up a little bit was my when i was really alert as a little kid not as a baby, but my brother and sister were in high school. And they were 70s high school. So to me, they lived in Dazed and Confused.

That was a nostalgic movie for me only because through my eyes, that's how dope high school must have been. I think they were older. They're all going on a roller rink. Your mom's like, get in the or they're they could drink at 18 so to pass a fake idea at 16 you could probably you know none of these and they were active and they did shit and it just looked and then by the time i got to high school i'm like this is it you know what i mean so i always had these uh expectations and that fucks your whole shit up you know and then a couple of expectations would worry and you know it uh you know it's something i had to fucking deal with it but then

that you know my it's so lame and it's so uh i don't know what like judy bloom or whatever the fuck but like i kept journals and why you think that's lame well only because you know you grow up in new jersey where you're you're you know you're supposed to punch people out and throw rocks and shit like that and then i'm i took it upon myself like i didn't have to be assigned by a teacher to what age you start uh i think 14 13 and i have them all and that's what i was my next question yeah and the beauty of that and just just and what are you journaling about your day are you writing poetry what are you journaling about? Your day? Are you writing poetry? What are you doing there? The sad part is they're probably as similar. Chapter six is my haiku.

I tried to dabble. I tried to dabble in poetry. Made my own Sudoku puzzles in chapter nine. It's not even keeping track of shit either. It was literally, most of the time it was pep talks. For yourself, pep talks? Yes, pep talks and then anxiety about approaching college. And then that's sort of when something changed me. So wait.

A whole book about I'm never getting into college. A book? Like a whole notebook of writing to myself, what the fuck am I going to do? And then you turn 60 pages ahead and you're like, I'm at my first fucking day at school. School, by the way, is not just school. It's Carnegie M which is a so i did okay and i got into a good school and i i made you know i i used the image of the back of the car right you know the stickers the college stickers my brothers and sisters put some heavy stickers on that fucking car window and i'm fucking i i didn't know i was gonna be able to even put a decent one up. Like gas, grass, gas, or ass if I rise for free.

You're like, let's put a Carnegie Mellon over there. Shit's changing. Yeah, exactly. Like I didn't, I was worried about it. On the eighth day God created the spring thing with a bumper sticker and shit. No, but, you know, those decals from good colleges. And I just was freaked that I wasn't going to be able to measure up. So hold on.

You're writing pep talks to yourself. So where does that come from? Some people. You must want her to do. Yeah. So there is a part of you that's, that's, you're, you're battling yourself. Yes. There's a part of you that knows.

Yes. We're good. We're all right. We can do this. I think so. Buck up, fucking man up and let's go fucking do this and i think i have this is crazy for people who know me who work with me or see me but i think i have a sunny disposition to be honest i would say you do thank you for not leaving me but when i lose my

shit when i lose my shit that that connotes like negative thoughts or stress makes you different than you are anxiety right like it's crazy what it does it takes away your about imprinting yeah i learned about this with the geese i feel like i learned about this imp was um when they fly in yes they they just know yeah it's all you know and and it's just it's it's an imprint so how you learn to argue when you're a kid uh-huh um like you'll see some people say like you're a fucking asshole it's like you don't need to say that there that's something that you're used to it's a they strike out they got bad yeah that's how they resolve and yeah the best you can do is to acknowledge and recognize what your pattern is right and then over the

course of your life try to minimize those incidents so that you're not doing that all the time but i mean i you ain't ever getting rid of it it's who you are and i it's now that battle and that that control and that um you know yin and yang the balance you have to find and hopefully the the positive outweighs the negative yeah well my therapist gave me a book and i'm working through it and i you know these books were books you you you'd shun at the bookstore or you know i guess it's just an ego thing or feeling like i'm fucking up like i would never have read these books before but this one says and i don't know if it's i agree but it's about like how you self-talk your inner monologue that if it's negative self-talk and you

and it's called the critic in your brain which i know i have because i used to do bits on stage where my inner voice sounded like judge judy yelling at the guy who didn't have his fucking paperwork in order and i'm like that's exactly what he's like when I'm trying to talk to a girl and judge Judy's screaming in my ear. But the book or the, a lot of therapists say that that's more damaging than any trauma could be. So theoretically you could get, and when I read that,

I was like, wow, that it's more debilitating to have a critical self negative self monologue or self talk because you can get, Oh, you're going to take a beaten self-talk because you can get out, you're going to take a beating with a trauma. You're going to, you're going to mourn, you're going to grieve, you're going to, and then one day, if you're lucky, you'll get over it. And then if you already have a good self-talk, then you'll be still better off than the person who may have less traumas, but just can't, can't see the world half full i guess you know and so that's i guess been my

battle and i guess the journal was always me trying to be in the positive space or well i mean just or prayer it might have been a form of prayer you know i hear you like who are you talking to when you're who do you want to read you know there's a narcissistic tendency like someday people will read these oh see i didn't realize that was an element no other days you're like nobody needs to ever fucking see no one ever sees yeah and i think that that's so i always battled that and so that they're really just self uh what they're like self self-care tools in my mind maybe but the the actual physical exercise of journaling and writing and thinking, that takes a lot of time, and especially to go through a full pad of just about one topic. So I'm saying you're putting more time into the positive and the thinking about it just by the nature of that being you know opening a notepad right yeah and i

like the random pen and paper and all that stuff was probably got into the pen yeah yeah it was i'm definitely a like a total uh yeah i'm a total pen fetishist and i like paper and i still like i do i still love to write on paper yeah i like the legal pads i got these people like why are you wasting paper i'm like i just yeah you fucking like the one. Yeah, you got to make contact with it, you know? Same thing. Bare feet on the grass. Like, you don't. Think about that.

Somebody said that to me about 90% of the time, maybe even more, we're not connected to the earth. Meaning, we have shoes on. Oh, right, right. Or we're walking on concrete. Like, think about the last time or how often you walk on a beach or barefoot on grass or something yeah now anytime i think about that yeah i hate sand i go back home and i'm like taking my fucking shoes off walking all around this grass in the backyard that's got to be therapeutic there's got to be something and you know you're just being connected and

literally grounded and and you know i think that probably helped you to sit and journal like that not only because it's positive but again you're spending more time with that exercise than these rapid fire negative thoughts coming through and eating at you through the through the day i had a my therapist like he he at one point he told me you need to fucking stop complaining which is to him he said that to me no he said that to me and my brother was, you know, he's a doctor and he's like, that's a good therapist.

The therapist doesn't let you get away with bullshit. And he said, well, what were you, what were you talking about? And I said, I was telling a story about how I was in high school and it was, I wasn't bragging.

I mean, I guess I'm relaying the story, but I was talking to a therapist. You can't tell anybody this story. It's, it's in the book, the drama King available on Amazon. But,

uh, the gist of the story was, I was was again hanging out with older people they were like in their early 20s and they're in college and they what are you 14 15 16 and they were into theater and they brought me into like the city and we'd go see plays at nyu and so i and you know i'd sneak beers at places on the Lower East Side. I was always hanging out with them and just able to keep up. And, uh, I had a date and, uh, she was, you know, like, uh, she was on the cheerleading team. She was a captain and I had a date and my buddy said, we're going to go in the city. We're going to see a play, but I got to stop at my dad's work before we go into the city.

And his dad's work, uh, is a is a uh i won't describe it in detail that would be but it was like a uh a titty titty bar in the strip club in the meadowlands and in the stadium near the meadowlands in that in that area and so i'm in there with this hot and i'm a sophomore she's a senior so like i'm pulling that and i'm in a i'm in a i'm in a strip bar i'm having a beer underage there's chicks with tassels and a hot girl and i'm and i'm on my way and i'm like and my that's when my therapist interrupted me and said you need to fucking see your whole life like differently you got to stop complaining because i was like that's not hearing a complaint though what was the complaint i was telling that story

to say i guess there wasn't playing i was just i don't know why i was on the topic but i forgot about that story meaning that i sometimes tell a story that uh my childhood was bleak or i was lonely or all these sort of self-pitying shits and none of this was true it's just the way i saw it you know and then if you just if you relay these to somebody, you mean to tell me you were in the block. And you tell some kid a story from Iowa or something, not to disparage Iowa, but like he might not have had that experience at a young age. And all the externals were telling me winning, not losing. And I was telling myself a losing hand, you know what I mean? And so he was telling me like, yeah, stop fucking.

He wasn't, you know, he mean and so he was telling me like yeah stop fucking he wasn't you know he's being therapeutic and whatever but professional he was just you know encouraging me to always see you know with all i guess the blessings or whatever the hell it might have been but i had a hard time with it for a long time you know so how do you cope with that sort of thing like you're in college now yeah um are you do you stay close to your parents at that time are you close to any of your siblings now that you're 18 19 are you reconnecting we got closer or actually connecting yeah i mean we had we were you know they were living their own lives my sister went to uh peru for three years of missionary work so like she was kind of out of the picture for for like 13 to 17 16 so i she was that was a

weird thing i remember uh you know my brother was uh working and then he got into medical school and then you know everybody was so they're in their late they're in their late 20s and i'm you know just getting started so we were tight-knit you know always home for the holiday but there were christmas where we weren't all together just because of circumstances. And I was always there. And, uh, and then, you know, the thing is the beauty of where I went to school was like, it becomes so fucking all encompassing. It was so like intense amount of work. And then cause you're doing plays and productions and it's really like a highfalutin. Like my dad, he kept a streak of never missing me doing a play, starting with CMU, I guess,

because he missed all my basketball games. He missed all my baseball games, not because he was absentee. It's just that he was in New York at the paper all the time. He's seen all your brothers and shit. Yeah, he might have. He's like, I'm tired of you. Well, you know, and his days off, like he had fucked up days off. Like he had Thursday, Friday off, which was like two of those are school days.

And eventually I think he got Friday, Saturdays off. And he's never, you know. So there was all these sort of normal family things that we didn't do, at least as a parental unit. So he, you know, he made, he would make trips like eight hours, drive eight hours after work from the paper. Come see a play, come crash with me, and go back. He would drive to Pittsburgh? Yeah. Wow.

All right. And he was cool. And by then, he's in his 60s. Yeah. That's when you really start to see how lucky you are. He was a cool cat, and he would kick it. Then there was that weird period where you'd be like, drop me off here, Mom. Yeah. You didn't go through that with, you know. Then you start showing. There was that weird period where you'd be like, drop me off here, mom.

Yeah. You didn't go through that fucking. Come on, mom. You know, like, I just want to go to the mall. Like, don't. Like, you just don't want to be around him. We're meeting at Joy and Fabrics. Just drop me off over here, goddamn.

Sofro Fabrics was the one we had. But so then you start showing them off. Because then, like, how you individuate, I think is the word they use. Youuate and then in college and then you got to sort of like you show off where you came from and um you know and he he made an appearance all i have to show was pictures well see that's what i'm saying i'm fucking lucky then right i gotta consider that and so yeah and he and he was a sports writer and a big Joe DiMaggio. So everything was about, like, streaks and achievement. And I think that put a lot of pressure on me because, you know, I scored 20 points in a bitty basketball game.

And he didn't see it, but I came home and I told him, he's like, what would you score? And I said, 20 points. He's like, you're the next Larry Bird. And I'm like, like, it was just always go to the top. The sports guy. Yeah. And so, you know, then when I blew out my small patellas, they betrayed me.

I took a blow to the ego. Not even the ego. I took a blow to the... my future. Like, I'm fucking up because I can't play basketball, you know? But, you know, he put a sports analogy on a lot of stuff which is helpful but also can be the arts don't have those straight lines you know and so it would be hard to measure up and because of where i went to school a lot of people were achieving at big high levels famous people and

you're just like why you know and he didn't know that he was basically saying why aren't you doing that too and it so that that was a weird you know thing to battle and uh but yeah that was uh cmu was a trip because it was it was it wasn't partyville that's for sure no no no so then when do you start partying well you still squeeze it in, but you've got literally like Saturday night, and then you've got to fucking get your shit together. So when I met you, you were drinking, right? Yeah. Or you drank? I drank a lot in, not a lot, but like in high school we had access because we had one of my best friends worked at a video store, and there was like a 20-something dude who was the store manager.

So we had free videos, and he would buy us beer. So it wasn't even like that walking around town trying to steal beers out of people's garage. We could just put an order in. We want Michelob this weekend. And then his mother, you know, we joke about the latchkey kids. Like his mother had a divorce, and she was always down the shore on the weekend so from like friday i'm staying up uh you know staying at billy's and uh uh we could kick it for 48 hours of freedom you know and this and this guy was you know helpful you know for that but so we you know we rock beers but you know and in college you ever get

into drugs no i mean i i would once in a while get you know peer pressure and have something i'd take a hit on a joint i didn't even smoke cigarettes i think when you met me yeah when i met you were smoking yeah it's chain smoke like i did all this stuff after the what about all the cocaine we talked yeah that's i never fucked with that i did i did try it once in new york city and uh that's a bad thing because it had no visible effect except to sober you up and then I started drinking I could drink keep drinking went to an after hours club

and I was it was the first time I ran into a lady of the night I was in an after I was in an after hours club and I was all gacked up this is terrible I'm saying it out loud just one time experiment family but this is terrible, I'm saying it out loud, just one-time experiment, family. But this is brutal.

But no, and she comes up to the bar, really hot African-American. Of course. Yeah, and she's like, you want to buy me a drink? And you know, that should be your, and she's like, I'll have a Jack and Coke. And it's after hours club, so they're like $14. And I say, I'll have one too.

And then we go out, do you want to dance. So they're like $14. And I say, I'll have one too. And then we go on. Do you want to dance? I'm like, I don't know. So I'm rocking it, trying to show her moves. And I'm so inebriated that I fall on her. Like we're grinding. And all of a sudden, she's on the ground. And I'm on top.

And it's just like a shit show on the dance floor. You fell on her. Yeah. I just lost my balance. And I fucking like pancaked her and uh trying to show her to move yeah right and this is kind of when i knew she wasn't like nor because she didn't like kick and scream and say get the fuck off she just like put her hands up and said that's okay get up and she's like get up you're fine you're fine she's like if you want to talk to me i'll

be sitting over there and there's this like sort of vip couch area where there was just girls sitting there i'm like oh and you know anthropologically like that after hours thing might have been cool it's fun to talk about it's a good experience to have it's kind of a new york thing i guess there's clubs out here like that but but it's seedy as shit and and that was a turn off so i kind of i kind of uh governed myself with like i'm a beer drinker and you can always keep it square. And I like beer because it's social and you talk in bars. And writers and actors, they're famous bar patrons. And weed and anything else really didn't take, thank God. I mean weed wouldn't have been a problem.

I just never got off on it because by the time i tried it i'd be half in the bag yeah and it just didn't ain't gonna do shit for you if you're already fucking and i'd be like i'm so square like i've never scored it one time in my like i scored it is that what they call i'll give you some today to make like you know your dad's big old old streets i never copped is that another one like i never copped bought got yeah i never got like and i just remember those the old film canisters was the way people used to keep but i you know it just wasn't for me but then you know somehow i got when i started smoking cigarettes it was like i it was my own rebellion but all it did was hurt me yeah that's it i've been such a goody two- my whole fucking life i'm gonna i'm gonna enjoy this little habit i got and so bad you know people were

blown away when they saw me because i did it i started after college yeah it's late to start smoking cigarettes and so then kind of quit that but man it was uh you know just i don't know just sell but then i was so hyperactive also. My buddy was like, I can't believe it's taken you this long to become a chain smoker. I'm a knee bouncer. I'm like one of those guys. Me too. I'm doing that all the time. So I needed some habits.

But man. What was your relationship like with your mom? Well, that's interesting because we spent a lot of time together. And she did everything. so i was spoiled that way to have like but it was kind of strict because she was the one who had to lay the the rules down and i was like i always felt um i guess because i ran with some fucking juveniles like i had like curfew was ridiculous like like i like i was like I was a chick. Like I felt like I would scream at like, I'm not,

what am I going to do? Get knocked up. Like, I just want to come home at 12. It was, and it was always like, I had to negotiate 15 minute increments and shit. And I'd have to bolt that.

What was your curfew? Like 1030. Then it got to 1045. We'll be over there later. We got to get Carl home by eight. And my, and then, you know, nobody, And nobody makes the –

As a senior? No, by the time I was a senior, I was hanging out in the city at strip clubs and drinking and stuff. But I blew the roof off it as a sophomore when I didn't come home until 6 in the morning. You know what I mean? So your curfew is 1030. I think my curfew was 11 by then at sophomore year. And you blew it to what did you do uh and this is where you get addicted to theater i was doing a play the first play in

high school was you know first of all i love that you said addicted to theater a lot of people would have been like this is when i got addicted to drugs this night right here i'm doing sonnets and shit yeah jesus what a corny fuck oh god this is not the suge knight story right here uh yeah so i was doing the i was in the senior musical as a sophomore and uh and i kept telling my best friend i'm like this this girl's into me like one of the hot there's a scene for the hot box girls it's like why don't they just call them the pussy chicks you know what i mean yeah they're called the hot anyway and they dance and sing and they're like little 1940s like razzy girls or whatever and i'm like she's into me and my brother you know and it's like that

it's like the 70s show he's like numb nuts she's not she doesn't even know you're fucking alive and i'm like i'm just telling you what i'm getting you know and uh sure enough like it happened at the cast party on a pool table i start making out with her and i'm like i'm just telling you what i'm getting you know and uh sure enough like it happened at the cast party on a pool table i start making out with her and i'm like you know it's out of body literally out of body because you're like how the fuck did i pull this off so i'm making out with her and then you know uh another couple like let's go to the fucking high jump pit you know up by the fucking where they run track and shit we're making out there in her subaru and uh you're not gonna you know why'd you stay in the car no we got out but we were all over the place but like it just was ridiculous and you're slobbing her down she's fine and and i'm not gonna say i'm just gonna take a fucking beating i mean it's i'm going home

whenever the fuck it uh this winds up man and it, you know, I was such a good kid that it was like the door just opened. Like it opened before I got the key in. And they were in their robes and they're just. Oh, they. They're both. My parents are just like, what the fuck? And we'll talk about it. I got off the hook.

We'll talk about it in the morning. There's no calling your kid back then. Or texting. 6A. Yeah. I mean, you know, like 80s, it's like, you know. And today now. Can you imagine?

Today it must be worse. Because there's a fucking serial killer documentary every 10 seconds. And also, you can text. And if you're not getting any response, then that makes it even worse. That makes it worse. Oh, right, right, right. They're just in the dark. I've sent 10 texts.

I'm not hearing anything. I'm six hours over. Six hours. You could be in fucking Missouri. 100%. You know what I mean? Or you could be in the city. I'm a hostage in Albuquerque, God damn it.

It's been six hours. You know what I mean? Send somebody. The fugitive. It's like you could do, we could do the math. He's an average body. You know, you can figure the radius. Yeah.

So they must have been shitting bricks. But I wasn't hammered I was just you know basically like Just love struck and all fucking Fired up about my good luck And I just remember The morning after is when I got the big And I basically I wasn't taking

From dad or mom or both I think from my dad but I was like I literally was like when am I When is he going to understand that this is a fucking win? Like I was not receiving any of the reprimand. I'm like, do you understand what I just did here? Right. I'm, if she's a senior, I'm soft, but this shit is ridiculous. You know what I'm saying? You should be high five. Yeah, exactly. Like my hand should hurt. And he started getting into like, you know, senior girls, uh, they, they're going to gonna want stuff and i'm like yeah is this your

first talk yeah that's that's all i get and i'm like yeah like sex right like this is what we're hoping for but like you're gonna want stuff i hope so god he just couldn't get on board and because we weren't you know we didn't have a that was the generation gap too like i didn't get any my brothers and sisters didn't get it either so it's not like and i'm maybe i don't know if you're you know you're not you're a long ways away from that so i'm sure that's still gonna ever and always be an awkward fucking thing but i'm talking to my daughter about it the whole way yeah i guess you have to with the daughter but i guess you got to it i would do with the son too i would hell yeah you don't want them out there getting everybody pregnant yeah and i learned on

the street you know what i'm saying i know that's the mean streets of new jersey but like i learned that you know like literally i don't know i remember the day uh a neighbor's older brother said you know what fuck me and i'm like what he's like when you stick your fucking dick and i'm like he's a romantic i remember one time uh i had had a night like that too where uh my dad was coming to pick me up oh i'm in 10th grade and he said i'm coming to get you at 11 i'm like dad please midnight he's like ryan i gotta go in tonight at two o'clock in the fucking morning i'm getting you at 11 be ready at 11 not 1101 not 1102 be ready and i was seeing this girl at the time and they had a finished basement as you do on the east coast yeah not me but everybody else their daughter's bedroom was down there oh no and in like a little

living room area so she and i are down there parents are long asleep fantastic and we're going at it i'm a freshman i'm a freshman actually not a sophomore i'm a freshman um because she was the first girl i um had sex with i lost my virginity to her eventually but this was all the up up until then and so she's the rug we're making out she's you know she's she's we're getting hot and heavy we haven't done anything yet and I keep looking at that motherfucking clock and it's 10.56 it's 10.57

and 11 o'clock hits and I'm like my dad said he's gonna be here I gotta get ready and then 11 o'clock and then I just hear he is in the driveway holding it down station they were like station wagon loud as fuck woke her parents up like i'm running out with blue i had blue balls so bad on the ride

out i was like he's like i told you it hurts 11 o'clock right all up in your body i told you 11 o'clock i'm like you did not need to blow the horn. I was putting my fucking pants on. I'm running up. You went out the basement door, and they had a little hill. So I'm running up the grass hill. I'm waving at him. He's just like, stop the horn. He didn't play.

He didn't give a fuck about that. He didn't play. And I would do the same thing today. I guess you have to. Now, it's like you should think of it like as a badge of honor or like somebody gave a shit about you like the you know it's like you were i was you were the lucky one i was the lucky one like because you know there was shit going down and fucking the world like oh man i didn't know like some of the little league dudes were weren't were diddling

kids and shit you know and it's like yeah and i was like you know you say you like i didn't know that was happening but they would like hang out and have candy bars after and i'm like why doesn't he want to kick it with me and it's like he he knew that i was well parented and not marked and like that would have fucking and so all that stuff that made you feel like a herb or a nerd was the stuff that you know pays, pays off and, and made you solid for the future. I guess, you know, I'm still waiting for that to pay off,

but you know, it's just, that's the way it was. Do you want kids? Would you have kids? I think that's, you know, past that's past an option.

And I, are you, I mean, I could, you know, theoretically, I don't know. I,

I, I haven't thought about it until, uh, I guess even recently, cause I, I could, you know, theoretically, I don't know. I haven't thought about it until, I guess, even recently, because I guess I've been in that much of a basket case. And money is really important for that. And I know my folks, even though we're probably solidly middle class, we're strapped, you know, in college. And I just, you know, I think I'd be an OK dad. You'd be a great dad. You agree that but uh you'd worry about everything yeah i don't know and i think that stuff is sort of go cellular let a little go too yeah and i see myself doing that like that you worry her do you worry does she pick up on

your worry i don't think she gets my worry until i tell her i'm worried about stuff crossing the street strangers you know she knows when i'm telling her legit shit but now i try to keep the stress in um anxiety in and let it out in different ways not around her if i can help it um well yeah that's anxiety like i i heard a thing at a post office that i swear to god i you know there was a black guy at at the end of the line in the post office and a real kind of bitchy white woman came in and she sort of cut the line and he said, ma'am, you know, you're not at the end of the line. She's like, oh, I'm sorry. And he did it really cool and he wasn't mad. And then they struck up

a friendship online because it was a mad ass long line. And then she said, hey, would you mind? I got to put the meter and would you hold my spot? He's like, no problem. So they like had this micro friendship. But during the conversation, he said, well, I'm glad you paid the meter. Cause you know, he goes, anxiety robs you of joy. And I heard that. And I was like, and then I talked to some hippie dippy friend and they're like, you know, that was not an accident that you heard that exact phrase. And it didn't dawn on me, but I've at uh auditions where the the agent said you're a

really nice guy but when you get nervous it it everybody people don't trust nervous people and you gotta make them nervous yeah and you have to find a way to get and that's for stand-up when i thought my persona was this nervous neurotic that just made it hard for people to laugh it made it hard for me to enjoy doing it and it it's it's been an ongoing i you know i guess that's where but anxiety just it's like i saw the shift in you too at the ice house recently too where you just let loose and had fun and you weren't stressing at all and just slayed yeah well i i don't you didn't look worried and i know you i've worked with you enough to know when you're up there like grinding them yes thinking out loud yeah it went it went great and it's i haven't you know it's been i haven't done much since uh you know i'm rethinking that you know whether i can

live it really i don't know if i can you know i think costa calls it a uh uh controlled anxiety attack stand up you know and you know it's interesting but you know it's you find out like why would you if you're shy why would you become an actor you know for me it makes perfect sense you you pick the thing that's gonna challenge you the most or flip the personality the most or because probably if you know if you know in russia when they picked your aptitudes and shit like that like they would i would have been a guy make i envy people who do like sculpting and shit like that just put me in a shop and i could just but everything i did you know i took my daughter to the museum of natural history a couple weekends ago and they had the guys that were there oh with the fossils yeah

and i'm watching them and right there and you're allowed to watch them they're blocking out 20 fucking people staring at them and they're just in the zone with that little thing total zen down i would love that yeah it was great you'd be good at that i don't know i'd have to probably have a degree in some kind of science if you had the background yeah i think i would work patiently like i do like tinkering that's what i need to be around people i can't that would drive me nuts yeah not ever hear or talk or even ask someone a dumb question you know well i think that's why i'm a hybrid personality so i think i agree with you but i do envy because you can't bliss out when you do stand you got to be totally concentrated you can't bliss out when you're right you can

get in the zone but you still got to crank words it's not like you go when you paint you can just throw paint and i don't know i just kind of envy those more uh instinctive arts you know what i mean so unfortunately we have something in common we both our dads have both yes and i wanted to talk to you about that because i know your dad was such a prominent role model and here and i didn't even know that that he drove like that after work to come see a play i mean man yeah um did they ever see you do stand up mom and dad yeah they saw him that's the uh for the crap piece that's florida was the first thing they were there for that yeah it was a fucking nightmare and that's why it literally almost sunk me man because it was so bad do you remember what they said to you after uh my mom said that you thought bill bellamy was handsome but talk dirty like because

he curses about you right i basically i basically like when they saw me because i i stayed out and then they went to sleep and so at breakfast i was like hey i walked out like don't fucking say shit to me i was just like i can't fucking it you. It was a disaster. So if you haven't heard the episode, Carl, his brother works in Florida at a weather channel, correct? No, regular news channel. And while he's there working with Bill Bellamy, he has the opportunity to set up this incredible shoot with how many cameras? He just had the big, you know, the one that he had for press conferences. But I had a live mic and he had ambient mics and shit just a bad set yeah i just tagged it all on video with everybody out there i've never seen it and my brother's like you can look at it no he's like and he's

like i'll i'll fatten it up to us i gotta you gotta have i'm gonna ask him that oh come on that exists i think it does yeah i mean still I know they recorded that night, but that's still somewhere on a driver's – Oh, yeah. I think it's a three-quarter-inch tape. I don't know if you – You got to celebrate that. Oh, yeah. Well, at least that I survived it, yeah.

But that was hard because, you know, my dad – one of the best memories I have is when I – But wait, your mom is still alive with us. Yes, she's doing great. She goes to the gym. She swims. How old is she? I think she's – she won't like me saying, but she's in the 80th decade. Wow.

All right. Yeah. But she goes to the gym. I mean, she's in incredible shape. And she wants to go to the gym when I visit. And she gets a pass. And I'm like, yeah, I'm probably not going to manage. And she's going.

She goes. She swims three times a week. It's amazing. It's amazing. And she reads. I a week it's amazing it's amazing and she reads i got my reading jones from her my reading habit she reads everything and uh she's a hip lady and uh yeah but uh how did your dad when did your dad pass and how did your dad he died in 2010 and he uh he was he was you know he was he 82, but his brother who recently just passed, my uncle, was 98. So we were really, you know, as much as you can be, people are such pricks on wheels.

Like I remember telling somebody, oh, I got to go home. My dad's sick with cancer. And the guy, I said, he was like, how old's your dad? I said, 82. And he goes, oh, I'm like, really, dude? I'm supposed to be glad about it? Oh, he made it to his 80s. Fuck you, dude. dude so but yeah he

got a bad cancer i think it was gallbladder it was like only 20 000 people a year get it it was really rare and it it swept through him pretty quick and and it was a four to six month diagnosis and uh it was about six months so it was really weird because you know it's probably you know it's there's no good way for that to happen no so but we i had a bunch of time to get to him and see him but i was you know 3 000 miles away and wondering why the fuck i did it you know and that you know that's what the stakes were you know for for leaving you know i'm sure you you know leaving a twin or leaving the East Coast. I mean, I know it's.

Everything. Everybody's portable and everybody's. But, you know, it's easier to leave. Now. Yeah. But. We didn't have FaceTime. I had $2,500.

Text messages. And I had a Honda Accord. And that's still more than most people have in a fair shake in life. Original rims on a Honda Accord. Oh, I think it was beautiful. Five speed. But, yeah, so so you know he i had to go back and forth i had no money you was to go yeah i went for two weeks and like he they had a

hospital bed downstairs and in the house yeah and uh you know we we tried to like you know just be there you know it was so torn like do you just do i just pack up and move home or and he wouldn't let it go down like that and uh so can i ask you some questions yeah so mind was there he was able to communicate and talk to about things like that like don't do that and yeah he wasn't just i mean you know there's some moments where he was like um you know he was just shit one time he got he's a very fiery guy he had a bad temper sometimes but you know i think i had he just got something i had a bad temper sometimes, but, you know, I think I had, he just got something, I had a couple emails or something, he's like, don't, don't let me fucking be the, anything comes up, don't fucking, I'm not the reason you're gonna not go to that, or, he was so into it, you know,

my dream, and so, you know, maybe had a latent performance, Jones, or some kind of, I don't want to say if I care, I think he was just more trying to prop me up, but, um, he just didn't want me to quit. He just didn't want me to quit. And there was times where I was, I was bottomed out and I quit like, you know, you don't gain, you know, I joke about it. Like I, you don't gain 50 pounds unless you're playing Al Capone in the untouchables and you're paid well yeah and i did that and i moved to the most vain place on earth and got fat and you know i i was not helping my cause and uh you know then he gets sick and it's like what the fuck did i do with all this time away from them because i would kick it in the city with them all the time the guilt yeah now i i'm getting getting spending yeah and i'm

sure my brother's sister did too my brother's doctor. So he had a real clinical way of dealing with it and he got to look at some of the charts and it was almost overlapped in his specialty. So, you know, he was carrying the burden of knowing that there was not going to be much of a chance of a recovery or even a year or two, three, five. And so, you know, but he was also really, it was a blessing cause he, he was like the authority on the scene, you know, but, um, you know, it was, and it was tough being because he he was like the authority on the scene you know but um you know it was and it was tough being i was still running the world cafe show and i was just like do i want to fucking give a shit about this when i got probably and you got some fucking dildo like how can you never put me up i'm like bro i'm in new jersey at my you lit me two minutes

early last fucking time carl yeah you know and it's just like i need this new bit yeah yeah i was working on a late night you like me two minutes early so yeah that was that was a tough time and i got in debt and and um you know you just feel real crummy and then i started for some reason i you know i started writing my book uh as a way to uh i had to do something to make him proud before you win i guess is what my energy was. Did you get the book out before? No, I missed it.

And that's sort of a, I, it may be a narrative device and I may not have been consciously, but I was about 40, 50,000 words in, um, uh, before he died.

And I was, I kept giving him a word counts. Hey, I'm up to 20,000 words. Dad, I'm, I'm really, did he look at any of it no no but

he had you know a memoir that he uh was hoping to write and he had these files and he let me look at him and and then i had this notion i'd write a father son book but it just wasn't there that what his what his narratives were and maybe someday but you know and he he was uh he became he was a poet you know that's the cool thing about my dad is like he was kind of macho sports guy and a poet you know and i love guys like that and it's i think that's a throwback i hope to be a guy like that but he wrote a book of poetry before he died and uh published it and and he was a famous like he was a poet they call him the poet laureate of rutherford new New Jersey, because he, he was like the,

even at his age, he was the best poet in the whole room, and people get up there and read about their fucking vaginas, and you know, masturbate, and he'd get up there and do like these Robert Frost type of, he didn't rhyme, I guess it's called free verse,

but, so he was into it, and you know, it, you know, it was, I didn't, I didn't handle it particularly well, I was a, I was a fucking wreck. The death, or the, or him dying? All of it, you know, it was, I didn't handle it particularly well.

I was a fucking wreck. The death or him dying? All of it, you know, all of it because it felt like I didn't get shit done. You know, every NFL player, I'm by my house. They didn't need that. But, you know, I wanted to, I didn't think I was blowing smoke up my own ass. I don't think he was. I had some, like, early success, early problem. Like, it wasn't like I was blowing smoke up my own ass i don't think he was i had some like early

success early prompt like it wasn't like i was barking up the wrong tree and like for many years he was just as frustrated as i was you know we well i can tell you as a parent that all i want for my daughter is happiness yeah so if that means she wants to go into fucking horticulture yeah or she wants to do stand-up i mean i would tell i'd be real with her about stand-up i would tell her the truth um but i would support whatever it is yeah i wouldn't care you have to yeah so it it it didn't matter to your dad whether he held that book in his hand or not he knew what his son was out there doing giving him an update on it he had been there he's already published right so i don't know man it just

sounds like yeah it's part of a self-dramatical uh you know it's a catchy name maybe the job but it's really that i was i learned somewhere along the line that i i was performing my life as opposed to like living it and and when you're not getting when you're not stand-up kind of same because i was performing and i was getting fatigue from the exhaustion of you know doing stand-up kind of thing, because I was performing, and I was getting fatigue from the exhaustion of, you know, doing stand-up, so I wouldn't need to, like, do karaoke, I wouldn't need to be the center of attention, I wasn't bouncing off the walls as much, you know, I was, I needed to conserve energy for performance, and it, it, it dawned on me that I didn't need to make my life, you know, dramatic, or critical, and, and then when you get hit with a real emotions that are you know on you know i mean i would start crying in a fucking subway and i didn't give

three fucks about no didn't give three fucks let me tell you something like bawling snot coming up you know my girlfriend would be like she was the best she she shepherded me through it she came home with me made pancakes for him you know even he's like the test she you got any testers my dad's like you got any testers he'd eat those he had diabetes too so he wasn't supposed to be eating that shit but at that point at that point so she was making you know and so you know there is a funny guy and and uh but you know because he was a poet and a writer he there was a very fucked up thing when you know the end is near that it was you know and what my mom had to do because we were only there sporadically she was there i didn't know they had to call the emts a couple times

because he slipped in the bath like just shit you didn't want to hear about and uh your hero is becoming weak yeah it's uh and sad and yeah broken and yeah so you know you know you know you didn't i can't imagine you know if you lost your dad at what 16 i can't imagine not have having had him all that 30 years later um i'll be 46 in march i don't mind saying my age i'm still here my dad died at 42 so that was a big moment for me yeah that's huge that birthday was scary 43 was well that was when i had all those crazy health issues in 2016. Oh, my God.

I didn't put that together. I found out I have this blood disease and that this clotting and everything is actually probably how my father really died from clots, not a heart attack like they thought back then. Yes. No, clots are bad. It came full circle, and they were saying that with all the technology these days, they're able to diagnose clots, where back then, late 80s, if you died in your 40s, they just said heart attack. Yeah.

You know, they didn't know. And they're saying now that we're learning more and more and equipment is where it is, we're thinking that we misdiagnosed those people. Yeah. And those people probably had a clot that took them out, not an actual heart attack. Yeah, pulmonary embolism. Yeah. So there'll be times I'll be in the grocery store and some bullshit song will come on and i'll be like oh it's so easy i just want to grab a frozen

motherfucking pizza and i'm just like oh yeah it'll get you when you least expect it yeah well that but then i laugh about it because i feel like you know that's it's just like one of those things where like my dad would laugh about that yeah he was standing next to me like look at you yeah right now yeah that's true my dad was in my act early on like he was always screaming and yelling and shit and then you know he was like use me you like make he's i don't care if you make me out to be the biggest piece of shit he just wanted to be in something yeah he just wanted it if it was gonna be fodder or grist for the mill he was all for it and uh you know i just you know i guess the fucking i wish we had a better time you know there was no need to be so fucking flipped out all the

time scared all the time of nothing and worried about your career and i read i read once too i want to say it was something like 80 of the things we worry about don't end up even coming to fruition and and you think about it. I don't know what that number is. Right, right. But I feel like it's more often than not you worry about something like, oh, that fucking took care of itself. Didn't even need to really spend time on it.

What am I doing? Yeah, but if you're also, yeah, but how do you feel productive without, you know, so fucking punching walls or, you know, banging your head against the wall, like to me seemed productive You know Were you able to say goodbye Were you there for it Yeah I mean

Yeah I made it by the Fucking I made it by a hair Cause he That day you made it in Or He So he

Are you comfortable talking about this Yeah I guess now I am I wasn't Like I said It took me two years To be able to even say My dad passed away Without getting choked up

just losing it yeah and people like I remember seeing it I was at the improv one night and I hadn't seen a certain comic in a while and she she's really good like you know the friends in comedy are different than maybe like friend friends but she was a

good friend in comedy and she's like what have you been doing and I was like oh my father I'm so sorry and she said when I was like about two and a half years she goes like she looked like get home right but i was a fucking wreck for a while but uh yeah i he uh the saddest thing is that the luck he was a lucky man what you know he was lucky that he got to be home like he went in the hospital and they, they stabilized them enough to, uh, to get him home. And,

uh, just kept them comfortable. Yeah. And then the hospice thing. And he had, but I, I, I had to fly, you know,

home. They were, everybody in my family was there and, uh, I was bringing, I was the last one, you know, cause it just means and how far and what I had to do for work.

And I just like, I have to go. He's my brother's like, you gotta, you gotta come get a ticket tomorrow. And, uh, you know one way and uh he got picked up at the airport and uh he couldn't talk you know you have that that fucking movies give you this fantasy that you know it could be like here's my parting fucking word of wisdom or you know and he he had he just was in uh he wasn't verbal and It was amazing because I got to his bedside and I got to hold his hand and he squeezed it and his eyes lit up.

And, you know, I got that moment and we all did. And we were there. He stayed one more day. You know, we were playing. He liked John Denver, this fucking guy. Loved. Thank God I'm a country boy, man. I love John Denver.

This Italian guy from connecticut loves fucking john denver inning stretch so the nurse the hospice nurse said you know play all his favorite music or playing that benny goodman you know he liked roy orbison and uh and my sister was reading his poems to him it was it was it was wild to have a night like a day with him but he was you know incapacitated. And then we were there when he took his last breath. That's an amazing, lucky guy. It's the first time I ever said that I'm really glad that it was a blessing.

But I was inconsolable for many, many, many, many months. In a Catholic church, they don't let lay people speak and i was really pissed off about that because you also as a comic writer actor wait they didn't let you get up and speak wow well my grandma now i didn't speak when my grandmother died i just was i couldn't believe what we went through like oh you must have dropped dead in front of us really i gave her mouth to mouth the whole nine took her out she wasn't i shouldn't say she dropped dead in front of me she was alive she died on the way to the hospital um but i remember my cousin really wanted to get up my cousin anita and say some things and they let her they did better i don't know just maybe our parish or whatever but to be honest with you

and i and i even wrote about it like i'm a professional i mean I mean, I'm famous, but I'm a professional public speaker. And I wouldn't have been able to get through fucking eight seconds. I was a fucking sobbing shitbag mess. And, you know, only because it's something you're growing up as a boy not to, like, I guess, I don't know. I've changed my attitude about it. When I see people cry, dudes cry, I'm like, you got heart if you can cry. Fuck yeah. And it hurts in proportion to how much you love somebody.

These people that think apologies are weakness or crying is a weakness, let me tell you something. It may be a weak moment. Yeah. It may be a weak moment, but that moment, all you're doing is building a foundation of strength. Yeah. And if you can keep moving forward i'll tell you this

this is i don't know if i've ever even said this i probably have on the crab feast but my grandmother came out of her bedroom her last words were somebody help me she goes face first on the floor i mean arms to the side no no pun intended, dead weight, you know, just all weight straight down on her nose. So my brother, I'm already on 911. He runs up to the top of the stairs. He's freaking out. He doesn't know what to do. I tell the lady, I didn't know that because when you call 911, my dad had been dead for a while, so they won't send an ambulance.

They send a coroner to come get the body. She's still alive. She's having a— Now, she was having a massive heart attack. And, you know, I'm in lifeguard class. I just became a lifeguard at the Y at the time, so I'm certified in CPR and mouth to to mouth all of it and i tell my i i didn't know the ladies like you need to stay on the phone until they get there so i switch with my brother and i go up and i'm giving my grandma mouth to mouth and it's just like you don't ever want to

fucking have to do that in your life yeah and her nose is as black as as your shirt because she fell broke her teeth broke out of her mouth. I'm going to be fucking straight up with you. And they come in. They get her down the stairs. They rip her shirt open. You're seeing all that. That's your grandmom. They put the paddles on.

And even prior to that, I always hated the paddles. That lifeless jelly that rolls after they shock you always has freaked me out. And they're not gentle. They come in, and rightfully so. They throw your furniture out of the way to clear an area to work on. Yeah, they're not there to fucking be dangerous. It's not fucking Hollywood. And they hit her with the paddles, and they're giving her oxygen.

And her color starts to come back. And I'm telling you i could see her she was gasping for air and i'm talking to her the whole time and she's just looking right through me her eyes are glassed over and she's just piercing right through me and she would just go like that and i'm like okay and i'm trying to count okay it's every eight seconds so when they came in there were eight seconds i'm like she's gasping every eight seconds that's oxygen yeah and they had her down to six and four so she was doing better on the way out the door my brother goes with her in the ambulance i have to stay back to give you have to give a police report and not only that you have to put your home back together it's not tv right because

this is the other debris is there they leave pack packaging and i go to the top of the stairs and i'm crying bawling and my grandmom's teeth are in the fucking carpet and i kept her place immaculately clean and i would hear those little bits of teeth in the vacuum for about a month or so when i would clean up you could could hear them. They just got buried in the fucking carpet. There would just be these little pieces. And that moment when I went up, I was bawling and I'm fucking just, I'm a zombie and I'm cleaning. I'm picking my grandmother's teeth out of the fucking carpet of her house. And right there on the wall is a picture of Jesus.

And it's tilted. That picture was never tilted yeah there's stuff like that i don't know if the fall whatever the thing's fucking tilted and i think back in my mind and i see we're on position and i think that she was looking at that picture that's what she was looking at on her way wow and also i think that i was blocking it you're doing your compressions and shit annie are you okay jesus probably trying to turn to see her like oh that's fucking brilliant i really do believe they were trying to fucking communicate. My fat head's in there like, and one, and two.

And, you know, they tell you to go to the beat of Stayin' Alive. So I'm doing that. I'm like, are you kidding? Tell you, Bee Gees are the fucking life beat. Italians love the Bee Gees. And I'm going, I'm trying to do staying alive to somebody dying. And it's someone, Jesus is trying to see her.

She's trying to see Jesus, man. Wow. And then we go to the hospital. And I don't know why this nurse said this, this way. I think my, I don't know if they called somebody or what,

but they said her boys should go back first well my uncle's there that's her boy my dad's already did wow and they meant me and my brothers derrick and todd and we were living with her at the time just derrick and i were and we go in and man they don't clean it up you know like she's on a table she's got a fucking sheet over her heads out but they got that fucking tube in her in her throat so i'm like you guys can't even pull that fucking thing out i'm just looking at our dead grandmother on this thing and my brothers are looking at me like what what should we do and i was like we should thank her and we stood there i choked me up and just you know thanked her out loud for everything this woman had not

only done for us but you're you're you gave us our father you know wow so it's just this moment of like it's never that pretty even when those people are breaking down in the hospital and shit it's all pristine and it's clean and like you said, it's this, oh, here's my last word. No. Yeah, it's the westerns where they're like, tell my wife. Yeah, tell my wife. No, it ain't that. And I think that does a disservice because it's, I don't know.

Oh, wow, that's a heavy story, man. That just brings back so many. But, you know, maybe for a while I also held on to I'm younger and this shouldn't be happening at this stage in my life. But you had it so much earlier and so much. And often. That was the thing. It came early and often. Yeah.

Quick. I mean, by the time I'm 20. God, that's. I've lost my father, my grand. My mom's left the family, though. So she's gone. Oh, okay. I didn't even know.

I thought she wasn't with us. No. But dad, dad, grandma dies now. Yeah, and it's like, you know, I have friends with the grandmother. She became a parent, right? Unfortunately, yeah. Yeah. That was different, too.

My grandmother's house was always a special place the smell of garlic and sauce always permanent oh that's yeah it's your italian oh yeah and once you start living there you don't smell that anymore you know what i'm saying you just beat you're there now and you're used to it and it's not that uh so i always that was always a big shame to me and people would ask me like what was it like and i said the the biggest shame to me of living with my grandmother was it wasn't my grandmom's i wasn't going to my grandmom's house anymore now i'm going home uh-huh and there's just something it's just about going to your grandmom's house yeah you know

um and as she would say i love you to come and i love you to go but what were you ashamed of just that you it became commonplace i wasn't ashamed of it it was just that was the hardest thing yeah was losing that specialness yeah does that make sense that that feeling of this special place but now it's every day i'm there yeah you know it doesn't feel special anymore there's every goddamn day reminder why I'm living in this fucking house. And poor her, her son's dead. So she's crying all the time. You're not supposed to live through that. And we would make jokes about it all the time.

And it probably stressed her out. All the time. The health issues. And where we're driving. And like, where are you kids going? Yeah, God forbid you're hyper protective of you guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. of you guys yeah yeah or you and and she would always say oh i miss my son oh that stuff is on do you want some cheese like i

mean in and out of that shit like that man i'm gonna make some sauce let me go you don't you dealing with it like we all were yeah well we get that my mom gets those uh we're not very emotional but like you know the the the movies, the crying. Everybody's staring straight ahead. No one will look at each other. And you just hear, you just hear like, oh, she's going. And so you got to pick your movies wisely when you get Netflix at the house. But it used to happen when I was little.

It's these bursts of emotion. Because, I don't know, you got to open that up. Because it shouldn't be so embarrassing and it shouldn't be it's just so hard to say you care and you love somebody and you know that was that point you're waiting for that point too like and you're lucky you got to yeah i didn't get to say a damn thing to my father i didn't get to ask him questions right i would have loved as a father i would have loved to been like how the fuck did you deal with twins yeah you know what i'm saying in 1973 two of these fucking things the exact same time oh my god i would have worked my ass off too to be honest with you yeah well there's that there's a the the thank god it's monday phenomenon right where people and guys can't wait to get the fuck

back to the office you know so i want to go back to some other things too as far as like how this has affected you you said you got kicked out of college out of carnegie mellon yeah you did this is funny i uh i used to not tell stories that were in the book because i didn't want to spoil it like anybody's buying the fucking thing available on amazon yeah no but wait so it's a very intense uh conservatory culture which i know like a compared to you know the military academies is pussy shit but it's very intense so every every year you're re-evaluated whether you belong in this program or not by a board by the faculty and you have these things called juries where you go in and you sit down with the faculty and they

review your work and they say okay well we well, we'll see you next year. So I got through that freshman year and then sophomore year. And there's also a lot of things that were holdovers from like the the the 80s, 70s and 80s. Carnegie Mellon and a bunch of other schools were in a thing called the League of Consortium Theater Program. and a bunch of other schools were in a thing called the League of Consortium Theater Program. So there were like these, whatever, this sort of thing that existed, and they all presented in New York. And so, you know, you want to go to a league school.

And so that kind of fractured, and so Carnegie Mellon was just kind of on its own. But the old ways of, like, basically it's called you get cut. So you're living in fear of the cut, and you start with 40 students and we we wound up the happy ending is we graduated uh 13 so like and they that's it yeah are you 16 16 or something yeah i was one of the 13 so i made it through but i did get that that thing that and this is an example of fearing fear being a crippler so i I had a rough time freshman year, uh, adjusting to the rigor a little bit, but I'd done a lot of theater in the summer and a lot of, uh,

so I was always anticipating the desired results of these exercises. They didn't let you perform until you were a junior and a senior. So you were always doing shit in the classroom to break habits. And it's just very intense. It was sick, you know, 12 hour days just on the schedule. And then you had to do crew at night for the shows that were up and you would learn set building and

all this shit so you're getting stressed out i got mono my freshman year and um i thought i was clinically depressed because i would sleep through everything and or i was narcoleptic and it turned out i had mono and didn't know until i went to the infirmary and they say we're getting over it uh and then sophomore year came around and i you you know, I was pretty much pretty sure I wasn't going to get cut freshman year. And then you become really tight and you become like, you know, you can just imagine a young Carl Dia, you know, my crew is all my people. It really intense feelings of you're performing. You have to do a lot of like actually like we would do this as a groups, you know, talk about shit.

It's just it's not normal fucking college. But sophomore year, I got involved with some I started dating a couple of women. And I guess I got I took my eye off the ball. And but I thought I was performing well. We had a big final showcase and I kicked ass. I had a senior year, uh, showcase and I kicked ass. I had a, uh, saw a senior year girlfriend at the time. And she's like, yeah, everybody in the class is like, you know, you were the best one up there. And you know, how, you know, they're all mocking her. Cause

she was like cradle robbing and also, but he was like the hot actor in the class or whatever. This is all, uh, and anecdotal and unprovable, but that's how it was happening. And then my sophomore year jury came up or whatever they call it and uh you know you remember going in the office and the secretary dude is there and you know he knows this month that's about this was like shitty afterward like he knew i was going in to get my head lopped off and he he was like hey can i see you and you have to i was going to the airport uh people were going to the airport it was like right after the school year and they sat you down and they basically came up with this mumbo jumbo and you're,

you know, you're just waiting to hear, we'll see you next year. And I had to go do summer stock that year. And, uh, they, uh, they said, we don't think you should continue in this program. And I was like, oh, okay. And, uh, they maybe threw a few cents in about why. And some of them teachers, I thought were allies started going with the company line. And then I walked out like glass eyed. I walked by. Everybody was waiting for their their conference. I guess it's more called a conference.

But and I walked out the back of the building and my buddy came up to me and he's like, what happened? What happened? You OK? And I'm like, I'm not OK. And I said, they cut me. And he's like why and he fucking kicked it like he was more pissed off than i was yeah and i fell apart you know this is so sad now but like it's so intense the sort of uh indoctrination that you can't and you put in

two years and you these credits ain't transferring fucking nowhere so when they say the program wielding is not gonna you're not to be able to go to fucking Rutgers and get an engineering degree I got an AA in sword wielding these 62 ain't carrying over so when they say out of the program it's not it's the whole college it's not just this program at

Carnegie Mellon oh that's a good point I mean I I sent two applications I did the drama one and like a general I guess I might have done I got into both schools of if in case i didn't get into drama but yeah i think you're basically done as a student you might have been able to transfer into english department but uh and and the fucking the sort of um the sort of middle class irony of the whole thing was i was the reason I had to fly out the next day was to go to my brother's medical school graduation so I just got my ass kicked out

of college and I'm like this is this is just a terrible uh and I was not telling anybody for like three or four days I was just sitting around in a funk and but you know that the uh how'd you get back in well my dad came to the rescue he got up he got on his gray fucking suit and he flew out everybody flew to pittsburgh everybody your mom dad i think everybody yeah everybody's around no we were in north carolina we had we we were all there anyway so we had like a meeting and then my dad said i'm coming to pittsburgh and i'm gonna talk to the fucking head of the department and see what's going on and he pled my case which is kind of just concerned parent wasn't going to help my cause because he wasn't there he didn't know

damn that's fantastic yeah that kind of support you know and then my all my friends in uh in college were uh you know they they i didn't know this at the time but the guy and it's a guy i i wish i would talk to i owe him a debt of gratitude, but they did a petition. And the last guys who had the last conference of the day said, we have a petition. And he said, before we talk about me, we want to talk about Carl. And you can't, this can't stand. And it all kind of, there was an article, there's a, this is so nerdy, but theater, I think it was Theater Week. They're these magazines, theater magazines. And they had an article in in 84 or something 85 and it's called black monday and it was about all these schools with these draconian fucking kick people out and it was the day the article

was about it happens on a monday and people getting one year and at cmu they were the students were so pissed at the person they kicked out that they threw red paint on the fucking call board to protest it. They were talking about doing that and everyone was like, don't do it for Carl. I was like, do it! I want a fucking bloodbath.

Hey, I got a shit. I need paint. Hold on to that red paint. That didn't go down, but the guy had the balls to go in there and say, I don't want to talk about me. I want to talk about Carl. So I had that kind of working for me. And then I flew back to Pittsburgh to pack up the house. Or I had a meeting with the – I had a teacher who was in my corner and would let me vent.

And I'm like, bro, in my ego mind, I'm like, I'm dope. How the fuck am I the guy? And he was explaining how it dope, like, how the fuck am I the guy, and he was, you know, explaining how, blah, blah, blah, and then I wrote this letter that, I only have parts of it, and I wish I had, but like, I wrote like a 10-page letter that was talking about where I was blocked, how I was, you know, just baring my soul, telling them that these relationships were a distraction, and that, you know, everything you say is kind of right, but I want to fix it here. And then I had to go do fucking summer stock for 25 bucks a week in a fucking barn.

What is that? What is summer stock? Summer stock. What really is it? The joke is summer stock is a work camp set to music, right? So during the day you rehearse the play, and then at night you do the other play. Like at first you just rehearse one play, you put the play up, and then at night you do the other play like you at first you just rehearse one play you put

the play up and then at night you perform the play and then the next day you're rehearsing the next play and you do like six plays in three months okay and uh they're all the musicals from the then and so you you have to rehearse in a week it's because everybody's got a summer stock i feel like i hear it so often yeah i don't know to the degree that it's um but you're just ripping and running play yeah and i wasn't particularly a musical person it was classic i was butchering the choreography and and it was fucking hilarious you butchered it with the hooker man yeah i fell on people but like my reaction was always fuck like and i'd be in the middle of doing trying to do anything goes and i'd be cursing and shit but uh and so while i was there i still was not in i was in limbo with my appeal to get back into

school so i'm doing these bullshit plays everybody's you know i was just so out of that and uh you know still trying to like connect with the girl who was breaking up with me and you know and uh i didn't know i was going to get back into school and or if i you know how i was going to face the world i got like a fucking psychosomatic diarrhea like it was you know in my myopic world my little bullshit theater college world like it was like being excommunicated right you know yeah and then i i eventually a letter showed up and you know this is old school like there was only one phone pay in the house at the Somerset Theater. I had to sit in the fucking phone booth and check in if I got any mail.

Eventually, I got mail. They said they were going to take me back on a probationary thing. Then I had junior year to get my shit together. Then it all just sort of came together you know but uh your dad come to graduation oh yeah and he came to every play that i did and my mom came out everybody came out and then you know my my you know my dad was like you know this motherfucker was dragged all your graduations he basically said you're fucking you're gonna be there yeah and that was great and and it was the first time that I was the graduate instead of like looking up

to these, I mean, my brother went to fucking Duke. So like, you know, that was, uh, he was a big,

and he became a doctor. So, you know, so, and they were all good schools. And so, you know, but CMU with that conservatory,

the drama thing, it felt a little, you know, felt as special, you know, and that was a big day, but it was, uh, you know, I got kicked know and that was a big day but it was uh you know i got kicked i experienced the drop out getting kicked out but i didn't lose any time because people

have had to come back and you know take a five-year plan and it all worked out but you know you lived in mortal fear getting cut or at least i did and the smart people didn't give a shit but it sounds like most of your life you've lived in that kind of fear and anxiety. Yeah, that sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. You're a successful professional stand-up comedian. You're a successful published author. You're a thespian, a graduate of a very prestigious school, CMU, Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh.

Where are you now? How do you feel about your anxiety? Like what are you doing to deal with it? And do you think you're better now than you were then? Yeah, I'm much better now, you know, but I have to practice. And that appeals to me, the word practice as opposed to self-help. I go to therapy, which is, you know. You still go?

Yeah, I go on a, you know, it's not as a, I went right before my dad got that, you gotta come home. I went to see this therapist because I was struggling back then just in general. And I basically just talked about my dad dying and i just needed a like a urgent visit and the guy said if you want to talk when you get back i understand i didn't go back for years and then i started like uh five six years ago with the same guy he's fantastic you go weekly i go i used i was going every week but it's expensive because i go out of pocket because i'm so neurotic about losing my fucking rights to buy like a gun or something. You can't get one?

I don't know. You never know. If they say it's a mental health issue, I don't even want to be in the same room as a gun. But I'm just saying I don't want the stigma to be diagnosed, so I pay out of pocket. And now I'm speaking to the honeydew crowd. But one thing I do, and this is so kind of – actually, I'm not going to give it the qualifier because that takes the wind out of it. I write down every day minimally three things I'm grateful for. Larson introduced me to a book.

For the life of me, I can't remember it now, and I want you to know it. Somebody out there will probably say it, but it starts off with that. Three things I'm happy for. And you write those down. And then three things throughout the day. And then in the evening, you get a little critical. Like, well, I could have, you know, and it's not a beat yourself up. But it's like, I could have eaten better. I could have been a little more positive.

Yeah, yeah. I have the book at home. I've done two of them. And it really did help. It helped because it just changes your mind because once you start writing positivity positive you start seeing yeah it does flip your brain absolutely and it works and i literally just write down in my day planner and half the time it's sleep good sleep because that's gonna be you know that's how i always i was a big one for me

you know but like if you're having a bad even if you're having a bad day and you write down Cheez-Its, I've written down Cheez-Its, right? And that may seem like in my old brain, I'd be like, what a loser. Like you're happy for fucking Cheez-Its. I'm like,

you know what? That's still a great fucking day by worldwide standards. That's what I'm saying. I know. Fucking Cheez-It is dope as shit. And it's tasty. And I got to, I got a day to sit down and bust some cheese.

You ever want to come over for some cheese? Oh, let's do it. I got that family pack. Oh. I believe. So that's how you're not having, even on your worst day, you still got something to say went right. Right. And I was the opposite.

You know, I got titties in my face, and I'm like, this is bullshit. That guy's like, you need to shut the fuck up quickly. Yeah, that's when. So after that crazy health stuff, which I'm going back to now because my dad died at 42, I made it to 43. And that was weird. It was weird. You're like Mickey Mantle. It was weird to walk on this planet and know that I'm older than my father ever was. But I still feel like his son yes you understand yes it's a weird thing it was a weird thing to to deal with uh and it is still every year i get older i'm like

i just drive the other day i'm like god my dad was never this age there's three years of shit i've done yeah he never had did he need readers before he went? Like, his eyesight was good by the time. He was good. He was good. That's amazing. That's an amazing perspective to have. Well, you're amazing, and I can't thank you enough for coming on here. Thanks, man. It sounded like a therapy session. Well, that's what this is, man, a little bit of everything,

a little bit of laughter, and we find light in the darkness. And, you know, I can tell just from from knowing you you've come such a long way and i'm proud of you that you go to therapy because yeah a lot of guys beat them that was one of the things i learned to go into therapy that ladies would tell me like not a lot of you guys will come in here it's a lot of ego machismo won't allow them to be in here and open up and i'm like fuck that shit that's just it's a luxury but it's I wish more people could do it. And podcasting and stand-up certainly have been therapeutic over the years. And I'm very grateful for you and for you coming on. And we got more to talk about.

And you know you're going to be a repeat guest on the Honeymoon Show. I hope so, man. I really appreciate it. And to be honest with you, your friendship has pulled me through because that's what we're here to do is to connect. through because uh you know that's what we're here to do is to connect and uh so you know being better more present for you as a friend is is actually part of what helps me you know keep my shit together so thank you well i'm thankful and grateful for you brother so um please one more time will you promote whatever you'd like yeah just uh pick up the uh drama king on amazon i carl de gregorio on social. DeGregorgeous.com And

apparently I'm going to be on the third season of Room 104. They shot two seasons and stacked them. So I thought I was going to be in season two, but season three is coming up. So I'll keep you posted. Well, thank you again. You are always

welcome. I love you. Appreciate you opening up. I ryan sickler on social media ryansickler.com we'll talk to y'all next wednesday