The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - Langston Kerman - KermanDew

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

My Honeydew this week is actor Langston Kerman! You can catch Langston’s newest special, Bad Poetry, on Netflix now! Langston joins me to Highlight the Lowlights of his family dynamic growing up and the challenges that come with navigating a blended family. We talk about all things divorce, remarriage, step-siblings, and family drama in this episode. Plus, Langston shares a wild, funny story involving the original Chicago’s Benny the Bull. 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! You now get audio and video of The HoneyDew a day early, ad-free at no additional cost! It’s only $5/month! Sign up for a year and get a month free! https://www.patreon.com/TheHoneyDew What’s your story?? Submit at [e-mail] CATCH ME ON TOUR https://www.ryansickler.com/tour Chicago, IL - Oct. 11th & 12th Detroit, MI - Nov. 8th Minneapolis, MN - Nov. 9th Madison, WI - Nov. 15th & 16th Portland, OR - Nov. 23rd Ft. Lauderdale, FL - Dec. 6th Tampa, FL - Dec. 7th 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

Chicago, Illinois coming to you via Route 66 y'all. I'll see y'all Saturday, October 12th at the Den. Get your tickets now on my website at RyanSickler.com. The Honeydew with Ryan Sickler. Welcome back to the Honeydew y'all. We're over here doing it in the night pan studios. I am Ryan Sickler, Ryan Sickler on all your social media, RyanSickler.com. And I'm going to start this episode like I start them all by saying thank you. Thank you for supporting whatever it is I do, anything.

I don't care what it is. If you're if you're new here, if you've been here, thank you for your support. If I'm in your town when you're around, I'm headed back out on the road this fall. Tickets are on my website right now for all shows at Ryan sickler dot com. And look, you know, I've got to promote the page. And I say it all the time. Been doing this page around for years. I've never to promote the Patreon. I say it all the time. I've been doing this Patreon for years. I've never raised it more than five bucks a month.

And it's this show with y'all. And I'm telling you, y'all have the craziest stories that I've ever heard in my life. It's better than any fucking dateline or any of that shit. I promise you. Five bucks a cup of coffee, you're getting hundreds of episodes of your stories. All right, which also brings me to any one of you out there that has a story that you think has to be heard, submit it to honeydewpodcast at gmail.com

and hopefully we get to do an episode together. We get a lot of submissions. So if you already sent it, send it again, bump it up to the top, all right? Look, that's the biz. Now you guys know what we do over here. We highlight the low lights. I always say that these are the stories behind the storytellers here on the honeydew first time, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Langston Kerman.

Thank you. Wow. This is so nice. Listen, first of all, I don't know you. No. Walk up outside. You fucking sport and green. You look like you're, you know, you look good. I was right away. I was like, you look sharp. It's my second best shirt. I feel good. Yeah. Well, it's a little hot in here today, so I'm glad you didn't wear something heavy. This might be the first podcast I was talking to Kirsten I've ever done in shorts.

Yeah. We got an E-Wave going on. Are you still like formal in that way where you're like, no business side, I wear pants. I don't, I don't know. Well, if you want to be formal, when you ask me pants, yeah, sweatpants. Okay. So yeah, more formal than shorts, but you know, that's all. Not classy as much as just formal. I'm 51 and from here on out, after everything I've been through, my motto, it

didn't my four year presidential campaign. It's the rest of my life. It's comfort and convenience. That's all I want. I like that. I don't care about palatial mansions. Come on. I don't care about any of these fuck.

I'm nothing. Just give me comfort and convenience. And let's ride this out. You got to do an ad for sweatpants. What are you? I got some night pants, bro. pants for night pants nation out there? They know we got a whole line of like it felt like you already had it queued up. It was in your hand.

Conveniently. Thank you again for being here. Before we get into whatever we're going to talk about, plug your special plug all of it. Yeah. OK. It is out now. My special. You can watch it on Netflix. It is called Bad Poetry. I'm very proud of it. It was directed by John Mulaney.

It's really cool. We shot it at the Green Mill in Chicago. So go watch that. Yeah, man, I'm jealous because when I'm looking to shoot and I always said I was like, God, the green mill. I went to Chicago years ago and I went to a place that wasn't too far. It's gone now.

And it was called the high hat. Yeah. Yeah. And the dude that owned it or cooked there also worked at the green mill. I didn't know anything about the green mill. And he's like, we're going to do a little after hours over at the Green Mill. You're going to come with me.

And I was like, let's go. And we walk in. He's like, this is Al Capone's old spot. I'm like, what? And then they told me, because you're from Chicago, which we'll get into. But you obviously know about that. Was it a Sunday afternoon show?

Or was a daytime show they would do there? The Saturday show, Aper Mach, is sold out like forever. It's called, they call it a live magazine, but it is, yeah, every week sold out, wall to wall, people standing, and they move between the two stages. And I couldn't change my ticket, and I still wish I could have done that show. Go back, man. It still happens. It's so fun. But I go in and I'm like, and then you look at it from so many different, first of all, it's kept up so well. It's a beautiful, thank God.

But you also see how you could easily get out if some shit, if cops came in and brought it up, like, OK, well, here's where I leave it here. But it's got that vibe of the old, like, you know, that that show stage that that's like an old jazz club cocktail lounge. That's so nice. Wow. Yeah. It just has a very distinct look.

And so it made for, I hope a cool special. And what's it called? Bad poetry, bad poetry on Netflix. Now. Yeah, exactly. Langston Kerman. Go watch it. Go watch it.

Uh, what else are you on the road or anything? Yeah. Well, I, I host my own podcast. It's called My Mama Told Me. I hosted with my friend David Bori. That's all. We we talk about black conspiracy theories and we're out on the road. Your mom told you about my mom and other people's moms told us.

And yeah, it's a toxic good time. We we dig real deep into conspiracy and we're going to be out on the road touring the podcast for the fall and the winter. So come see us on tour. So we talked about it before. You're from Chicago originally. That's right.

Oak Park, Illinois. Okay. Oak Park, Illinois. Yeah. And tell me about your family, mom and dad and how many siblings or are you an only child? I'm the oldest of five, but I am 10 years older than the next in line and 23 years older than the youngest. All right. So obviously that's a different parent is the 10 year different parent.

Everybody's different. Everybody's a different parent. None of us match. It's a impressive share mom, some shared dad, or is everyone shared dad, everyone, you know, four of us share the same mom, some share dad, or is everyone shared dad? Four of us share the same mom, but different. Only two of that set have the same dad in there. The next in line and the one after her both have the same dad and mom, obviously. My brother, who is after them, is adopted by my dad and his third wife.

And then my youngest sibling is- Holy shit. I can't wait to get into it. This is exciting. Because listen, this is what I'm thinking right now. How the fuck- You could actually say this sentence and it would make sense. You could say to your sister about another

sibling like our mom's trippin. Yeah. And it ain't her mom. But then she could say something like, hey, don't talk about our dad like that. Yeah. That's fucking wild. Yeah. Because I have, we have a blended family. My daughter's brother is 11 years old. Okay.

And his name is Derek. Yeah. And my brother's name is Derek and it trips me out. I look at my door all the time, like, how the fuck do we have a brother with the same name? It's not- You got two Derek's. Yeah, in our family. But my kid and I both have a brother named Derek

and it's not the same person. Right. Like that blows my mind when you start getting into this. So I'm excited to talk about this. All right. So my youngest sibling is actually the product of the boyfriend in between my mom's second and third marriage. All right. So let's start off with mom and dad first. Mom and dad. Yeah. And you, and you only first. Same mom and dad. Just me. Okay. When do they split?

They split when I'm four. Okay. So I have no memory of it. I was, you know, I've been told I took it hard, but I don't fucking know. And so they split and then my dad goes off and marries first. How quickly do you know? I know you're only four, but do you know from the stories? I think it was like three years, three or four. He was a respectable. That's respectful. Yeah. He wasn't. That's not like three years, three or four. He was a respectable. That's respectful. I agree. He wasn't like three months later.

No, no, no. He was heartbroken. He was really piecing it together, I think, after that. And so he got married first to a lady who I've never gotten along with and continue to not get along with. Is that right? Yeah. Now, why is she, when you say continue, why is she still around?

If that was his first, did they have a child together? Yeah, that's my brother. Yeah. All right. That's their kid, but they also have been married now. Fuck. I was six, so almost 30 plus years. So he only married once after.

After my mom. Yeah. He did. But he had married before my mom. Oh, he was before. Mom was two. My mom was two. Man, I'm trying.

Okay. I got it. Me too. Oh, he was before my mom was to my mom was to man. I'm trying. Okay. Yeah, me too But was there a sibling of you have from moms or dad's number one? No, no, no sibling came out of that is mom is dad mom's first one your dad I'm I'm the first kid Okay, mom didn't have a kid with anyone before dad. Yeah.. Got it. I'm the first kid in the second. No, you're the first child for your mom and dad. That's right. Second marriage for your dad.

That's right. First marriage for my marriage. And he has a kid with that lady. Yeah, they adopt a kid adopt that. That is he's 12 years younger than I am. And so my mom then remarries. Oh, wait, real quick. Is that their only sibling? Yeah, that's my only younger than I am. And so my mom then remarries. Now wait real quick, is that their only sibling? Yeah, that's my only sibling via my dad. Okay.

So dad only marries once more. Yep. Mom goes for number two. Mom goes for number two. She has two kids with number two. Do you like number two? Yeah. Is it okay that we're saying the numbers

like I don't wanna be? All right. I don't know. How else can we rank them? Their names, you can say their names. I don't know. I don't respect them enough to give them human names. So when she marries number two. Yeah, she marries number two.

Has two kids. Two kids. And how long are they together? They are together, I want wanna say like 10 years. Okay, so that's quite a bit of formidable years, right? Yeah. So when they split the first time, are you going back and forth?

Are you with mom? Who are you with when your parents first split? I got the 50-50 split. Okay, that's what we have. Which is cool. It makes for a weird, when you're a kid, it makes for a weird sort of like number one explanation with your peers, but it also,

like you're putting fucking underwear in your backpack to prepare for going to school the next day because you ain't got enough clothes that the other person sounds, it ain't the easiest, but it is, it's nice to have two parents actively in your life. Loving you and supporting you and caring about you. I'm not gonna complain about having both parents present. but it is it's nice to have two parents actively in your supporting you and caring about I'm not gonna complain about having both parents

Tell her that I'm like likes it had to put underwear in his but I'm laughing about that. I'm going to tell her that. I'm like, thanks, I had to put underwear in his backpack. You're lucky. You're lucky. Don't look at here, baby girl. I got other things going on. But yeah, so I got the 50-50 split and because my sisters, the next two in line, most of my adult life, or at least my child life, their parents were together, which meant that I was the only one that was really traveling between houses in the beginning. And then eventually, my mom and their dad split, and then it became a weird thing of

them also. At first, traveling between houses, and then they did the thing where they chose and they chose their dad. And so it became like a weird rift in like our whole like family dynamic. Now, before we get to that first, you were always comfortable going back and forth. You never felt like you had to choose or you're never made to choose. You know, because everyone lived also close enough where dad's not moving out of state to Florida or something and now you can't, you gotta pick. They were like two miles between each other.

Yeah, yeah. All right. So your dad and mom wanted to make sure they were both in your life. Yeah, they stayed cool, which I think is something. That's my next question is when, now I know you don't like the stepmom. Yeah. Number one, only your stepmom. Yeah. Number one, only your step mom. Yeah.

How does your dad feel about step dad? My dad is like a real practical dude. You know what I mean? Where he's just like, are you hurt? Are you in danger? No, then he's fine. Like I don't, I'm not, he's not forming an opinion based off of like character and like, oh, we got to spend time together to get to know each other.

It's just like I shake your hand and you seem like a fine man. I'm moving on with my life kind of. What was let's start with that. What was why? What's the rift between you and stepmom? What was it that you she always resented the fact that my dad had kids or had a kid before she showed up. She couldn't have kids of her own. And so I think it just created this nasty sort of like. So you were sort of not hated, maybe is the wrong word.

Maybe it was. Yeah, I don't think because you were something that. Your dad came with already. Yeah, I was a burden that had already come that she didn't really want. And she sort of made that, you know, there are ways to play that cool. She could have been chill about that and kind of kept it quiet, but she was very vocal about it. But it's interesting for any parent, but especially a mom who wants to be a mom. Yeah. To not like this kid, but give me my own

and I'm gonna love that one. That's wild. That's a weird thing to be like, wait, so you don't love all kids? You just love the one you're gonna have. Yeah, the one that's connected to you. Yeah, and it truly is, I was a kid. It wasn't like, you know what I mean?

I wasn't a 14 year old with an attitude. What is she doing to you? Is she yelling at you, disciplining you? Is she putting hands on you? No hands. It's a lot of like manipulation. It's a lot of discipline via like, there was a point in which she was like locking me out the house type shit where like I'd show up because my mom would drop me off from her house to go to my dad's house and like I would ring the doorbell and we already have a beef between us and she'd be like, what's say, say the magic words type shit. And she knows you're out. That's not like she's in another Chicago winter. You know what I mean? Like I'm outside cold. You know, what's the magic words. I'm like, fuck you. And then she's like, well, now you can't come in the house.

Well, now you'll just sit outside for hours on end kind of thing. And that would happen? Yeah, that's like the kind of energy that we were, you know, dealing in constantly. So it ain't I'm not getting hit. I'm not being abused, but I'm being, you know, being treated like shit, taken advantage of by a old ass lady who should have known and behaved better. You know what I mean?

So then when they adopt, how old is your brother when they adopt him? Brand new. Brand new. Wet. He still smells like the other lady. Brand new. That's a funny way to describe a person. A little string cheese neck, you know what I mean?

All right, so brand new. And where is he from? How old are you when they adopt? So how much? I'm 12 when they adopt. So I'm excited. Yeah, you're fully able to understand what's going on. Yeah, he's my third sibling in a year, in three years.

So like- Oh, they're just popping up for you. Everybody's feeding me, and I was an only child up to that point. But did mom adopt as well, or did mom have babies? No, no, no. My mom just had two- Two sisters, you said, right? Two sisters right in a row. They're, you know, like a year, literally a year apart.

Damn. row, they're, you know, uh, like a year, literally a year apart. Um, so I have three siblings within a three year span, basically. So let me try to do the math here. If you're 12 and so about first nine years of your life, it's just you. Just me. And then in three years, just talking to walls, this is how insane I was going. I tricked my mom into buying me a bunk bed just because I wanted to feel like there was another person there.

Under your stuff? Yeah, I was just like, can I have bunk beds? Cause then, and I was like, yeah, cause if somebody comes over, then they could sleep. And I never have, like nobody was coming over my mom's house, but like truly I was like, I need, I gotta feel something. Did your sisters get the bunk beds?

No, I kept sleeping in the bunk beds. Oh, okay, all right, all right. They were too little. So now mom, or excuse me, dad and stepmom have a baby. Yep. Brand new baby. Yeah. Literally brand new, not three years old or anything. No, no, no, no.

And do you, are you able to, do you have the type of relationship with your brother where you can talk to him about your mom and the shit that went on when you were younger? Or is that, do do not just avoid it? No, I think in that ultimately becomes sort of like the growing rift between me and my siblings. Him specifically is that like because of the bad relationship with me and his mother, she sort of continues to kind of feed that to him. So in the beginning, when he's a kid, like a legit baby, and then a toddler and shit, we're very close because I'm spending tons of time

with him and there's not a lot of manipulation that can sort of happen with a kid, their babies. Uh, and then I think as he gets older, it becomes more and more. And to be fair, some of it may also be that I just am actively hating your mom. To be fair, some of it may also be that I just am actively hating your mom. You know what I mean? Actively hating your mom. Fuck this bitch. Man, fuck you bitch.

I love you brother. Give me a minute. You're a good guy. It's interesting isn't it? Fuck her, but you're a good guy. You can yell, fuck you bitch to somebody else's mom. Not yours. And then hug your own brother.

This ain't got nothing to do with you. I love you. I love you. You my man. Oh, man. That is fucking confusing, though. It's got to be confusing. Dynamic growing up.

Yeah, that's a lot of feelings going on and shit. That's a lot. Yeah, that's just one side to just one side. So then when my mom and her second husband split. Wait, can I go back to second husband? Because he has he's the father of your two sisters. Yeah. So how long are they together? You said 10 years. Ten, at least 10 years.

It might be closer to what was your relationship like with him? How was he with you? We were actually pretty close. I think their split got nasty in a way that like we weren't going to be able to maintain any version of a positive relationship. But while they were together, we were close. Like it felt like sort of a true stepdad in the way that you want it to be. We play ball. He, you. He taught me how to drive.

Like we were cool and did well together. And then just the way that they split up and- Was ugly. Yeah. My mom pepper sprayed his underwear. What? She did. I swear to God. Did she catch him cheating or she just tried to fuck that?

You know it all my life, I've never heard that. I bet you it does work like a motherfucker. She took his underwear drawer, pepper sprayed the whole thing. The whole drawer, not just one of them? No, every crotch of every underwear and then closed it up. And I don't know what the results were, but I know she did it. You don't need to see, yeah, that happened. Wow, that's fucking wild.

And told me about it. That's a good one. Oh, cool, man. Yeah, that's. Wow. That's fucking wild. And told me about it. That's a good one. Oh, cool, man. Yes. What's up? I'm going to go do homework. So are you still close with your sisters, though? You just can't see. You don't see him much. I haven't seen him since they've split. Oh, OK. Yeah. Like truly it.

But what about your sisters? My sisters chose to go with him. That's what you said. And then had it out with my mom in a way that kind of broke I think the youngest of the two of them, we've started to rebuild and gotten closer in the years since. I think some of it just required a maturing from all of us to be like, you know, it's not as much about picking sides as it is like, oh, we were just all, you know, we were just all, you know, we were just all, you know, we to be like, you know, it's not as much about picking size that sides as it is like, Oh,

we were just all in a unhealthy situation. You know what I mean? Like y'all were kids. I was trying to defend. Yeah. I'm watching my mom pepper spray draws. I don't know what's going on. You know what I mean? I'm watching my mom pepper spray draws. I don't know what's going on. You know what I mean? And so I think we're starting to rebuild into like a relationship,

but it took a long time before we were really ever able to get close again. That takes a long time. Yeah. Okay, so then mom remarries. How long after? Before mom remarries, she has another kid. Okay.

So the, a boyfriend in between second and third husband. Okay. Right. So she has another kid who I'm very close to. That fortunately she, you know, 23 years, your life is so far from what mine is, that like we just have maintained a really healthy, happy relationship without

any of like the conflict in part because she's 14. You know what I mean? So say again for me, you're how, what's the longest distance between? 23 years. You're 23 years older than your youngest sibling. The youngest sibling. And how much older than the closest? 10.

So you got quite a gap either way. You don't even have anybody you could relate to growing up for like a three year difference. No, dude. You're not hooping with anybody. We don't look alike. You're not playing sports or swimming or fighting or nothing. I'm just the old man walking around these babies the whole time. The whole time.

Yeah. Were you a babysitter? Did they use you to babysit? My mom ran a daycare out of her basement and I was like semi-employed. People make fun of me when I say I went to a daycare in a house like you're such white trash. They're like, look, that's what they did back in the day.

Everybody did that. They had a yard. She just had a yard. What, you went to a real facility? Yeah, like a light. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You got a key card in town. I'm pulling up to Barbara's house.

Yeah, I'm going to a ladies house. Yeah. Where'd you go to daycare? to Barbara's house. Yeah, I'm going to the ladies house. Yeah. Where's you going to take it? At that ladies house? Yeah, I'm like, you got key, you got it. Bring your ID. I'm like, ID? I'm not like, that's my kid. That's how it was.

Yeah, I was like helping to watch my sisters and my brother went there too and went there to, went to my mom's house. And then, yeah, we were just all we were very close. You know what I mean? And then after the boyfriend mom marries again, mom marries again, no kids this time, no kids. But this is you. Does he have kids?

He already has kids but I didn't even consider all the dudes with their kids possibly in the mom. Well, the mom didn't have any kids. But he's an alcoholic who is kind of detached from his previous children. He communicates, but it's not like an active sort of relationship with his kids. So in that way, it's not like we're introducing new members to the family as much as it is like, oh, every once in a while, y'all are going to go over to his, you know, his ex girl's house and hang out with her kid. But yeah, it's not a new person, if that makes sense. Yes. Yeah. But so it's yeah, it's a mess. But that boy, that husband, this is exciting. That husband is, and I'm not joking when I say this, is Benny the Bull, the Chicago mascot,

Benny the Bull. No, no, no. Still to this day. No, no, no. When you meet him, he's the fucking- No, no, no. He's the most infamous Benny the bull because he was fired from the job because he got caught selling weed after a game 1998 to 2004.

He's Benny the bull. And then he gets in your life at that point. Nope. No. Okay. My mom marries him after the fame has left him. After all this success of being Benny the Bull, he but he's there for Jordan and everything, though. He's there for some big years.

Yeah. 98. He's there as there. And like he's a yeah, he's in that last. He's there for Tony Hucot. You know what I mean? He's there for for the rebuild that never was. He's getting them, though. Yeah. Damn. And then he gets fired.

So how do you get caught selling weed? Because it just you know, he's in a fucking stadium. He's at the he's at the he wasn't outside behind the building or anything. He's in the he gets caught. I they set Benny up. My understanding was that he was selling to a player. And I think it became one of those things where like, all right, we got it. It's Pippen or Benny, man.

I don't know what you want us to do, big dog. We're not taking down Bill Cartwright. You gotta go, my man. You can't imagine what you would do to our organization if we chose you over this middling player. I just in my head, I see him in costume selling the weed too. You know what I mean? 100%.

He's like, you know, if I got the helmet on, they don't know who it is. That wasn't me, man. That wasn't me. So I stole that outfit, man. That was too much. Benny the Bull, he got fired, huh? Yeah, he got fired. And then what's he do?

What do you do after that? So he, the reason he got that job is because- I'm sorry, people were were yelling me for interrupting. But real quick, was he like a popular Chicago figure? Like, do people know who he was out of the suit? So that's the thing. Is this is this what brought him notoriety? It's not it's not that people know him out of the suit. But there are these guys in Chicago, these kids who are know they're called the Jesse White Tumblers.

who are known, they're called the Jesse White Tumblers. They are a company that basically is recruited by Jesse White, who was the secretary of state in Chicago to be like Tumblers who perform at various events. Half times and sure. Half times and then like local, you know, events, car shows, whatever it is, they go and they do flips, all these black kids. Like a little mini Cirque du Soleil. Yeah. And they're dope and they're awesome.

He grew up inside of that organization and then was so good at it that he got tapped to go be the mascot. He was sort of a known person. They were like, hey, why don't we have you come be Benny the Bull? He was he was cool in those spaces. Right. And so he he kind of got this great job and it paid well. And then he fucked it all up. And so he just drinks himself, you know, all the way to it.

Fuck them up. Yeah, it did. Yeah. Yeah. No, this like ruined him kind of thing. Why? Because I don't what do you do after that? You know what I mean? Let me ask you a question. Yeah, yeah. Even if you had a perfect run as many to boy, your knees give out. What do you do after? What's the next move? They're not going to let you, you know what I mean, do color commentary. I would talk to somebody from the Olympics and be like, hey, you know how you spent 13 years of your life throwing a shot put and you took third and now you're done?

The fuck you doing? What do you do? And that's the thing. They're like, hold up, you were a mascot? Go fuck yourself. Bro, at least those people like went to college and like have a degree to fall back on like he had, he, he started as, excuse me, dancing or teaching or. He was teaching tumbling for a while, but that doesn't pay well. He didn't go back into dancing or teaching?

He was teaching tumbling for a while, but that doesn't pay well. And he was fixing cars and he had other skills, but I think his drinking far outweighed those skills. Did he start drinking after that or was he always drinking? I think he was drinking before that, but I think it really like found itself once, you know, the, the sort of fall from grace happened. Uh, like do you go to his house and I was like, Betty, the bulls. Now you don't talk about it. This be here right here, right here with Steve Kerr.

It was bad, man. He, he really, uh, he really lost a lot. It was bad, man. He really lost a lot. Most Americans think they spend about 62 bucks a month on subscriptions, but the real number is close to $300. That's a big difference. Even if just a couple of subscriptions fall off your radar, those recurring payments you don't even know about can really add up. Thanks to Rocket Money, there's no more losing money

to subscriptions you've forgotten about. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills. I can see all my subscriptions in one place, and if I see one that I don't want, Rocket Money can help me cancel it with a few taps. The dashboard shows me this month's spending

compared to last month, so I can clearly see my spending habits. Plus, they'll help me create a custom budget to keep my spending on track. RocketMoney has over five million users and saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the apps features.

Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash honeydew. That's rocketmoney.com slash honeydew rocketmoney.com slash honeydew. Now let's get back to the dude. Yeah, that's terrible. That's terrible. I'm sorry. I can't. Yeah, no, he, he was a, he's passed since, but he's he was a he passed away.

Yeah, I feel extra bad. No, whatever. He was a he was a good guy drinking. Yeah. Really? How old was he? Forty late 40s. Wow. He was young. He was young. Yeah. When my mom married him, he had a tenth Whoa, he was young. He was young. Yeah, when my mom married him, he had a 10th of a pancreas.

How do you tell somebody? That's, at one point they literally told him like, bro, if you keep doing this, that's it. And he couldn't stop. Like there's no filter for this shit. He drank himself to death literally. Literally. Man, I don't know how I would tell a woman,

like if some lady said, I love you, I'd be like, I gotta tell you something. Are you cheating on me, are you? No, you ain't gonna believe it. Honestly, it's worse. I gotta tell them. You should hope I was cheating on you. I might give you two, three years.

But he couldn't stop, even when they told him you don't even have. At one point, this is 100% true, at one point we had to have a breathalyzer on our family car. The family car? The family car because we only had one car and he had like gotten caught with like a DUI or whatever it was and my mom voluntarily was like,

we're putting a breathalyzer on the car so that this, you can't do this anymore. Like, and when you're not around that, no, I mean, what's crazy is I was in I got this guy. Don't worry. I'll burn this off and we'll be driving in 15. I'm going to do a couple of mini trip, flip dumps and I'll be fucking sober in five minutes guys. I'm going to do a couple of mini-tray flip dumps and I'll be fucking sober in five minutes, guys. Have you ever had to drive a car with a breathalyzer on it? No, but it's funny you say that because a friend of mine did. So here's-

He had one beer when he came to visit us and he had his fucking kid with him and the kid he's like, it's one beer, but I can't risk, I can't do it. It's kid blue. And it's like, it's start the car. Here's what's so crazy is they set it up in a way because you think, Oh, I just need to blow it to start the car. I'm good. They set it up in a way where it goes off periodically throughout the ride and it can go off every minute or it can go off every 15 minutes. It truly is up random shit, algorithm shit, right? So like I would do it while you're driving or do you have to like,

be like to, or the car will stop as you're driving. Okay. It'll truly like, and you got to pull over whatever. So I'd be borrowing the car to take a girl out on the date. Oh, no. I have to explain it. I know, baby, I ain't sick. My mama's boyfriend is, so. Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv Oh, that's a good school. It's true, but I don't usually do it this much.

Three times in one ride. That's a record for me. What a thing. Manning of the Bull, fucked up. You're a family car. That's too much, man. Life is a trap. Life is wild, man. That's too much, man. Life is a trash. Life is wild, man. That's too much, man. You make me think of a story. So I'm a big Baltimore Oriole fan. I remember there was a story.

This is not funny, but it's one of those like- I bet it's a little funny. It's a little funny. But the guy was going to an event and I believe, the rumor is that he had the suit on, but not the head and he was driving. And I guess he crashed. I don't know whose fault it was, but I guess there was an accident and bro, he died in the, he died in the bird suit.

Oh no. I used to hear all the time, I don't know if it's true, but I used to hear it all the time. It's true, like in a van or some shit. Have you ever heard Keirstie Alley tell the story of how her parents died? No, but I know it's a, okay, I saw a clip of that, but I've never, I don't remember it. So she says-

Oh wait, I do know it. Costume party, right? They're going to a costume party, and well, she finds out through her sister, where her sister goes, they die on Halloween or the day before Halloween. They were going to a costume party. She asked her sister, what were they wearing? And she said they were in an odd couple's costume. And she said, odd couple, like Jack Lemon and what's his name?

And she's like, no, he was a Klansman and she was in blackface. And mom was in blackface. And mom was in blackface. Nobody want to help you or anything. Or I'm like, is she burnt already? Like what's going on? What happened on that side of the car? And what does he got going on? And why are they not, why is he not tied up? He's like, none of it makes sense.

It seems like they worked it out. This is cool. Oh, man. OK. All right. Yeah. So then he passes away. Are you in his life? He passed away recently. Oh, recently. It's not. Yeah, it wasn't while they were married. This is recent. But that's her third husband.

And then my mom moves to Ghana. She's been in Ghana for like four years. That's where she is now. That's where she is with my youngest sister. And she marries a Ghanaian dude out there who makes juice and they What kind of juice? Just fruit juice. Have you had it? Yeah, it's pretty good. Is it good?

She sent me some juice. Is it worth moving to Ghana? No, no, no. It ain't American juice, baby. So what made her, how did she meet this guy? I think my mom has always felt a little over the American experience, like the rat race and sort of like the challenges of what it means to,

my mom's a very educated person and like has a doctorate and like is a very capable person, but especially in education, there's a hierarchy and weird challenges of getting tenure or even getting out of the adjunct space when you're talking about teaching colleges. And I think she just became sort of exhausted with that process and was like, I'm just going to go uplift my life and experience something that is completely outside of this. So she lives in a pretty remote area in Ghana and like, have you been to visit? I haven't because she moved right before the pandemic and then I had kids.

And so it's been like, she's any matter grandkids. She came back for the first time last year and got to to meet my daughter. She hasn't met her her grandson yet. I'm about to say, how many how many grandkids does your mom have? Just just from you right now, because I'm the oldest. Oh, yeah, it makes sense. You're the first time she's a grandmom. Yeah. The other ones are 26 and 27.

So they're not even, you know, necessarily wanting to have kids yet. Yeah. And your relationship, are you still close with Dad and everything? Yeah. Yeah. We get along well. Living out here. You able to come visit like how often you see him. He came. He came pretty recently. He comes. He probably comes out every year now because of my my kids. And we go and go back to Chicago and see him. And he likes, he's excited about being a grandfather and his wife stays out the way.

She knows. I wanted to know if it shifted, you know, she didn't soften at all. Nah, don't hug her. Fuck him and his kids. She just going to keep on going. Listen, I made it very clear with my wife and even with my daughter, I don't go like, yo, don't you stay away from her. But she knows how I feel about her,

so don't go buddying up with my baby and my lady. Leave them alone. And does your wife try to be professional? That's what I always call it professional You know, how you doing? She's good at being professional. Yeah, you know, yeah She pays her respects and does the whole thing which I appreciate it Leaves the tension low for everybody else now we were talking outside you say your wife from if it's all right to say she's from Baltimore. Yeah, she's from Baltimore. Does she have a big family or a big extended family or any of that?

She's pretty small. It's just her and her sister and her mom only had a sister who didn't have kids. So they have no first cousins. So your family's a big ass. That's like going being you at nine and then three years later you got fucking 80 people in your family. Yeah, they're tiny and then suddenly they got to deal with my chaos. Yeah, 100%. And is she good with it? Does she like it? I always wonder

if what people, if you know everybody thinks the grass is greener, like if you're an only child, I always wonder if people really relish it and love it or if they always wanted to have, because even you said you were an only child up until about nine. Right. Yeah. And you did. You were you weren't against having siblings. No, I always wanted them. It just didn't seem possible. Would you have been if you adopt if they adopted like an eight year old? Yeah. You just still been cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

No, that would have been cool. Everybody to you was brand new. I honestly would have maybe taken to it even more because if they adopt an eight year old, now I got somebody I can really vibe with. In theory, maybe they're, you know, an eight year old. They came with tons of baggage. But like to me, it would have been like, oh, I got like a homie homie now.

This is great. I'm not just child care for these smaller people. Yeah. You got a wildlife, man. I want to stop there now because I feel like I've also dissected your life like it's a math problem so I could understand it. Because I definitely want to hear about this college story. Yeah. So you went to the University of Michigan. Went to the University of Michigan.

You're a Wolverine. Freshman year, yeah. What years were you there? I was there 2005 to 2009. Did you guys win anything during those years? No, we sucked. And, and. Even in basketball too? We right at the tail end of my time at Michigan started to like make it back in the tournament and, and show, you know what I mean? But we were still, we were still in the, the probation for most of the time that I was there because of the fucking, you know, the, the, uh, fab five shit. So we just stunk and like Michigan football was on a real bad downturn.

The, the year that they lost, uh, to what, which I'm gonna call it that, um, fuck, I can't even remember the name of the college is how shitty they were, but like it was that crazy upset that happened. Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Um, it all happened while I was there. I'm responsible for it. I think.

So your freshman year, what happens to you? The freshman year, the day that we're moving out of the dorms, I'm taking a shower in the communal shower. And for months, genuinely for months, I'd been noticing that this dude had been like who lived on the fifth floor. I live on the third. Is it all male dorm or coed? They split it by sides. So like the there's a man side and a girl side and it's just halls basically. So the in the male hall of the third floor, we there's a dude

who keeps coming down from the fifth floor to shower down there, right? Every, every day he showers on the third floor. Now there are arguments that it was a better shower or whatever the fuck. But either way, this dude just keeps hanging around. And periodically I would see weird shit where it's like, oh, his hands are on the top of the, you know, the shower wall type shit.

Like when you're looking to your left. Yeah, you look up and there's just hands there or some shit. And in your mind, you don't wanna, you're naked. You don't wanna fight. You know what I mean? You're like, he probably just, so you can scrub or, you know what I mean? Like I can, I'm creating explanations periodically to justify

and are these shower stalls, the kind where you could see his feet at the bottom or they go all the way to the floor. They it's you can see feet. There's space under and you can reach over like a bathroom stall. Exactly. It's it's feet and hand and air above. So you can kind of see enough, but it's pretty high. So you would have to do some work to be able to like reach up like that. Yeah. To see something, see something.

But I'm seeing this weird shit and I'm experiencing this weird energy around this one individual. And then literally the last day that I'm packing up, my dad is on his way to pick me up from my freshman year of college. I am showering and I hear him come in. I'm going to shower and I hear him come in and I'm like, bro, I got a bad feeling. I don't know what this is about to be, but something weird is just he and I in here. This don't feel right. I'm going to chill for a second.

I'm going to turn the shower on. I'm a wait to see what in the stall. Are you in the stall? No, they have like that curtain and then you have the changing area. And then there's like the actual like shower I'm chilling in there, but I turned the water on to give the illusion that I'm in there showering. And then I see a shadow come underneath the curtain where I am of some and I can hear breathing. I'm like literally feeling a person on the other side of this curtain. And I rip it back and I go,

what the fuck? And he's standing there and he goes, Oh, Oh, were you in there? And then he walks away. Was he naked? No, he was fully dressed. He's not there to shower at all. He's not there to shower at all. He's there. Were you in there? And he walks away. He walks away. And so he you're coming out fully dressed. I'm coming out fully dressed because I've been waiting on this shit. You chase them out. No, I go, oh fuck you. And, you know, I walk out and I'm like scared and furious and not sure what to do. And I truly, I was like, you know what?

You got to do the right thing. You got to tell somebody, everybody. They say if you see something, say, I was like, I'm going to, I'm going to do, I'm going to follow every protocol. I'm going to bring justice to this injustice. This is going to be resolved quickly and quickly. He's my favorite of all the things you said. And effectively, swiftly and effectively. There's no way that this will stand.

And I go to my RA and I tell him, and he's in retrospect, he's a child. So he goes, oh, that's crazy, bro. I don't know that you got to fill this sheet out. And then I'm filling paperwork out and shit. And then I have to, over a course of months, have to engage with now the staff. There's essentially a HR department of a university that I'm engaging with who are dealing- The summer crew.

Who are dealing with this claim that I am dealing with what potentially could have been a sexual harassment, I would qualify it as such. Then they call me in during the summer for a hearing. They say like, yo, we've done our due diligence. We've allowed our team to do investigations. So they contacted this guy? They contact this guy. They called me in for a hearing. I wear my best shirt. I put on my good slacks. I show up to the university to have this hearing.

And I show up, and this motherfucker has. He's there? He's there. Not only does he claim that he was never there to interact with me at all, that like I'm making this story completely up, he shows up with his quote unquote girlfriend who he says they were having sex at the time of when I claimed that they that he looked in on me. He says he's having sex. It's not possible that this happened. He also has character references from people I knew in the dorm who are like vouching for his character.

They never asked me did I need like character references for my shit, but he truly has like a full fucking case that he's built of why this is not possible. And I sit there and explain the story to adults, some of whom are just staff. They're not like lawyers or professionals. They're like janitors and shit. And I'm like explaining it. And then at the end of it, they go, yeah, we don't, we're not going to do anything about this.

That's good luck. And then I just got to keep going to school with the dude. Do you run into him? All the time. No. Does he say anything to you? No, no, no, no. Never once again. But he like moved out of that dorm. But by his own volition, it wasn't even like they were like, oh, you got to move.

They were just like, no, we don't. We're not buying it. This ain't real. Wow. I was like, oh, well, I'm never going to tell anybody anything ever again. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about Amsterdam. My wife and I, along with like 10 of our friends, go to Amsterdam. This must have been 20. Fuck, 2017, 2018. We all take this massive trip to Amsterdam thinking like it's like a bunch

of black people hanging out in Amsterdam. We're going to get high, drunk, fucked up, whatever. We show up, we got this really nice Airbnb. We're staying at the Airbnb. Everybody all in one place. Everybody all in one place. Two of us, two of the people show up later than everybody else. They get a separate car because their plane gets in later than everybody else.

But everybody's in the same place. It's just one of those houses that can fit everybody. Right. We go out, we're drinking, we're partying, we're smoking, we're doing the whole shit. We come back that night and, uh, and we immediately walk in and one of the girls is like, somebody broke in here. I'm like, what are you talking about?

No, bitch, you drunk. What are you talking about? Ain't nobody's been in here. This is a nice place. This is Amsterdam. And she's like, no, somebody's been going through my stuff. And we look and the glass in the back of the house has been broken into. There's like all this glass and broken shit everywhere. They've ruffled through everybody's things. Stolen passports, stolen, stolen birth control, stolen laptops, cameras, like all the shit. Really wild choices. Fucked up with the dude is up. It is like passports and not maybe you got my man.

Yeah, you don't need my medicines. Well, I control that's too much. Somebody had to say that. Somebody stole my Lipitor. This is crazy. But they still all this shit. And we the house that we're staying in is attached to the Airbnb house, like the owner's house. That like it's one of those houses that like just is sort of kitty cornered with the other house that isn't touched at all. So we naturally are going, hey, what the fuck?

Why do they break in our shit and not breaking your shit? And then it's all these Dutch people who are going like, we don't know. And we're like, we think you all did. We think you all were in on this shit. And then they go, well, we think you should leave. And then we go, we were going to leave. This is our shit got stolen. You know what I mean? Like we're not hanging out here anymore.

And so it becomes this weird all night thing of like arguing with the Dutch police who truly are like, we don't, that's not even what we do over here is like investigate. Is that right? Yeah. They don't care. It's so few and far between or it's just happened so much. Like now we go after real shit. I think it's because it's, it's so rare. Stolen passports is a pretty big one though.

But I think for them, it's like nobody was hurt. Oh, I see. There's no, there's no evidence of what you're suggesting might be the case. And so it becomes this weird thing of the police being like, well, maybe you guys did this. Maybe, maybe you're the reason that you guys. It sounds like the fucking college board over. Yeah, exactly. I've been gaslit my whole life.

First, Benny. But now it truly becomes like this chaotic trip of like then because this is first night and we're supposed to be in Amsterdam for like 10 days. Yeah. Now your time is going to be spent trying to get your passports and shit. We're going to the embassy to try to get new, new temporary passports. We're throwing up in the fucking lines and shit because we've been drinking that heavily up until we thought we were, you know, we were having a good time.

Were you able to get all that shit back? Like what happens? Yeah. Most people Like what happens? Yeah, most people. What happens? You go to the embassy and they give you temporary passports so that you can get back to the states. And then once you get back to the states, you can, you know, replace all your. They don't, do they kill that, the active one, so to speak, so that that person's not out there running around as you.

I think. Or taking the picture and modifying it and now they're you? My guess is they can only do so much. Like part of what you're doing when you're taking these documents is just being able to like copy the key art, you know what I mean? Yeah. To be able to make your own shit more than just being like cutting pace his face over my face. Now I'm him kind of thing. But yeah, I it just turned into like this chaotic thing of like having to explain to people, we just got robbed and you know what I mean? Or burglarized.

And now we got nothing. You know what I mean? This is a really fucking fun episode, man. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for having me. Before we go, and I am interested to hear what you have to say now after hearing your story, advice you'd give to 16 year old Langston. Oh man, that's a great, I think advice that I would give 16 year old Langston is that a bunch of this stuff is funnier than you think it is. That's great. Do you know what I mean? Oh yeah, I do.

I think when I was 16, I was like, this sucks. My life is crazy. This is hard. And it's like, nah, this is funny, man. And if you could really just write a few of these things down and maybe in a sillier way than you're planning to write them down, you might have some fun with this shit down the line. I think that's great advice. I still have friends that I'm close with from elementary school, from middle school. And we all went through some ugly shit. Yeah, we were all together. And we look back at it now, like you imagine that those were the those were the

the days were like, this sucks. And we're now are like, those were the good fucking day. Yeah, those were the good ones. Yeah, you were having fun. Yes. Yeah. Everything else was hard, but you were having good fucking days. Yeah. Those were the good ones. Yeah, you were having fun at least. Yeah. Everything else was hard, but you were having a good time. Well, thank you again for doing this.

Promote your special, all that stuff again, please. On Netflix, it's called Bad Poetry, directed by John Mulaney. It's a beautiful special, and I hope you watch it. It's cool. Great. Oh, and my mama told me. It's a podcast I run with David Borey. Very funny.

If you like conspiracy theories and black people, it's a perfect combination. Here's what I want to ask. What's the closest you yourself have come to a conspiracy theory that somebody's mama told them that you're like, that one might be real? Oh. Is there any that has surprised you where you're like, wait, man, that one actually might be a real thing? Yeah, so part of what I do on the podcast is I do all the research.

You're breaking them all down? I break them all down. And one of my favorites that's come up is a person named Chandra Russell, who's a very funny comedian, very talented actress, came on and she was talking about 23andMe and how 23andMe is just the government taking your identity, your DNA, and using it against you. Naturally, that's come up a million times in every conspiracy podcast, but what we discovered is more sinister than even just them being like, we got your blood

now. They literally can deny you home loans because of your genetic history, right? That like your family history, let's say. So if cancer runs in your family and they think you're not going to be around to pay that loan off, we're going to say no, because it can see that it runs in your family. 30 years. We're not betting on you making it 30 more years. So now we can deny you a home life insurance.

I you life insurance because of the DNA that you're feeding to find out if you're like, you know, British or some shit. Yeah. What percent of Italian I am. Yeah. It's like, I don't think this is worth it. Man, I don't want to hear any words. Yeah. What percent Italian I am. Yeah. He's like, I don't think this is worth it. Oh man. I don't want to hear any more.

As always Ryan Sickler on all your social media, come see me on tour. Tickets to all shows. They're up on my website right now at Ryan sickler.com. We'll talk to y'all next week.