The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - Jeremiah Watkins

Episode Date: May 20, 2019

Dewers! My #HoneyDew this week is Jeremiah Watkins! I’ve know Jeremiah for a while and I had no idea he was a skin cancer survivor, mostly because he kept it quiet. Jeremiah opens up about that scary situation and a lot more! He was a late bloomer to the self-love game and tells us all about his delayed discovery and shares some cringy audition stories. But when they put him on the B Squad basketball team in middle school, he showed them what was up and let them hear about every day! Don’t forget to subscribe, download & review! And get those moles checked! theHoneyDewpodcast.com

You're listening to The Honeydew with Ryan Sickler. Welcome back to The Honeydew, y'all. We're over here at Studio Jeans, doing it at your mom's house. I'm Ryan Sickler. You can follow me on social media at Ryan Sickler, website ryansickler.com. I'd like to say thank you to everyone in Edmonton that came out to the shows. It was great meeting you, great seeing you, fantastic club. Some other dates, June 13th through the 15th,

I'll be in Richmond, Maryland, and Atlantic City with Tom Segura. Also, June 27th through the 30th, I'll be in Tulsa, Wichita and Kansas city with T nuts and August 1st through the third. I'm at the house of comedy in Minnesota. I'll have a date in September for Baltimore. And again, I, every week I just want to say thank you more and more emails,

more and more messages. I'm glad this matters to you. I'm glad you're enjoying the show. It makes me feel good. And so please make sure you're subscribed make sure you download review make sure you're subscribed to your mom's house youtube page um the website here is the honeydewpodcast.com you can get to all the social media links and follow on twitter and facebook that way merch is there i love seeing you guys

uh send pictures of your merch uh hoodies, stickers, whatever you're getting over there, shirts. And you can email me at honeydewpodcast at gmail.com. And if you're new to this show here, what we're doing over here is highlighting the low lights. We like to laugh at the not-so-fun times, and these are the stories behind the storytellers. And today, my honeydew uh is one of my favorite people has been so good to me so fucking funny so diverse jeremiah walkins hey

buddy my man how are you brother i'm doing great man thanks for having me on well you're welcome and uh thank you for having me on your podcast i was telling jeremiah here that uh your podcast i was talking to best selling i called larson told him like it's the most fun i've had on a podcast in a long time it's so it's just silly and fun and ridiculous yeah i'll say the word silly it's just about having fun and being and having a good time you know get to do characters there's weird sound effects and voice filters it's just a good time mike piazza called in on my i know he got you anal it's crazy it's unbelievable yeah it's unbelievable that guy finally called him he came through man it was good he came through twice yeah got me anal and then called me to talk to me about it

it was a full circle moment yeah thank you mike piazza appreciate that um please go ahead and plug whatever you'd like your podcast you have a new album coming out get it all out there yeah uh as ryan said i've got a great podcast called jeremiah wonders check it out on youtube.com slash jeremiah watkins and i have a new album coming out my debut comedy album with my boy patty reagan it's called reagan watkins it's a music comedy album comes out on june 7th on all platforms you can follow me on social media at jeremiah stand up go to jeremiah watkins.com for tour dates and videos and different stuff like that and uh i think that's about it kill tony check us out every monday live at the comedy store stand up on the spot once a month at the comedy store and then um part of roast battle

in the comedy jam so a lot of different shows uh around la so a lot of chances to see me yeah um well i'm so glad you came on here and i'm so glad i asked you uh to send me some stuff ahead of time because you sent me something that I didn't know. I also didn't know it was so recent. Do you mind if we start talking about that? Let's dive right into it. You're a survivor of skin cancer. I said, what does that mean, you survived skin cancer? Yeah, because you didn't even know.

No, I had no idea. This was just five years ago, four years ago? Yeah, in 2014. Post-Crab Feast episode, you said. I think so. Because I said, did you talk about this on there? And you're like, I don't think I had it yet. Yeah, I don't think so.

And if I happened to do the Crab Feast in 2015 or 2016, I wasn't at a place yet where I was comfortable talking about it. You know what I mean? So what happened? So basically, it was one of those things where i had a spot on my back that and a spot is it a mole is it was a mark okay it was a dark discolored mole raised uh it was raised and it was uh it was almost like it was very dark but it was bordering another mole so it's like a mole on top of a mole so it looked looked a little weird but uh the thing was is uh it started to grow i started to get like a little bit bigger and it's almost sore it wasn't sore i didn't have what's scary about the whole thing i didn't have any of the symptoms that they they went down a huge checklist when i finally went in

like later on and like uh did you have any of these symptoms i didn't have any of those that's what was kind of scary about the whole thing but it was a uh it was like a darker like almost like a black speck bordering like a raised like brown mold it was it was like like um it just looked discolored and like off it looked like you know i have moles like this all over my body. All these freckles and stuff like that. I'm a white guy who didn't use sunscreen. Burn easily.

My wife and we were boyfriend and girlfriend at the time. We weren't even engaged yet. She noticed that it was changing. She's like, hey, you might want to get this checked out. I'm like, ah, I'm doing the guy thing.

Where I'm like, it's not a big deal. I don't really want to go to the doctor. And I just kind of kept brushing it off. And she would keep an eye on it. It's on my back. I literally never see this thing. Where it's positioned, I would have to look in the mirror directly. I would have to keep an eye on it like that so i'm never looking

at it i'm just town off i went home to dennis mirror back there just what are we doing back here so i go home to uh visit family and uh so even as it grows there's no pain or anything like no pain no discomfort it's not like one of the things that's a symptom is if it's itching i was about to ask is it itch all the time didn't itch it's it's in it was it's in a place where it's like kind of like like here's my spine right in the middle of the back it was like right around this area right here so it's not like in a uh a super sensitive area it's just like whatever and i go home to visit my mom my family uh and my mom knows is when i'm going from the bathroom to the bedroom like just in a towel she goes she sees me literally like as i'm walking she goes what's that spot on your back and i was like oh it's whatever like i

think it's just a mole and she goes i think you need to get this checked out. I'm like, okay, yeah, whatever. Had a lady, a third woman, a third woman in New York, we were doing roast battle. I was out there with Willie Hunter and Jamar Neighbors at the Gramercy in New York, and we do a show, and we get shirtless a lot on roast battle. Yeah, you do.

Yeah, we do. We'll get into that later. And a lady who is a doctor pulls me aside after a show. goes you really really need to get that spot checked out are you fucking serious she's so a doctor at roast battle spots you shirtless from the crowd it's like hey man it's like something's wrong with that like when you were doing that live birth act on stage over that notice the discoloration on your back that you should probably there's a bordering issue with that mole on your back that's not

sitting well with me it's not the brown one under so much as that big black one that seems to be while i'm looking at yeah what's happening so that's when you finally were like okay that's it or are you still not you're still not i mean no you had three opinions i had three opinions at that point i was like all right like i had already told my wife and my mom uh that i was going to make an appointment and i had one like for like a month i was like all right i made one it was like for a month out like so like that there's a perfect storm of three women that were like listen quit being an idiot dude about this and being too cool for school to go to the doctor and go get this thing checked out because i was making fun of it like as a comedian you know like i i like was i was like i was starting to name it and stuff

like just be stupid we i shot this sketch that never got released where i've got like i literally have like moles and freckles like all over my body and we did this sketch where uh i i pulled my shirt off and uh we traced with a sharpie uh the moles on my back and it spelled out cancer on my back so i'm literally just like making fun of it i'm like oh this is stupid like i'm invincible i'm just a young guy whatever and i go to the dermatologist and they say uh they're doing the body scan i've never done one before they're like okay okay okay and the doctor goes huh he just stops fuck that and he goes uh i usually don't do this um we're gonna remove that today we're gonna cut that out right now he goes usually like

there's a followup or something, but he goes, I really want to get this off the lab. That just, it just doesn't, it just doesn't look right. So they cut it out. Um,

and it's a side, they cut out like a quarter size out of my back. Like, cause it was starting to get big. Like it was like probably, I don't know if you can see like quarter, like they have to take skin out around it too. So like it was, it was like, you know, it was probably the size of a dime at that point.

So, when it kept growing, was it more that it was widening, or was it getting puffier? It was growing in, like, depth. And it was also, like, the bordering was, like, getting all weird. It was literally, like, something that was, like, going, you know. Like an amoeba. Yeah, you know like uh the pillsbury like those biscuits like when you pop it like yeah and it just grows and it slowly slides down the side that's kind of what it was like just slowly sliding around a little bit uh and

i went back home um in 2014 to visit family over christmas break and i got a phone call while i was at home in kansas okay so hold on so they take it out while you're there in new york no i'm back in la back in la he takes it out and how long from that point to you going back home to visit weeks it was a week or two a week or two because they said if you don't hear anything from us that's good news which is always like whatever that's a weird policy to have like if you don't hear anything i guess it's good how long is it before i'm supposed to hear i know six years yeah if you don't hear from us in 20 years everything's probably you're solid man don't worry about it so it took like you know a week or two and i got the phone call while i was uh in my mom's kitchen

in kansas and uh and she knew she is a mother's intuition like i was like okay okay yeah they called me and they're like uh hey is this jeremiah uh and the whole time leading up to this while i'm at the dermatologist and like i'm literally joking like in my head about everything like they asked me like i went to a very la dermatologist because i didn't have insurance at the time and i found like the cheapest one that i could and uh they they asked me thought of a breakfast truck yeah all right you want a skin tag all right skin tag real quick all right Let's do this. You should probably get that black mole look. That's a little bit too much pepper on that thing over there.

The whole time I'm like, I'm just joking about the whole process. They asked me on the sheet if I have a preferred name to be called. I put down Stardust because I thought it would be hilarious if I got the call later like,ardust you have cancer so i'm just joking about the whole thing in my head and uh but are you joking because i'm a little bit scared yeah i'm a little bit scared on the inside because there's enough people who are looking at me a little weird now

where it's starting to not be as funny to me anymore. So I'm just using this as like kind of like a healing process. Like we do a defense mechanism, just like, you know, whatever, like, Oh,

I'm just kind of trying to brush this off. And, uh, you know, when I get that phone call, they told, they told me on the phone, they go,

you have stage two melanoma. Uh, uh, you need stage two melanoma. You need to have surgery immediately. We don't know how far it started to spread, but it's serious. I'm listening to this phone call, and I'm just staying calm. That's what they're telling you, it's serious? They're telling me it's serious on the phone.

My mom, she's looking at me while I'm taking the phone call. And I'm trying to stay calm and collected so she doesn't freak out. And then she knows that it's that call that I've been waiting for. She goes, who was that? I goes, dermatologist. And she's like, what did they say? I go you know i have cancer they said and i need to have surgery soon and she started crying of course and she's like whatever it takes we'll we'll get taken care of and you know uh but we started the process uh right away while that's what i want to ask so

you get the call and you're going to be there for a while for the holidays i'm going to be there i used to back uh around that time like the first like five six years that i was living in la i would go back for like at least like two two and a half weeks at a time so i was planning on going back for a couple weeks i was already back there and i was like gonna be back you're not gonna wait two weeks to go get this shit started right but the problem is like we start like we start weighing options like okay i could go out to la i don't have insurance i have zero insurance right now like this is stage two fucking cancer yeah so this is at a time when uh you know i was i was at at the time you know like and i'm grateful that i'm

still able to be pursuing comedy full-time but but that was at one of those precipices in my career where I'm doing it full-time, but I'm struggling pretty hard in 2014 to make anything just stay afloat month to month, but I'm excited that I'm able to just do comedy. But going with that, sometimes you have to make sacrifices like no insurance. So what my mom does, she's worked at UPS for years. Shout out to UPS Baltimore Hub Primary 1. Joe, what happened to you? What are you doing here? no insurance so what my mom does she's worked at ups for years um shout out the ups what did you i didn't know your mom thank you for your service how did i not know your mom

worked at ups we haven't talked about it what does she do ups uh she uh she's a spa uh uh a scanner you know yeah she scans the packages you know what's up is she the next day airs she out there in the trailer getting the next day airs ready for the planes and shit no i don't think so all right no she's literally standing in one spot like just like putting the labels on zap scanning packages stuff like that and uh where in kansas olathe olathe division you want me to make a call yeah i do i want to talk to the people at the club down there yeah ronnie i used to be a teamster ronnie there's a sickle cell my doctor said in a minute player hey how you doing man what are we doing here man i mean i want to thank you not the sidetrack i literally went for uh thank you so much man you got i won't thank you and dan van

kirk did a great job in imitating me i listened listen to him. Dan nails my laugh because you have to do it while you're talking. That's the key. I didn't want to take his. When he does it, I'm like, you got the best one. You sound like, your laugh when you get really excited sounds like a monkey that's being choked. I went to the doctor this morning for a physical and because of your post the other day about skin

cancer i fucking told him i was like check these moles out right here he's like yeah that one's a little dark that's a jeremiah watkins mole right there i'm gonna guess when we call it my jeremiah i'm gonna try to keep the jokes less i'll be all serious about it. I'll cut whatever the fuck you need and send that shit off. All right. So process begins. You're like, fuck this. We're going to go in Kansas. My mom has to.

Yeah. Well, we thought about LA. I didn't have insurance. She goes, we're going to do it here in Kansas. And I'm going to get you signed up on my insurance. So she signed me up on Cobra Insurance as quickly as she could. And it took only like a week to get me started on like cobra insurance as much like as quickly as she could and it took only like a week to get me like started on the insurance and there's a chain of events that happened that

you know uh i'm very extremely grateful for that if you believe in you know higher power or whatever there are certain things that happened that were so perfectly aligned that i was i'm still blown away that it happened so she's uh clean house for years along with working at ups making that uh you know under the table cash player you know what i'm talking about yeah you know what i'm talking about yeah all right welcome back to honey do y'all okay man so she gives me signed up on her insurance and one of the the doctors that she cleans houses for is a great doctor in kansas and uh he knows the head of um oncology damn at ku he calls he makes a favor on behalf of my mom because she's been cleaning his house for like 15

years. And they get me into surgery within another week after that. So like this all happens like around Christmas time in 2014. Like it was the weirdest weirdest Christmas of my life.

Because I'm having to you know yeah cancer for christmas i have cancer for christmas worst gift ever saying i don't want this you've been a naughty boy this year i'll take the charcoal or the lumps no give me the call give me the call you're getting cancer no give me the call you've been a real asshole yeah so my uh you know it's a it's also at an interesting time my relationship with uh my now wife uh we i'm like telling her like she's like wanting to stay there for the surgery also we're super broke um you know like we're trying to figure things out and uh like i i waited to tell her i think i told her like on uh i think i told her the bad news like on uh on christmas eve or something i gave

like terrible timing on like when i told her that's when you but i had it yeah i'm like that's what you get for christmas this year that's my gift to you uh never had good time with some relationship stuff well we have some other cringy stuff that we'll get into later uh but uh i end up having the the surgery and they show me the chart of where the cancer is going after uh you have to take a shake uh and you can't eat anything and you basically do like a ct scan or a cat scan and they showed me the chart of basically what the cancer looks like in my body they put it up on a board right and it's just like an x-ray but you see the pathway and where my mole was where they took that little spot out you see a trail that's going directly towards my armpit which there's lymph nodes in your armpit.

Right. So they get, they're like, we don't know if it's reached your lymph nodes yet. If it's, if it reaches your lymph nodes, it can go anywhere. It can go to your brain.

You can go to your lungs because those are like vessels in your body. Uh, so that was like another thing along the way that was extremely scary. They're not that like my family is like freaking out. They're trying to keep it cool, but the scariest thing, honestly, about the whole situation is when someone looks at you

who you love, and they're trying to have a poker face, but they're looking at you like they think you're going to die. It don't look good over here. I don't think I should go all in on this. I don't know if you should make any New Year's resolutions.

Yeah, I don't know if... Let's see here. I'm just going to take this back real quick. Can we... I just fished one from the discard pile. Yeah, can I get one courtesy card real quick, please? But they... So that's going on.

They show me the chart, and every step along the way... So the shake you take lights up your body inside. It looks like an alien road map going toward your lymph node but it stops it's black just like this this monitor right and it's literally like you see this white it looks like an alien life form that's going and then just kind of trails off like it's fading away and they're like we don't know tbd tbd yeah and uh i get another phone call while i'm at red lobster because that's how my family celebrates let's go celebrate your cat let's go celebrate man cheesy biscuits for everyone you get a cheesy biscuit baby you get whatever you want tonight because you got cancer baby real after cancer you at the red and guess what if you

beat this thing we're going to olive garden baby if the cancer don't kill you the food poisoning will red lobster uh so wait hold on you leave this appointment now they're saying here's the deal you see it's and they cut how much out of you they haven't cut anything yet because they're lighting up and seeing where this is all the preliminary stuff the the appointments that there's like multiple appointments leading up to the surgery you leave this appointment same day red lobster you get a call same day later that uh the red lobster call was after uh after that but the same day uh it was like the next day okay uh because all this happened uh the timeline's a little bit blurry because it happened so fast but it all happened the surgery and everything happened in two weeks

everything happened so uh i get a call like the next day or a couple days later while we're at red lobster we're trying to have a good night you know we're trying to everybody red loves that's what everybody's at red lobster exactly right and get those crab legs come on so i get a phone call from the doctor that says we uh don't want you to be alarmed but uh we have found a shadow on your lung. What the fuck is that? Exactly. That's a weird thing to say to somebody. I know. Which is like meaning it could have got to my lymph nodes already

and it could have spread to my lungs. They're like, we want to make sure we need you to come in as soon as you can to do another scan to see if now we're going to do a chest uh x-ray and uh my family at that point like they keep hoping you know we're going to get little victories here and there and that's just like a huge gut punch to everybody and like my family's like going to the bathroom at red lobster just like crying while i'm just we're gonna need these lobster to go yeah yeah i'm like hey could you put another batch of these cheesy biscuits in because we gotta get out of here real quick but if there's any way we could

get some lobster cheese meanwhile i'm trying to say i'm trying to be cool and play cool i'm like yeah you gonna eat that i'm just gonna i love the shrimp here but this is what also and again i'm ignorant to all this, so somebody out there is probably like, you're a fucking idiot. But I would think that if someone had cancer, you would put them through every goddamn x-ray and test and everything. They would have already looked at your lungs, and now they're doing another one.

Why? Well, they saw something on your lungs. They must have had that. So now they're what? They're going to do something more invasive? Or what are they going to do? No, I think they just wanted to position my body a different way so they could just take a different look at it

because I think the original way that they did it, I don't know, it just came up. And when are you doing that x-ray? Obviously soon. The next day or two because a a few days later so i get i finally get good news they're like they they say oh the spot that we found on your lung is just a shadow and i was like from a shadow you have a did you take the x-ray yeah what's going on yeah so the they said uh but they said um that um they're, I guess those spots are like, they're semi-normal.

Like, they're like, nothing to worry about with that. I was like, okay. Lung shadow. Lung shadow. It's like a little spot on your lung that you get and it shows up as a little shadow. Lung shadow is a pretty technique. I know. I might start yelling that at you.

Hey, lung shadow. Shadow! Shadow! Why are you calling that? Yeah, he went through cancer. That's my dog, Aunt Jeremiah. Don't worry about it. He's my golden retriever.

Why are you calling that? He went through cancer. He went through cancer. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. We all get it sometimes. No. I want to disagree with you on that.

Come on, man. Quit eating those Cheetos, those processed foods. I tell you all the time, it's that Dorito dust. Yeah. All right. Y'all have cancer now. Dorito dust. Like LeBron.

At the picnic. That's how you should be at the picnic. Yeah, yeah. Dorito dust it all up. I'm here, y'all. Fucking orange dust everywhere. All right. So I have the surgery.

Okay. So they take you in. But are you just fucking freaking out? How's it? Let me ask it this way. Yeah. How hard is it to not only stay, you know, yourself for yourself, but also why your entire family is sobbing uncontrollably in the bathrooms

at Red Lobster? Like, that's got a way on you. Now you have to be, the onus is on you to be like, it's all right, everybody, things are going to be fine. Or are you with them too, like, holy fuck, I don't know what's going to happen. Well, one of the things that I do in my downtime to help me collect my thoughts and stuff, and I've done it since I moved to LA and it's helped a lot, is I do daily journal entries and stuff. I've done it since I moved to LA and it's helped a lot. I do daily

journal entries and stuff like that. I took down some journal entries while I was happening that I look back on and there's some pretty dark thoughts and stuff that are going on. You've read them? Reread?

Yeah. Just me contemplating if this is the end and like the like what stands out to you now that you think back on looking at those um i mean i have off scallops at red lobster next wednesday i gotta get that sampler before i go and ask them to to no longer discontinue the lobster nachos because those were my favorite. They had those?

They had lobster nachos when I was a kid, and I asked for them every time. I'm like, y'all got the lobster nachos back yet? 1979. What do you want? Yeah, what do you want, honey? Why are you smoking indoors at Red Lobster? Just order it, all right?

I got it all up. All right. just order it all right yeah i got it all all right uh no i i mean i uh i was definitely thinking while i was going through that um you know uh that i like wrote out i was like if you know i die like i want uh my wife to like move on and like have kids and stuff like that because she's that's something that she's always wanted and i think that she deserves that i was having thoughts like that like uh of kind of like working really hard as a comic and dying very unknown and not really getting the my art kind of out there i was in 2014 it's like you know i was doing a little bit of stuff but like i would have essentially been kind of labeled as an open mic death.

Couldn't make it to the big stage because stage two cancer took him. Jeremiah Watkins. Stage two cancer at the Ice House, y'all. Let's do this. That's the fucking side rooms of the club. The side of stage two skin cancer oh you couldn't make it on the main stage two skin cancer room tonight yeah man so yeah you go through that but the the thing that like for me that i kept thinking it wasn't an option for me to let myself sulk because if as soon as my family sees

that i'm scared they're gonna be so much more worried and so much more concerned about me so i just stayed as cool as i could and i just like just kind of tried to zen out at like every visit like like that we go to the hospital like i just keep trying to make like my mom laugh and stuff like we'd be in the waiting room and i we'd be in the cancer ward i'd be looking around i'd be like i could be this guy i'm like i'm looking around i'm basically doing that i'm like i don't want to brag but i'm the best looking guy in this cancer they're all looking at you like what the fuck are you doing here piece of shit

like i like i would i'd be in the i'd like we'd be waiting like uh like at the hospital or we'd be like in the garage or whatever and i'd just like fart and in front of my my mom she's like bubby stop what do you what gross i'm like sorry it's just the cancer leaving my body leaving my body oh my god uh yeah but you know you go but but i but i made a decision you know i'm gonna be strong i have to be and i said it's i kept telling my family over and over it's good news until we hear bad news i just kept saying that over and over try not to worry about it like let's try to remain calm like but it's okay until it's not you know and that's like what what what we did and uh i had surgery and they put me under and they ended up cutting out 10 inches of skin across

my back. Man. Yeah. 10 inches. God damn stuff. The foot of your fucking back got cut out. How deep? It was.

Was it basically that line that you saw? They had to cut that whole thing? It was the line, but they had to like, and the scar used to be bigger because they had it was the line but they had to like like the in the scar used to be bigger because they had like it's it's slowly over time like like mellowed out but uh it was like a strip of of my of my back and it had stitches for a while and uh i was back in la a week uh a week or so after surgery because i was so insane and i didn't want to miss shows like i remember like we had a festival coming up for roast battle and i did a roast battle i did the wave and that's a very physical show fucking i had stitches in my back and i was on pain pills and i just kept telling jamar and willie i was like hey just like be mindful of my my back because

i'm like in a lot of pain right now and And I remember after we killed it on one of the bits, Willie would be like, ah, that's hilarious. I'm like, yeah. Yeah, but I mean, yeah, it worked out. When did you find out that it didn't go to your lymph nodes? That was, well, they had to take a lymph node out. They did. They did take, they cut into a precautionary thing. They took a lymph node out to check it to did take uh they they cut into an area or precautionary

thing they took a lymph node out to check it to see if it had made it there yet and luckily that uh that was before i uh they put me under uh for for surgery that it didn't make it to the lymph node they told you that before they told me before surgery so that was like a little victory you know what i mean so going into surgery once they get this you're good exactly and and uh they're like the success rate like of this surgery is is very high like uh so you should be good like be back in red lobster in 45 minutes yeah you know yeah get that curbside to go you know so so they said basically like if i would have kept waiting like if i waited even a couple more months it could have made it to my lymph nodes and it would have killed you yeah a mole a mole man yeah so i saw your post about going and getting yourself checked and i've always been good about that anyway but it reminded me and i was

like i'm getting this shit looked at yeah i i mean that's i made a post on like instagram and facebook and stuff recently just sharing like a condensed version of uh that story and just kind of urging people like hey don't try to be like a big tough guy about this like this is serious stuff and and it can really affect you so like just go get checked out like by a dermatologist you know well i'm glad you're all right dude that's fucking scary and you say you haven't really talked about that on any podcast or anything no much man that's a honeydew exclusive first i thought you were doing an airline pilot ryan sickler there i wasn't sure what the honeydew airlines yeah uh what i do want to get into i would love to have a goddamn airline all right does everybody

have everybody have their earbuds all right let's put them in real quick um what would you like to talk about first, actually? Your parents' divorce or your sort of coming-of-age stories that you have here? Let's do some coming-of-age, and then we'll bounce back to the darker. All right, so if you haven't listened to Jeremiah's Crab Feast episode, you should absolutely do that. And on that episode, you talked about how you were a late bloomer when it came to masturbation almost 18 i think yeah i was 17 and a half and several comedians have come on and said the same thing yeah and they all have said also

that they would have crazy wet dreams and i deduced over the years of hearing these stories that i guess that if you're not masturbating, your body just emits it. I was a guest on Dr. Drew's show a couple weeks ago and we actually, that subject came up. And I didn't bring your name up but I was like, yeah, you know, a few comedians have come on and he said that

basically God gives you a hand job. If you're not doing it, then the Lord will get it out for you. So you had crazy wet dreams. Yeah. A lot. A lot. Nightly.

Nightly. Yeah, absolutely, because I was never beating it. Nightly? Nightly. Until you started masturbating. Until I started. And then I still was so backed up that if I went a couple days without jerking off, the dreams would come back to me.

That often? Yeah. And what was your... Because it's so long, I don't remember. What was your system? I also think that I have... I cum a lot, people. Okay.

Often or quantity? No, quantity. It's just even worse. It's a lot. It's even worse. Sometimes I... Sometimes I apologize to my wife. I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. My bad. That's on me. No, it's on her. I see what you're doing there. Oh, God.

Dude, I had one. No joke. I had one. My wife, I think I'm just like naturally like, huh, ready to go. And my wife went out of town for a weekend. I had one while she was. Yeah, this was just like last year. No. had one uh how old are you um 30 and uh i have this wet dream where are you familiar with margot robbie oh wife and wolf of wall street and harlequin from, yeah. Yeah. I know who that is. How did, you know a lot.

I'm a big movie fan. So I have this dream where, and I have no idea why the dream was this, but I'm speeding down the highway. What kind of car are you driving? It's a red convertible. It's like a Ferrari or something like that. And I'm speeding. I'm going like 130 while she is completely naked in the passenger seat. And I'm fingering her.

What the fuck? Just going to town. She's giving me a blowjob. Like, we're going back and forth. Yeah, you know that natural 130 mile an hour fucking freeway ride 130 miles an hour and uh you know i get to that moment where she's you know she's doing her thing and uh like i i come in the dream and i wake up and i'm just like and i took a nap naked so it got all over our sheets. It wasn't even in my boxers anymore.

It was just all in the sheet. I was like, oh. It was embarrassing. I'm glad my wife's out of town. Embarrassed at home alone. Embarrassed. Yeah. I had a wet dream lying next to her one time, though.

I still have wet dreams that's you still have them yeah that one was at like 28 i think though i had i had a wet i had a wet dream like wow like uh and we had just had sex too that's what was crazy too we had just had sex and uh i had a wet dream next to her like wow like yeah i think i didn't mean to i've had i love you i love you babe i love you i've had two in my life the two in your life that's it too and i think i didn't mean to i've had i love you i love you babe i love you i've had two in my life the two in your life that's it too and i and i remember thinking like because they would separate the boys and girls in the fifth grade and they would take the girls over here and they're like this is all the shit's gonna happen to you and the boys like this is everything that's gonna happen

to them and wet dreams is one that they like i feel like i heard that a lot it's norm nocturnal emission nocturnal emission that's the technical term yeah uh you're gonna have this have this which sounds so scientific it really does it's a nocturnal yeah you think an owl is gonna come jerk you off or something and um i remember but see i masturbated early like i i just i like stumbled onto it between the summer of fifth and sixth grade just sitting there batting the thing around for a while and then all of a sudden i was like oh my god and then every night i tried to do that again so i didn't know i was releasing myself i didn't know that yeah and i had two wet dreams i was in seventh

grade when i had my first one i'm in my fucking twin bed next to my paternal twin brother and i fucking you know i'm having a great dream i don't even remember really what the dream was and i just remember waking up and it felt amazing and then immediately was like ah this is and i had to get up in the middle of the night go clean myself and shit i'm like so you this sucks. So you were disappointed? I was really disappointed. Oh, man. Because the hand jobs I was giving myself were way better than that dream. Well, what was the dream?

Do you remember the dream? I don't remember specifically what it was. See, my dreams are always so vivid that when it happens, I'm like, worth the cleanup. You should just start sleeping in pajamas that you can come all over. I mean, there would be weeks sometimes where I'd be chasing that dragon. Where I'd be like, oh, I hope I have one of these. I hope it's Christmas morning, you know? So you didn't masturbate, but you have written here some things.

You would rub against things and stuff. So what is it? Did you feel guilty about doing it? Yeah, so I grew up super religious right uh so that was part of the like like kind of guilt goes along with that um like i know they tried to push that guilt on me and i was fifth grade i was like i'm going to hell i'll take hell dude i'll take hell any day i didn't give a shit i i remember being in like fifth or sixth grade at this church camp and us having this youth leader that was like, he was like probably in his 30s at the time. And he's like, I'm in like fifth grade.

He's like, guys, can we talk about something that since it's only the guys here, we all look at porn, right? Fifth graders. I'm like, I'm looking around like, and there's some guys that are like, yeah. And then me and a couple other kids are like, right? Fifth graders. I'm like, I'm looking around like, and there's some guys that are like, yeah. And then me and a couple other kids are like, what? Did he just say corn? Corn or porn?

I'm in fifth grade. Cornography? What is that? Shucking corn? And he's like, like looking at us, like almost like he like was venting, like to make like, it's like an addict who's trying to vent like come on you can have a drink with me

come on and he's like looking at us like 5th graders like I'm looking at you like dude I don't know how to help you out here I've never looked at porn before pass the whiskey to your right the weed to your left listen guys you watch porn right? yeah come on guys

I'm in 5th grade I can't relate to this at all so left listen guys you watch porn right yeah come on guys i'm in fifth grade we all do i'm in fifth grade i can't relate to this at all so uh no but guilt definitely goes along with that uh like uh and i feel like in some religions for sure uh so i didn't want to do it and then i was like i gotta you know i gotta check this out you know? And one of the things I did after, because there's guilt that goes along with it, I would try to find ways. Even though you weren't masturbating,

did guilt still come along with your orgasm? Because that's really what they're saying is don't bring yourself to orgasm. You know, at least that way i interpreted and i was like well i'm not gonna get this far in i always felt like i always i always felt like the sin was the build-up and then touching yourself yeah yeah the touching yourself but then like the release is like like god is even like all right you get that you know you did it like like like like i don't want to see you doing this but like if you if you must

like get to that point like i guess fine so like i would only feel guilty like like like you know the build-up and then like the cleanup but like while like i'm in that moment i'm still hunching and looking around like you're still scared is anybody gonna walk in uh yeah so i would so i would try to find ways like rather than just straight up jacking it uh i would like rub it up against like my jean and stuff like like if like i'd already started masturbating at that point but what i would do is i would start rubbing it up against like pajama bottoms or like jeans or like basketball shorts or something like that. Yeah, those umbros. Those umbros.

Oh, those soccer shorts. Nice and light. Yeah. Are you masturbating with wind pants right now? That's how I go to strip clubs. Umbros and no underwear. They're like, you need to leave, sir. You need to leave.

I'm like, I have to take my pants off. Also, why are you wearing a backwards Kangol and aviators right now? And you just have a soul patch. This is a very distinct look. This is real weird, bro. This is real weird. So I would rub it up against the side of my leg over and over. And I guess I was chafing it or whatever, but I would come and blood would come out.

What? Hold on. Are you sure it wasn't blood from your penis mixed with the semen no probably come out it probably was but it's funny that you brought up dr drew because as a teenager i thought about calling in the love line because i was so confused and nobody was giving me you need to go on his show and talk about this shit that's what you need to fucking do and there was somebody who called in with like a similar story that he like i happen to be like it was like they used to broadcast at late at night

at one of the alternative rock stations in kansas city and i would like listen out for it and there was a guy who like you know and i would google it and stuff like that and like basically the articles and stuff like that were like you need to like use some lubrication or you need to like stop rubbing it like on dry surfaces so much. I'm like, OK, that makes sense. That makes sense. I did. I'll confess. So during my experimenting phase, and by the way, that phase hasn't stopped.

I'm 46. It hasn't stopped. Still experimenting. And I. uh still experimenting and uh i i wasn't sure which hand you used bro and that i started doing that too and then i was like oh someone said something about lubrication like oh so i had gone in the shower a couple times and i used soap but back then it would take a long time. And after a while

I realized that that's exactly what was happening was the soap, but I didn't know it was chafing my skin. But that's not the bad part. The bad part is it will cause these micro tears. Okay? And then... Is this like a rocket ship?

Cause these little... That's why I made that up. Micro tears. But these little tiny little tears on the skin. You know, you can see like pink skin all around, you know. Because of the friction of the soap, it would dry eventually. Pink dick cycler. Dude. Then, the next day, all you do is get boners all day long when you're fucking 13. Right.

And. Irritates it? Irritate, it would scab overnight. And then when i would get an erection the skin would rip those scabs i like oh it would hurt so that sounds horrible i only did that like four more times till i learned my lesson i was like i'm not doing that shit anymore it takes about nine times like doing something wrong with masturbation before all right i'll change the technique i guess fucking bad that shit hurts so bad all right um yeah I uh is the shower your spot

anywhere private anywhere private it used to be my spot yeah the shower was until I felt bad we kept having to call the the plumber because I had really long hair for a long time my wife has long hair and I kept jerking off uh in the shower and then like uh the the shower would start to clog and then the plumber the plumber would come fuck dude the plumber pulled out a baby jeremiah out of the drain had a big nose just like what's up hey dad what's up that's disgusting dude it was the most so one of the most horrifying things i'm like i, I will never come in my shower again. Now on the road and hotels. I fell out of the shower in seventh grade.

My dad humiliated me. Yeah? Yeah, it was bad. Have you ever been caught? There's times where I got really close where like my mom uh i think my mom knew that one of my jerk-off spots was uh i think she knew like my area was like our bathroom in the basement because uh when i well around that time like uh from like 17 to like uh, I lived in my mom's basement and there was a bathroom.

It was like an unfinished basement and it was just like a bedroom and then just like this little tiny bathroom with just a tiny sink and then a tiny toilet next to it. And that was like my spot. And I would be in there and I'd have like the exhaust fan on going like,

yeah, so you don't hear like the heavy breathing and the, always got to turn that fan on, know what i'm talking about yeah so quiet your belt loop quiet quiet the belt loop quiet it uh i mean buckle so i used to do this thing uh i'll say it i used to do this thing where i get lazy where i would why am i uh where i would wait to uh have to poop uh like you like i if i knew a poop was coming at some point and i was like all right i'm gonna schedule my my jerk cycles around the poop you're double dipping down there you're jerking off in your own shit smelling smell oh that's disgusting that is disgusting that is sick

that is the grossest shit ever I remember I would sit down on the toilet and I would masturbate on the toilet and I would blow my load and then I'd wait for my boner to go down and then I'd be like, I'd poop in the toilet. That is ridiculous. Oh, God.

So in the unfinished basement next to my bedroom in the bathroom is the laundry unit, is the wash machine and the dryer. So my mom would always come down in the basement. You'd be in there for 45 minutes. So I'd be in there for a long time. There's no shower in there. There's no shower. It's just a bathroom. You can't even fake turn the shower on.

Like, no, I'm in here. Yeah. So my mom would go, Bubby, what are you doing in there? And I'd be like, I didn't know what to say. So I'd always be like, haby what are you doing in there and i'd be like i didn't know what to say so i'd always be like what do you think shitting off i'm pooping and jerking off what do you think i'm doing in here i um i never got caught the closest was the aftermath of falling out of the shower. My dad having to call for help. Also, my dad would do this thing where, because I have a twin brother, so we're same age,

same shit's going on. Yeah. And he would all, and we had one bathroom. Did that help you out, having a brother at least to bounce things off of? No, we never talked about it. You guys didn't talk about it? No, we never talked about it. We just did it.

Like, I would disappear. We'd bathroom for a long time, but my dad would knock on the door. He'd walk by when you're in there for a while, and he'd go, leave it alone. Let it grow a little bit. And I'd be like, he would say that. Let it grow.

And I was holding it in my hand. He was telling me to stop touching it. He would tell me to stop touching it so much. And I remember he called us into his bedroom one night he was he was just chilling and like laying on his bed watching tv and he goes uh you guys masturbating yet we were like no no all defense like super defensive are you are you are you dad are you gross dad oh okay and it wasn't until i said um is it really true you can go blind for masturbating that gave me completely away and my dad just started laughing so fucking hard

he's like okay you're not messing yeah yeah all right yeah well good luck to you once you find out all right but there was this one time i've told this on the craft feast but i'll say it for any of the new people because it's a honeydew moment for sure but um i come home i was living with a friend of mine i consider my mom i was living with a friend of mine and uh his mom was like my mom and i we he and i had gone separate places that evening both get wasted but i get a ride home and I come in at like 1 in the morning. And she's like, let me smell your breath. And I just, you know, I breathe. Dragon alcohol fire all over her face.

She's like, oh, my God. Have you been eating pussy again? Come over here. You've been hanging out with that Stephanie girl again. Oh, my God. So so she goes just go downstairs and sleep it off so i go downstairs and they have a really nice couch which i always slept on but for whatever reason being drunk that night i didn't sleep on there i slept in her daughter's her daughter's like in high school at this point but it was this doll room from when

she was little it's like this little twin bed with this beautiful little print on it and i mean stuffed dolls on the floor up in the window just a just like this little girl doll room like so i guess the only thing i could figure out is that i must have started masturbating and passed out in it okay and then his mom comes to the door. Oh my God, he's dead. There's semen everywhere. She flicks the light on. She's like, hey Ryan, can you go?

And what she's come to ask me is if at this point, because it's been a couple hours, if I can go get her son if I'm too fucked up to go get her son. She flicks the light on. She's like, hey Ryan. Oh my God. and it wakes me up

and i just looked down i was like oh yeah sorry about that and i just fucking went back to bed but she was the coolest of all of them and she was like what the fuck are you doing down there i was like i guess i started masturbating and i passed out during it that's happened to me like a handful of times in my life really yeah where I went to go get aggressive with myself and just quit in the middle and didn't know it. And I woke up and I was like, oh, I was jerking off, I guess. It's always in bed late at night, drunk usually. Nice.

I like that. I'm into that. But you have one here about where... The sink? Yeah, the sink. Oh, man. What the fuck is that all about? So, that bathroom,

I feel bad for the new homeowners of that. Of that Olathe home in Kansas. It was an unfinished basement, but I finished a lot of that. He sure as fuck did. It was finished when you moved out of there. It was finished when you moved out oh my god i got a jacuzzi in the east wing down here now i finished this motherfucker holy so that sink uh i told you about is um in that bathroom like if i wasn't feeling the uh i did a lot of weird is in that bathroom, if I wasn't feeling the...

I did a lot of weird things in that bathroom. The first time I wanted to know... I hadn't had sex yet, but I wanted to know what a condom felt like. So I would jerk off into condoms in that bathroom just to see what it feels like. And not as good. Not as good.

And one of the things that i would do would i i would uh i'd look at stuff on on uh my my computer in the basement and then i would go to the bathroom to finish the job but i would just nut in the sink because sink because the sink first of all you're tall waist level i'm tall and this is a tiny bathroom that's meant for like i would have been coming all over the cabinet doors so i was just doing one of these where i'm just like in the sink directly into the sink why not the toilet because it was at waist high like i that's your reason that was my reason because i was like you know the toilet it could get everywhere but but like the sink, sure fire.

It's going right into the back near the faucet. Company's coming over. Now I'm scared because that's whatever I go to like a big party or kids parties that have a lot of people. That's the bathroom. I go find the one that's out of the way so I can go use it if I have to shit or whatever. You don't want to be around people. But now now you're gonna creep me out about their teenage kids and i'll be i'm splashing my fucking water yeah oh fuck coming in the sink i used to pee in the sink

did you i lived when uh after my grandmother passed away i lived in her house for a little while and i was down in the basement and it was two stories to go up to the one bathroom that we had in this little row home and it was a wash tub basement like right next to the washer and dryer it's the one the washer would you know backwash into and all that and i was like fuck it it's bleach and everything so i would just piss in there so i didn't have to to go upstairs but i never jerked off in it never jerked off in the same hell no and that one was waist high i probably could have just try it once missed the opportunity i'm gonna go back to that house go back and ask the people to live there can i get a tour of this place real quick i grew up here i just want to see it real

quick what are you doing the sink's still out there yeah um you have some great comedy stuff on here that i'd love to hear about but before that let's talk about uh your wife you talked about uh getting engaged and then a controversial video apparently that your wife was not happy with and you said what you had to do what you had to get her permission to tell this story uh yeah i had to make sure that it was okay like i literally asked her i had to get clearance because it was a serious thing that like it took a divot out of our relationship because of like the one out of your back yeah we'll be right back after this on the haunted duke what do you want to talk about first the engagement or the video uh oh man um let's do the video let's do the video first so as a comedian and as a performer you get certain i don't want to say

passes whenever you do certain projects but i've had to do like like when you're in a normal relationship you're you know you're not gonna ever kiss any other person or anything like there's no ifs ands or buts about it you're allowed to hug and that's all you're allowed to do is um like i've had to do i've had to do like some sex scenes and some movies and stuff like that before you had to i had to right yeah art it's art i had to and one of the things that i got asked to do was uh this project uh was just a youtube video where and we and i've always had these like we have discussions i have with my wife like you know if it's for the right thing if if I'm playing a character, um,

you know, if the project is right, like if I have to kiss somebody, it's like, okay, that's part of the character. That's part of the role for the, the,

the movie or for the TV show, whatever. You're going to have to do that at some point if you're acting longterm and you're doing like being in different relationships or whatever. Uh, so we have an understanding like, you know, if it's in a professional way,

then yeah, you do it for the gig and you know, it's in a professional way then yeah you do it for the gig and you know it's a it's usually like a money thing too and sure it works out you're professional about it i literally handled everything wrong about this youtube video that i did uh it was this video for All Deaf Digital, and it's still up online. It's called... Deaf is for deaf people, right? No. It's not a digital platform for deaf people?

No, it's not a digital platform for deaf people. Got it. My bad. It's like the... Deaf Jam. Deaf Jam, like the cool kind of deaf. Yeah, I've got it. Not knocking... Anyway. like the cool kind of death yeah i've got it yeah not knocking anyway uh so the the video i believe

is called white guys kissing black girls for the first time i've seen these i've seen the black or white girls you've seen these kind of videos yes i know what you're talking about so i hit up my wife about it we weren't married yet and uh this was like kind of like at a time when it was like are we doing this are we getting engaged like like what's happening in our relationship you know that kind of like those those critical moments like along leading up to a marriage and we weren't engaged yet and but like she had been like kind of been like art like what's going on with us and i made the mistake of accepting to do this video i cleared it with her before but i wasn't like i didn't i don't think i fully disclosed like all the details on it because i don't think

i was even quite aware what i was getting myself into because i get on set and uh they uh they say like um you're playing yourself you're playing jeremiah watkins the comedian and i could have backed out at that point and it been like a thing but like i also would have let down all the people who were on set that day who like i was booked for that spot and i was like all right so i'm like i look right in the camera i'm like hi i'm jeremiah watkins and i'm about to kiss a black girl for the first time so i'm just playing jeremiah there's no character there's nothing involved and uh we we go to do the the scene and i start kissing the black girl and i you know me, I commit to everything. You commit hard.

I double down to everything, so I was like, what's the funniest choice I could make right here? And I was like, if I was... And you don't know her, right? You don't get to pick the girl. I don't know her at all. I've never seen her. I've never seen her before.

And I was like, all right, what would be funniest if I go, ooh, I like that, let's get some more of that, and me go back in for another kiss. Like, me, like, be, like, that's the angle I'm that and me go back in for another kiss like me like be like that's the angle i'm gonna play so that's what i do and like already like i had to call my wife like after that right after that right after that like uh and i'm in way too good of a mood she hasn't heard this octave in my voice

i'm like pepping i got pep in my step. I'm walking down the street. I'm shooting like, you know, hey, how's it going? And I made multiple critical mistakes in the phone call. Boy, real quick. Did you go back in for the kiss like you were going to? I went in hard. And the girl was cool.

The girl was all about it. Leaned into it. We had chemistry. Yeah, I can feel it. I feel it right now. I'm'm scared you're gonna come on me i only brought one it's gonna be a lot man all right so i call my wife and she's being uh you know she's my girlfriend at the time not even fiance yet and she's being very sweet and she's like hey how'd it go you know i'm like it went great and she goes oh so what happened i was like uh we started talking about it and i don't know i

still don't know why i said this i already feel it i go i go we're talking about the situation i go but you'd be happy she was beautiful so i was in good hands oh my god and she just goes what i go uh i literally stammered like i had made like a huge mistake like right out of movie i was like uh she goes how do you how do you think i should feel about that how do you think i should respond to what you just told me? Well, you need to wait until you see the video. Let me know what you think. I'm not sure what they'll include in the edit.

So I apologize right away. And it's already put a little bit of stink. I'm in the doghouse now because I didn't handle it professionally and I didn't handle it properly. But also, you know what you did in the video and you haven't told her all that yet right so the video hasn't come out yet fast forward to the video coming out we had just gotten back in a groove we're feeling good things are going well in the relationship how long a few months before it hits uh just like a month or so okay like we hadn't been talking about like you know we hadn't had that talk again recently about like when are we getting married when are you like

when are you going to propose kind of thing like things were good you know we're vibing this video comes out and the storm that happened from this video, I start getting messages on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and all this stuff. And she gives me a phone call. From who? From random people that have seen it. It goes to

the front page of WorldStarHipHop. Ha ha ha ha! Oh! Ha ha ha ha! The one place you don't want it to be ryan it goes super viral i had people hitting me back from home in kansas they're like that was hilarious hey wait aren't don't you have a girlfriend. So my wife gets a call from one of her high school caddy friends. There's like, hey, saw your boyfriend in this video. Is he still your boyfriend?

And she hadn't seen the video yet. She hadn't seen the video yet. So she opens the YouTube link that this evil woman sent her. She sent her the link. She she opens the youtube link that this evil woman sent her she sent her the link sent her the link just go to worldstar.com homepage yeah is this your boyfriend she opens it and she calls me and leaves me a voicemail and she's like like she's very upset she's very like sad the way like i kept everything you did they didn't cut it everything they have me going like oh i like that let me go back in for seconds you know like me like going back in and like me making out with this girl and she's an attractive girl and all

the youtube comments are like because it was multiple different couples who did it all of the YouTube comments like in a row are like that one black guy and that one goofy the one black girl and that one goofy white guy have real chemistry 300 thumbs up do you think they met up after this I hope so 200 thumbs up

another comment I think their mixed kids would be really cute together 125 thumbs up so of course she's reading all this and also approval yeah and all the approval from everybody else she knows that i already like showed my cards and that i happen to i you know i happen to maybe enjoy it and not be professional about the situation and and she you know she saw it as me taking advantage of a situation which i you know i kind of did it was like kind of the wrong move i was like oh i guess we're doing this well i'm jeremiah i'm gonna freaking double down and commit to this thing and have fun. Let's freaking go. And all this is going on while we have bed bugs at our place that I brought home from a gig in Vegas. Are you serious?

Yeah. So we are literally, we're sleeping on an inflatable mattress and she's in my living room. And I just feel the tension. And I'm just like, just trying to, Hey hey hey and just like try to work back to some medium level and it worked out obviously but i it took like it was like it was a bad thing on my end that i like just did not handle properly at all. Everything that I did.

Yeah. It was a mess. So with roles like that, you said you have some pretty embarrassing or cringy audition stories. Let's hear some of these. Yeah, man. When I moved to Los Angeles from Kansas, nobody gives you a roadmap or a guide or anything. But there isn't one.

There isn't one. No, there's not. But some people might know somebody in the industry to be like, go here or there. I went out here completely blind. So I feel like I truly made all the mistakes that you have to along the way to like get to like a place where you're like oh this is how you're supposed to do it i did all the wrong things perfect now i know not to do that again like what i would do whenever i first came out here from kansas is any audition that i would go to i would treat like a job interview and i would dress up like not for the part not for the part in a suit uh-huh

I was I was a gangbanger I was suit guy with heart and purpose yeah I would have like a tie I'd have a dress shirt every audition I'd have slacks oh yeah so I'm looking around the room right and all these people are in t-shirts I'm like I look way better than all these idiots And all these people are in t-shirts. I'm like, I look way better than all these idiots. I'm definitely getting this. I'm definitely getting this. And I remember being dressed in baggy dress clothes that I inherited from an older brother or dad.

Me thinking I'm looking super dapper and great. And me looking around and being like, I got this proactive commercial this is mine i'm looking like a full adult like auditioning for a 15 year old role while i'm like 20 years old and i'm dressed like an old man like going in for the role and uh i used to dress up like that all the time and i print off my resume like a job resume not like an acting resume like i'm like i used to work at waterway car wash you put that on there waterway car wash i used to work at pisano's down the street man he said wolf creek uh golf club men's only he He was a vacuumer. Yeah, yeah. At the Waterway. And I would print the most cringy picture of myself on computer paper resume, like in the top little corner.

I've done that before, yeah. And I'd hand it in. Instantly, when they'd just feel the paper, they'd be like, this guy doesn't know what he's doing. So I'd do that all the time and then i was taking classes at second city and i had a another friend from kansas who had actually been out here that i that i met out here that i found out she's from kansas and she's just very blunt and she goes why are y'all dressed up like that i'm like oh i had an audition she goes what were you auditioning for like a you know like a court scene or something like that yeah right i go no it was

for an acne commercial i think i might have got it and she goes you're auditioning like looking like that she goes jeremiah you look like a damn fool stop dressing like that what are you doing you look ridiculous dress like you normally would like a t-shirt and jeans and go in on that and like she literally told me the right thing to do and like i gained a lot of experience just from somebody being like you are an idiot you're not doing this right at all so that was helpful but one of the so some of the auditions that i would go on i would self-submit and when you're self-submitting you go out for a lot of weird things and and one of the things I would go, like I went out for,

was just like for the surfer role. I was like, okay. I had long hair at the time. I was like, I have a good chance of getting this. I go in. It's this dude's apartment, and there's just a legal pad for the sign-in. I'm here to get my mold checked? Yeah. Hey, I got a spot on my back i don't know i got back cancer

i got back cancer i don't know i don't know if you need a surfer with back cancer paddling out got back cancer uh and so i sign in and i'm like waiting and I'm the only one there. There's nobody else there. And then the guy's like, hey, what's up, man? I was like, hey, dude, here for the surfer role? He goes, okay, cool. Pop your shirt off. I was like, okay. All right.

Surfer, you're shirtless. That makes sense for the role for the audition right uh pop the shirt off and uh he frames up his camera and he films me for a few seconds and then he goes all right great i got it thanks for coming in dude nah that's it i wonder i wonder what the fuck ever happened. Dude, I don't know. He didn't have me say my name or anything. It was on the legal pad. I drove to this dude's house in the valley and just took my shirt off.

Of course it was in the valley. Just took my shirt off, and he's like, all right, we got it. I was like, what? Like, who's we? I was like, who's we? He's like, who are you sending this to? Who the fuck is this we? I was like, so you'll be in touch?

He's like, nah. That's fucking creepy. I would self-submit for these really weird things that an agent, of course, would never send you on. This was before I had representation or anything like that. So you're just, it's the Wild West. Coming out here from Kansas, you're hungry. You got that fire in your eyes.

You were the Wild West. Yeah. I'm not fucking talking about Kansas. I've been to Dodge City, Kansas. I've stayed in a motel on white earth boulevard all right you get it then dodge dodge city bro so there's a hunger you know i'm coming out here hungry and uh so i'm i'm submitting on craigslist that was a craigslist one that i submitted for that wasn't through like a proper casting site no i know a big surprise in hindsight right isn't that weird so bizarre uh i go on this one uh audition that i submitted on la casting where i get in the room and uh the role is for guy on toilet and you got i'm like i think i got this

you spent a lot of time in that little bathroom. Well, that's what's weird about this. So at first he's like, all right, all right. The casting director's in the room, and he's a very weird, intense guy. He's like, all right, you're taking a fat shit right now. Oh! He goes, you're taking a fat shit, and you you're pushing it's like it's really it's really

giving you trouble right yeah yeah yeah really get into it and i'm like okay okay and you know you have this thing going like when you're on set that you can kind of be taken advantage of a little bit when a camera's rolling when somebody's like directing you you're in the zone you're just starting to do it though it's just this dude in the room and his camera and his camera this was at a a semi-normal casting office though it was just a weird it was a non-union like real low rate of course i was like hopefully i can make 200 right exactly right so i start pushing i'm like all right he goes all right let's start jerking off no i'm serious a hundred percent i'm like what he's like you're jerking off on the toilet your parts made for me i'm like what

that's for real that is a hundred percent real i can't even believe he just tapped right into your chest. I was like, what? Method, go back, go back, go back. Meisner, Meisner, Meisner. And then what? So then he keeps directing me on doing bathroom stuff. You don't need any direction.

You're a fucking pro at this. Yeah, I'm just going to town. And I'm committing 1,000%. My dick's out i'm committing a thousand percent i get an email my dick's out my dick's out i get an email notification i got the call back it's a call you didn't even get the part yeah they're like it's a different i didn't even get it there's a second audition that's how hard hollywood is for anybody who's wanting to move here you get a call back for that role. You don't even book that role. And I'm like, yeah. Yeah.

And then when you blow up famous, they release that video. I'm like, here's Jeremiah in an audition. Here's him jerking off, taking a shit in an audition. TMZ. Here's Jeremiah Watkins dumping and counting at the same time so uh i go to the callback and

they're like great news we changed the role i go awesome great he goes this time you're gonna be doing yoga sucking your own dick is that real yes i can't make this stuff up dude and i look at him uh he goes how flexible are you my schedule or yeah what are we talking about body we're talking about mondays thursdays because i'm at starbucks those other days what are you talking about i do have an established rate for this yeah so uh i'm like yeah i'm actually very flexible i'm a you know physical comedian you know i like and yeah i can do this so they have me and this is in front of producers now how many people there's three other people in the room in the casting director okay you know what the role is for like the product it's for some european commercial so

that's why i'm like i I guess this could air in Europe. I don't know. They do get a little punk here. I'm already in disbelief. I'm like, I guess this could maybe air somewhere. If 250 is on the line, I mean, I guess. It's going to be big in Belgium. Yeah.

It's going to be big in Belgium. Wait until it hits Switzerland. Wait until you get over there one day and you go international. It's just on every digital board. They all know you. Oh! There he is! It's a yoga guy so i'm on the floor and i'm completely you know i'm really like going for it i have like my legs completely down like if i got on this table i could do it right now um i don't know

if it could hold you oh it could hold me. So I'm doing the motions and stuff. They love it. There's this couple European producers who are on it that have some Dutch or Swiss accents or whatever. And I tell myself after I leave there, I'm like, even if I get this, I got to turn this down. This is weird. This is too weird.

I get the phone call. You booked it. Your boy booked it. Booked it. And I tell the casting director on the phone, I go, you know what, man? I've been thinking about this, and I don't feel comfortable doing this role. We got some stretchers. We can help you out right right we get to loosen those hammies rub you down a little bit and i said i don't feel comfortable doing this role and his tone from happy went to enraged instantly and he goes i put my neck on the line i put my dick on the line for you

and he goes you can't he goes i booked you for this this is your role you're going to do this and i'm like no i i don't feel comfortable about that he goes he goes i'm going to ruin you. You will never work in this town again. I know the head of LA casting. I'm going to give them a call, and your profile will never be seen on this network again. Click. Thank you. And I'm just like sitting on my bed,

and I'm just like, did I make the right decision? Are you still trying to roll back and see if you can really suck your own dick? I'm like, I booked that part for a reason. I don't sit on my bed. I get a call 10 minutes later. Hi, is this Jeremiah? Yes. Hi, this is one of the other producers on the project.

This is Damage. Yeah, we're really sorry about the phone call that you just received. We just heard that he gave you a call and was a little unprofessional. We would like to offer you a different role on the shoot. I'm like, great. I go, what is it? You're going to suck the guy's dick. After he's done and i go and and and i go sure what is it they're like you're gonna be shaving your pubic hair on on camera and i go

i'll take it i'll did you do that i went up to this weird mansion like gillette dude it was some yeah it was some razor company um or for some app i honestly it was so weird i don't even remember the exact thing that it's for i go up to this mansion in the hills like way far out it takes me 45 minutes to drive there and they say that they'll pay in cash i'm like perfect and uh they wanted me to like show my pubes like on screen and i was like ah that's weird like i don't want to do i'll mime the motion and i was in and out of the shoot in an hour and a half and it was just very weird the director was uh coming over to me and he was like touching my hair and he's like you're a very pretty

boy what no dude yes i'm not dude a pretty boy you are you're a pretty boy nice how much money were they paying you 200 bucks you could have shook a couple to corner i know i know so they keep asking me to do this weird stuff on camera i'm like i'm just not gonna do that like i'm like you have me here for this like i'll do this, but I'm not going to get too weird for this. You guys just aren't paying me enough. I have back cancer, God damn it. Come on. I don't even know it yet, and I have it.

And so they had me, my me shaving my pubic hair, because I was like, that's ridiculous. I'm not going to show my pubes and shave them on camera. Fast forward to a few years later, season one finale of Rose Battle, I'm the first person to shave their pubic hair on Comedy Central live on a show. Are you really? Yep.

You're experienced, man. I'm experienced. I gotta get my reps in before I do this, you know? Holy shit, that is fucking weird and creepy. Yeah. That's gross, man. I mean, i've got so many weird audition stories well one story you do have here um is a bit of a redemption story and i think there'll be a great way to close out uh the episode sure eighth grade yep take us back to eighth grade and what happened to you

eighth grade this is going back a while going back to prairie star middle school what was your mascot the panthers prairie star pan prairie star panthers okay so uh i'm the new guy i'd i'd gone to private school uh up from uh preschool all the way to seventh grade. And then my family moved a little bit farther south. And we were in a new school district and decided we're going to go to public school. I was like, all right, great. So I've been playing basketball my entire life. And I was very excited to try out for the team because basketball is one of my sports grew up playing it i've always loved it and uh i thought that that was going to be part of like my introduction to you know like part of your identity sure yeah when you are a kid fastest

way to make friends exactly everything you're connected right away yep so uh i auditioned i auditioned i've been in la too long i auditioned for the basketball team and can you suck your own dick and make some layups we only need about four all right say your name and take a jump shot before we start rolling and uh so i try out and i do really well. And because I wasn't, they knew that I was a new kid and that I was not from one of their other feeder schools. And I hadn't, like some of those kids had already been there. Sixth grade, seventh grade. It was a sixth, seventh, eighth grade middle school.

And they knew that this was my first year in eighth grade. So they purposely didn't put me on the A squad. But they hadn't seen you play or anything. They hadn't seen me play or anything. They just said, fuck it, you're going to B squad. They were like, you're going to go on B squad. There's an A1, there's an A2, there's a B1, and there's a B2.

What are you on? They put me on B1. So two levels lower. Two levels lower. And I was like, huh. Okay. Cool. My mom levels lower two levels lower okay and i was like huh okay cool and you know my mom specifically has always been super supportive my dad as well but like especially with sports and passions like that my mom would like go to every game and stuff like that and uh i started showing

out to every game because i had something to prove now. You have a chip on your shoulder now. I have a huge chip on my shoulder. There's a lot of the other guys on my team I don't think are that great, but I want everybody to rise to the occasion and us start putting up some stats. And I started scoring.

But did those dudes on your team know how good you were they probably did because they started practicing they did because we started yeah we started playing and then it was like why are you on b squad but there's and and the school's defense there's like one other there's like a couple other kids there's like really why is this kid not like a little bit higher up or whatever this happens sometimes but uh i started i put up every game i'd put up between 30 to 40 points 30 to 40 are you serious i never switched you once i it's like teen wolf dude you like went to team wolf and took the team i was having i was having double doubles.

I was having triple triples some games. And they never promoted you up or anything? No. You just had to stay there? I had to stay and ride it out the entire season. You just made them fucking pay. And just like every game, just playing as hard as I could and just trying to show people how good I i was 45 to 40 points is sick i know that's sick what were the other kids averaging i mean if 15 like like like on my well on my team i

mean like 15 would have been great you know what i mean but like i was just like so ruthless down low like using the body you know i played I played center and power forward in eighth grade. Did any of the coaches ever come over to you and be like, hey, sorry about that? My mom called them out after the season ended, and I had all my stats and everything, and they were paying attention to it because I did the morning announcements.

Like you got up in the principal's office and got on the mic. And one of the things of the morning announcements was you read the stats and highlights of the basketball season. Fuck yeah. And I go, after every game, because I did it every week, I go, Jeremiah Watkins had 42 points and 18 rebounds that is ridiculous that is ridiculous that was going out over the entire school and the coaches are having to like listen to this every single week of maybe like jeremiah watkins with another double double but a sick double-double. I mean, 10 points and 10 rebounds is a good night.

Yeah. Fucking 40 points. Jesus Christ. Good for you. So I was the highest scoring kid of the season. Of all the teams, all four teams. I believe so. At least the B squad.

The B2 squad. The B2 squad is really horrible. Like, imagine. Slapping at it and shit. Picking it up and running with it. They're just, like, barely gripping the ball on the B2. I'm just looking at them like, Godspeed, my friends. Keep on keeping on.

But my mom called one of the coaches out he goes you see my son mvp right there you looked over him and the coach goes he smiled he's like yeah mrs watkins we made a mistake that's great and it was like one of those moments where it's like that's nice to hear someone own up at least not the the brush it off or whatever but it was one of those things where you know like sometimes you're dealt a bad hand and i could have easily quit the team and been like i'm too good for this right i'm not doing this but i saw the season through and that's how i've tried to live my life and with with comedy and everything is doubling down committing everything and trying to make the best out of

whatever situation is thrown at you. 100%. Good for you, brother. First of all, thank you for coming on here and even more importantly, I'm glad you're fucking healthy and okay. Man, that's scary shit. I didn't know that. You kept that pretty quiet. I did. Well, I didn't feel comfortable talking about it. I also didn't want

people to worry about me while it was going on uh until it was completely in the clear because i had to keep doing checkups and stuff like that you know over the years and uh i'm completely clean and clear now and i just go on for like body scans like every six months and stuff like that get your moles checked yeah go get those checked out play yeah thank you for coming on brother really and my marriage is still happening so that's great i know i'm grateful for that you ever hear from the black girl ever she ever hit you up i had to delete her from my memory fuck social media see you later my memory

yeah uh will you please one more time promote whatever you like your album make sure you go pick up jeremiah's album yeah june 7th reagan watkins is going to be released on all platforms and uh follow me on social media at jeremiah stand up i do daily videos and a lot of fun stuff and touring all the time with my stand up and kill tony and stand up on the spot comedy jam roast battle and check out tour dates at jeremiah watkins.com there it is brother thank you for coming on i am ryan sickler on all social media ryan sickler.com talk to y'all next week