The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - Dan Van Kirk

Episode Date: January 9, 2019

Dan Van Kirk is on The HoneyDew! My guest co-host is Josh Adam Meyers. Family is everything to Danny. He opens up about what it was like growing up without a father, how he coped with it then, how he copes with it now, and how the adversity has helped shape him into the man he is today. http://TheHoneyDewPodcast.com

You're listening to The Honeydew with Ryan Sickler. Welcome back to The Honeydew, y'all. It's Wednesday, and we're doing it over here at your mom's house studios. I am your host, Ryan Sickler. That's Ryan Sickler on all social media, ryansickler.com. My new album, Get A Hold Of Yourself, is available now.

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I'm very excited for this episode, number two here of the Honeydew. If you haven't already, please subscribe, rate, and review on iTunes and everywhere you listen to podcasts. I'll be honest. It's a new thing. You know, I'm out of my comfort zone. I feel good about it. Actually, I feel great about it, but I am nervous.

I want to bring you a good show, and I want to keep it entertaining and funny. You know, I'm a comedian, so got to laugh at the lowlights players. The website, thehoneydopodcast.com, thehoneydopodcast.com. That's where you can get all your honeydew information and the info I'm about to tell you. If you're like, oh, what's the email address? I can't remember. What's the Facebook and Twitter? I can't remember.

You just go to thehoneydopodcast.com, and it's all right there. But our email address here is honeydewpodcast at gmail.com, and you can follow the show on social media, on Facebook, we're the Honeydewpodcast at gmail.com and you can follow the show on social media on facebook we're the honeydew podcast and on twitter we are at honeydew pod uh my guest this week i'm very excited to have him on uh first time on the honeydew please welcome mr dan van kirk dan van kirk hi buddy how are you dan Dan Van Kirk is our guest this week. I think I was on the crab feast the most in terms of great performances. I would say you're up there.

I'm just joking. But as far as there's somebody sitting next to you, you might have something to say about that. Yeah, we got to talk about all that. I'm just joking. My guest co-host this week returning, Mr. Josh Adam Myers. What's up, everybody? Let me just move my other three legs.

Sorry about that. Before we get into anything here, Dan, please promote whatever you'd like. People can check me out at DanielVanKirk.com. I'm on tour right now doing the Together Tour. Tour. Oh, I hit it. Tour.

Baltimore is a tour. Yeah, the Together Tour. And I will be in Vegas on Baltimore was a tour tour yeah the together tour and I will be in Vegas on January 22nd at the dive you can get tickets at danielvancurk.com otherwise just keep track of everything I'm doing there whether that's pen pals of Rory Scovel which is a podcast I host

hindsight which is a podcast I host or dumb people town which is a podcast I co-host with the scholar brothers all right I think that's it I'm sure I'm forgetting something fun but I host or Dumb People Town which is a podcast I co-host with the Sklar Brothers. I'm sure I'm forgetting something fun. Josh Adam Myers, would you like to promote anything? Josh Adam Myers on all social media spelled M-E-Y-E-R-S

not like the lemon or the pliers. My website's my name JoshAdamMyers.com and go to The500Podcast.com to check out my record book club of going through Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums. So I asked you to come on, Dan, because I've known you for a while now. I actually got to meet you through doing the Crab Feast, and we've bonded. We're really good yeah we met in portland at bridgetown

comedy festival in 2013 i think that's right um and i i've known you for a while i know that you grew up without a father that's as much as i know i don't know the story i've never asked you've never really divulged much at least on the podcast i've listened to that you've been on um so i asked you to come on because i'd love to hear about what that was like for you and and uh talk about where you are now with it well i think yeah it's not i mean i think i don't really ever talk about it because i don't uh i don't really feel like i missed out on that much it was actually a couple years ago that i realized like oh uh i i never cared about that guy being my dad but there were times when it would have been great to have a dad does that make sense yeah have a dad yeah just didn't have to be because a lot of people say to you this is the thing i've noticed you're

like i want to play catch. Exactly. I want to know what double dribble means so that my friends let me play basketball with them. Thank God Mr. Merrimah stepped up to the plate in fourth grade. DBK is traveling again. He's traveling. Dribble. I thought double dribble was two things. One, a great Nintendo game.

Which it is. Which it is. It was a great. My brother. My brother. Of course. He bought. I went out. It was great. My brother. Remember this? Of course. He bought. I went out to a friend's house one day.

We were in seventh grade, seventh or eighth grade. We had the Nintendo DS. Dude, remember that dunk when it would go black and white? I'm just the player. I'm just the player. He went and took our lawnmower money, grass cuttingcutting money, and bought double dribble, okay? Yeah. Played it all day.

I come home at like 7 o'clock. I get dropped off, whatever, and he just slides that control to me. And back then, he's like, on offense, A, you shoot, and B, you dribble. On defense, it's block and this. And I was like, okay. And he's showing me how you had to get right in that sweet spot to get the image to come up. It was like old Celtics

uniform and shit. How great that sound effect still is to this day when you would brick. And at the buzzer I threw a three up and beat him. He's been playing all day. And I was like, what was it?

No, I get it. so i thought it was two things i thought it was a video game and i thought double dribble must meant because what would happen is i would be this was fourth grade we'd be at may school rochelle town or rochelle illinois uh and uh we'd be at may elementary and we'd be playing basketball and every couple minutes if i had the ball they'd be like double dribble and i'm like what the fuck so i thought in my head what it must mean is you dribbled twice too fast that you dribble the ball yo he's quick right yeah he's quick you can't dribble the ball that two times in a row that fast that's a double dribble that's a double dribble way too fast you keep calling fouls and you're like i'm not acting like a chicken that's good thank you and then uh so yeah i got essentially i was being like ostracized and uh

mr barrowman was like what's the matter dan i'm like i don't know i keep double dribbling i don't know what that means everybody else knows what it is. And so he taught me. So those were times in my life that I was like, oh, that would have been good to have a dad. Now, also, it might have been good if my mom knew how to play basketball. Then I wouldn't even need that anyway. But she was just too busy with literally five jobs. All right. So wait. Let me ask you some questions, if you don't mind.

Was your dad gone before you were born? Well, that's the thing. So people always say, you'll eventually want to reconnect. I go, I don't think you understand. He split when I was 10 months old. Okay, so he's zero. So he looked at this baby and was like, I'm going nowhere. I'm out.

I can tell right now. I can tell right now. I'll tell you what, though. This motherfucking honeydew out of here. I'm getting the fuck out of this lady. Gross shell. No shellelle, no shell. Holiday don't. Holiday out.

Rochelle, no shell. Holiday don't. Holiday out. I'm holiday out. So yeah, so he split. So so i always tell people i'm like i go i always ask somebody i'm like uh you ever been to tuscany and they're like no i'm like you miss it i wore that cologne in high school but right i mean yeah and then they go no i'm like well why never been there i'm like same thing i don how could I? You have no idea what it's like.

I don't miss a person that was never there. Okay, that makes sense to me too, but the longing for a father. So, but also, what I tell people is I go. Can I ask you, how old are you right now? I'm 38. So your dad's gone. We'll take that out. You want to take that out?

So, yeah, he's gone, yeah, my whole my whole life i mean he's in and out we'll get into that all right well he's in and out so oh he's one of these yeah yeah but that's what here's the thing i just tell people too i go if you're 7 to 15 give or take a couple years depending on the person but you're 7 to 15 if your mom or dad leaves you then you're fucked you that's your world yeah because your mind is you grew up with this yeah you already got a taste of it especially if you're that sweet like 11 to 12 and you're like really really you're just not like i you're that person became a God to you. And then they just left. Yeah.

And you're like, God's not real. So I didn't ever have to do that would fuck me up. I do have issues. I'm sure where I'm fucked up just because I didn't have a father period. But as far as it being this guy, it doesn't. I'm good. I'm good with that. So, yeah.

And are you good with it because you know in hindsight like the person he is and and the things he or that's the other thing too he left and came out to california like that's i guess where he moved and then he went to nevada i think but like i mean like father like son that's the roots right he's all right he's like i'm all getting the podcast dad i don't know where you got this into the head west i'm gonna start a podcast called stupid people town so he and it's everybody who stays in rochelle so he um it's actually not it's a beautiful town so um so i always say i'm like thank god he left because the other thing is people whose dads or moms leave them and then hang around in that same town.

And you just happen to see at the grocery store or see on the cross in the street. Like, yeah, that's that's the person who's supposed to love me forever. I didn't have to do it. Did you ever see? Did you guys ever see? Don't care about me or the god damn Jay Walken sign Did you guys ever see

Follow Me Boys, Fred McMurray No I never saw that Kurt Russell is like 11 years old So the movie is And I've always thought of this The movie is that Kurt Russell's character is a great kid His dad's the town drunk.

Fred McMurray and his wife can't have kids. And so Fred McMurray becomes like the Boy Scout troop leader in town. And he ends up taking Kurt Russell under his wing. He's not trying to replace his dad, but he wants to be there for the kid. And he also, it's obviously, he can't have a son or a daughter. And so there's a scene where they're like at the high school gym, or the grade school gym, whatever, like doing something. And his dad promises he's going to be there.

Promises. He's going to be there. Keeps telling Kurt Russell, I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. And he, he ends up not showing up and he tells everybody, I'm going to bring that.

And then he shows up at the end of this thing when it's almost over. And he's got two huge tubs of ice cream. But he stopped at the bar and got drunk. And he walks in and it's just melted ice cream going everywhere. I got ice cream for the kid. And I was just like, yeah, I don't have to deal with that. Like that, I don't have this person in my life that's just constantly. Because I have friends whose parents split up and their dad stayed in rochelle and that person was

so close to them logistically but also so far away in terms of love and caring that that fucked that kid up oh yeah so bad because like you're right dad you're you can't come to my birthday party moved a mile away like a mile and a half away you can't come to my birthday party it's this is rochelle like you could walk Like a mile and a half away. You can't come to my birthday party? This is Rochelle. You could walk across this town in less than an hour. You can't come? Whereas I'm like, oh, he's gone. He's in

California. He did you a favor by leaving. Yeah, it's like I don't... But there are still plenty of those times in my life where I'm like, I wasn't worth sticking around. You're a kid, man. I'm like, I wasn't worth sticking around. Right. Yeah, of course, man. I'm glad it's not him.

But that still is something you have to at some point ask yourself. I remember being that we can get into some of the other. Well, the reason I stay so close to my daughter is so I can actually be in her life. Right. Not just because I don't want to fucking be around her and fucking I'm just going to move over here town away, you know. Right. I don't want to fucking be around her and fuck it. I'm just going to move over here, town away, you know? Right. It's just like the idea of shirking that responsibility to me is insane.

Good word. But it's insane to me. It is insane. And so I'm sure on some level, if I dug deep enough, I either have, I'm either dealing with or had to deal with or definitely asked myself the question, what was it about? Was there something about me that he did look at a baby and was like i'm good i mean i've known you for four years and i'd choose sunny california over your ass i mean i'm not gonna lie i did too so yeah it's but yeah it's you you you bring up a great question any human being that looks at a 10 month old can't

think i don't like this person because they don't know this person isn't even it's not worth like i understand if you if that made you realize oh shit i don't want to make a family with this person or oh i don't want to be a husband but you you made a kid like you you don't just get to like fucking ostrich that shit that's like how old was your dad when he had you i think probably 25 and so was your parents married or yeah yeah yeah yeah they met in high school so then what was the why did he was it just he wasn't in love with your mom or i mean it's just all too much for him i don't know i don't know i also don't care no i mean it's done like like i can wonder about something

but it doesn't like keep me up you know what i mean yeah and it's so interesting i was starting to say this earlier is that so when you tell people like you know as in high school and college and and early adulthood that i would date someone right and they'd be like you don't have any relationship with your dad and i'm like no and they're like that you should you should you know and i'm like i I don't know. I'm fine. But also, these are people that I know mean well. But here's their thing. I say to them, I go, you want to know why you feel so strongly about this?

Because you're picturing your dad. Yeah. You're picturing you not having a relationship with your dad. And if I had your dad and I wasn't speaking to him, that's unthinkable too. Right, yeah. But you're not picturing, you're going back to being like, well, I couldn't imagine not being with my dad. You know, that's unthinkable too. Right, yeah. But you're not, you're going back to being like, well, I couldn't imagine not being with my, you know, say her dad. See, I'm looking at it the opposite way of what they're not thinking about.

Like, this could be an abusive drug addict piece of shit that you want this kid to go back into that. Well, and I think that's the problem too is sometimes when you're a kid,'s say you do have somebody who's abusive or whatever does is a very negative influence on your life and they leave when you're seven or eight and you haven't come to terms with what those actions are or what they mean or maybe you were protected from them so you create a false image that you're constantly chasing and so then you're saying to yourself well i just my things were great when we were six when i was six years old i want my dad i want my mom back but you weren't seeing it for who that person really was right and you're wanting what you thought you had at six or seven when you never really had that shit so so yeah he left and then

and all this comes from your mom the stories or other because you have a big family and they're all there so you're getting a they all knew your knew your dad, I assume, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. So it's not just your mom telling you these stories. You're getting it from a lot of different family over the years. No, there was not. Up until probably two years ago, she never told me anything negative. I think, I guess when I was like, he got it in his head when I was like five or six. I think, I guess when I was like, he got in his head when I was like five or six.

He was, see, I don't even know well enough that I can say this without saying the word allegedly. You know what I mean? But like allegedly, although I feel like it's pretty certain, he was like an alcoholic and a drug user. And then would like get mad and be like, I'm going to come get my son. I'm going to come know back there whatever and so my mom had people like only certain people were allowed to pick me up from school in like kindergarten because they thought he could like show up and kidnap me but also like as we can tell more stories of this dude never gave a fuck i think it was more he would say that to fuck with my mom more than the fact that he actually wanted

his kid. He was never coming to get you. Never. He wouldn't even know where to go. He wouldn't know which kid. Well, what was he doing? Was he... Oh, shit. Any of you kids got pictures of yourself at 10 months old? I'm talking pre-birthday.

Who's this kid? Anybody know this kid right here? It's my son. Do you know this kid? This is my son. Going through the preschool and shit. Yeah. Y'all learning letters today. Which one is Steve for Dan? Y'all know Dan?

Yeah. Yeah. So what was he doing? I mean, it's who he came out. He came out here, and I think just was like i'm as in my opinion most people in their mid-20s should not be married and having kids he was living the life of somebody in their mid-20s who was not married and pretending he didn't have any kids or our kids he didn't i was gonna say he didn't have kids right well as far as i know so good point too yeah so so he was

just out here but then here's what would happen so a couple years later my mom marries another guy who suffers from and this is like made it right in that right right in under that door before we all figured out what ptsd was and so he had issues with alcoholism and would like was Was he ex-military? Yeah, he was in Vietnam. I mean, always great to have your stepdad tell you stories about them getting ambushed. Always great. He would? At four or five years old?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like what? Yeah. So I didn't realize this until later, but he liked to take. Hush, little baby. Look out for Charlie. He liked every weekend. He's like, let's go for a hike.

And then we'd just like walk around Out in the woods and he'd be like He had a I remember a story He had a friend they were out on watch He watched his friend like Walk to another post and his head just got Blown off He's telling you that

Why don't you be like my first dad Just go ahead and get the fuck out of here We left it We left him at six and a half So I had to be less than that Why don't you be like my first dad? Just go ahead and get the fuck out of here. We left him at six and a half, so I had to be less than that. I had to be younger than that. But here's an interesting thing that happened to me. This is Tripwire right here. Watch this.

This is Tripwire. You guys seen Predator? That's how you do it. We're just watching Predator, Uncommon Valor, Delta Force. Uncommon Valor is a great movie. A lot of people do not remember Uncommon Valor. Bouncing Betty blows your balls off. Oh, my God, dude. They're running the helicopter.

You had me at Delta Force. That was my jam, dude. I was, like, weeping at the end when they're taking the people off the plane. Hell, yeah, dude. But here's the interesting thing about that. Uncommon was Gene Hackman, right? Yeah, I think so.. Hell yeah, dude. But here's the interesting thing about that. Uncommon was Gene Hackman, right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Going after his son. Big guy with a beard that I think. Tex, Randall Tex Cobb. But here's the interesting thing that happens to you psychologically as a kid when you get your stepdad around the age of three. My first, I remember as my personality or intelligence or whatever was growing. How to shoot a machine gun. I can't. That I called him dad.

I called him daddy, my stepdad. You remember that? Yeah, because I called my real dad daddy and then his first name, which to me, I'll just be honest to the listeners, I'm just not going to say it because I don't care. but we'll just say rick so i would say like daddy rick that was what i called my real father and then my stepdad i called dad because i had two i had a younger brother and that was his mother and his dad like that got it so you're a younger brother my real father like was in second position in terms of my cognitive thought of dad, daddy, Rick, or daddy and daddy, Rick.

And so it went on like that. And then as my mom's relationship with him deteriorated, my grandpa really, really stepped up and became like a father figure. So that was a way you know your mom's dad yeah yeah yeah are you do you know your uh paternal grandparents at all um the my paternal grandfather died three months after i was born and then i mean and i could have fucked with your dad too because you said he left seven seven months later sure maybe yeah yeah don't really care and then uh his mother i did i did get to know because um like the rest of his family most of them are quite a few of them were in rochelle and she would you know come in there and visit for a while but the thing was when we lived with my mom's uh second husband so he would

uh we'll just keep calling him rick r Rick would do this thing where he'd come back and visit his family and friends in Rochelle. He'd be there maybe a week or two and stop by for one night. Like he'd stop by one night to come see his kid and then like leave. And it would like, I always felt like it was like at night, like he's supposed to be in the afternoon.

He'd show up like at night for a couple hours and then he would leave. And so even in then he he didn't give a shit. But I didn't really... He was in second position in my mind, so it was like, well, I still got my daddy here, and then I still have my grandfather. And so it was like... I didn't feel like I was missing out.

Does that make sense? It totally does. But it still was a thing in my life of like I had this weird thing I'm negotiating you were getting love and it didn't matter it certainly does matter I don't mean to say it doesn't but you were getting what you needed from a grandparent from a family member you got the the I mean look I've gone to a lot of therapy and I've had plenty of therapists tell tell me, like, if you don't need to, it'd be great to have two. But if you can get it from one, sometimes it's enough to set you right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it's good that you were getting that at least. Yeah, so then that, in the midst of that, my grandfather really became, like, my father figure. He'd pick me up from school. I remember just, like, him falling asleep watching Happy Days in the afternoon while i'd play with old like toys and cars and stuff excuse me is that yeah burp and my grandfather at my grandfather and grandmother's house and and would spend a lot of time there with him and then rick would just kind of come in and out and in and out and never really like so he had his own place out here in california no rick when he would come back to visit he would probably stay with his family or friends i don't know i i never

went to his place and then like around the age of six he somehow begged my mom to let me come out there and so yeah to la and so i remember i think i flew back there with him like he was in illinois and then i flew back to california with him he had a girlfriend and you know i spent all my life with my mom i don't know this guy that well and i every night slept with this girlfriend who I couldn't point, pick out of a crowd. I don't remember. I just remember, nice, blonde girl. And so, but I remember thinking when I was there, like, I don't know you. And we went to Disneyland and, like, went to the haunted house.

And I just terrified, cried the whole time. And remember feeling like, I don't, there's nobody here. There's nobody here. So nobody here so i'm not like i i guess in that way like it made me just feel like oh i'm i'm alone with a person that i know but i'm not i don't have like family that's the other thing too it's never really felt like a he never felt like a family member so um my stepdad at the time my mom's second marriage he came out and then he picked me up and like really yeah and took me back what's are you comfortable saying his name yeah it's fine it's kevin all right so kevin flew because your dad took you from illinois to here and then he wasn't going back right right and so then yeah and so then i went back but it was just kind of like I'm sure my mom

was like just nerve wracked about it about like letting her six year old kid think about

there's no fucking cell phones I mean my god you just have to wait to hear nothing and I remember when I was

it's an interesting feeling like thinking back being like oh I didn't I didn't I didn't think anything bad

was going to happen to me but I didn't when the whole time I was here at that young of an age I didn't i didn't i didn't think anything bad was going to happen to me but i didn't when the whole time i was here at that young of an age i didn't have like any comfort do you know what i mean like nothing felt safe i didn't feel like anything bad was going but i didn't have like that safeness and so i went we went back and then um probably like six or seven months later, I remember that Kevin was doing the laundry. And we had to be rushed to. Kevin sounded like a good dude. Was he a good dude?

It didn't work out. It didn't work out. Get some clean laundry. Why is he doing the laundry in a bush? In the river. He's going down that river, Scott. That's my good champion he's taking tide and putting it under his eyes so you're all right right i'm all right so yeah kevin doing that laundry down a riverside over there i think there was some like uh verbal and emotional uh issues

that uh you know went towards my mother and sometimes to us kids as well so it didn't work out and this was the ptsd you touched on so sure and and uh you know and like i said the sad part i don't know that it would have fixed anything but nobody was dealing with it right right and uh so but before they broke up uh i remember he was doing laundry and he took us to his sister's house so now i'm at my stepdad's sister's stepdad nobody is telling me what's going on my brother i'm six and a half my brother is a couple years younger than me so he doesn't really he knows what's happening in that moment but you know he can't really see a big picture yet like i know like no we should know something by now of what the fuck we're doing here and my grandfather who is the greatest

father figure i've ever had he had heart issues and my mom told me the story this one time where he had had a heart attack and they used the panels the defibrillator panels and they brought him back right she told me the story yeah and that's probably like mid-80s and so we spent all day there and i just know something's wrong and i go running finally like late that afternoon evening or whatever they pull up i go running up before they get out of the car i jump in my mom's lap and i'm like what is going on and through tears she says to me uh grandpa had a heart attack and he died oh my god and my kid logic goes to the most recent version I know of this story. And I say, yeah.

But then they used the panels and they brought them back. And she just, I'll never forget, she had to look at me and be proud that I was like, oh, you put shit together. But also say, nah. And that was like huge. So he passes away. And honestly, as we talk about not having a dad, to me, it's kind of like this. It's like, quote unquote, Rick leaves when I'm 10 months old. So then I get Kevin and that doesn't work out.

And then I get my grandpa and that goes away. So it's like, when does this level out you know what i'm saying yeah and i remember stop right and so i remember being i asked you how old was your grandfather i think he was 60s no he was probably like 57 oh wow that's young man really young yeah yeah so so but you know what's interesting about that? I'll come back to it in a second. But this is how I always think about it. So, I got one dude who split.

And then I got another dude who wasn't in a good place to be a good dad. Right? He had his own stuff that he went through and then didn't know how to deal with. So, I had six and a half years of a great dude. This is what I always think about when people are like, you're going to have a kid when you're 40? You're going to have a kid when you're 45? You're going to have a kid when you're 50? You have a kid when you're 55?

You have a kid when you're 55 years old. And then what? You die at 80, so now your kid's left with you. They're 25 years old and then what you die at 80 so now you're now your kid your kids uh left with you they're 25 years old and i'm like oh you mean over four times the amount of time i got yeah that's such a great sometimes you gotta like i mean my dad would i rather take six and a half years yeah of an amazing fucking dude or would i do you want to give me 42 years of shit? Yeah. Yeah. Take, you need the fucking 25. Give me the 15. But like you had,

but don't give me like, yeah, I don't, it's the value in the time, not the amount of fucking time. There's no like quality. I mean, I'm like,

I want a child now because now I'm the best version of myself. And I mean, I, if I would have had a kid in my twenties, like I would, I would probably be fucked up. It'd be a fuck. Yeah, dude. yeah dude and it's like there's there's nothing wrong with with waiting you know to make sure you're ready to handle uh like a child and and to raise them the right way i mean what you know i mean you've had to think about this with your daughter right once they're like 16 17 18 they're they're they're they're their fucking person and they probably are

already their person before then. Your job is to, by the time they are out, is hopefully you did enough that all the fuck-up mistakes they're about to make don't go so bad that it's not irreversible, don't go so bad that it can't be taken care of, and they just constantly evaluate risk. That's my thing. Raise a kid who knows how to evaluate risk. What's the risk-to-win ratio on this?

Yeah. And so if you only live 20... I the risk to win ratio on this yeah and so if you only live i just talked to my friend about this today if you only live 22 years of your kid's life they're gonna be who they are fucking you put them on the road yeah so and you know what even 11 i got six and a half there's a lot of ways in which my grandpa put me on the road i would agree with that my friend's uh daughter's 10 and she said that when she was a toddler, she would always be like, if something happens to me, what's going to happen to my daughter?

And she said even at 10 right now, and her daughter is really smart and strong, and she's like, I know if something happened to me, I know that kid would be okay. And, yeah, I believe that. So, yeah, he passed away. I remember being at the funeral visitation, and I'm the oldest of all the grandkids, and I'm six and a half. This is also at the same time we weren't dealing with PTSD.

We also seemed to back then not really understand how to deal with children and grieving and, like, loss. So at one point they took all the kids. Like, we got to get these kids out of here. They're just kids, okay? They're screaming and yelling around. Running around in chairs. Yeah like we got to get these kids out of here they're just kids okay they're screaming and yelling around chairs yeah you gotta get them out take them down the street to the hub city diner and uh get them all milkshakes and i'm sitting there and god bless them they're all four to five and under down to like two to one or one. But I'm sitting there going, what are we doing here?

My grandpa's dead, down the street, and I'm supposed to drink a milkshake? But nobody knew how to talk to me on that level, because they just thought kids are kids, you know? I remember also later on that night, like, I was probably trying to get attention, I was a loud kid. No shit.

And I'm running around. And one of my uncles said to me, can you just settle down? My dad just died. And I thought, I don't think I said it, but I remember thinking, well, my grandpa just died. But nobody's talking to it on that level. And so for me, when you ask me, like like what's it like growing up without dad that dude's split and there's issues to where i'm like that but then it's also more about what's like growing up without a constant father figure and i'm my uncle ken who so after my grandpa passed away my mom leaves leaves Kevin, and she has now just had a new baby,

and we go and live with my grandma. And next door to my grandma is my aunt. Her mom? Yeah, is my aunt Connie and my uncle Ken, literally next door. So we're essentially the full house in two houses. We got aunts and uncles and my cousins next door. So my uncle stepped up more than any person should have to. But on the other hand, I i know and this is not a

swipe at him in any means i remember times where i could tell this is a moment he wanted to have with his own son or his own sons which is fine that's human that's these are you know what i mean yeah so there were still plenty of times i was like i'm kind of on the own here not to mention the fact that at the age of six and a half, I was now the head of, I was the man of the house for my grandmother and my mother and my two younger brothers

being like, let's, you know, let's do this shit. And then that's also, I think, where you see a lot of times where you're... Wait, two younger brothers? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my mom had just had a baby. So after my grandpa passes away,

my mom has a third child. I thought you said that yeah i was like i didn't know if you meant yeah and then and then so two with kevin broke up yeah okay yeah and then her and kevin broke up so then then i'm then i'm never married yeah yeah they were married for for i think maybe three or four years so um so yeah then it then it kind of steps into another role of like yes I don't have a father figure. I don't have a dad. But I'm also – like, I need to be that for my two younger brothers.

Plus, I need to step up to the plate in whatever way a 7-year-old can for my mom and my grandmother. Yeah. Who's, you know, they're grieving the loss of their husband and their father. who's, you know, they're grieving the loss of their husband and their father. And so there were just many times where it just, I felt like, oh, okay, I just have to do this. You know, it's interesting, like, I remember people saying to me, like, have you never heard this? Or I'll find something, and I'll be like, this is fucking great.

And they're like, yeah, no shit. Like, I discovered Frank Sinatra myself and i thought holy shit i found this i remember you know because my mom at one point literally had five jobs and i was watching the original oceans 11 and i'm like this dude is a badass and obviously I knew Frank Sinatra was a thing but I remember like buying a CD and thinking my grandma would probably like it because it was older music and I'm like how great she's like yeah it's Frank Sinatra dude I remember

in high school finding Kansas is dust in the wind all by myself and being like this song's fucking awesome you have got to hear sergeant pepper get in here but there there is a ton of music from like the 90s that nobody i came way late to i'm talking either decades later to like i i think it was you're gonna think this is crazy josh i'm not you to ride but i think it was within it was probably six or seven years ago.

And that by, it's not less than five, but it could be seven. That I learned what the song Nutshell was by Stone Temple Pilots. That's by Alice in Chains. I know, I'm fucking with you. But no, but that's when I learned Nutshell. I was like, this song's fucking great. And my buddy Darren was like, yeah, it's Nutshell. And I'm like, this is a i was like this song's fucking great my buddy darren was like yeah it's nutshell and i'm like this is a good fucking it's a great song

yeah yeah but the acoustic version off of uh the the unplugged the one that's it's hands down just like everybody talks about how great the nirvana unplugged is and i'm like, dude, Alice in Chains unplugged. Jodeci's unplugged. Jodeci's unplugged singing Lately. Lately I've had. That used to be my karaoke song. That's his. That's really? That's his song. But yeah, yeah.

Or at some time. Hit him, hit him, hit him, JoJo. Goodbye. Goodbye. I'm a man of many wishes keeping my streak i don't care if it's the feast of this i'm keeping that streak alive singing songs you got it um so yeah there's so much where i i didn't have somebody being like well this is what double dribble is this is uh and i understand i might be uh broadcasting here a little bit but

this is what sports center is this is like i just if i loved it i for the most part my mom did a great job as well but like i found it myself i remember i started wrestling uh when i was seven years old and up until young yeah up until like eight or, my mom would wrestle with me to help me practice the moves. Let's go, fish. It's a fish hook, right? That's some dirty shit right there. Throw that arm over the mouth when you got a headlock. She's like, all right, about to suplex you.

Wait, the brownie's ready. And I know that there are plenty of women who can handle that and do that and wrestle to this day. But at least in the dynamic of the family that I was in, that is not what my mom up for right yeah no way you know i'm not trying to marginalize anybody but in my family let me get my singlet hang on another thing another thing when i was in um i would we had little league and minor league in rochelle right and so the little league was like that's where everybody wanted to be the minor league was for the kids that none of the little league teams wanted and the honeydews there you go and i remember they would have tryouts and i whatever i could do that day was as good as i was going to be and i don't mean you're only as good as you can be i

mean there's no one giving me pitches there's nobody like i went from t-ball and i got done with t-ball and it took me two years before i even tried out for little that he did more than your dad did it actually it really did uh because i was afraid to take a pitch because nobody was throwing me you never had one thrown and so and so over those summers i would just play on my own i ended up becoming a pretty good pitcher. But who knows better than me? I won that great that day. I won that great that day.

If we weren't on a timer, we could have done better. So we did great the day before, though. We sure did, man. We sure did. Hitting him to a stranger. Remember that? He's out there shagging. He goes, it's all right if I shag balls.

You know what? We're all in this together. I was hitting him to him. He would run over you know what we're all in this together so about that he run over here i hit one over there he spread over here i did one over there he got some cardio so um oh he's a left so uh i remember when i finally got up the muster and you know what to be honest i've never thought about this. I've never said it before. So congrats on your effective podcast. But I think some of me having to do that on my own to muster it up within myself of nobody else prepping me, nobody else saying. I mean, my mom was very supportive, but there was no proof in any pudding. There was just I had my pudding. I don't know. We'll see. Probably some of

that carried over later left like well i'm just gonna go do it yes yeah because i don't have i don't there's no net i'm not waiting for anybody that's gonna come along and do anything i get there and i'm not i'm not trying to talk disparaging of the rochelle youth at the time that i was trying out but i was by far not one of the worst people trying out but what i did realize that day was i had no one who was a friend of one of those coaches or the fucking coach himself and so i ended up on little league and then i stayed on or i'm sorry i ended up on minor league and then the next year i was on minor league and then i'm in minor league i mean you thought it was bad trying to take pitches from me on that home run dude i would take swings at bad pitches to get more and i would hit home runs and people would be in the i was a

big kid people would be in the audience i could hear him well of course he hits it that far look how big he is but nobody wants to run too because i don't have a fucking dad and it's such a small town that there's nobody saying like come on put dan on your fucking team you know what i mean yeah and i remember there was a some kid moved and they were gonna have to take a kid up and um it was me and another kid that it was somehow i knew that it was down to this somebody told me maybe my coach and minor league told me and uh i hit a home run and the other kid wasn't bad um but i did good and uh they took the other kid and i couldn't believe it and then the next saturday of the game i'm watching that kid's dad hang out with the coach and i was like oh man there it is okay all right so and my mom is working all the time like she's sold these things called

longer burger baskets which were these hand woven baskets that were made in ohio and you would go she would go into the people's houses that have money, literally set up all her wares, and sell these people that she went to high school with baskets so that she can then go buy generic cereal to give to her kids or leave the oven open so we could eat the house. And I don't want to say all that to say we grew up bad. I grew up great.

And I grew up, I didn't, never went hungry or any of that shit. But it was, she was living such a different life than these people that she was going into their house to sell shit for.

She sold Avon. She did daycare. She fucking sold encyclopedia Britannica. She taught you the Boston Crab. Yes, she did. Yes, she did. Let me, come here,

let me show you to sleep. Yeah, yeah. Now, now this is called an arm so but i know what you mean by that because so she couldn't even come to a lot of my games so i got if my aunt and uncle could make it who have their own kids you know or my grandma wants to watch one of her other grandkids i don't none of that stuff gives me anger it didn't give me anger then but it was like that was moments when you see the coach that you could have gone to talking to the

other kids dad that you're like, oh, I'm out here. I'm on my own out here. And guys, also, I feel like I need to keep saying maybe I don't. There's a million ways in which I was never on my own. Yeah, you had friends. You had other family members. And I just listed aunts, uncles, grandma, mom, just because they had had to go say other games they were there for birthdays christmas you know like sunday dinner like i was okay but there were moments when you

realize you know maybe it wasn't the norm but moments where you go ah that's how this works and i don't i don't have one of those and so did you ever make it to little league nope but some couple of guys on that minor league team are still very close friends. Really? Yep. They come to every time I'm in Portland. They come out to the show. That's awesome.

And their dad was awesome to me. But, you know, it was – I got all-star. I was an all-star every year in minor league. But my mom only – No, you were Cecil Fielder's size. Jesus Christ. But here's the thing my mom only had a certain time we could do vacation to like go on a little road trip up in

wisconsin never did an all-star game but and i and there's plenty of people who have dads who were like fuck you were on vacation but but it left me with the wonder of a moment where i was like if i had a dad would he be like babe the the kid's got to play. Like, this is a big deal for him. Yes, you know what I mean? And I'm still not mad about it, but there's moments where you go, oh, okay. And then I went into, like, junior tackle, right? And I didn't play. And I, again, I'm bigger than everybody.

And I would watch. You're talking about football? Football. You were a junior in high school? No, junior tackle. You're like 12, 13, 14 years old before you get into high school. What's the big league they call? The big youth football league. Oh, I have no idea.

Pop Warner? Thank you. Again, one, I probably didn't have let's let's be full full disclosure i probably didn't have a lot of discipline i didn't have somebody back home being like no you're gonna fucking do this because you're whatever but on the other hand i also didn't have anybody being like you put dan in the fucking game or not at any point in this fucking day and part of it was probably myself if i wanted really you know not just painting a negative picture one person but there also was part of where i was like i

should be playing and so i didn't play and then in high school i end up there's the new coaches who just moved to town who don't know anybody and i'm like starting on the jv when i'm a freshman and and you're like oh okay when you just get somebody a meritocracy being judged on who can do what i'm i'm fine but when i get put into like well who's dad do i know that in this man you know and there's there's probably ways in which it could have gone different but that was just my experience for that the other thing i wanted to tell you just to go back to this like when does when does this end? So it finally ends. When I am 13 years old, my mom goes on a blind date and meets a guy named Steve.

And this dude is the tits. Great, great guy, right? I'm a little, obviously, standoffish because I'm just used to people leaving for whatever reason. And they come together. He's an awesome guy. He takes us fishing. He's there. He seems to really love my mom. He's really into it. I don't know this at the time, but summer of 94, he says, uh, I want to marry you. She says, I'm not getting married for a third time. You live a few towns over. I don't want to move my kids out of where we're at, but we'll keep doing this.

About a month later, he goes in for a checkup. He's got pancreatic cancer. Come on. Yeah. Now, anybody who doesn't know how pancreatic cancer is, they could change the name to you're dead because you get pancreatic cancer, it's gone. You're gone.

So they tell him, you're looking at like a year-ish to live. So he says to my mom, I really want to marry you. I don't want to like die and leave this world. And she's like, I don't know. I just, I don't know if I can do all that again. And he's getting sicker and he's getting sicker. Summer goes through. Before that summer started, I was like, you're the dude. You're the dude.

You're the dude, man. I was all in. He was awesome. He was funny. He was fun. Taught me how to fly fish. Great dude. But you did know he was sick.

Before I knew he was sick, I bought in. I bought the boat gotcha and so all summer goes and it wasn't towards the end of the summer that when he started getting visibly ill that they were like here's the deal okay steve's got cancer and i'm like fuck steve's a great dude ste Steve's got cancer. He thinks he's got a year to live. So we're just going to have the best year we can. And now I'm like, yeah, that's about right.

That's how this goes. Right. So it's gone. And then early fall, my mom, he keeps asking to marry her. And my mom says, okay, okay, we'll get married. You don't want to leave this world without us being married. I don't want you to either. So on a Friday night, he's sick, but at his home, they do like a wedding service, and he's there. It's nice, and it's beautiful, and it's great for my mom.

She's the happiest she's been since the 70s and three days later he dies. Three days? Oh, wow. How long was it actually from, do you know, from the time he was diagnosed?

Seven months, six months. Jesus Christ. Now, he obviously looked bad but I think he was hanging on for that. And once he got it. Yeah, it's like so many people, they never retire, and then the second they retire, they die. Because it's like they feel like they have a goal. You know, I worked.

Something to live for. I talked about this on episode of the Crab Feast. People should go back and listen to this if they want. But I worked in a graveyard. I was a grave digger years later in in a graveyard i was a grave digger late like years later unbelievable he's a grave digger and i noticed one day i was like why do so many fucking people die in january and february and i asked john loggins who had been there forever and john goes because they know their family wants them to make it to the holidays people it was noticeable like the amount of work in january and february yeah really oh i wasn't i only did it that summer but i was noticeable how many fucking dates i see and

because i had to whack around every single stone and i'm like january january january february february january yeah because people hang on they hang on for that thing yeah right because they know people want it or they want it like i got my my grandfather died january 2nd and so wow yeah and so he i think he really wanted to hold on to that and i was listening to you talk in the introduction episode one of you might i can't remember which one of you it was but um you mentioned like where you were when you found out somebody was going to hospital or somebody died i was at like a party and you think about it back then no cell phone somebody had to figure out where i'd be or maybe i told or whatever and then i'm at neil mantel's house his parents are out of town we're having this big party the phone rings somebody's like is there a daniel van kirk here and so i'm like i'm yeah me and they and they tell me like steve just died

grandma's coming to get you and i hung up people were like the fuck happened here i'm like i'm yeah me and they and they tell me like steve just died grandma's coming to get you and i hung up people were like the fuck happened to you i'm like my stepdad just died and then people like get that dude a fucking drink because you're kids yeah and i tell you i got drunk i did not go to that funeral i got no i'm fucking with you oh my god you gotta hear this new band I just turned on to. It's called the Eagles. The person was like, it's just the Eagles, man. It's just the Eagles.

So my grandma picked me up, and we were right out there. And I'll never forget, I see him sitting in that chair, same chair he was sitting in when they got married. And I start crying. And my mom, who was fine when i got there starts losing it and so i stopped crying and shortly after so does my mom then a couple hours later i start crying again and my mom starts crying and i said to myself that night oh i see Oh, I see. I have to hold this together. Because when she looks at me, she's like, oh, we're fucked. She's seeing everything. Like, here's the guy that finally came along.

And my son, she's crying for you, for her, for everybody. Well, here's the thing, too. My mom's told me before, she's like, if you die, I'll kill myself. And she doesn't say that a lot. She's maybe said it like once or twice in my life or like we were drinking up in Wisconsin or something like that, you know? But I've thought about it and I'm like,

obviously I never. She shouldn't do that. But if you look at her life, there are, I mean, I'm no bigger a diamond in her eye than my brothers but i'm the last thing before it all went to shit like she had a high school sweetheart she went to nursing school she thought everything was going to be great they get married everything's going great they get a little house everything's going great they got this kid everything's going great. They got this kid. Everything's going great. And then boom, boom, boom.

And then she looks at me and she's like, well, I still got that kid. And then I still got these. That's my only example is these kids of like the best. The one thing that has been here since before went to shit and two other things that have made it worth it. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so I think that's what. And my brothers probably feel some of that, too. We never really talked about it.

But it's like, oh, you're not, this is bigger than you. Your actions are bigger than you. And I think when I think about not having a dad in my life, it's that feeling of i don't get the fuck off because so many kids like i didn't i've never i did mushrooms for the first time this summer but i wasn't at the festival yeah he wanted me to stay i couldn't do it i wanted to but why not i had to be back but you know i've never done cocaine i've never done acid i've never done cocaine. I've never done acid. I've never done LSD. Just like me.

I didn't really drink. That's the same thing as an LSD. Oh, there you are. See? There you go. I've done all of them. I'm on three now. I've done enough for all of y'all.

And I'll get roasted for that. But what do you want me to just not be a product of what I fucking am? Exactly. And so because my thing was like, oh, if I fuck this up, if I get arrested, that's going to fuck up my mom. Like, in her day tomorrow.

She's got three fucking jobs tomorrow. If I don't come home, nobody's going to be able to close the garage door. If I don't, and so, if I start crying, she's going to cry.

Because there's not a father here to pick up that fucking slack. Right. And so if I, I remember thinking this in high school, if I go fucking do every drug and fuck around, that might, that might encourage my brothers to be like, fuck it, I'll do it too. And if I don't do it, they might go do it anyway. But they're not going to go do it and say, you did it. And so I remember thinking that as a kid. That's incredibly mature. I remember being like. Real quick, can I just ask?

Your brothers knew their dad, though. But I know it wasn't. He was more of that thing of you're here in town why aren't you more for me fair enough i didn't have to worry about that fair and sadly they went through some of that i got it and i say some to not get sued so we just started this podcast we're on air i'm gonna start singing hate you which I just heard last week, and it is good. Get your hat suit. Wait, wait.

There's a nah, nah, nah part. Oh, man. So, this is called Ricky. Don't lose that number. I'm not shitting you guys. I found Steely Dan on my own, too. Old classic rock. I learned.

I love that you stay on your own. You just got to turn on the motherfucking radio, dude. This is pre-fucking Napster. What radio am I turning on at Rochelle? You didn't have like a Rochelle Rock or something? Funny story. No, Rochelle Rock. Country with WRHL, 1060 AM. AM?

He's like, wait, I just heard Mama No. 5. I got to listen to the other four. I hate that fucking song. heard mama number five i gotta listen to the other four god that's my i hate that fucking song i remember watching an mtv like last time we'll ever play it retiring these music videos and they retired faithfully and by journey i was like this song fucking rocks i went down to the new walmart and i got to hear a couple tracks i'm like this is that song from that fucking movie caddyshack which my aunt's like short-term husband introduced me to. I mean, I had to say.

The air behind your life seemed like short-term. Not my mom. Not your mom. Not my mom, not grandma, not Uncle Ken, not Aunt Connie. But, yeah, so I heard it, and I was like, this is fucking good. And then I listened to that whole Greatest Hits album with that red background, the beat, all that shit. uh and i'm like this is fucking like i found journey on my own and i found it at the time that mtv was saying we are done with her

i'm just getting started but to go back to the broader topic of why i'm here today so i think that what what that did growing up like that not having a dad was my mom's problems were my problems like most people and maybe you guys might be in similar scenarios but like you know my mom would tell me like i don't know how, it's going to be tough to pay rent this month. Other kids are, like, wondering why the fuck there aren't more Cheerios. Right. Because they don't know. And you know what?

God bless them. I'm not saying at some age you shouldn't start teaching that shit to your kids. But, God, I feel envious of those kids that got to grow up in this vacuum of, like, well, I don't ever ask my parents, like, how are you? And expect them to like load some shit on me yeah they load that shit onto each other that as they should i mean when my dad got laid off he was straight with us he's like it's not gonna be you better keep those fucking cleats and those shin guards and all that shit you got now there ain't gonna be new bats and gloves do not get holes in your socks because i cannot buy you new socks. But so many kids get to grow up being like,

they don't think about how much their braces cost. They just got braces one day. And God bless them. That reminds me. Yeah, my family, $100,000. About glass? I bought $30,000. We're letting you know that.

I reminded myself. Wear your retainer. Wear your goddamn retainer i lose it you're fucked i reminded myself every time i looked at that mirror up until a year ago good braces but but that you know i feel like i was prepared for it i started to say also i remember being about 14 years old and being like oh i could go any direction i want right now like i literally like after steve died i was like i could go be a bad kid and if anybody asked me what's your fucking problem yeah i'm gonna run down the list and tell them to go fuck themselves

but i was like or i can same thing i always say or i productive member of fucking society and step up and man yeah be the best person i can yeah and then my was i and be a representation of who your mom and grandmother right uh uh or what they instilled in you out there instead of what you could be is this oh oh yeah well he didn't have a dad right by doing that bullshit and what was i close to the best of anything probably not but i try i i tried to you try but you tried it even trying even if you don't hit 100 hitting 75 is still pretty good yeah it's just so i want to ask you real quick as a right when we started you said your dad was in and out of your life can you tell us about some of those times like

like okay so he leaves in 10 months yeah and then six do the california trip and then so nothing between then and california then he doesn't really show up again until like 11 ish and so it's like five six years in between pretty much i mean maybe there were times he like showed i remember one time well it had to be after i was i remember because it was at grandma's house he and i actually did like a theater thing about this in college um he was supposed to show up in the afternoon and so i was already sitting in that front room and i had my like little bag to like spend the day with him and then i remember like i was like well i'll just there was like the screen door and the front door i was like i'll

just open the front door so that i'm ready and i'm sitting on that couch like trying to look out the big picture window and then eventually i'm'm like, I'm going to go. I'll just wait by the door. And time's coming, you know, and it's close to the time. By the time I get to the door, it's like, he should be there by then. And it doesn't show. It doesn't show. And finally I'm like, well, I'll just sit on the steps.

And then I said, well, I might as well just play around in the yard so that I'm here. I'm already out here. And then eventually I go and i sit on the curb and i think if i'm a kid it felt like eight o'clock since i'm an adult it was probably 4 30 my mom was like come on let's go inside they just never showed and and i feel like that makes you be feel like you can't rely on people yeah that you're told you're supposed to false promises but i think from my mom's point of view like i gotta go fucking break this kid yeah you know like how hard that must have been for her so yeah there was probably some times like that it must have been because like i said that was after we moved into grandma's and then

around 11 12 he would want me to come visit. Like, come out. Was he still in California? No, he was in Vegas. And so he's like, come out to Vegas. You know, come out. This whole side of the family that you don't get to see comes out here for Thanksgiving. Because at that point, his mom had moved out there. And other people were in California as well. That you don't get to see, he says.

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was saying. Yeah, it's like you don't get to see, he says. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was saying. Yeah, it's like, you don't get to see them ever. Right. Because you left, motherfucker. Yeah, and I remember like, I'd go out there, and at night, he would go help his friend close the bar and just be gone for like

four hours. Yeah. And I'd be calling the bar landline. So you did go to Vegas? Yeah, I would go out and visit him. For the Thanksgiving? Yeah, I did like two or three trips between 11 and 12 or 11 and 13 okay so maybe maybe like a thanksgiving at 11 but again you're traveling to see him he's not coming to see you and so then um so then uh uh when i was 14 he begs my mom to let me spend my birthday out and out in vegas with him and he's like everybody will be out here for my side of the family and we will he'll get to hang out with

everybody we'll do a fun thing for his birth begs her right so she lets me come out here same shit he goes out to the bars at night remember once one time he let me come with him to close the bar and i just sat there playing video poker cards are a big thing in my family so i knew how to play i hit a uh straight flush holy shit yeah nine to the king which means i was that i was that close to a fucking ace uh nine of the king win twelve hundred dollars and he's like well you can't claim it so uh somebody else you'll get 200 bucks i'm like come on with that other thousand go plan yeah i bought a bunch of these new albums from this brand new band called the rolling stone so uh so then we end up on my birthday we're in in San Diego. And everybody decides, let's go to Tijuana just for the day.

Who's everybody? His side of the family. His side. Cousins. And I love all of them. They're great. Great people. Is your dad still alive?

I think so. Okay. So we all was like, yeah, we'll all go. It'll be fun. Danny's never been to. You're Danny to them? To this day, if you are in my family, you call me Danny. If you marry someone in my family, you call me Danny.

If you are a very small handful of my best friends and you are drunk, I am Danny. Okay. Yeah. I wondered if it was Danny for them and Dan for your mom. I was curious if that was something different. No. It's Danny if you love me, Dan if you're my friend, and Daniel if we work together. All right, Danny.

Thank you, brother. Josh didn't say shit. I think I heard him say Danny. Everybody decides to go, right? And he and he goes yeah i'm not going and so your dad the whole fucking reason he's begged for me to be there on my birthday he decides to go do something else in san diego the dick dude do you know what it is you have a fucking no and you know what at the time it wasn't he didn't say anything he just said i'm not going i wasn't here's the good thing i'm gonna be honest with you guys years later and as he never sees you years later and as an adult with two of you sitting here and obviously even before

then i can look and i'd be like what the fuck is wrong with you but since i don't know this motherfucker at all i wasn't even mad you're like i'd rather hang out with the rest of the family i'm telling you i didn't even think about it. You were just like, all right, cool. Let's go. But that's normal at this point. Yeah, the guy's never there. That's what I'm saying. But when you have a great dad, when you have a dad you love, you think about it in your

terms and you're like, what the fuck? But in my terms, it's like, okay. Yeah. You know what I mean? I totally understand. Yeah. I got more from Magnum pi than i did this so i just discovered hawaiian sheriffs so so i'm i know i don't know i just until a couple years

ago i don't i didn't know anything about my mother nothing yeah just and did it keep you up at night never but if it did it would be more so than me because you knew you have a point in your life when you were like, you're doing this to me right now. There was a, there was an actual face and everything attached to it. Well, yeah,

I mean, I know him as well, but I didn't, I didn't have a moment like you did where you talk about in the introduction. I didn't have a moment where I was like, you're doing this right now to me. I didn't have any of that shit. Yeah.

So when I, a lot of this is obviously, you know, more and more but it really culminates when i'm 15 years old and i blow my knee out now i'd actually damaged my knee a couple years earlier but we could never figure out what would happen is whenever i bend my knee you get space between your uh what's this your tibia and your kneecap there's a space that's created when you when you sit cross-legged or bend your leg i had a tear in my lateral meniscus and that tear would go up into that space and then when i would go to straighten out those two bones would obviously come back together and they would pinch that tear even that's every time somebody

asked me i go to the doctor what's your pain scale well i'm judged that's 10 because what happens is i have this thing between two bones and i have to keep straightening my leg because that's the only way to push it out but i can't tense up because it makes the ligament tighten up and so i have to be relaxed while being in horrible pain right this goes on and on probably started when i was like almost 14 goes off for all through 14 right your dad's knees into 15 that's all that you know what it's that just saying to try to get out of there. It's that wrestling. My mom would take steel chairs. She didn't give a shit. Your mom put you in a bigger floor.

Turn that shit up. I'm tapping. I'm tapping. I'm tapping. I'm tapping. Three minutes ago. Someone get into this living room and save this boy. My God.

So. Why are we wrestling to Sinatra? And who is he? So So I finally It gets so bad Even if I just bend my leg

A little bit standing That tear is so bad Now it'll just go in there And it was a horrible thing as well Because I had coaches For a year and a half Who were like

You're faking this shit Yeah I know right Because I can't get it to happen When I need it to But sometimes it just happens And then it'll hurt The rest of the day you know i suppose maybe you know another time because so much of like yeah i'm not i'm not the wokest person in the world but i watched my mom throughout life get fucked over by dudes who thought they could take advantage of a woman

selling her cars fixing something in the house like i and so i'm a very i'm very uh attuned to that and it really fucking pisses me off i remember we were 11 years old we were on a trip and this restaurant would not serve us like we had ordered all our food they weren't bringing everything and everybody's getting all their shit and i'm 11 years old and i go i'm a analyst i walk up i find the manager and I rip this motherfucker. I go, you see my mom standing over here

with three kids trying to take us on a vacation and you don't want to give us our food and you're giving all these other people and you keep telling us,

oh, it's coming, it's coming, it's not coming. Like, settle down, we'll give you a bowl of honey. Tyjo. When I want that shit.

They comp the whole meal and the guy tells my mom, I've never been yelled at like that by a kid. That's crazy. But it was no people were just gonna and how fucking sad are we it's certain places not everywhere i don't like getting that everything's so horrible all the time there's a lot to be upset about and be mad about but how is it that like i'm gonna listen to at least 11 year old male before i listen to a grown woman like fucking hey so there were you know there were times

like that and so obviously with the knee thing also like these coaches were like i'm not gonna listen to this kid's mom come in here and yell that his knee really hurts and so um at least that's what it felt like to me that there were some of that as well so anyway i finally get the prognosis that my knee is blown out. And my mom calls him to say, we need help paying for this. Right? And he starts yelling at her. And so she just puts the phone down. And I go, what? And she says, you can talk to him if you want.

So I pick up the phone. I go, hello? And he's like, I'm sick of this. I'm sick of this. Okay? Guys, I am 15 years old. Who is this? This is my dad. This is your dad. Okay. I'm sick of this. I'm sick of this. Okay? Now, guys, I am 15 years old. Wait, who is this? This is my dad.

This is your dad. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sick of this. You guys keep calling me up every single time. I'm 15 years old. You guys keep calling me up every single time you need money. It's this. You say, oh, I need a new jersey.

I need a new thing for school. I need this. You know, I'm out here doing the best I can, trying to be a part of my 14-year-old son's life. Who's 15? Hey, you you hear that i dropped the phone and i was like i'll just never talk to him again i'm like well you don't fucking know how old i am first of all you're trying to talk from this fucking high horse that you've made out of paper mache this ain't a real horse he's like i sent him a mel torme record and i was like oh yeah i'm good i'm good man so he didn't know you'd picked up no i did he was

telling it to me oh he's told me how much he was trying to be a part of my 14 year old son's life and i'm like about 10 more months on that motherfucker yeah and and uh i was just like oh okay and you know what it was too again it wasn't like the sandy at godonda t1 thing it was literally just like oh you don't even know me you don't even know me at all like what are we even doing why are we even calling this guy right he doesn't even know me it's not like how dare you did this to me. It's none of that stuff. It's literally just like... These are your knees. Yeah.

It's just like, oh, you don't even... Dude, I don't even know if he has knee problems. But I was like, you don't know me. And it was just like... Now it's... Has there been a last time? Was that the last time he's reached out or you connected at some like because i was born you can see this on wikipedia i don't care but i was born daniel

nall you have a wikipedia yeah some podcast made it um but i don't have a wikipedia well we're gonna change it i can't wait to see who somebody puts that um and it says it on there i don't know how or why but it does and so you were born again say it again daniel nall yeah how do you spell that n-a-l-l is that a last name like that's his last name that is yeah so i was just you staying dead no no that's good you coming back for good hell no this parental thing is all in bold see in san diego though no so so you know i've seen him at no family life now because of what we do because of what we do it's very easy for people to be like oh so you

that's why you changed your name like you you wanted to change your name because you became a comedian and an actor and a writer and all that stuff but i want to tell you guys i was going to change my name regardless yeah the vankirk's raised me robert vankirk such a good name vankirk yeah dude it's what i literally it's not one of those things it's not one of those things where I feel like I'm wearing a name tag that is different than what's on the inside of the shirt. I hear you. Yes. It is.

You are a van. Oh, my. A hundred percent. I love those family members of his that I still have contact with. I love them like cousins and stuff. Now, my cousin cousin, you grow up next door to somebody in your most formidable years. That's like your brothers and sisters. Yes.

But the cousins that I have. Someone told me once, cousins are the brothers and sisters you never had there you go i believe yeah and so that what i've been at a couple things where he's been there and at this point really okay so you go to the null family stuff and weddings show up you know there's been weddings so there's been like a big get together he does they're trying to plan some family reunion right now that i haven't decided if I'm going to be able to make it just because of the weekend that it is.

But I'm sure he'll probably be at that. But there's no need for like what you talked about in the introduction. Like reconciling. Of what you had to have. I mean, there's just not,

I don't care, man. Yeah, no, I hear you. And it was for me to come to terms with like, oh, I did miss out about not having a dad through my life. I definitely missed out. But I didn't miss out on you. That's right.

Do you know what I mean? Yes, you didn't miss out on him being your dad. And I'm not missing him either. I don't care. I hope he has a good life. I don't care if he has a bad life. I'm not. It doesn't keep me up.

It doesn't tear me up it doesn't tear me up it's just so when i've seen him at those things it's it's it's like it's like your aunt you don't know yeah it's her husband he's a yeah he's a father he's not a dad i don't even that anyone i was there anybody by definition he has a child. He has a father. He's a father, yeah. It takes a special person to be a dad in a mom. We used to have that on the wall. It says anybody can be a father, but it's being somebody special to be a daddy. That's true. Yeah.

And especially from so much of... There's not a lot of... I want to say not a lot because hopefully I can think of one or two. There's not a lot of great memories. So that's a lot of feeling like the honeydew to a person why fuck off and not even in a mad way and more just like totally here let me get this thing off my fucking shirt yeah like the listener just now probably thought i literally had something i'm sure because that's the careless oh just let me grab this thing. Like it doesn't matter. It doesn't.

You know, I'm not mad. We don't need to like have some big thing out. I don't need to know why. Because I'm a Van Kirk. Are you close with his parents? No, she, they're, he, like I said, one passed away right after I was born. The other one passed away. His mom.

In 99, I think. Yeah, you're a Van Kirk. Yeah, I mean. van kirk family tradition dude yeah exactly so listen to dan's episodes on the craft piece what i have with my mom and my aunt and her husband and my grandmother and six and a half years my grandpa that's what made me oh yeah yeah no doubt there's just and so so I ask you, when's the last time? Do you know actually the last time you saw him or even spoke to him? Or does he reach out to you on social media?

Is he a social media guy? No. He accidentally. He was big on Vine. He showed up on his shows. He was big on Vine. But, you know, that ended. So.

Back in the fucking obscurity. Are you. You said he... Six seconds was too much of a commitment. I can give you four. You said he accidentally called you? He accidentally called me once. And what do you...

Did he talk at all? No, I think then he called back and was like, Hey, I think I just accidentally called you. I was like, I don't even know how you got my number. But there was no need... We don't need to talk. And that was the end of the conversation accidentally? I didn't answer. Oh, he just left a voicemail. Yeah, I called him again. But there was no need. We don't need to talk. And that was the end of the conversation. I didn't answer.

Oh, he just left a voicemail. Oh, yeah. I called him again and left a voicemail. I think maybe 2006. I have no idea. That's 12 years. 13 years. That's a while now.

Yeah. But when you have people who have great dads, they can't wrap their head around you saying it's been since 2006 and that's okay. I know. It was 25 years or something with my mother and people like huh right because in your snare right you're like wow you go 13 years without talking to your dad and i know you do understand but you're like because i'd give if i could have five minutes with my dad for you from your point of view you know what i'm saying so it's so hard

for people to be and that's why i'm saying they And they're like, I've had people be like, you have to be pissed. And I'm like, no, I don't. Back to your point, though. You had six and a half years. You would take that over 40 years of shit. Sure. I would take five fucking minutes over it. I mean, once you have it and then you don't have it anymore and it was good.

Fuck a year. I'll take five fucking minutes right now wrap this shit up yeah yeah yeah you can spend 40 years as the honeydew for five minutes as the strawberry goddamn right man yeah slice strawberry enjoy me you ain't dipping no honey doing nothing it's just such a crazy story i i was talking to Josh about this earlier today. I was telling him, like, I don't know, like, if my father was still alive and or my mother gave me the love and attention a normal kid should have,

I don't know that I would have moved out here and pursued this dream and all that. I mean, my father's the one who introduced me to comedy, so I'm sure that's all deep-seated, like, want to make you happy. He could have pushed you to do it. Could have. But do you think you would have been as you said it was instilled in you, basically, like, fuck it, I'm just going to do it.

Do you think you would have done that, having parents and looking back and all that? I shouldn't say parents. You had a mom, of course. A dad is what I mean. When I was 17 or 18, I had it right. I was like, I'm just going to move to New York or L.A. and just start doing comedy. And people in my life were like, you cannot do that. You have to go to college.

I was like, no, I'm just going to go do it. And I listened to you have to go to college i was like no i'm just gonna go do it and uh i listened to those people went to college and by the time i got to college i was convinced that well you're just supposed to go get a job and so it took me a long time to get back to that um so so when did you move out here how old were you and i mean we talked about that a little bit too like how difficult it was to leave everything you know. Yeah. So before I moved to California, I'd never spent a night where I lived anywhere other than Illinois.

Like I just never lived anywhere other than Illinois. For a year, I lived in Chicago for a long time. And then for a year, I lived in downstate Illinois right after college and then back to Chicago before I came here. And so it's interesting though like but the reason i said that i had to figure it out is i think that i always i honestly believe forgive any pretension that comes along with this that i am born to do what i am doing like i think there are people who work really hard and are probably maybe even better than me or more definitely more

successful than me that chose to do this. And they're amazing. I'm not taking anything away. But I know whether it works out for me or not, I was born to do this. The comedies that – I agree. Yeah, I was going to say, I think we all wholeheartedly agree with this. When people – somebody's like, well, what if I asked you to stop doing comedy?

Like if you were dating somebody, I'd be like, are you – I i guess we're not dating anymore how can you ever want to go to death like that literally now i make my money i'd literally be like asking a tiger like well do you think you could ever not be a tiger like that's what you fucking are yeah like i am this so it's not even a question of what's number one. There's just a definition. And then everything else comes from that. So I think I probably would have moved here anyway. But I had to move here because of everything I talked about. I think a lot of people's first and last step, I should say this, is the first and last step in the entertainment world

is moving to LA. Like they just kind of moved here. And I think a lot of people move here because they're searching for something or they're running from something. And neither one of those things might have anything to do with actually working in this business.

I had a guy once, a really good friend of mine, good looking dude. I thought like, oh, you could totally be an actor. I could see you getting cast on stuff, had all this shit going on. And then one day he told me uh we were working together he told me like oh i think i found my dad and i go what are you talking about he's like i always knew he lived out here i knew he was in orange county and i found him today and i thought to myself oh that's what brought you you're looking for that guy. Yeah, you're looking for him, yeah. And you still like this thing and you want to do it, but it's not who you are.

It's not what you were born to do. It was maybe an excuse or a reason or an additional motivator to get you out the door to come here and find him. And sure enough, two years later, he's living somewhere else. He's married and has a kid and he's happy, and I love him for all that stuff. But this was not what he was. He was looking for something, and it was that guy. stuff but this was not what he was he was looking for something and it was that guy and so i think that for a lot of people they like i said are looking for something or running from something and for me what i was looking for if i had to say there was anything in addition to what i wholeheartedly

believe i was born to do was because of those years in high school in my early 20s of feeling like i needed to be this for my mom or for my grandma or for my brothers i never got to like be the 16 year old kid who's like i'm just not gonna call him and tell him where i'm at i never got to be like what is this thing i'm about to take fuck it dude it's good just put it in your. I never threw fucking caution to the wind to just fucking, who cares what happens? I'll figure it out. I'm not going to worry about anybody else. I'll get home somehow tonight. You know what I mean?

A big thing for me was like, I'm going to go out there. I'm going to pursue my dreams and by being out here, there's no one else I have to live for out here than myself. There's no one else that I'm responsible for other than myself. So almost a lack of that thing is what pushed me to do this. But did any part of you have anxiety that you would cross your dad out here or run into him out here or even think you might run into him out here?

There's a part of me that thinks I could probably walk right past him and I might know who he is, but I'm not certain he would know who I am. And even if he did, he'd be off by a year so you're young so you look 37 i ain't gonna lie so it doesn't uh i love when you get the aftershocks yeah but so i think i wonder if maybe if i i think i still would have done this because i feel like this is what i was born to do yeah but would i have had a need to finally live my own life without worrying about its effect on other people no i might not have that so but maybe i would have had a reinforcement to go sooner because i don't know you know like my family i never lacked for support that's one of the other reasons i was able to move here is because uncle can't aunt connie my grandmother my mother her have always been like well you're

gonna you can do it you can do what you've got. You've got it. You can figure it out. You'll be fine. We have no doubt in you, Danny, that you will be okay, whatever you try to do. So I had that to push me out here. So I'd like to think if I had a good father, a good dad, a dad, or if my grandpa hadn't passed away, or if Steve hadn't passed away, that I would have ended up up here anyway because that person would have said, I can see who you are at your core and what you were born to do.

And yeah, fuck it, go when you're 18. Well, you've come out, you're a successful comedian, you're a very successful podcaster, you're incredible at characters, we're working on something together. I mean, you're kicking very successful podcaster. You're incredible at characters. We're working on something together. I mean, you're kicking ass right now. You got a lot of really good stuff going on. Thanks, buddy.

I appreciate that. I think a lot of you guys. I think even more of the two of you. Than when we started this episode? No, that's gone down. Okay. So let's hear the story about you moving out to L.A. Dude, I... So i uh and when did you

how long ago you know uh 2000 so i moved here in 2008 i told my family a year and a half before just because you don't just a problem yeah drop that on yeah literally it was like june 2006 i was like hey after the holidays in 2007 i'm i'm gonna move to la and i had uh i had met a girl like three months before i was supposed to leave or no of course no not even nine months before i was supposed to leave and uh two weeks in it i said hey i'm i'm uh this is what I'm doing my life we she understood that we got into a relationship I left right after the holidays in 2007 and then I spent two to all of 2008 and all 2009 here in LA with one foot in Illinois and one foot here yeah I was never really fully committed you know I would say on average I was

always four to five weeks from either going there or somebody just having been here. So it really kind of never committed to it. But I knew, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. And would this girl come visit? Mm-hmm. And so then I was thinking about trying to make that work. Yeah, no, yeah, we were trying to.

She was going to come here. Well, maybe. Who knows? Or you might go back. I never wanted to go back. And then one night, my car died after leaving the bar in downtown LA that I was working at. I wasn't drinking. And I realized in that moment, oh, I have nobody out here.

And I still kind of hadn't done what we had talked about a few minutes ago where I was out here all on my own I still had a lot of myself back in Illinois and so I decided at the end of 2010 I was going to go back and be in Chicago and be with that person I was dating and keep doing it and uh I told that person on the way on the way my, I had a 2000 Pontiac Grand Am. The hood latch was broke, so I had it tied down with zip ties and those rubber hook, whatever they're called. And I couldn't go over 55 miles per hour or the hood would go up. Yeah! Dude, I drove across country.

Yeah, the thin zip tie. I drove 55 miles an hour from L.A. to Albuquerque, slept four hours in a parking lot. And then I drove 29 hours straight to Rochelle, Illinois. That should be a commercial for those fucking zip ties. And on the way there, I told that person, I go, hey, I want you to understand. Yes, I'm moving back, but I'm going to keep doing this. I have to keep doing this. I don't care.

I believe in you. I'm like, okay, but I feel like right now you just miss me, so you'd be happy if we could have lunch together. I'm just East of Dodge City, girl. These bungees up here and these goddamn zip ties might come loose. I'm on my way. In six weeks, you're not going to give a shit about lunch with me. So I just need you to understand, like, I'm actually going to have to work harder in Chicago

than I'm working here. And a few months being back in Chicago and living together, it was like, you think you're going to get like a full time job? And I just kind of started to see right on the wall. There was talk of like, you know. There was talk. Well, of like, are you going to get married? You know, that stuff.

And I just never, I was like, I don't, you know. And one, I eventually ended up getting like a temp job. Oh, well, here, I shouldn't skip over the greatest thing that happened to me. Through Craigslist. So much of what happens in our industry is people know that that's how you get a production assistant job or whatever craft services or a dad recommend there you go there you go through craigslist i got a job at second city in chicago whoa and you know what one of the reasons i feel like i know what i was born to do is every time i've gone towards

comedy it's worked out for me i'm not the biggest person world by any fucking means but it's never run dry there's always enough in that well that i'm like i'm in this is the vein i need to keep following this and so it just that's one time where it wasn't other than me trying to just get a job comedy took it comedy took over i was like no you we're gonna we'll take you in and so i end up at second city within three months of being there i'm doing like this independent tuesday night like improv and short film show and and so what ended up was by april when i got there in end of december right before christmas by april every day i would work in the end of December right before Christmas by April every day I would work

in the administrative side of a collection agency like just doing the files then I would leave there and then I would go work at Second City at night and then on Tuesday nights I would I would stay late and do this late night um independent show at Second City and so I still tried to like stay in what I wanted to do. And then out of the blue, uh, one morning, uh, this girl wakes me up at like three in the morning and says that she, I, I don't,

I know I haven't said her name or anything, but I don't want to go into just, this goes as deeply weird as it sounds. Just to say that she says that i have downloaded a virus on her computer to that would that when someone watches my kickstarter video for a short film i wanted to make it would steal money from her mom's bank account what huh exactly so so just by just by getting okay she's going crazy okay i mean just by she's saying just by someone you put a thing on my computer a virus and every time i was like what are you talking about my cousin gary just gave 50 i don't even think gary's real i'm like you met gary

not the goat and so so so i showed her i'm like this file that you can't open that looks all screwy it's because you have a macbook that files from when you transferred all your files from when you had windows and it can't read this file that's what that is that didn't matter and she proceeded to say stuff to me like that nothing i was saying was getting through it gets closer and closer to the time i gotta leave to go to work so i gotta take a train out to rosemont illinois which is a close suburb of chicago and she's telling me get out don't ever come back and i leave and so now it's fine but you were living together we're living together and it's 5 5 30 in the morning and i'm leaving this house the only thing i didn't agree to is

that i wouldn't give my keys back because i'm like if you want me to leave i gotta get all my stuff and then i'm like what the fuck is that like and i'll be honest i don't want to get uh super sad because i've been lucky enough to have this feeling again but at that point in my life it was a time that i thought you were in love no i just thought oh this isn't gonna go away like all the other shit we talked about this isn't gonna go right and i was realizing oh no this too and so she kind of like checks back in late that morning like around 11 says i don't know i'm sorry i acted like that i'm like okay we'll figure it out and then around four o'clock i get another call we're done we're completely done i was like we're doing this over the phone she says you can come to my sister's house and i can do it to your face

damn and so i called second city and said i can't uh work. And I took the train to the Irving Park stop. I got off at the Irving Park Blue Line stop. Got on a bus. Took the bus halfway down Irving Park towards my place. Got out at a Walgreens. Bought a box of garbage bags. Got back on the bus. Went to my place.

Took everything I could, except for the TV that I couldn't carry. Everything out in the garbage bags. Not back then you couldn't carry those. No. Everything out in the garbage bags, put it in my grand dam, and left. And it was like, okay, you're homeless. Not really, though, because Rochelle's close. But I don't have a place. Like you talkedelle's close, but I don't have a place.

Like you talked about in the introduction, I don't have a place. I live right now. That's right. Some people were extremely kind to me. A buddy I went to high school with by the name of Joe Rice and my cousin Sally from the Nall side of the family. They lived in Chicago at the time.

She was like, well, I already moved out of my place to move with my fiance, so you can just live in my apartment. That's that's a good yeah you know that's what i'm saying it's like i have moments where i'm like fuck this would have been great but i've no i have moments where it's been oh you've been great to have a dad here but i have a million more moments where i was lucky to have family and so um i remember i talked to my mom in Second City the next day. I'm in Second City talking to her on the phone. I'm in the bathroom.

And she's, you know, upset. And I go, Mom, I'm going to tell you something. Whatever success, I go, I know what I'm supposed to do with my life. Whatever success I ever have is going to be thanks in part to the fact that that relationship ended. I ever have is going to be thanks in part to the fact that that relationship ended. And I then made the decision that after the next holidays, because that point it was, it was a summer in Chicago after the next holidays,

I'm going to go back to LA and I came back out here. You've talked about feeling like the honeydew. I came back out here. I had to sell my car. My mom, um, had to get rid of the granddad no man it's a great car just don't go 56 56 gonna fuck you you're gonna need it

that's van halen do you guys know van halen they're great hey i don't want to bust your bubble here but there was another guy before sammy hayward david there's no way he's as good and i bet people don't want to bust your bubble here, but there was another guy before Sammy Hagar named David Lee Robbins. There's no way he's as good, and I bet people don't even argue about it. Red Rocket of Nall. You hit 56, you're going to need a new windshield. I sold that. Before I moved to LA.

Did you tell the guy, did you give the guy a heads up? Yeah, I told him, dude, I sold it for like $900. Here's the keys, here's the bungee. These are some fucking bungee cords and some zip ties. You want to hot rod this out and go, no hood. You buy all me. No hood. I mean, that thing is a GT.

So, you know, I sold that. My mom, years earlier, when I was working in Chicago before I moved to LA the first time, I had a sales job. I worked for the Chicago Reader, which is like the LA Weekly or the Stranger up in Seattle. It's like that for Chicago. I worked for the Onion. And I sold advertising. And every day, every day, I'll say it really quick, every day, waiting for them to come fire me.

To be like, hey, we know that you're just fucking faking your way through this shit. And this is not what you want to do or should be doing. And you probably haven't even come to that realization yet, but you're fired. And so my mom called me up one day and says, hey, I'm at this garage sale in Rochelle, and they have a pinball machine. I'm like, awesome. She's like, it's a Chicago Cubs pinball machine. And I go, what?

She's like, it's a Chicago pinball machine. It's $300. Do you want it? And I go online and I look. Chicago Cubs pinball machine is the, at that time, maybe still is, was the only pinball machine ever created that was themed after a team. It also was the very first pinball machine to go to alphanumeric numbers. And in 1986, they made 1,500 of these.

Now, this is mid-2000s. So I'm like, how many of these can be left and if the cubs ever go to like the world series or a bar by there like you could sell this so i go buy it just buy it i'll get you the money so while i was in la the first time it stayed at uh my cousin's house on that and all side of the family another cousin uh they kept it there for me and i had people i had it in my apartment before i moved to LA. I had someone offer me seven grand. They were like, I'll go get the money right now if I can buy it.

I've never seen this before. You didn't do it? No. When I moved back to LA, when I was going to move back to LA after that relationship ended, like I said, I sold the Grand Am and I sold the pinball machine. For how much? For $900. The pinball machine?

Mm-hmm. To Joe Rice, who is an amazing guy who let me for the last four months that I was in Chicago before I moved back, he let me live with him in a room in his condo two blocks from Ripley Field for $250 a month. Damn. I mean, you just, I've been, like I said, I've i mean you just i've been like i said i've

had moments but i've been lucky more than that yeah and so joe bought it from me i remember listening to a podcast where kevin smith said that he sold all of his comics to have film to make clerks and then he spent his career since buying them all back and i think adam mckay or somebody else also sold like their comic books or something like that to like have money to move to new york and i and it hit me like you're gonna have to do this so i sold it to joe rice and joe told me he goes two things first off you're gonna be so successful you'll be able to buy four of these secondly if i ever want to get rid of it you have first refusal and i said. I appreciate that. So I sold both those things. And then I came back to LA, sold my car, sold my greatest thing I had possession.

I had my pinball machine. And I came back here with whatever you could bring on an airplane. And I know that's not unique. But for me, it was a low point in my life where I was like, I had no job. I had a few friends I had made here in the two years i'd been here but you know how long it takes to make friends so i made most of those good friends in the last year at best if not last like six months and i just was like it's just gonna work i went to the bar that i worked at before and i was like i'll clean up puke you pay me less than minimum

wage i'll just sit here if there's something breaks or there's like, I'll do whatever. And he was like, well, we're going to add a second door guy. You can do that. They gave me a job. They saved my life.

Second city was so good to me that they, they hooked me up with UCB and they were like, Hey, we'll get you in there. You know what I mean? Like, like, uh,

we'll refer you for like an internship. And that, that went, it's whole. That's a lot of the reason of where I am now. So it's like I had that moment when I came back where I was like, I have no clue how this is going to go. But I know that I'm born to do this.

And it's gone well. And you know you're going to be okay. Yeah. You've been through. I mean, the worst case scenario is you move back to Rochelle, Illinois with the people who love you more than anything in the world. That's the worst case scenario. That's right.

Exactly. Then you're doing just fine. Yeah. Dude, this has been great, man. We're going to wrap it up here. anything in the world that's the worst case that's right exactly so then you're doing just fine yeah dude i um this has been great man i i'm gonna we're gonna wrap it up here but i want to say something because you you were talking about it and i i encourage i tell my family this i tell a lot of friends they were like what was it like what was it like and i and it's still i think it's a really good exercise today too what was it like growing up on your own like just go one week one full week where you can't ask anyone for anything you can't borrow a car or a couple bucks or hey can you come help me

grab so many people helped me when i came out here that's countless people nothing and go one full week on your own and that's what it's fucking i mean and then do that for years that's what it's fucking like you know and then to be fortunate because i had the same thing i had the pattersons the snyders there were a lot of good family my own family extended family grandma sister but you have those moments where you're like shit yeah yeah yeah so thank you dude i i uh i know we went a little deep on this but um thank you for coming on and opening up and sharing all that stuff and saying uh some stuff you never had on my effective podcast. I appreciate that.

Yeah, dude. Thanks for having Josh here as a guest host. Yeah. Thank you very much. Go ahead and real quick, just quick plugs. At Josh Adam Myers on all social media, the500podcast.com for all things The 500. Great. Dan.

Daniel Van Kirk. Danny. One more time. DanielVanKirk.comcom you can see all the dates for the together tour we're going to be doing those between uh now and probably the end of march so i will be definitely coming to somewhere where you are so just check all that out at daniel vankirk and then listen to pen pals with me and rory scoville and dumb people town with the sclars and myself all right man thank you again both for being here

uh i am ryan sickler on all social media, Ryan sickle.com. We'll talk to y'all next Wednesday.