The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - Des Bishop - HoneyBishop

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

My HoneyDew this week is comedian Des Bishop! Check out his special, Of All People, now available on his YouTube channel. Des joins me in the studio this week to Highlight the Lowlights of being part of the "dead dad's club." We discuss what it was like to help his father through the final stages of cancer and hear about a family secret that wasn’t revealed to Des until after his passing. SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE and watch full episodes of The Dew every toozdee! https://youtube.com/@rsickler SUBSCRIBE TO MY PATREON - The HoneyDew with Y’all, where I Highlight the Lowlights with Y’all! Get audio and video of The HoneyDew a day early, ad-free at no additional cost! It’s only $5/month! AND we just added a second tier. For a total of $8/month, you get everything from the first tier, PLUS The Wayback a day early, ad-free AND censor free AND extra bonus content you won't see anywhere else! https://www.patreon.com/TheHoneyDew What’s your story?? Submit at [e-mail] CATCH ME ON TOUR https://www.ryansickler.com/tour Tempe, AZ - Dec. 20th and 21st Get Your HoneyDew Gear Today! https://shop.ryansickler.com/ Ringtones Are Available Now! https://www.apple.com/itunes/ http://ryansickler.com/ https://thehoneydewpodcast.com/ SUBSCRIBE TO THE CRABFEAST PODCAST https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-crabfeast-with-ryan-sickler-and-jay-larson/id1452403187 SPONSORS: Rocket Money -Stop wasting money on things you don’t use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to https://www.RocketMoney.com/HONEYDEW Liquid I.V. -Get 20% off your order when you shop better hydration at https://www.LiquidIV.com and use code HONEYDEW

I am Mike Rowe and I got nothing against celebrities. In fact, I just interviewed Rob Lowe and Jason Alexander and they were terrific, but usually I interview people you've never heard of. The plumber who makes 250 grand a year, the first responders who risk their lives to save complete and total strangers, and the mad scientists who are about to change the world with a better mousetrap. Those are the kinds of people I usually interview on the way I heard it, and you're officially invited to give it a listen wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Get your tickets now on my website at RyanSickler.com. The Honeydew with Ryan Sickler. ["The Honeydew with Ryan Sickler"] Welcome back to The Honeydew, y'all. We're over here doing it in the night pan studios. I'm Ryan Sickler, RyanSickler.com, Ryan Sickler on all your social media starting this episode. Like I start them all by saying thank you. Thank you for supporting this show.

Thank you for supporting anything I do. Coming to see me live, the way back, the Patreon, all of it. You guys are the best fans. I'm truly love my life and it is because of you. So thank you very much for that. And if you got to have more, then you got to have the Patreon. Look, we added a new tier to the Patreon now for eight bucks a month. You're getting the way back a day early ad free, sensor free, all that stuff.

Plus everything you get for the five dollar tier and bonus content. We've got some episodes up there. There's a lost land, Chrysler episode up there, and you'll get other bonus content you won't get on the other tier. But if the honey do with you all is just what you got and that's your thing, it's staying five bucks. We're not raising it. All right. That is the biz. You guys know we do over here. We highlight the low lights. I always say these are the stories behind the storytellers. I am very excited to have this guest on the Honeydew. First time here. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Des Bishop.

Welcome to the Honeydew. Thank you for having me. It's just great. It's already been fun. We haven't even started. I've just met you. Now, literally just met. Not to get into your personal biz, but you're married to Hannah Berner who came on. We had a great time here. Yes, and she loved it.

Yes, she loved it. She spoke only highly about the experience. That's very nice. And it was, you know, made me excited to come. Yeah. So we're stoked to have you here. And before we get into whatever we're going to talk about, plug it all, brother. Plug my stuff down the lens.

Well, I guess the most important one is I'm in Boston, the weekend in between Christmas and New Year's, which can be a tricky weekend. So I'm at Laugh Boston that weekend. After Christmas, I'm in Minneapolis, Charlotte, Greenville, and some other places that I forget, but you can go to desbishop.net. And then I have a new, I'm not a new special. I put a special up in January last year on YouTube called of all people.

So check that out. It's pretty good special. That's it. All right. I have Irish shows, but how many, you think you have a lot of listeners? I don't know, why don't you plug them in? Yeah, well, I'll be out there.

The second half of my Irish tour starts at the end of January. I'm in Ireland for two months. So come and check that out. All my Instagrams at Des Bishop, keep in touch, all that. So there's a lot to talk to you about actually. We were talking outside about things and- Yeah, I didn't know I had a choice.

Yeah, well, I didn't know you had so many choices. So many lowlights. Yeah. Looks like a happy guy, who knew? We've talked about addiction. We've gone through the knew? We've talked about, uh, we've gone through the list. We've talked about addiction outside. Both your parents have passed. Yes. And I had testicular cancer when I was 24. And testicular cancer. I gave you four out of options.

Yeah. We spun the wheel of pain. We spun the wheel of low lights for you. And we landed on, uh, your dad. I want to hear about your dad. Look, I'm a, I'm a big dead dad guy, but I'm also a big dad guy and I'm a dad. You're a dad. See, I haven't done that yet. I got love for the dads. I haven't done that yet. And I remember after my dad died, I remember there was this, this is probably going to

make me cry, but we'll talk about it. But since I brought it up, you know, I did a show about my father, you know, and it was all about the sacrifices of father and I really gave him a hero edit. But there was this dad with his little daughter and I'd already noticed him and I was like, at the show. No, this was like on the street Dublin. I'd already noticed them and I was already feeling it because I don't know if you remember right after your dad died, probably a little triggers, you know? Then this fucking dad came up to me, this dad with his

daughter who I'd already noticed. And he was like, Hey man, I just want to say, I saw your show about your dad and you know, it's fucking tough being a dad. And sometimes, you know, sometimes I feel like why the fuck did I do this? And I saw your show and it just made me realize that it's fucking worth it, man. It is. I was like, Jesus Christ, you fucking killing me, dude. But I haven't had that experience yet. And here's the thing. I was only seeing it from the grief side. No offense to you or me.

I had a daughter older. My daughter's only 10. Okay. You're how old? I'm going to do that. I'm going to be that guy. I'm saying. I'm going to be fucking older than you.

Parenting is a long-term game. It's a long game. They don't realize till maybe they even have a child themselves or till they're in their maybe 30s where they sit back and they go, how'd you do all that? How'd you come to all the practices? How'd you pay for this? How'd you do that?

How'd you do that? And then if you're lucky to live long enough, you get that. My dad didn't, your dad didn't. Now here's the other thing. This is making me laugh because I was telling Brandy about this the other day. The anniversary of my father's death was just a few days ago, 35 years ago, which blows my mind. He died 35 years ago? Blows my mind.

Why you're a veteran. So 35 years ago, and I had my daughter that day and I say, you know what, today's the day I woke up when I was 16 and my dad's gone. I have no parents. And life is like that from the rest of the time until now. I can't tell you how grateful I am that I've got you. He would have adored you. So today, instead of being sad, I'll take you to the mall. We'll go get something nice.

We'll go get some ice cream. We'll celebrate. She's like, okay, great. Give her a high five. I'm driving. I'm gonna give me some. She hits me up. She's like, can we put some music on? I go, yeah. She has to put on Bruno Mars. It's that fucking, you know, a too high. I got mad. That's all I get to make a drag on a retired. And I'm up there thinking about my dad's shit. I've got tears coming down my face. She ruined Bruno Mars. That's the soundtrack to it. I'm telling you, it gets easier,

but it hits you when you don't even realize. That's the soundtrack to this. Right. I'm up there just wiping tears away. And she's in the back too high. Yeah. You know what? I'm like, whatever. That's what life is, bro. That's what life is. That's what life is, man. And it's still, it's weird. It still hits you sometimes. Oh, it still hits you a lot. And then you, you know, my dad died right around Thanksgiving. So from now through the holidays sucks. You know what I mean? It's, was it sudden? Yeah. Oh yeah. See, my dad wasn't sudden. I always have a, I have a sympathy for the sudden deaths because you don't have time.

I've got the other way. You don't have time, but also didn't, whatever we're gonna talk about it. Yeah, we'll talk about it. I didn't have to watch my father go whittle away to nothing. I did with my grandmom, you know what I mean? So I know what could have happened.

And part of me does think later in life, like, man, I don't know. I don't know what was better because I have cousins who their dad was close to me and I watched him die of cancer. And I think, like, I don't know. I think I would rather. Well, I wrote a book about my experience, but the opening line was the best thing about cancer is time, because it gives you a timeline to get your house in order. So that's why I always have a feel for the sudden people because if the house wasn't in order, which you're 16. It wasn't in order. You're 16. Like we had, and my mother died like a little long journey too, but we never really got

it 100% right, but my dad was ready to get it in order. And so we had that sort of year and a half. So let's talk about it. How old are you when you get the news and what happens? It was 2009. So 15 years. I had just run the Dublin Marathon and I immediately went back to New York for no, just literally just to go back to New York.

So you're just going back. Because you know, this is just- And that's where your parents are from? No, we won't waste too much time. That's where they're living. I went to Ireland when I was 14, but I went on my own to boarding school. So most of my life was in Ireland, but my parents were back in the States. So I came back and forth a lot.

So anyway, I ran the Dublin Marathon and then I can't even remember why, but I was back in New York just coincidentally, and we took my dad to the hospital, Halloween night, 2009. I've never been able to enjoy Halloween again because I was actually dressed as the cat in the hat that day. My brother just had a kid and we took my brother's kid to the Central Park Zoo and I dressed as the cat in the hat because it was Halloween. And all that day, the trick or treat is when I got home, trick or treaters would come and I stayed dressed as the cat in the hat, because it was Halloween. And all that day, the trick or treat is when I got home, trick or treat is what come and I stayed dressed as the cat in the hat.

And my dad kept saying, you know, my stomach's killing me, man. I think it's so funny when you're in hindsight, I told my dad, you need to eat yogurt. I thought he was just fucking bloated. He just needed the microbiome or whatever the fuck. And, uh, I took, when I took off the cat in the hat, I took a nap. And when I woke up, my cousin was downstairs. She was a nurse and she was like,

we gotta get this guy to the hospital. And we went to the hospital that night, but not even an inkling. But is it something he was complaining about for years or months or? No, no, this was recent. Nothing, so. This was recent. And how old's he at the time? He's only 72.

He's about to turn 73. So you just happened to be there. You didn't go back because of this? No, I happened to be home. And you guys take him to the ER? We took him to the ER and he feels so bad for him. Halloween night is not a good night to be in the ER. And he was fucking miserable that first night, you know? And he was like,

you people coming in like, like bleeding, but you don't know if it's fucking real blood or just their costume. You know, it was like, it was a nightmare. He had a miserable first night in there. And then they put him into these ETAAP room, emergency treatment of admitted, early treatment of admitted patients. And everything in hindsight makes sense. They were worried from the get-go, because he had, it turns out he had post obstructive pneumonia,

but you don't know that at the time, but it's pneumonia that's a direct result of lung cancer. So it's funny, my sister-in-law, her dad had died of a pancreatic cancer. She was worried from the start. I didn't even start worrying about cancer until like the Sunday night when it was like we seemed to be getting a little bit of the run around. So we had that weekend in the hospital and it was what it was. We were like waiting for the test. He did some scans. He got a, you know, he went to the pulmonary guy and it was on the Monday then that we found out

that it was stage four small cell lung cancer, which was at that time, I still think it's incurable, but I think with immunotherapy, you can get a little more time. But 2009, which is not really that long ago, you know, there was a very sort of prescribed timeline. But anyway- And what was that? What window are they giving you on Monday of like- Two years max. And what's, do they give you a minimum on something like that? I guess they say six months. So the moment, the pulmonary guy, so we were waiting in the office,

myself and my mother, I had no idea that I was waiting to find out that my dad was going to die. Like I was clueless. So then the pulmonary guy says, can I talk to you outside? He wanted to find a room. He's like, I don't have any way. So we were just in the halls with my mother and he was like, it's small cell lung cancer and there's no cure. I wasn't ready for that, but my mother definitely wasn't ready for that. I'll never forget it because she was holding onto my arm and she nearly collapsed. I literally had to hold her up. She just wasn't ready. She wasn't ready at all for that information. I can understand because it didn't enter my head either. So, they said, we said that we would tell my father, but first,

my mother couldn't cope. So first we went outside. Yeah, I was going to say if she walks in like that, he's going to be like, oh, this ain't good. We went outside because there was like a bench against the wall and I sat down with my mother and she was like, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? And it was just like, I couldn't believe that we were now at this, you're just suddenly in this part of your life. But the hardest part, I mean, it was tough dealing with my mother, but I did my best to like, you know, stay on top of it, be there for her, call my brothers. And then I had to go back in the room and tell my father, but they had actually told

him in the meantime. Aw, what the fuck? That's all right. I was fine. Because when I walked into this, you know, it was like a semi-private kind of vibe. He was sitting on the bed and he says, bad news, man. I was like, I know. And this kills me. It's hard to talk about, but when I sat down next to him, he put his head on my chest. And I held him there and I try to separate the fact that I turned this into performance,

but in real time, that's when I became aware that I was the parent of my parent. Now I had to look after this guy, return the favor. And that was hard. That was hard. But I just held him there. Then that's just the beginning of the- That's literally moment, early moments of all of it. Yeah.

That's just the beginning. Then you get into the admin of survival, but he was actually worse than we thought. Was he a smoker? Did he work in asbestos? No, he was a smoker. He was. This was direct result of smoking. That's a cigarette thing?

Yeah, small cell lung cancer. How do you say small cell? Is that what you say? There's two types of lung cancer, small cell and non-small cell. He was stage four, small cell lung cancer. So at that time, dad sent us- Did you ever ask him, you're stage four at this point, dad, when did you, were there shit, did you start feeling stuff months ago? Did you ever ask him that? Like when his body

maybe started feeling different? Because I know that generation of men or that walk it off generation, you're fine, whatever. Yeah, he wasn't too bad like that, you know, cause he'd had like, you know, a little bit of heart stuff and, you know, I think it's hard to remember that exactly, but I definitely think he was aware then like, shit, man, this has probably been coming. But like the thing with that small cell lung cancer, like it's very hard to get it early. So there was no sense of like, shit. We could have done something.

Cause he had a scan not that long before, it wasn't showing up, you know? And it wasn't like one of those things of like, how did they not notice? We never really, some people get into that. We never really got into that. We just got into like, how are we going to deal with this now? And so how did you, what is next? Does he get to come home or is he in? Well, first you got to, first they had to just stable it because he was really quite bad. He had

like really bad, this post obstructive pneumonia. So he had a couple of nights where he was probably dying, but he didn't realize it. But he had, he told me like around that time, he had like accepted that he was going to die, but that left when he started getting treatment. I think he immediately got a dose of chemo. The thing is that they give you this aggressive chemo, which works really well. It kills it off because small cell lung cancer is aggressive, so it responds. The chemo kills off because it's fast growing cells. That's what it's designed to do.

So he got better quick, but it's known that that won't last. But the initial whack is pretty effective. But when he started to not be dying, it's funny, he immediately changed back to, I don't want to die. But he was starting to accept death, which helped me to understand that it's probably innate. Because obviously people fear death. I feel death sometimes every now and then. I get a little death panic attack. But I do think that something changes in the mind. He seemed to be quite comfortable with the thought of dying, but that left him actually.

He really got in the mood to fight when he started to feel a bit better and he started to get a modicum of life back. But it was still getting chemo, so he still felt like shit from chemo. But anyway, that was that initial time. It's actually almost hard for me to remember. It was just like, you know, I had to go back to Ireland then I had to do some

shows and then get back. It was flying back and forth. But it was basically just get him into the chemo place. And then we did the chemo time. I don't have a lot from that. It was just tough. How long did he make it? Got to make him fucking eat peanut butter. You want to do it? It's a tragic story. What do you mean? Well, so you don't want to eat and you can't not eat. You need your strength because the chemo is like killing you basically. You're trying to kill the cancer before it kills you. So the doctor was like, if you want to eat anything, peanut butter is good.

There's a lot of calories, a lot of protein. So I was fucking foreseating my dad peanut butter. Now, afterward, right around the time that my – It's not an easy thing to eat. Yeah, but here's the thing. So as I said, a lot of this became part of a show, but at one stage years before, my dad had a crack at writing his memoir because my dad had a horrific childhood, which we'll talk about. But in the context of the peanut butter story, my dad's mother was extremely abusive.

She's paranoid schizophrenic, but of course it was actually in England in the post-war era. And it was so bad that she was actually imprisoned for the cruelty to my father. Whoa. Yeah, which I didn't learn about until later in life, but I knew about that at this stage. And we can get more into detail about that in a minute, but just for the sake of this story, as a result, my father ended up in foster care. When I got his memoir that he had attempted because I wanted to include it, there's a story about when his first foster home, these people, he didn't feel that welcome there and at one stage he ate peanut butter from the jar. I don't think they knew that he was

home and he overheard them saying, like, oh, he ate all the peanut butter from the jar. They were complaining about the fact that this kid that they'd taken in was eating the peanut butter and he fucking hated peanut butter for the rest of his life. Here he is dying and I'm like, take this fucking peanut. You know, cause I was the, like we all, we all took on the role of caretaker, but like it was one of those things where it's like, you gotta eat, bro. Like, I know you feel like shit, you want to puke, but you gotta eat. And that, so my mother was like, you gotta make him eat. My mother's a very anxious person. So my poor dad was getting, but I got to eat. So my mother was like, you got to make him eat. My mother's a very

anxious person. So my poor dad was getting, but I didn't know that at the time. I wouldn't have force fed him peanut butter had I known that it was a fucking PTSD trigger from his very traumatic childhood. Very traumatic. So that was that time. That was the initial time. So what does he come home at all? Oh yeah. So he came home then like after that, this was, this was at the peanut butter stories after that. So whatever. So the initial wave of chemo and things in the hospital.

I think just one session, then you get put into like an outpatient place. Okay. But they, I feel like it's the chemo started straight away, but then he gets home and then you have to take him to the chemo place. And it's all American healthcare. It's very dark. Sometimes they're like, oh, it hasn't been approved yet by the insurance. You're like, are you fucking kidding me? Because I'm living in Ireland. I'm like, what? How can this be? But they were fine, that place. They were fine. Russian Jews, Irishmen, and the whole whole place. It was fine there. When I was around, I would go with him. The winter had kicked in and I remember just so desperately wanting him not to

fall. That was just the caretaking. That was the caretaking time, the initial batch. So yeah, he was home in bed. The peanut butter was in his own bedroom. What are the first conversations you guys are having? What are they about? Well the good thing about my dad and I is that, you know, because I stopped drinking when I was 19, my dad was sober my whole life. Was he still smoking at that time? No, he had stopped, but it was too late, unfortunately.

But we'd had a lot of, like we had a good relationship, lot of tough conversations. You know, like I did the steps and all that stuff. So like, I did all the amends and you know, like we had a pretty good relationship. But it's hard to remember the types of conversations we were having, it was really just like survival stuff. I mean, is he talking to you about taking care of your mom or you said, get in the house in order. Does he have a will? Does he have any of that stuff? Oh yeah, my mother was on top of all that. She was.

Yeah, I didn't have to worry too much about that. That was more with my mother dying. My mother was a serious control freak. so there was no issues around that. It was really just about being around with him, but as I said, no, this seems kind of like weird, right? So for years, I had had this idea about doing a show about my father called My Dad Was Nearly James Bond because in the On Her in the honor of magic secret service, but my dad was an actor and a model. That was his life before I was born. In fact, I recently had to get my, I was born in London. So my parents were living in London when I was born.

So I actually got my birth certificate recently because I'm doing some admin and his occupation on my birth certificate is actor, which I didn't realize, but he was more of a model, but he wanted to be in. This is where you get the good looks from your dad. Anyway, the good genetics, you know, my parents were both very vain. Uh, so anyway, uh, he, my dad didn't do that much acting to be honest with you. If you ever want to see him, he has one line in Zulu. Oh yeah. He has one line in Zulu and he's got a few lines in Day of the Triffids, which not everybody knows

that those that know really care. It's a B movie classic, bad sci-fi from the 60s. And he did a couple of commercials in that, but he was a very successful model. That's how my parents met in New York because the Ford modeling agency actually brought him over from- Oh, he was a Ford. Wow. Yeah, they brought him over from London. Lived in New York, met my mom. But then they went back to England. They lived in Germany. They lived in London. I was born in London. So anyway, it was always the family legend that my dad had an audition for James Bond, which honestly I could never verify while he was alive the truth of the story. But apparently,

there had been an article written in some paper about Irishman who was nearly James Bond. And my dad was in the same modeling agency as George Lazenby. So on her majesty's secret service was the end of Sean Connery's reign. And they were looking for a new guy and they were looking at models. And apparently my dad, the tiniest consideration, you will not find my dad's name in the history of potential bonds, but I found out, I verified afterwards that it was actually true. Anyway, he had a lot of regrets about giving up acting and modeling. This is what I wanted to ask you if you talked about regrets. It's all regret.

My dad was riddled with regret, like bad. He spent most of his life feeling like, so in 1976 the economy crashed and my father gave it, he got a job in Barneys as a retail guy just to survive because I was born, I fucked up everything. I ruined the dream. I killed his dream. Yeah, I don't know. He shot the load, bro. He had to make money. I killed his dream. I don't know. He shot the load, bro. He shot the load. He had to make money. He shot the load.

He had to make money. They were living with my grandmother in Queens, Flushing Queens. That's where we're from. My dad was like a London model hanging out with Richard Harris and live in the London, the 60s in Chelsea in the early 70s. Now he's living in fucking Flushing Queens. Is he telling you these stories throughout life? Later. Later.

Later. This is pretty bad ass. But this isn't when he's sick. I knew this already. This was like sober life and getting to know my father. And don't forget, I got into comedy. So now I've sort of followed in his footsteps and he's delighted with that.

People are saying, how did your parents feel about you getting into comedy? It's like literally like couldn't have been a better job to get into as far as my dad was concerned and my mom. So anyway, he gave all that up for me and for us, right? But he expressed, sometimes people come on the TV and he'd be like, I knew that guy, he was an asshole. You know the way it is too, right? Because you got jealous. We're entertainers. My dad is just having normal entertainment envy, but don't forget he's getting on the fucking subway and he's going into, he ended up working for Burberry, Burberry's as it was back then. And he just like

fucking getting by for us, stable life for us. But he never let go of the regret. And here's how I can prove it to you, because he started writing a musical when he, I guess in the 90s, maybe late 80s, all throughout the 90s, he's writing a musical called In the Footsteps of Anymore about Irish immigrant and sort of an Irish immigrant epic musical. The musical is not important, but he never let go of wanting to be creative and be a performer. So long before my dad got sick,

cause you know, like in European comedy, you do these one-man shows, I wanted to do a show about my dad because we couldn't watch James Bond by the way. Why? He was too, he was too sensitive for him couldn't watch James Bond by the way. Why? He was too sensitive for him? Hated James Bond. So the joke in the show, but it's 100% true, is people say, well, George Lazenby ended up being the worst James Bond. So you were lucky, you could have been the worst James Bond. But in my dad's mind, he said,

I was worse than the worst James Bond. That's the way he felt. Worse than the worst James Bond. That's the way he felt. Worse than the worst. So anyway. Most Americans think they spend about $62 a month on subscriptions, but the real number is actually closer to $300. And that is a big difference. Even if just a couple subscriptions fall off your radar, those recurring payments you don't even know about can really add up.

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and use code honeydew at checkout. That's 20% off your first order when you shop better hydration today using promo code honeydew at liquidiv.com. Now, let's get back to the do. So anyway, that was like a presence. That was a presence. And then sometimes guys would stay with us.

A great actor called Dudley Sutton, he was in a British sitcom called Lovejoy. People won't know him, but he was like my dad's close friend and he'd be over in our suburban life. And you could just tell that my dad was like, how the fuck did this happen? Even though it was the only life we ever knew and we were happy with it. So I wanted to do this show about the fact that my dad had regret about not

being a successful actor and was nearly James Bond. But actually, as it turns out, he survived this horrific abuse as a child, which I found out in adulthood that my grandmother who had been like, I was in Ireland at this stage. I'd be going to my cousins in Middleton County Cork and they would talk and they were wax lyrical about Annie, you know, my dad's mom. She was a great singer and you know, my dad's dad, he was English actually, Stanley, and just like talked about them in glowing terms. But actually, it was horrific, like beyond horrific, the descriptions of my dad's childhood, right? Plus he was abused by a priest independently of that, but of course they go together, right? Because you go for the vulnerable guys. And there's this guy

that it, you know, anyway, it really horrific. My dad's story to tell, but he wrote it down. So I wanted to tell the story of- Also really interesting to me to think of a man who has been abused in all these different ways, has this great set of looks, and then has to try to be confident enough to get out there in public and live off of looks. Well, you know. Inside dying and knowing, and probably feeling like the ugliest fucking thing out there.

It's a pretty interesting. Well, what's interesting is how we got into modeling was he was a physical fitness guy. He was like a gymnast and he was making his living from physical fitness and he broke his back on a trampoline and had three spinal fusions. One of the times he was in the hospital, his buddy was like, hey, the modeling thing is taken off in London. You should do that because obviously it wasn't going to be physical fitness anymore. Yeah, that's a wrap.

My dad actually tells a great story, which is interesting in light of the way we view the world today, which is this is a slight digression, but in his memoir, he talks about, you know, he was a bad alcoholic, but he was also, he was heavily burdened by this horrific childhood that he had. You know, how do you, how do you fucking liberate yourself from that? You know? He watched his mother being driven away in a black Mariah as they called them, the prison vans. You know, like as a court case, you know, I'm not, I'm not telling people to buy my book, but if you ever see it, I found that I went back and I found the news articles about,

You did. about my grandmother's imprisonment. This is not nothing. Yeah. You know what I mean? So he dealt with all that and the foster care and then his mother, by the way, she had a lobotomy. They gave her a fucking lobotomy. Jesus. It sounds like one flew over the cuckoo's in that shit, dude. But it was. It was. They did that then. And she was never the same. Sometimes she would be calm. Other times

it would come back. My mother even told me that because she was still alive. Well, she was still around when they met. My mother said, yeah, she was nice sometimes. Then every now and then you would see it, like the fucking red mist. My grandfather was deemed to be unfit to be a parent. That's how my dad ended up being in foster care. Anyway, my dad tells a story in his memoir about he was on a building site doing something to make money and he was miserable and depressed. Some guy on the building site said, you can't wallow in this because it's going to destroy you. You got to let it go and you have to find a way to live your life. And it was like really like cold, you know, like what's the word, tough love. But it worked for my dad. Now I know it doesn't work for everybody, but he, that's like a,

like a pivotal moment for him. He's like, you know what? I got to fuck, I got to fucking show up. And that's all that dude had to be in his whole life too. Funny. I had a girl one time I met, just a friend and she, and then I never talked to her again after that. And she said to me, some people come into your life just to introduce you to a song. And she did. That was it. She introduced me to Jeff Buckley and she was gone after that.

Like my summer school teacher in 1990 in St. Francis Prep, I failed loads of subjects, but I had this great English teacher and we were studying Romeo and Juliet. So he played us Romeo and Juliet by Lou Reed. And he introduced me to Lou Reed. There you go. But anyway, so- So this guy on a work site is like, hey man, you got to just suck that shit up and use it to go forward.

Yeah. And he was a survivor, my dad. And really, so basically what I wanted to do was write a show to show that my dad was actually a hero. James Bond is a fake character played by an actor, you know? Whereas my dad survived real, like real trauma. I mean, trauma these days, it almost sounds like a trigger word, but like this is real fucking trauma, you know?

Like horrific abuse and abandonment and he survived and he gave us a very normal life and he never hit us. That was my dad's thing. He will never hit us. And he was a great dad. I mean, our childhood wasn't perfect by any stretch. My mother was tough, but you know, there are probably elements of my mother's personality that my dad was attracted to due to the trauma, maybe a little bit of a trauma connection there. But anyway, he gave us this great life. And so in my mind, I wanted to write this show, but I had no idea, you know, how do you, you know, the darkness of my dad's childhood versus the funniness of the day of the triphids and all the fun stuff when we were kids, like somebody would find the footage and we'd watch it and be like, fuck, that's dad. It was fun. The fact that my dad had

a past in acting was fun for us. But I could never figure out what the story was. But after my dad got sick and I had this transition of our relationship into looking after him and just you get a deeper appreciation for him. Your relationship deepens. That's when I was like, I'm going to fucking give this guy a last act. So I originally – because I was going to Melbourne to the Melbourne Comedy Festival. Anyway, I didn't intend to do a show about my dad, but my dad got sick. So I immediately changed the show and I said, I'm going to fucking do this show. But I had no idea. And the poor crowd in Melbourne, they were a little bit of a petri dish guinea pig. But a comedian called Jason Byrne, great Irish comic, he said to me,

a great Irish comic, he said to me, you got to get your dad to come out. You got to get your dad on stage. So I asked my dad, I said, dad, because I was going to do the Edinburgh French Festival, it's 2010. I said, dad, if you're up for it physically, how would you feel about we do Edinburgh together? And of course he couldn't wait. course he was all couldn't wait.

All that he couldn't wait. So that was that's what's weird about this horrible time of waiting. You know, my dad dying was actually one of the crazy fun. We had a happy happy time. And I of course, I'm a I'm a performer, I'm a ham. Of course, I had to turn it into a performance, but he was fine with that. So we then committed to, my dad was going to come to Edinburgh and luckily it worked out because it was a couple of times where we weren't, oh, he had like pain in his bone. So it spreading in his bone, so he had to get radiation,

palliative stuff, pain management. So there were times when I was like, fuck am I, is this too much? But luckily around the time of Edinburgh, he was in decent shape and so he did the, he would come out surprisingly. So I would do this whole show. By the way, I took out the mom stuff. The show was about me and him. So the show is basically about becoming the parent of your parents and, you know, like acknowledging the sacrifices of fatherhood and how his regrets, which were real, were so unimportant when in the end, all that matters is

the people around you. And I wanted to give the appreciation for that sacrifice because the sacrifice was real. I mean, I know there were times where he was like, how the fuck did I end up here? I know that. And he admitted that to me. But the fun that we had of, so he would walk out every night and like the audience would be like gobsmacked. So it's funny because he was shit at lines. I don't know how he thought he could ever be an actor. Because we did film all this. We did film it. So there's a very funny scene where I'm losing my fucking patience with my father. I gave him a simple line. I said, you know, it's great to be on stage with my son, Des, here at the end of the show. And if I think of my life as a stand-up comedy show,

then this is one hell of a fucking closer. That was his line. That's all he had to say. one hell of a fucking closer. That was his line. That's all he had to say. Fucking days, he couldn't get that fucking line right. I ended up losing my patience with him, but when he came to the night, he got it right. That was all he had to say. And it was great. He would get a standing ovation and it was fucking awesome. And I found all the footage. You know, the show was fun. I mean, who gets that on their last round? Not a lot. Not a lot. But you know, my dad, my dad was so impressive like towards the end, like, because we, you know, we haven't, we're filming them the whole time. It's just kind of crazy, but thank God now, you know, like I'm so happy now. So much footage of my dad at the end.

And he would have these private moments with my, my man, Pat, Pat Comer, the guy that filmed it, moments with my man Pat, Pat Comer, the guy that filmed it. Him and Pat just talking about life, you know? And he was backstage that opening night, you know, so the emotions were high. And he said, he said, you know, this is exactly what he said, I'll quote him. He says, when your children come into the world, I realized it's no longer my life, it's their life. You have to remember that. That's if you're a good parent. Yeah. That's the truth.

If you don't, they'll never forget. Never forget children and elephants. They'll never forget. And he did do that. He did give it all up for us, you know? So, so that was the, that was the, that was the show of it all, but he cared, man. He was a fucking ham. He loved all that shit, you know?

So let me ask you some ugly stuff here. When it gets to the point where he's not up and around anymore, where is he? Is he home at least with you guys or is he in care? No, he's at home. He died at home. So we did the show, but he had to go back to do his next round of chemo. And how long did he end up? A year and a half. a year and a half. A year and a half.

God. Two years max, they say. Six months to two years. But- And the chemo definitely helped extend that. Oh, that's a fact. It worked. If he hadn't done it, it would have been- No, and this was like not contra- This is like tried and tested. Small cell lung cancer, we can buy you two years. Gotcha.

And the first batch is going to work really well. And when it comes back, the second batch is not going to work as well, but it's going to give you a little bit more, but you're not going to feel as good, which is literally exactly what happened. And I can remember exactly where I was too. I was in the, the Monarch spa with my girlfriend at the time in Wexford, in Ireland, a beautiful like spa resort. I was in a fucking robe.

My dad called me to say, I'm fucking done, man. I'm giving up on the chemo, man. I really thought, and actually I had a new TV show that I was about to start. I called him, I said, listen, I can't do it. My dad's given up chemo. I don't know how much time we have left, so I'm going to step away from this. But at the time, I remember thinking like, oh, this is good because he'll stop chemo and he'll feel a bit better and then the end will kick in. But it was just way faster than I expected, the aggressiveness of it. I think he had a week. Next thing, he was in agonizing pain and he had to start taking the palliative painkiller stuff. So my brother Aidan was back at that time, but I was back and forth in it.

But I was in the middle of a tour, touring this fucking show about my father while he was dying. In the end, I was in Cork, which is just a full circle because my dad considered Cause you know, my dad considered Cork his like, you know, that's where he grew up in Middleton County, Cork. And I was in Cork and I could call saying it's getting close. So I just, I just got, I got that weekend done and then I canceled the rest of the tour for the time being. And I just got back.

I got, I flew back on the Sunday and he died on the Tuesday. And the fucking flight was canceled. I was panicking. You know what's funny? I always remember the Metallica song, Nothing Else Matters. It's not like an important song for me except that when I got to the airport and they canceled the flight, they said, but the flight is going to Philadelphia. I remember running between terminals trying to buy a flight to Philadelphia. I remember I kept singing, nothing else matters because I was like, I just got to get home. My girlfriend was with me, she was Irish, so I was only getting a one-way flight to Philadelphia. They were like, oh, she needs a return flight. Anyway, it was just chaos. But we got on a fucking flight and I rented a car and I drove from Philadelphia because I wanted to be there that day.

Yeah. So the documentary that we made came out on the Thursday before the Tuesday. And there was an article in the Irish paper that said something like, Cork man has a final act. Like the gate, he got to see that. Yeah. Oh, that's nice. And it was like, you know, he's getting like real praise. And when I walked into the room, he said to me, he was dying. He said to me, we did it, man. I fucking guess we did it. We did it, man. That's, it made me, I mean, I felt good that I did that for him, but I also felt good

because I had a little bit of guilt sometimes that I was like fucking turning my dad's death into fucking entertainment, you know? He loved it. He loved it. He loved it. He loved it. And my mother, you know, my mother loved it. Like my brothers loved it.

It's also something that you got to have together. We all did it together. The whole family. I mean, who gets that? We did it, man. And then not, there wasn't that much after that. Somebody called from his childhood, you know? And he perked up for

a minute on the phone. But there wasn't much, people always talk about last words. Funny thing about last words. Were you there when he actually took his last breath? Yeah, I was there for both of them, which is luck. What do you mean both? Oh, both your parents. Both my parents, not both. I'll tell you a funny story about that in a sec. But first I'll tell you my dad's last words, then I'll tell you about a funny moment that happened actually when

he died. So my dad's last words were, will you please stop talking? Because, you know, the last thing that goes is hearing all you hear this shit. My dad was like close to the end on a lot of drugs. But obviously we were just like in the room fucking around. And his last words were, will you please stop talking? I love you. No, just shut the fuck please. Please.

Silence. For once in my fucking life. You're about to get it permanently. Yeah. Will you please stop talking? Oh, that is hilarious, dude. But so, you know, you get all this hospice paraphernalia, you know, stuff about the end of life and it's really helpful.

And the stages of death and all that. And so they talk about the fish out of water breath. My brother was obsessed with it. He's like, that's the fish out of water, you know, the death rattle and all that. We were very lucky, man. You couldn't have written it really, how if you were going to have a death, a family death. So we were all home, you know, and so that night, Monday night into Tuesday morning, like two o'clock in the morning, my mother wakes up and she's like, I don't know, he sounds, there's something. He was death rattling. So we all came into the morning, my mother wakes us up and she's like, I don't know, he sounds, there's something, he was death rattling. So we all came into the room, but he was rattling for quite a while actually.

So we all ended up, I fell asleep, we're all sleeping in my, we all slept in the room at the end. My dad was rattling all night, but he didn't die. We woke up, he was still rattling, like one of those apps, like a white noise app. We all slept to my dad's consistent fucking, you know, phlegmy fucking breathing. And then my brother, Mike, unfortunately, he had a kid already and another one on the way. So he had to go get his wife and kid. So he left and my mother went down to make coffee. And so the joke was that my brother Aiden for like two days was like, that's a fish out of water, bro. That's a fish out of water. He was obsessed with

the fish out of water, Brett. If people don't know what that is, it's the last gas. There's no air. So you do like that fish out of water. Yeah. But anyway, it came. Only me and Aiden were there and the fish out of water came. And then he stopped. And we were like, you know, because you're doing all the, we love you, you can go, it's okay, we got it. We got it. We'll look after mom. And we were like, wow, that's it, bro. Oh, fuck. Aiden and I were just like, wow, because it's sad, but it's weirdly profound. I've never been able to articulate what it feels like, but it's like, it's something. I was overwhelmed with so much feeling about just watching life disappear. So Aiden and I were like, you did it, man. You did it. Like rubbing his head. Next thing,

this motherfucking has one more breath. He goes, like, like dramatic. We were like, fucking, I'm not even kidding. It sounds like a joke, but I'm not even, we were shocked. And then, then he was really dead. It was a distinct difference. Like really it was immediate really dead. It was a distinct difference. Like really it was immediate, mouth dropped and then it was like nothing. And then I was really like, wow, fuck man. Like human, like human. What a beautiful send off. Like you got to give him everything he wanted in the end. No, no, it was great. I mean, let me ask you this though. You talked to your dad about regrets and all that.

Do you have any, is there anything you would have wished you could have, obviously more time, but within that amount of time, is there anything you wish you could have done? With him? Yeah. With him, not really, honestly. You got to be.

I got great advice. Irish promoter called Bren Barry, when he heard that my dad was sick, he called me and he said, the best advice I ever got was leave nothing unsaid, which was just great advice. So really- Was there anything that you hadn't said that you wanted to- You know what? All I know is that we talked a lot, you know? But he had regret. So here's

the funny thing about, I remember close to the end, I was in Ireland, we're on the phone, anything about. I remember close to the end, I was in Ireland, we were on the phone and he was telling me that, ah, there's just some regrets and things I did in my life. And I just, and I can't remember what I thought he was talking about. I thought he was talking about his childhood and just like the shame that he had about what had happened to him. But I can't remember what I said, but I remember giving him some rousing chat about how great he was and how he needs to just wipe this slate clean and he doesn't know anything to anybody. But it turns out that actually what he was talking about, because I was wrong, after he died, my mother told us that he had been married before. He never told you guys?

RL No. I was aware. I had been aware that he had this girlfriend called Valerie, who I had heard about. And in Cork, my cousins would tell me about Valerie. I was acutely aware of Valerie, but I just thought it was like a very serious girlfriend he had when he was living in London. But he had been married before. Obviously, my mother knew. But he, he, he, my mother told me that towards the end, he said to her, it's like, do you think I should tell him? And then he was like, no, I'm not going to tell him. Don't tell him. Uh, so he decided not to tell us, but it was eating him up the strangest fucking thing. I was, I'm sitting here thinking too, like, why would I, right? Why would I, even if my dad had told me, why would I care? My mother told me. Did he have

children with her or anything? that? No, just married. He just wanted you to think your mom was the only one? I can't even tell you what he was thinking because he was gone by the time I found out. But I was like, oh, that's what he was fucking talking about. God, I wish, in a way I kind of wish my mother sort of let the cat out of the bag so I could just be like, don't fuck, who gives a fuck? But anyway, his wish was for us not to know. And so actually one of my last chats, one of my rousing chats was based on bullshit actually. I wish I had more said like, just what, what could there be? I wish I'd pushed them to like- Also, I wonder why it matters so much to them. Did you ever meet this lady? No, she was- So, my brother Mike remembers either when it happened or,

anyway, she died long before- She died like of alcoholism. Oh, okay. And her dad apparently loved my father. And my dad, her father wanted to talk to my father when she died. And I think that my dad went back for the funeral, my brother said, but all that stuff is like, I just didn't know. So I believe my, I think he went back for the funeral. The father's request was that he would be there would be there. Because the dad, Irish man from Sligo just like loved my dad, you know? So that's just a part of his life that we never knew. And after he died, we found out, and I just thought it was hilarious that all the things to hold on to. Yeah. So fucking stupid.

It's honest too. It's not like it was a secret behind your mom's back. I think he just must have had some shame about us not knowing for so long and maybe it had gone too far. But of course, he left my mom with the secret, but she let the cat out of the bag. We thought it was hilarious that he held onto that. Kind of felt bad that he did, but- Now do you want kids? Is there a kid do you want kids? Yeah. So after my dad died, I was very broody. I was dying to have kids.

Um, and I mean, I wasn't in a situation to have them then like, well, I was with this girl, but we broke up the May following, but she was great. You know, I, I never talked to her about it, but I have to give her credit. She was really there for me at that time. She has a kid now. But afterwards, I was very broody because it was all about us at the end. It's like in the end, that's all that mattered was us. And I was very aware of that. And I was very aware of the importance of having kids. but that did fade though. That did fade. And then I ended up at a stage where I just accepted I wasn't going to have them. But now I'm going to have them because well, Hannah wants to have kids.

She's a little younger than me. So we're in a situation where we can. But the only problem about getting older, I mean, you said your daughter's 10. The only problem about getting older is you're just aware of how fucking tired you are all the time. So- And the time that you may or may not have left, you know, every day is great to have. But if you even get, you know, 20, 30 more years, you're not seeing grandkids unless you're like, I never would have thought I'd ever want my daughter to have kids young. And these days, I'm kind of like, I don't know if I'd mind. I was a bad joke. I used to tell them, like, you know, I'm so late now, I'm never going

to have grandkids. If I want to have grandkids now, I have to raise my daughter in the Bronx. This is a bad joke. Yeah. But yeah, you know. All right. So you're not opposed to it at all. No, I'm going to have them. And knowing that you're going to be older and everything. I'm going to be an older dad.

Yeah. There's no way around that. And you may, who knows how much quality time you get with your kids too. And that's the thing I think about. And all my friends were jealous how much quality time you get with your kids too. And all my friends were jealous of me for all the years of all my freedom, but now I'm going to be jealous of them. Their kids are going to be raised. They're out of school. They're, you know, I have friends who are grandparents now because they had kids in college and stuff and now their daughter has a baby.

Yeah. Well, I used to make fun of the, you know, cause I'm in recovery, you know, so I used to be in recovery with some of these like guys that had really fucking shitty lives from tough neighbors in Ireland and they would have like fucking kid when they were 17, you know, and then they'd be still a kid back and be like, Oh, I'll be like, you fucking idiot. You have a condom and you know, all this type of shit. But now all the, he's hanging out with his fucking son. Yeah.

Now they're bonded and having a great time. Having a great time, loads of years together. Man, I could have done it when my back and knees were way better. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So yeah, no, I mean, I've actually very much come around to like looking forward to having kids now, but I have the normal trepidation of like, fuck, you know, like, am I ready for this? I don't mean it in relation to my age. I just mean in relation to like how much of it, because the one thing about being older is you see all your friends have kids. There's no illusion. I take it humans were meant to have kids in their early twenties before they realized how fucking difficult it is. Because once you've

seen it and not just the early stage of like sleepless nights, but you've seen the soccer practice with a fucking 12 year old and getting one to the pool, one to the field. You've seen all that shit. It's a lot. It's a lot. When I think about my own childhood and I think how the fuck did they put up with that? That's what I'm saying. My own greatful-

It's a long game. Hopefully you stay long and healthy and live old to get to hear your kids say that to you. How the fuck did you do that, dad? Yeah. Well, that's a joke I have now. I say, people, you got to have a kid, you don't want to die alone. I say, you're only dying for a very short period of time. I'm good. I'll save the money and I'll talk to a Jamaican or a Filipino. I'll be fine, which is a dumb joke. Especially it's a dumb joke now in lieu of the conversation that we've just had, you go like, that's bullshit. Because obviously it really matters, you know?

Yeah. And it mattered to my dad. And you, and look what you ended up doing for the man in the end. What a send off. Yeah. The only thing that was bad about it was- What a send off, dude. Great send off.

And he says, we did it. What a fucking, what an ending. Yeah. And a lot of people said that to me as you gave him a great send off, you know, I still get a little bit of guilt sometimes that, you know, it's hard to separate the art and the performance from life, you know, that there's you're giving away a little bit of yourself, but I think that's just me, you know, he certainly didn't have that. The other thing I will say about that was that I was doing the show and then I would show footage of him coming out at the end of the show. I felt like that delayed the grief a little bit. It felt like we were still doing it together.

So the grief actually came a little later. The know? And it wasn't, the grief with my dad was just sad. It wasn't that hard. The grief with my mother was a lot harder. She was like, she was the more important figure and that was like, that was harder emotionally. But with my dad, it was fine. But I would say definitely I could have done with just maybe like sitting with it a little bit more instead of immediately going back and doing the show and talking about it. At the time, I'm saying doing press about it. I feel like you give away a little bit. It separates you a little bit from the feeling. It does. I think. It does.

This is a great episode. Thank you. I'm going to ask you this question before we wrap up here. Advice you'd give to 16-year-old Des Bishop. Well, 16-year-old Des Bishop was very fucked up. I was in the thralls of active addiction and I was very- Coming off of testicular cancer? No, I was 24. Okay, 24. I don't know why I thought you-

Yeah, no. I was in recovery when that happened. Just joking about my mom, she was very anxious. I'd say just severe anxiety disorder, which we didn't talk about in those days. But when I called my mother to say that I had testicular cancer, because it was like nine o'clock in Ireland, so it was only four o'clock in the morning in New York. And my mother answered the phone, she goes, oh my God, Desmond, what's wrong? I said, I have testicular cancer. She goes, I knew it, Ma. I knew it.

So in my life, I say, hey Ma, you've been worried the whole time. You've been right one fucking time. Don't even try to act like. What about all the other fucking times? You've been wrong. You were. You've been right one fucking time. Don't even try to act like what about all the other fucking times you were freaking out and you were wrong. I knew it. You know? And then she's like, I'm coming over. I was like, come on, Kansas bad enough. Stay where you are. Anyway, so, so. Oh, shit.

So anyway, 16 year old Des. Yeah. What are you telling Des? Oh, I mean, Jesus. It was a lot then. I'd probably just tell him everything's going to be all right. That was such a bad time in my life when I was 16, because I used to get blackout drunk and get fights. You know? Honestly, I would probably tell them, you know what I tell them? Your mother was right because she told me when I was 14, I was an alcoholic. Your mom did?

Yeah. Wow. She was right. She said, alcohol is going to cause you a lot of pain. You don't know it yet, but it's going to. But she was a product of her own. Do you remember that? Oh yeah, I remember exactly what I can see her face telling me.

I was out in West Hampton. It was 14, 1990. Second time I got caught drinking. She said, you don't know it yet, but you're an alcoholic and alcohol is going to cause you a lot of pain. But she was right. So I probably would have, at that time 16, I would have just like, your mom's right. You can't keep doing this. But I was lucky. The paranoia from both my parents, they were both sober. The paranoia that they gave me helped me to stop early because God knows I had plenty more I could have done. It wasn't like I was totally desperate, but I just was too aware of another way of living. So I'd probably just say,

your mother was right. Des Bishop, thank you for doing this. Thanks for having me. Will you, thank you for doing this. Thanks for having me. Will you promote whatever you'd like again one more time to everybody, please? Oh yeah, so Laugh Boston, the weekend in between Christmas and New Year's. I should know the date, but that's a pretty obvious weekend. Then I'm in Minnesota, Charlotte, Greenville, Irish tour, loads of other American dates on desbishop.net because I lost the.com. And my special is Des Bishop of all people on YouTube.

Check it out. Thank you very much. Thank you. You got it, buddy. As always, Ryan Sickler on all your social media. Check out that new tier on Patreon and we'll talk to you all next week.