The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - Yannis Pappas

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

My HoneyDew this week is Yannis Pappas! Yannis opens up about the deaths of three important people he lost last year. He also tells a story about being shot and how the bullet got lodged in his ass and how the doctor had to remove that bullet. And recently, Yannis fainted on stage and had his entire weekend cancelled. Subscribe, download & review!

This episode of The Honeydew is brought to you by Burrow. More on that later. Let me tell you about some dates real quick. February 22nd, Pasadena. I am at the Ice House. Josh Potter will be there with me as well as some other special guests. March 19th through the 21st, I'm in Phoenix House of Comedy. Come on out, Phoenix.

March 26th, I'm at the La Jolla Comedy Club. That's going to be a really fun show as well. April 3rd, I'm in Huntington Beach at the Rec Room. Another great room, especially if you're down there in the South Bay. It's a great spot to check out. And April 23rd through the 25th, I'll be in Vancouver. So go to RyanSickler.com

Sign up for the email. Check out the dates on my calendar there. 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. Ryan Sickler on all social media, ryansickler.com.

I want to tell you about some dates. Go over to my website, sign up for the newsletter. You'll find out about all this stuff. But February 22nd, I'm headlining the Ice House here in Pasadena. March 19th through the 21st, House of Comedy in Phoenix. March 26th,

headlining the La Jolla Comedy Store. And April 23rd through the 25th, I'll be at the House of Comedy in Vancouver. My first time up in Vancouver. So come on out. See me live on the road. Everything will be available at RyanSickler.com. Website for the Honeydew here is the HoneydewPodcast.com.

Get your merch, social media links. Make sure you're subscribed to your mom's house YouTube page. And people ask all the time, what's the best way to help the pocket? Just engage with the sponsors. That's how you can help keep something that's not free to do free. That's how you do it.

You engage with the sponsors. Thank you for all the messages. Thank you for reaching out. Thank you for sharing your struggles. This show has been awesome. I really enjoy sitting here and laughing with people through their pain. I always say you know we're highlighting the low lights over here and these are the stories behind the storytellers and today's storyteller first time here on the honeydew super

excited to have them ladies and gentlemen yannis papas thank you good to be here good to thank you for being here for real i'm i'm excited to share my pain with you i was i was stoked you got some good you got some good shit oh i got some good stuff and it's just good to do a podcast at like a bar high top like this you know listen like i'm having a beer with a friend when i had this table made and i wish i could remember his name and i apologize now but i i think i said it at the beginning but he was like i want a table and he's like that you could have a glass of whiskey and tell stories i was like yeah yeah that's it. That's it. And that's what this fucking table is right here. That's what it feels like. I picked that up right away.

This is handmade, reclaimed, everything right here. Very nice. Well, before we get into your stories, will you please plug, promote everything? Yeah. Well, I got a special. Most importantly, I got a special called Blowing the Light on YouTube that Andrew Schultz was nice enough to produce and direct. So go check that out called Blowing the Light.

I'm going to be at Gotham Comedy Club February 21st and 22nd in New York City. Then the weekend after that I'll be at Uncle Vinny's in Point Pleasant, New Jersey February 27th and 28th and listen to my podcast with the Chris DiStefano history hyenas. Yeah, that's great. That's it. So where are you originally from? Brooklyn, New York. I'm a Brooklyn kid. Is your family all from New York?

By the way, I just want to say it's nice. I'm real good friends with Nate Bargatze, but since he moved back to Tennessee and we lived in LA for a little while, we don't get up that much. It's nice for a New York kid to be around somebody from the South. It lowers the blood pressure a little bit i like that you get you get everyone says i have a southern accent i'm from maryland you're from maryland technically the south yeah

but it's not the south you guys have a weird combination like marl it's trash yeah it's just it's a it's a trash draw yeah yeah wow so you're not you're like that's more mid-atlantic right definitely mid-atlantic i was voice texting with the stefano and i uh i was i said he said something about because he's coming on i was like yeah of course but it and i look back at it later and it spelled it c-o-a-r-s-e like course and i was like no no no and i wrote back i was like listen that's c-o-u-r-s-e i know how to spell course that's my fucking my trash baltimore accent that can't get picked up on there well you got it you got a calm energy about you it's nice i can feel my blood pressure coming down right yeah so maybe it's not the

maryland maybe it's more you it might be you are the south you just had the spirit of the south yeah now are your is your family from greece like yeah how many, how many generations here are you? I am the typical Greek story. Two? Uh, we, my mother was born there. Yeah.

She was there actually, my mother's old. They had me when they were very old. So my mother was actually there during World War II. She was there with Nazis under the Nazi occupation.

For real? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. She was a little girl when she saw them paratrooping and paratroopers

flying in the sky. She's actually seen these guys. Yeah. Like, for real. Yeah. She didn't see them in a Mel Brooks play. She saw the real deal. They're not funny, and they don't sing and dance.

Holy shit. They do other stuff. So how old was she when she had you? She was 48 when she had me. Which is like, everyone does that now. Because everyone's like, I'm going to do my career first. But she did that, you know, back then. And then my dad, his like typical Greek story.

His father came over. But both parents are Greek. Both parents are Greek. Yeah. Both parents are Greek. And his dad had a diner. And then that's how we do it. We come in via diner.

Man, the best. That's what it is. So my family in Baltimore City used to, well, it's not Greek anymore. It's pretty much everything now. Dominican, Puerto Rican, everybody's there now. But it used to be Greek town back in the day. Highland town in Baltimore. I know it.

You know it? I know, yeah. Eastern Avenue, that stretch. And some of the best, the Double T Diner is. We used to go there because it was 24-7. That was the spot. But that was like a 25-minute drive from our high school. But that's where we'd go on a Friday or Saturday, 2 or 3 in the morning. Like, best fucking diners.

I'll never forget. This was humiliating. We went on Easter. I took my grandmother and her sister, my great aunt. She's a nun, Sister Carmina. They're both past, rest in peace. I take them to the double t diner i'm like this is the fucking best greek diners the spot my sister carmina loved the greek

salad so much she put that shit in a napkin rolled it up and put it in her purse i'm like sister she's like they're not gonna stop i said that they will give you a container to go they're not gonna stop you for stealing it they're gonna give you something nice to put it in, for God's sake. Yeah, that's not very practical to carry in a napkin. You know, it's not a sandwich. Yeah, Greek diners, how good is a Greek diner? The older you get, too, we're a couple kids in our 40s. I don't know if you've experienced the bliss and joy that is sitting alone in a diner

having a piece of warm apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. But, I mean, if I get to heaven, I'll be like, eh, alone in a diner having a piece of warm apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream but i i mean if i get to heaven i'll be like eh because i think that is heaven i used to see old people sitting in diners by themselves and it used to depress me i'd be like this guy's lonely now i get it now i'm like that guy's having the best night of his life that's how i came up with the name for the show i'm sitting in a diner and i didn't eat the fucking honey doing the fruit cup because i never do and then i see him scattered all across the table toss i'm like oh my god it's fucking perfectly good is that true yeah and then i'm like i'm i'm oh my god i'm a honeydew yeah i'm a honeydew

in life that's amazing that was it from sitting at a diner having dinner by myself so thank you to all the greek immigrants that started diners made them 24 hours so you could one day sit there see the honeydew and now here we are you saw the importance of that yeah it's an amazing thing i hate like i don't know if you ever been to europe or whatever it's like i did a few shows in europe at a certain uh like years ago and like yeah you get hungry at like one two in the morning you get so used to the convenience of a diner and then one two in the morning all you got is like dirty shawarma stores with drunk people vomiting. Dirty shawarma. That's all they got is dirty shawarma. You're like, give me a nice Greek diner guy and sit down and get anything I want.

Anything I want. You want a piece of fish? We have it. You want a steak? We have it. You got anything? They have everything in the Greek diner that you want to have. So how do your parents meet?

Here in the States? They met. My dad was in the Korean War, and then he came back, and then everyone was, like, dead from World War II and Korea, which is, by the way, we forget about that. That's terrible. It's like our parents yell at us, like, get a job. It's like, dude, it's hard.

There's no jobs. It was like just because when you grew up, everyone was dead, and they were, like, recruiting people. There's competition now, God damn it. Yeah, exactly. Everyone was dead, dude. Everyone was dead. I mean, World War II killed all the dudes.

So my dad basically got into law school because they were going like, we need people to do law because everyone's gone. Right, yeah. So he came back from the Army army so he went to law school a little later and my mother was just my mother's just a smart immigrant girl she went to law school and they met at brooklyn law school wow and that was back in the time when like if they were like you're greek and she was like we gotta have kids yeah so i don't even think they had a conversation i think they just fucked and then made people and got married like i don't even know if they ever talked they just assumed like they found each other they're both greek it's like they gotta get married you guys do the big like

easter lamb and all that yeah greeks have their own easter i fucking love that we do our own thing where we put the lamb up on a spit scare the children you know i grew up with some greek kids in our high school and everything was malaka yeah everything was my you it's a great curse it's a good deal it means it's jerk off right like you fucking jerk off yeah that's the closest uh the closest translation is jerkoff but it like literally means like the champion masturbator all these years i had 30 fucking years you just that's the literal that's like kind of the most close is like this guy is the greatest he's the champ the michael jordan of it all he does is sit around just jerkking he's gotten really good at it

yeah malacca it's like they say it like it's like it's just like a constant curse that is like just part of the language that people just use colloquially when they're talking greeks they love to curse and these dudes have and it's all it's it's i often think about it like i don't think i could go to another country and and open a business i don't think i'm not that person that would do that you know what i mean and then learn your language and ingratiate myself not only into your community but your neighborhoods and everything else like i don't i don't know that i would do that so anytime someone did that and they had a they had like a sub shop that's another thing i missed about the east coast it was a like subs and pizza you know subs and um it was in fucking west baltimore and those wire

neighborhoods yeah and we would go down and deliver with them every once in a while and i was like i'm not gonna be doing this anymore yeah it's it's super fucking sketchy around here yeah baltimore is just like that that little area by the water and then the rest is the wire yeah yeah and the greek but the greeks ran like the the delivery food it was always some greek dude rolling through yeah guys hustle that's that's how that was the thing they did like they came and they did the diners but not your parents they went to law school yeah both of them their grandparents yeah my grandparents did it and then my parents went to law school but yeah it's interesting to think about that generation of immigrants, too.

Because imagine being, like you said, imagine being that, have that type of ambition and courage to be like, I'm going to leave. I don't speak the language. I don't know the culture. And I'm going to just figure it out. I'm going to drive on the same side. I mean, I haven't even left New York. I should have been in L.A. 15 years ago.

Maybe I would have had a career. I didn't even go to L.A., let alone fucking go from Greece to America with nothing. I mean, that's a generation of like industrious, like ambitious people. So that they're, you know, when you look at all these Asians and South Asians and then their kids become doctors, you're like, yeah, those are the kids. Those are the kids of families that like somehow figured out how to open up a dry cleaners with like a toothpick in their pocket and a nickel. So of course their kids are going to become doctors.

They're like, that's the best their country has to offer, and we got them. That's the great thing about America is we take all the best from everywhere because they know here we got fucking Poke Bowls and pizza. And panini. Yeah, they see the movies and they're like i want that i want to go live in hollywood or whatever and we attract them and then you go to those countries all that's left is just the lazy fucking people all the rest of the countries just kind of look like they look like minnesota it's like where all the ugly people stay you ever go to all those other places and you go like there's no good looking people because everyone left and went

to la new york miami yeah and you're're like, that's the rest of the countries. We took your best and brightest. So what was it like having older? Was your dad older too, the same age? Yeah, my dad was. Like having older parents. Yeah. Because were your parents the old parents when you were in school and stuff?

They were. It was weird. It was weird because they were like sometimes 20, 30 years older. Yeah. Because my oldest brother is 17 years older than me. It was weird. It was weird because, you know, they were like sometimes 20, 30 years older. Yeah. Because my older my oldest brother is 17 years older than me. So. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wait. So same parents, same parents. So how many kids? Total three kids. So what are your what are the ages? So my age gap. Yeah. Ten years and 17 years. I'm the youngest by 10 and 17. Wow. Yeah. There was a there was was a couple miscarriages before me.

You know, they tried, and then, like, they didn't have me, and then somehow I was born, you know. Nowadays, that's more commonplace, but, you know. It's like, yeah, it was weird because all my friends' kids were younger, and I was just, I think that's where I really developed a phobia of my parents dying, and my dad told me that. He always said that. I used to say when I was little that I was worried he was going to die

because I just thought he was so old. Even though looking back, he was in his 50s, which is old. It's old when you're seven. Yeah, when you're seven. You're going, like, this guy's going to die tomorrow. Instead, I've just always been scared I'm not going to have a dad. And it's weird because I just lost him last year and he lived till 91. Wow.

So. That's a good run. That's a good run. That's a damn good run. And you know what's scary about it, man? Is like my dad smoked cigarettes like packs a day for like I think 70 years. God. 70 years.

And he lived till 91. So when people say like, you know know you got to eat it's fucking random dude whoever's running this show just like plucks us when they want to pluck us i believe like i think cancer exists in all of us and it manifests in a lot of us and some of us who do that drink pepsi smoke fucking three packs of cigarettes a day, drink hard liquor, and they're just like, I live to be 96. Yeah, it's just not fair. It's just not. I mean, like, Dick Cheney's still alive somehow.

This guy's like 150 years old. He's got a bionic heart, and he just keeps fucking. The guy's just pointing fingers and bombing countries. And then, like, some of the best people just die, and they're healthy. Like, you know, my dad's god's goddaughter, her profession was fitness. And somehow she just died of cancer. It just ravaged her whole body. It's just so random and you never know.

It's crazy. So you grew up with that fear for both your parents? I did because they were old. And when I would look at the other parents, they were so much older. And it was such an uncommon thing that I was just scared that I was going to lose my parents. And my brother's brain injured. So my brother, who's 10 years older than me, is brain injured.

What does that mean? Yeah, we're going to talk about my family. You're going to realize why I stand up on a wood plank and ask strangers to love me. There's always a story. I couldn't come in here and be like, you know, things were good. I don't know. I just, you know, there was no, I never needed attention from strangers.

Yeah, there's a lot. Is brain injury different than brain damage? Yeah. Well, no, brain injury is brain damage. Okay. But, yeah, so, like, he wasn't born with it, which makes it even more tragic. It was during the time where they used to use forceps to pull the baby out. And so the doctor kind of—

And they did that. They squeezed a little bit and caused some damage. And so that was that. Yeah. So he was brain injured. So that's from birth. That's from birth. That happened at the birth.

So he's very high-functioning in some areas. And that's where the brain injury is different from sort of, you know, another category like Down syndrome or whatever. It's like he's very high-functioning in some things. At some point, he was speaking like two languages, but, you know, very low-functioning wherever that damages, you know. And how close are you to your brothers? My oldest brother, I'm not very close to because he's 17 years older than me,

and, like, we go through periods of getting along, not getting along. We're very different. My middle brother, i'm very close to and now that my my mother has alzheimer's so she's had that for a while so now my middle brother is kind of like my responsibility and so i think this was the thing i was 10 he's in his 50s then he's in his 50s so but he's in a great program in jersey and stuff he works and they and they supervise him but i think that was my fear when I was little is because there's this big responsibility that I knew was waiting for me.

And if my parents go, I was like, I didn't want to be too young when that happened. Even though I got an older brother, we don't get along that great. There wasn't this feeling of family cohesion. So now I'm here. My biggest fears have kind of been realized. And much like most fears,

the fear is worse when it it when it when it happens yeah you know that's why you can't spend time worrying about anything future tripping yeah you're overthinking it's what it is yes and uh that's what my therapist called it future trip i like that i do that's the first thing i said i was like yeah i fucking like that i do that yeah and you future tripped for uh 40 years i only started enjoying life like 10 minutes ago. It's such a shame

how much of my life has been wasted on worrying about things that never fucking happened. Yes. Anxiety, bullshit, worry, worry, nothing. It's just...

Meanwhile, your dad's chugging down cigarettes and everything else like the fuck you doing he's fine yeah wow and i've had some of the worst shit happen to me too and even that shit while it's happening is not that bad which is crazy to say but like the fear or even the after the ptsd afterwards which was the worst for me so bad that i quit comedy for a couple years but what happened i got shot in 2001 you got shot yeah what happened uh no i was doing a show told some bad jokes guy didn't know that would be fun oh my god i was like you fucking suck are we locked up out front no it was uh i first started doing comedy like way back my first because i started like in 2000

and then i quit from 2002 to 2005 and then um 2005 is when i like really started 2005-6 but i quit because i was having these panic attacks man like this anxiety this trauma that i didn't understand it was like emasculating i would just be on the train in new york and i would come out of nowhere so i didn't know what it was. And you're how old? I was 23. I was 23 at the time. And your dad's still, everyone's, your mom is starting to show effects at that point?

Not yet. The effects started in the 70s. The brutality of that is, that brutality is, people who have a family member who were going through that know it and it's brutal it's like chinese water torture it's really brutal and it's consuming and uh it's rough because it slowly starts to but like you know just the things leaving leaving on the stove you know it's just there's danger everywhere just like you know uh cred um charities will prey on people like that which is brutal and i saw that firsthand because they'll she'll forget my mother was forgetting she donated and they would just keep calling and she would donate again

and again and again and again and she cleaned out like a hundred grand of her bank no that happened oh no yeah yeah were you able to get it back? No. You know, it's just like, that's what it is. She donated it, and, you know, they would call again the next, they start to get a hunch. I don't know if they do it maliciously, if they go, hey. Well, if you keep calling, you're doing it maliciously. I mean, Jesus Christ.

Yeah. I had a friend's, a great friend's mom who, unfortunately, both her parents, fortunately, they lived a long life but unfortunately at the same time within a year they both got Alzheimer's. Wow. And one day her dad came upstairs with a shotgun and

she was like what the fuck and had to grab it and talk to the doctor and the doctor was like listen they're at a point now where everything could be dangerous. Right. Get all the get scissors get all the shit out of the fucking house. Right. And she had to remove his guns and everything. Because he was hunted back in the day.

Right. And he's just grabbing them, walking around the house. He doesn't even know where he is. No. The thing I learned that scares you, you cannot handle that as a family. You need professional help. Yeah. And hopefully the infrastructure for that happens the health care cost for that goes down because it's on the rise for some reason

there's alzheimer's everywhere and it's like you cannot handle that as a family you just can it's not something you can do it need you know like when my mother finally finally got my mother into place which was hard because you know people are stubborn you know like nothing's wrong with me and you know the house is burning down. When you fight it, they lock them on a floor. They have a staff. Every night they have this sundown, they call it, where they start freaking out for some reason.

They don't really know. Yeah, at nighttime it gets worse. And then the staff kind of redirects them and tells them, we'll let you go home tomorrow, and that's every day. It's like every day that you have to do that over. It's like the movie Memento. that you have to do that over it's like the movie memento so you have to let professionals deal with them by the way those people are like the real heroes to me you know i spent so much time yeah yeah like in hospitals and my dad was in hospice and i'm like we're on we're fucking you know watching tom cruise jump around on a couch or

whatever and talk about scientology it's like this fucking guy, people like that are useless. They're useless to society. Like, we need to have, like, a full re-examination of who we worship. Because those people are fucking useless. And they used to be considered useless. Like, you know, back in the day, if you were a fucking actor, they'd be fucking some drunk, they'd pull off the street and be, read my genius lines, you fucking bum. You know, I'm the genius. I'm Shakespeare. I wrote the thing. You're a drunk

on the street. It doesn't matter. Put on a fucking wig. Play the girl part. Whatever. And so that's what I learned. Those people I have a high level of respect for. But yeah, it's just something you can't handle as a family. And so even getting shot and all that, I'd say the most brutal thing has been the Alzheimer's.'s yeah let's go back what happened with the getting shot so i was working i was working for my friend who was a nightclub um promoter at the time and i just started doing comedy just like really new um and it was off to kind of a prodigious start like i was doing my first college i think it was northeastern the weekend before i did my first college i was like 23, 24.

And so I used to work at the nightclub for him. He got me a job. I would do the cash register. And he used to make like cash, like thousands of dollars in cash. So it was an attempted robbery. And I just happened to be with him. And I got shot at point blank range.

What? Where? In the like inner leg, Like right by the dick. It was close. Yeah. If I had a bigger piece, it might be gone. Thank God. The only time I was glad I had a less than average piece.

That's when that comes in handy. I'll give you a good example when that comes in handy. God damn it. So what happened? How many guys? One guy? It was one guy. One guy. So what happened? How many guys? One guy? It was one guy, one guy. And he just pulls a gun out?

Yeah, like we're walking up to the car. And so what, this is like 2, 3 in the morning? Yeah, it's like 2, 3 in the morning after the club. And he knows you have the cash on you? Yeah, I guess he figured my friend had the cash, because I was with my friend. And it's wild, because usually I would go to my girlfriend's house, who lived in Manhattan at that time.

But for some reason that night, I was like, give me a ride home. So I was getting in the passenger seat, and I just kind of looked over my shoulder as I was getting in, and I just saw him come in, masks, gloves. It happened so quick. And then I tried to get in and close the door, but he kind of sped up. And kind of before I could close the door, he was in.

And I saw the gun. I kind of grabbed his arm. And then at some point, he just fired. As I pushed it down, he just fired one of my legs. Did you feel it right away? No, you don't feel anything. You didn't feel the burn or anything? The burn.

Yeah. It's hot afterwards. That's what I'm saying. It's hot. But at the moment it happens, you feel nothing. You smell the smell of the gunpowder. You heard it and knew the gun went off. Dude, the sound in the car is like my ears were ringing.

It's loud. Yeah. Because you're in the car, so it's like it's reverberating off the walls. And the smell, I remember the smell. I remember the sound so loud. But you don't feel anything until it takes a couple seconds. Then you feel hot, the heat. So what happens?

You're still struggling after the first gun or when it went he took off when he went off i he's ready he's ready to kill he's ready to kill i don't know yeah clearly was yeah i guess clearly or he was frustrated because i was grabbing him and i don't know why i did that you know it's a fight or flight thing you're not thinking was he a big dude not that big thank god yeah because i i mean i'm just so lucky you You are lucky. I mean, I've been unlucky in the business, but then I go, you know what? I'm even Steven. Yeah, you are.

Because, I mean, we were in a Jeep, too, and he shot me here in the inner right thigh. Did it go through? No, it lodged itself in my butt. There's another funny story coming to that. Wait, hold it. Yeah, let's come back to that. But to think, if I was in a lower car than a jeep that's your stomach then it's more of a it's more of an organ area and also there's also a main artery that runs there that it missed so i just got lucky

i got really lucky and he didn't fire your friend either no my friend when i was tussled my friend got out and ran what are you gonna do i don? I don't blame him. So he takes off, and now where is he? He's screaming, and he's getting help. And then so I'm, you know, wrestling with him. Maybe he fired because he was frustrated because I was holding him. But then I made a conscious decision to pretend like I was hurt, even though I didn't know if I was or not, which is kind of strange. Because everything's happening so fast, like a dream, you know.

And I just kind of went limp. And then I think he kicked me a few times as i went down and then he ran cops caught him you know they did caught him in some bushes yeah bushes yeah he was hiding in some bush he threw the car into the gun under a car and they caught him and went to trial you saw you saw what he looked like and everything with the mask off yeah we had to testify and all that. It was brutal. It was stupid.

You know, we were all kids. I'm sure. But so wait, you're now in the car. You feel the burn. You look down. You see you're bleeding. I was outside the car. Okay.

Because I slid out of the car. And he ran. Yeah, I think I took a couple kicks or something. And then he ran. And then I got up and I was patting myself because I knew. You're still not really feeling that pain yet. Not really feeling the pain yet. And then I got up and I was patting myself because I knew... You're still not really feeling that pain yet. Not really feeling the pain yet

and like not sure where it was. Right. Because the adrenaline just takes over. You feel nothing. And then as I guess the adrenaline, that chemical kind of dies down, you feel it a little bit more. It was hot.

But I didn't locate it from the feeling. I located it from feeling blood trickle down my leg. And then I had plastic pants on, and I just kind of looked. Plastic pants? Yeah, like running jerseys. Oh, I see. I don't know why I called them plastic pants. I'm not fucking – I'm like Missy Elliott.

That's what I'm thinking. Yeah, so I have my garbage bags on, you know. Yeah, running pants. on you know yeah running cat yeah man and you feel it running down your leg and are you panicking now are you worried that it's hit that artery or you come i don't know any of that and this is bliss does your friend come back what people are running up the to the corner at that point the cops have been called or they were close they They heard the shot because that club was a problem. It was like a thug night. They were always in the area.

The community board wanted to shut that party down. That's how it works in the city. Yeah, next thing you know, I'm in an ambulance. They cut the pants off me. I remember them cutting the pants off me and I remember being like,

I didn't want anyone to see my limp penis. Tell my plastic pants, man. My plastic pants. I got these for a Miss Tell my plastic pants, man. My plastic pants. I got these for a Missy Elliott video. I stopped those plastic pants. And I just wanted to stay covered. I was like, I hope nobody sees my penis. Because they put the thing on you.

They do that all outside. Like emergency style. In front of everybody. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what happened. Fuck. So what happened when you get to the hospital?

So I got to the hospital. They go in to see if it did any damage. They put their hand in my asshole, and they're seeing if it ripped. For real? So wait, when it hit your leg, it went up toward your butt cheek? Yeah, it went in here, and it kind of lodged itself in my right cheek. How big is your scar right now? The scar just looks kind of like a tiny hole, and it's like flat there.

No hair grows there. Right. It's it. It's like a tiny thing. And it went in and it went in yeah i was your right butt cheek right my right butt cheek and they put their fingers up your ass yeah to see if there was any rip or damage or anything like she she gave me a yeah yeah that's how it ends that's not comfortable yeah who knew Who knew getting shot ends with a finger up your ass? And that's before regular prostate exams. So you're not ready for it at 23.

And after a traumatic evening, that's how this is going to wrap up. And she was a hot doctor, too. I was going like, Jesus Christ. It was embarrassing. It was really humiliating. So did they get the bullet out? Or do you still have it in you? They left it in.

No, so what happened is it was so deep in that they decided to leave it in. What kind of bullet? What is it, a 9? It was a 38. A 38. And the reason they left it in is because it was deep, and your body will reject the foreign object. So little by

little it will push it to the surface and so they just wanted to wait for the body to naturally push it yeah and then like a couple years later i went to the surgeon and got it removed and that's where the funny story happens for real so your body will push push push until it gets to the surface then you go to get it just cut open and pulled out your body will reject the foreign object and like slowly try to push it out. It doesn't dissolve it. If it could, I don't know. I guess it could. So what happens?

Two years later it takes? Yes. And are you feeling it? You feel it. I could touch it. I could actually touch it through the skin. Wait, while it was in there the whole time? I could feel it.

Would you find yourself playing with it? I play with it a little bit. I would too. It just added something that was unique. Leave it in. I was like it a little bit. I would, too. It just kind of... It just added something that was unique. Yeah, leave it in. I was like, that's an interesting pinch.

I'm shooting nuts across the room, man. Leave it in, goddamn. Yeah, I couldn't come without it after I lost it. I gotta have a figure up my ass to come now for Christ's sake.

Yeah, it really made things weird. I was like, I need a finger up my ass, I need a bullet in my leg, and I need a guy to jerk it off. Kick me It really made things weird. I was like, I need a finger up my ass. I need a bullet in my leg. And I need a guy to jerk it off. Kick me three times while I'm on the ground. Yeah, it made it weird.

Oh, man. So you got to go get it cut out. What happened? So, yeah. So I started, I stopped doing comedy because I started having these massive panic attacks and anxiety. What was happening? Like, would you be nervous at night?

Yeah. It didn't make sense. It's just PTSD. That's what it is. Like, I realized, like, it's like you have a traumatic event happen. We all walk through life with this kind of benign denial where we just never think anything bad is going to happen. And it's benign to not because we need it. You need that. You can't be thinking of all the things that could happen or else you lose your mind and you're never happy or comfortable. Yes. But then when it does happen, you go to sort of the equal but opposite extreme where you're going like, oh, shit, this could happen any moment because it happened. And you're not even conscious of it. You're just freaking out going, is it going to happen again?

And so I had to go to therapy and I quit doing comedy because I'd get on stage and I would just have these massive panic attacks. I had no idea what was going on. And what would happen with your panic attacks? I would, yeah, it would just be like my heart would start racing. I'd start sweating, and I'd feel like I was... Would you black out at all? Close. I'd feel like I was going to faint,

and I'd have to get off the train and just be shaking a bit. And it was a mask, and I was going, what is happening to me, you know? And then when I went to therapy, it was explained to me, and I slowly figured it out. But I quit comedy for a couple years from 2002 to 2005, really. Because of that? Because of that, yeah.

But did that help? Because I got shot in 2001, May of 2001. It didn't help, but I started doing social work for those years. You did? Yeah. I was working with 9-11 victims for Lutheran Social Services. And that's when I went back, and they told me that the – because the bullet was hurting.

It would, like, when it rained, it would hurt. it rained yeah because it's metal i guess so it would hurt a little bit and uh temperature pressure i don't know yeah and then it would also rip the muscle a little bit like when i play basketball i would feel it and it hurt but it got closer to the surface so i went in and they said yeah we're ready to take it out so i had to go get the x-rays and at at the time I was doing social work, doing 9-11 disaster relief. So about 2002 maybe. And I got the x-ray and everyone I was working with was like older Christian women and stuff, you know, black women or whatever. So I came back with the x-ray and they were all, they all wanted to see it.

They're like, let me see it. You know, cause they wanted to see the bullet. They want to see the x-ray of the bullet. And I hadn't looked at it. It was a big, you know, one of those big x-rays. So I pulled it out and put it on the window. And it was like, you could see my entire limp penis. It was like, I got shot right here.

So all these Christian women gathered around, looking at the bullet. And my just dead limp dick was just because the whole thing shows up in the x-ray. So that was a funny bit. They were like,

Oh! Thank God it was at least bigger than the bullet though, you know? Then, this is true this is i'm not no hyperbole then when we had it removed they put me under like little laugh gas or whatever and they put me in stirrups like i was at the gynecologist yeah they had to get it out and i woke up i woke up to him and the nurse the surgeon and the nurse down there like by my ass and i woke up i farted when i woke up to him and the nurse, the surgeon and the nurse down there by my ass. And I woke up. I farted when I woke up.

I farted right in the doctor's face. And I woke up to them just kind of laughing because I fucking farted. And that's the first. When I was conscious, that was the first thing I heard was the noise of my fart. True stories. God damn, that is a hell of an ordeal Yeah Yeah

Farted right in that doctor's face Oh my god And then Started doing comedy again Don L. Rawlings Was actually the guy Who started like He had a room

And I would start going Doing his comedy Once a week in his room And they took me on the road On the Chappelle Show tour And I would just like Sell his posters And open for them If I do five minutes and that's how i got back into it oh god damn we're gonna take a quick break and tell you about our sponsor burrow it's called the dead of

winter for a reason and now that all the holiday prep and festivities have died down there's a bit of a chill period where we're all just staying home hanging out and i'm gonna tell you with the new burrow sofa in your space, coming home after work won't feel like a last resort. It'll be your prime destination. Durable fabric that's naturally scratch and stain resistance. That's great if you have kids or pets. And here's my favorite part, built-in USB chargers. What? Charge it up on the couch, y'all. Pick your favorite color, your leg finish, your armrest style, and the length. You can add a chaise lounge or an ottoman or both. You can set this thing up yourself in minutes. You can

add or remove seats as needed. You can even convert a love seat or a sofa into a corner sectional in the future. Burroughs Genius Sleep Kit also transforms your comfy sofa into an even comfier bed. They also offer a collection of affordable rugs, coffee tables, love seats, armchairs, and ottomans. So here's the deal. First of all, I know a lot of you have that man cave. A lot of you got that playroom. A lot of you got the company coming over, in-laws living with you, whatever. Get them this couch, pull it out. It's their bed too. They don't even need to go anywhere. Just put them down in the basement with the old couch you get the new one you know what's up get 75 off your purchase and free one week shipping at burrow.com slash honeydew that's b-u-r-r-o-w.com slash honeydew for 75 off at burrow now let's get back

to the dude um okay so all right so since we're back into comedy now, I want to talk about the year you had in 2019. But you said recently or... I wish I knew you in 2019 so we could talk and be like, I know what you're going through. It sounds like you had a bad one too. 2019 was... 2016 was my 2019 for you.

But 2019 had a couple losses for sure. But you said you talk about panic attacks. I guess recently on stage you said something happened to you. What happened? Yeah, so I beat them. Like I totally beat them. And I went like a couple years, no problems. And then I remember I did a one-nighter in Connecticut,

and it went great. It was a real high. So that might have had something to do with it. And then I drove to the Comedy Connection in Providence, Rhode Island, for a weekend, Friday, Saturday. And I remember I didn't eat. It was kind of stupid. I drove.

I didn't drink a lot. So that might have contributed to it a little bit, but it was mostly just panic attack again. So I get on stage. Is this the first? Are you there for a weekend? Yeah, we're there for the weekend. First show.

We started this podcast, History Hyenas. Fans are starting to come out. So the place is kind of full with fans. So it's even more embarrassing, right? They're all there. I hear the pop when I'm walking up. They're excited because they've listened to the podcast. As soon as i get on stage i'm talking i said hello i was like what's up everybody i i felt that you know that like black curtain come down you're like fuck and uh it's

happened to me before and i just sat down it only happened like once or twice and i sat down and i was able to do the set just sitting down right so that was my first instinct i was like i'll just sit down and i'll just do i'll do this sitting down and then you know i'll get a chicken finger or whatever maybe my blood sugar's low i don't know what's going on you're not like you're just getting one chicken finger it's like one chicken finger will solve it so all you said is hello and all i'm clapping all i said is hello and then we're in the danger zone it's like fuck i'm gonna faint i'm going down so i pull the stool up as i'm saying hello and i'm're in the danger zone it's like fuck i'm gonna faint i'm going down so i pull the stool up as i'm saying hello and i'm still just trying to play it off and i'm smiling how's

everybody doing but in my mind i'm going like i'm gonna faint i'm gonna fall and i sit down and i just sit down and i go like and i feel it and i go let's can we get the host back up here and and i just had like an hour conversation with the kid and i just couldn't even remember his name i'm calling him the host. I'm going, can we get the hope up here? Because I'm just like, and he's kind of unsure if it's a bit. He's like going like, and then I had to be like more serious. I'm like, no, I think I'm going to faint.

And the whole crowd's like, some of them are laughing, some of them are not. And then he comes up. I get off, and that's what I said. I said, I need a chicken finger. I was like, someone give me a chicken finger. So he, him or the feature went to someone's table who had just ordered chicken fingers and just grabbed the basket and took it because i was saying like this emergency and they're going are you diabetic

and i'm going no i don't give him a chicken finger he's a diabetic i imagine this is the same type of emergency that has probably happened at a black show somewhere in the country at some point somebody had a low blood sugar and they were like get him a chicken finger he took it off somebody's table he ran took their chicken fingers

brought them into the green room and And I'm eating the chicken finger. It's not working. And they're just out there killing time right now. Yeah, they went back up. So what happens, the host and feature kept switching off. And the owner was in there. Dave was in there. He's like, you all right?

I was like, yeah, man, just let me get a little. Maybe I'm dehydrated. I'm trying to figure it out. And it just didn't work. And it kept getting worse. And he was like, you want me to call an ambulance? And at this point, I'm going like, am I diabetic? Is this the night I'm going to find out about it what's going on and then uh the the

stretcher came which is like there's nothing more humiliating they did call an ambulance they did call an ambulance and they brought the stretchers through the crowd through the crowd like i was a fucking football player on like injured yeah it was like and there's nothing more embarrassing than getting. Wait, they brought it in? They brought it in and it took you out? Yeah, they were doing like. I heard the wheels as they were moving through the crowd.

Excuse me, pardon me. I'm in the green room. God, that's terrible. And you know what the funny thing is? They sit you up or like strap your head down. They had me all laid up. Some Greek guy handed me an icon on the way out. They were clapping

as I was leaving. They were all clapping that I was okay. It's brutal, dude. That's terrible. That's your first night. I was humiliated. It was humiliating. But there is nothing funnier than getting carried out in a stretcher

when there's nothing wrong with you Yeah nothing And on top of that I'm in Providence And you know the EMTs are kind of like Fucking New England kids So they were breaking my balls a little bit They're going so what's wrong did you have a bad set Or you know are you nervous

Cause they took my blood pressure And they looked at my heart and they're like Is this your first time doing comedy? Fucking brutal. I'm sorry to hear that. So did you rally and do the rest of the weekend? So I don't, again, it's one of those things when anxiety comes down on you, I don't know what's happening. So, but they tell me I'm okay.

I went to the hospital. The doctor's like, gave me a speech. Like, what's going on in your life? And I started telling her. She's like, oh, man, you got a lot going on. Maybe you're forgetting to take care of yourself. She's like, this happens a lot where you're the caretaker for a lot of people. At this point, my dad was elderly and close to dying.

He was elderly in elementary school. Yeah. Exactly. You know, so many things were happening at that time and um and your mom's progressively getting worse my best friend was losing his mind sleeping on the street it was just a time where it was like an avalanche it was murphy's law in my personal life a lot of people i cared about were just were crumbling so what's go ahead and so i think like the walls just kind of came down and my subconscious just couldn't hold those fucking walls. And the flood just, you know, it can only hold for a certain long and it just flooded

in. And I couldn't, we have a weird profession, I learned. It's like really weird. It's like if you're going through a lot of personal shit, you know, and you work at a cubicle or something, you can muscle through that. You can kind of sit at your cubicle and just, because you don't have to fucking make people laugh. It's like you could just watch somebody get murdered on the street,

but you still got to go to work and show up 10 minutes later and be like, all right, how's everybody doing tonight? You guys ready for me to cheer you up? It's a fucking strange thing. It's like no matter what we're doing, we have to be happy for other people. And I realize that's why so many of us turn to substance abuse and addictions is because it's hard to kind of keep that up, you know, when you're going through stuff. But you got to keep getting that money.

And like, especially the place I'm in, I'm like, I got to do these gigs. You know, I'm not, you know, I'm like, I'm still checking a lot of ways, you know? So it's like, that's, you know, that's why you just drown out. You numb it out and you get up there. And that's the real dangers. I hope we have to start figuring out a way way to take care of ourselves a little bit more Yeah we really do So I got fucking carted out

So the owners call me And they're like How you feeling? I'm like I'm good man I'll be good tonight I don't know what happened last night I'll be fine I got something to eat Maybe I was dehydrated And they were like why don't we

We'll cancel this weekend So they canceled the whole weekend And I understood they didn't want to take the risk Maybe I was dehydrated. And they were like, why don't we, you know, we'll cancel this weekend. And let's just cancel. So they canceled the whole weekend. And I understood. They didn't want to take the risk. They were like, you seem like you're going through something. Like, let's not force it.

So I just sat down. Don't die on our stage. Yeah, just we don't want any, like, you know, like we don't want to, you know. Yeah. We don't mind if you don't do well. But we don't want you literally dying. Yeah. Yeah. So that was the weekend was you literally dying. Yeah. So that weekend was canceled.

Damn. Yeah. And then you start associating the anxiety with stage. So then the panic attacks start happening again. I did the weekend in San Diego where I was just sitting down thinking I was going to faint the whole time, somehow muscled through it. And now I've kind of been slowly climbing out of it again where I'm starting to just be able to go on stage and just beat the anxiety or whatever happens in your brain that makes you a pussy we're puss i'm a pussy i mean we yeah i mean we're all we're so weak sensitive

pussies we're just weak we are we're human beings we're the we're weak yeah we're weaker than almost any animal yeah hand-to-hand combat oh we're gonna lose all those fights hand-to-hand combat we're losing against any animal pretty much our size. Yeah. Yep. We weren't even the apex predator. Mother nature. No.

For a long time. As soon as we got guns and arrows and shit, we turned the tide on everybody. But other than that, if it was just hand-to-hand, it's over. We're nothing. We used to get eaten by saber-toothed tigers and hyenas. We're nothing. Oh, we're fucking... We stink.

A lion's swipe would fucking throw us 30 fucking yards. It'd be nothing. The difference between a saber-toothed tiger and a human in toughness is like the difference between a regular human and a comic. I mean, we are the biggest pussies. There's like three or four of us that can throw hands. The rest of us are like, hey, man, let me just charm my way out of this situation.

Let me just get behind Joe. Yeah. Exactly. I'm just going to get behind Joe. Get behind Joe, yeah. So tell us about 2019. Obviously, the panic attacks and everything, but what's going on? Yeah, so my mom had just, she's in like a memory care facility.

She started to like decompensate even further where she needed to go to a nursing home. That weekend... In New York? Looking back, it makes sense. That weekend, she went to the hospital. How old is she? She's 86 now.

87. She was being moved to a hospital. My dad was hospitalized because he had like fluid in his lungs and like his heart would sometimes slow down because congestive heart failure and it would kind of bring him back. So he was coming back from the hospital, which was like a regular thing towards the end of his life

because he had stage four cancer, testicular cancer all over his body. But it moved slow in the elderly. So it was just kind of like, and I'm just always thinking about them, my mother's teeth. I had to take her to get new teeth because they were kind of rotting out so can i ask you your oldest brother he's i know you don't get along but he's not he's not helping your parents he's not involved he helps in the way that he helps you know he lives in a different

place so i think that a lot of it falls on me because i live there so a lot of the the grunt work comes on me he does sort of a lot of the logistics stuff. So that's helpful too. And does your brother live in his own place or is he, he lives in a, like a offshoot program. It's the most amazing thing in, in, in Jersey. And it's like, um, you know, they supervise him, they come check in on him. And how often are you seeing him? Um, I see him like on holidays. And, holidays. So you've got your brother to worry about. You've got your mom who's actively the one you need to worry about. So now she's in a facility. She was on her way to like a nursing home,

and she had been hospitalized that weekend. For what? She has a pacemaker in they needed to check, and then she had like pneumonia, or she fell, I think. I remember she fell, and they wanted to see if it was heart related because she fell and so they're doing all this text and whatever and that's when they were discovering that she had decompensated to the point where she needs to go to a nursing home like she couldn't eat now she has to be fed like hand fed and yeah it's just an ugly slow modern medicine's a beautiful thing but then

it gets to a point where you're going like, this is brutal to watch. But then the other side, you're like, I can't kill my mom. But it's a horrible thing to say, but you're kind of hoping for it just to sort of put this is no – there's no quality of life. I talk about that. HBO did that movie. You don't know Jack with Pacino. It was Kevorkian. You ever seen it?

No. It was so well done and and what they did that i really liked was um they intercut actual home video footage that would be sent to kevorkian or stuff that he was filming while um studying this this thing and i remember this one lady um the husband was showing and she was in like her own backyard and then you could see her snap out of it she came back and she's like how long was that and he was like about 30 minutes and she goes if that happens three days in a row i want i want to go i respect that and at the point where she's like i'm for over an hour i don't know who my kids are i don't know

where i am and then he would come and and you paid his airfare, I think. And hell, I remember in one of them, he's sleeping in somebody's Volkswagen. I think he just had to fly him out there and he would come and do it. But he was like, make sure you say all your goodbyes because it was quick. And you would see him take this deep breath and then they would just go. Right. And I remember they got him. They were trying to get him on something.

They got him on something like they did with Capone. They got him on a technicality. And when he went in prison, all these inmates were clapping and cheering for him. You know? And then you think about how many of those people want to fucking go. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

That's a touch issue, but I have to side with what he was trying to do. I'm all for it. I believe Holland has it legal. I believe it's Holland, right? A couple places. I believe Holland has it legal. I believe it's Holland, right? A couple places, I believe. Like everything, Scandinavia's ahead in a few things. You know, I know it's sticky, but if you're still of sound mind

and you can sign a document that says, if I ever get to a point where this, this, and this happens, then yeah, I think you should be allowed to do that. Yeah, yeah, or even, yeah, yeah, request. Yeah, request. Like, I want to go. We have a thing where it's like no more treatment. Right.

But then you have to maintain the person. Right, and that's the other thing. You could bleed the people who are living dry. I mean, the amount of money it would cost you. Like, if I'm ever at that point, I will tell my daughter, let me go. Don't go into debt to keep me alive. I'm not even here anymore. I'm gone.

I'm just a carcass. Yeah, and it's not even that comfortable for the person. Like, that's what happened to my dad. They decided to stop treatment. But then he's still struggling to breathe, and you got to just do, you got to watch him slowly die and watch the body slowly shut down. But the other alternative is just, like, you know, do it so he doesn't have to go through that.

So it's, like, it's a touchy thing but i'm for it euthanasia is like it's it's a virtuous thing in those instances you know and uh yeah those people probably would rather go i'm sure yeah i'm sure there's no way to live their hell we have no idea yeah and so my dad passed i i got to be you know i was very close to my dad and i i got to be with him you did i was there which is just like i'm just glad that happened like i'm glad that i was in the room when he passed i was able to be just you and him it's just me and him and i was listening to him breathe and i i i fell asleep i heard the last breath because i was kind of in and out of consciousness what time of day it was in the morning 6 6 43 or something in the morning, November 5th.

So that was recent. Yeah, it's very recent. Yeah, so that was rough. Do you remember his last words? Did he have any? Yeah, his last words. My dad was real funny. And my dad, he kept his personality towards the end.

But the last thing he said to me, at this point he wasn't talking. He had the mask on. He was just breathing, and his body was just kind of shutting down. But the last thing he said to me when he had that, like, last burst that, you know, people were about to die get, I happened to be there at a certain point because we were all, like, taking turns being there. So I probably missed a lot of other times where he was more talkative.

But I said, I remember he kind of woke up in the hospital, and I was there, and I said, hey, Dad, it's me. It's Yanni. It's your son. He goes, no shit. So that was the last thing. I'm glad. I'm happy.

You go through those horrible things, and you hope for these great last moments, and I got two of them one that being his last words which puts a smile on my face and then the other one being that i i was i was lucky enough to be with him when he died just so he knew he wasn't alone and also your your dad was lucky enough i mean you think about that when we go i hope somebody i love is is there yeah you know i'm not dying on some fucking sidewalk or in some Walmart in aisle seven or some bullshit. You know what I mean?

Your dad got to live a long life, got to smoke all those motherfucking cigarettes. Tons of them. And then go out with his son right there with him. I think that's a pretty good fucking life right there. That's good of you. Yeah, he lived, man. And then one of my closest friends

who I took in the road for eight years with me um we became real good friends he got he got stuck he had stomach cancer diagnosed like a year ago and then so for the last year he was like everyone knew i knew he was dying he didn't tell anyone he didn't want me to tell anyone there was a few of us who knew but then he recently he passed like right before christmas so that was tough too it was like and when that just came on? He was... Isn't it crazy then you hear about your dad smoking these cigarettes? Yeah, I mean, he used to drink a lot.

I don't know if that causes it, but they say it does because it rips up the lining in your stomach or whatever and leaves you vulnerable for stuff like that. Not definite, nobody knows, but comics don't have healthy lifestyles for the most part. Eating chicken fingers to save yourself.

Comics don't have healthy lifestyles for the most part. Eating chicken fingers to save yourself. I'm dying. Does anyone have any fried food? That's what we're asking for. Good point. Yeah. We don't even know healthy options exist.

We just look for whatever's on the side of a highway. You're like, give me that to fix me. I need a chicken finger. Yeah, give me some beef jerky and a Mountain Dew. So, yeah, he passed away. You know, early 50s. Just too young, man. So that was rough.

That was real rough. Early 50s. It scares me. Real rough and real sad. And it's been sad. But now those things are past and the scar tissue is kind of forming. I'm starting to feel myself kind of climb out of it and it feels good. And now I have those experiences. And you learn that, you know, you really learn how ephemeral this all is.

And the silver lining, I think, is that the real currency here is like friendships, you know, laughter. The rest of it doesn't mean nothing money it means nothing no one gives a fuck going away car you drove when you're gone yeah nobody gives a fuck death is the ultimate equalizer no one cares about the the fucking patio furniture you have when you're who gives a no one cares yeah you um you also lost your manager last year i mean you had a lot people listening on what the fuck 2019 was a year 2019 was bad man and i wish dave yeah and i i wish i knew i i know all those new york guys but him and he was the one guy i'd never met and everyone was always like ryan the nicest guy the nicest guy nice so i mean that was awful i lost my manager well she was my first manager first real manager let me make that

real clear first real good manager somebody actually cared about me uh judy apperson i loved her and um yeah she passed away they did a nice memorial for it the hollywood improv so i got to go to that and speak how did she go was it like a tragic it was weird um she wasn't feeling well from what i understand went to the hospital they said you're okay went home continued not to feel well went back they said well we want to run some tests and you know she was a hustler she's like well how long is this going to take i got this this didn't they're like you're gonna need to stay overnight and i i believe overnight she passed wow um that's still not sure yeah what exactly happened uh my uncle ed died last year who lived in highland town he was the last one in greek town

he was the last he was he outlasted greek town which is unbelievable to me but he yeah he died of cancer but he had cancer for he had it for a while and he was a fucking fighter but then you'd start i'd start to see the pictures on facebook and stuff i'm like oh how old is he he had a good run but i i think he might have got into his 80s decent run yeah yeah um but he was like there's only one relative left that's the the key to all the questions i have from any of the other relatives from that that era you know what i mean like hey what was the blah, blah, blah? They're going. Yeah, you got one left. You got to get them all.

Get all those stories. Get everything. We're the next generation of those questions for all the other people. Yeah. Yeah. We're not even going to have close to as good of stories as they have. No. They're going to be like, well, tell me a good story.

You're going to be like, I was on my phone all day. I watched a great video. I was podcasting. And you're like, again? He's like, yeah. Yeah. I was on my phone all day. I watched a great video. I was podcasting. And you're like, again? He's like, yeah, we, yeah. I mean, most of the time we just spent podcasting. So where are you at with anxiety now?

And has it come back since or just that last gig? I have moments. There's moments where it's not gone. I had a nice chunk of years where I just, even though I was still going through hard stuff with the family, you know, Alzheimer's, all those things, they didn't go away and they kind of were progressively getting worse. I had somehow just kind of managed to keep it together somewhat, continue doing comedy because that stuff really affects you. But recently now there's a few after effects I'll get here and there, but things are starting to feel

real good i'm starting to feel real good again um what are you doing are you in therapy do you meditate you know what do you breathe you take medicine what do you just suck it up and just try to yeah i should i should like start meditating or something but i try to work out try to run that feels good that's great for you and And just hang out, laugh with friends, and that new perspective is great, though. It's like when people you love die, you have this moment where it really hits you how short this is.

And how unimportant. Not only short, but unimportant. You're like, oh, man. You realize, oh, he didn't exist for forever and now he doesn't exist forever and like there was this little slither lip it's like a blip yeah it's like a meaningless blip that uh it's a cosmic joke man so comedians have kind of hacked it a little bit we've hacked life a little bit and we should appreciate that and just take care of our health first i think a comedian's job first should be health

because this is such an unhealthy unstable life yeah not only just what we eat but it's like emotionally you're always getting rejected you know you got to have the pressure to to make someone laugh every eight nine seconds when you're on stage live and you know it's it's more stressful than we think because it's so fun. So I think hopefully it becomes health one, career two. Yeah, well, there is no career without health. Yeah, it's got to be health one. That's your job. You wake up and you're like, you know what?

I'm going to freaking go to the gym and get on a bike and make sure I'm here to tell jokes. Yeah, I had had a panic attack. I was with Tom in Atlantic City, and i had had a panic attack i was with tom in atlantic city and i had like a little panic it's i guess it was a small one because i've seen videos of people have panic attacks and i did not have this but i was you didn't end up in a stretcher getting wheeled wheeling through a comedy club crowd grabbing chicken fingers on the way by um but it was so high i actually had the conversation with myself like okay don't jump sit

down sit down i had to sit down i've never been like that on a fucking escalator and then wait wait no don't jump yeah i was on it was like it was at the ocean casino and the fucking escalator goes like there's like four of them and we were way the fuck up there and i looked over the side and i was like and i started to have this panic attack about how high i am and i i even said out loud oh my god if i fell over this i could die and the guy behind me's like why the fuck are you thinking that i'm like i don't know dude and i turned around i sat on the step and i was like okay okay don't don't do anything stupid don't jump just sit here till somebody tells us we're at the top never in my life i started getting afraid to fly and then dr drew recommended this emdr and what it did was allow

me because my daughter almost got hit by a car last december not just 2018 right and it unhinged me it brought about all this anxiety and fear of death and the same thing that you had that had been laying lying dormant for all this time and you know you do expect to bury your parents but i didn't expect to bury my father when i was 16 and i've had this same thing this i lost that when i shouldn't have i can't lose this right and it just made me freak the fuck out and started thinking about i never i i loved fucking you know hauling ass down a runway and taking off you know that used to be my favorite feeling and then all of a sudden i started to think like oh man let's get up in the air for 10 minutes we're not gonna crack turbulence all you know all of it you get in your own head all

of your just future trip yeah future trip none of it's happening none of it's happening none of it my and i told the therapist like after my daughter almost got hit i told her mom to immediately like for the next couple of weeks i couldn't stop thinking about what didn't happen right it didn't happen but i saw it in my mind and it fucked with me hard so i went to look at that and then you know thank god i figured out where it was coming from and it's all fear-based and bullshit and everything else you know uh so yeah i went this past year for a few months to work on that yeah and that really changed my outlook on i mean so much shit i i said the same thing i back in july i called a truce with my daughter's mother i'm like she's already fucking going to be five years.

Like this shit's going by like this. It's so insignificant when it's all said and done. Can we please just figure out a way to get along for everybody? And she was down. So we work on that. That's beautiful. We work on it. Yeah.

But it's, I was like, if that would have happened, what, what does it matter whose night it is or where we're going? You know, who gives a fuck if that happens? So, yeah, we're trying to work on all that stuff now,

and I keep trying to work on that stuff, and I don't want to argue. I think that kind of shit causes cancer. I think so. That dwelling and that fucking letting shit eat at you and, you know, just fester, I think that fucking causes cancer. I agree with you. I think that stress and those knots you get because you take the stress on in certain parts of your body, and that could be where you end up just –

Yeah, it manifests. It just makes you vulnerable for it. It's amazing that, you know, because we have, like, these big brains. Like, the human species is the only species that has to figure out a way to deal with how big our brain is, you know? Cats are just walking around like, bird, kill it, you know, sleep, eat. We're like, you know, I could be on this plane,

this plane could go to, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, right, yeah. Like, shut the fuck up. Yeah, you've got to figure out a way to shut your brain up. Yes, shut it all. Because you create this, like, reality that's not happening. And like I said at the beginning, even when the bad thing is happening,

it's never as bad as worrying about it. It's just happening. Yes. So you're actually oddly zen. You're in the moment because you're forced to be in the moment. It's kind of ironic that the horror forces you to live in the moment. Yeah, it does. And then it's all the bullshit after that you start thinking about that wrecks you.

Right. It's wild. The brain is a wild thing well man i am glad you're doing better thanks man thank you for coming on here and sharing all this this is a wild ride this is fun i mean i'm sorry you got shot that's the best gunshot story i've ever yeah i have a roller coaster i'm just taking my belt off i'm like wow that was wild um will you please one more time promote everything you like? Thanks, man. Yeah, so my special Blowing the Light on YouTube, please check that out.

And it's free. And if you're in New York City, I'll be at Gotham Comedy Club February 21st and 22nd and Uncle Vinny's February 27th and 28th. And most importantly, my podcast, History Hyenas, with me and Chris DiStefano, who will also be on an episode of this. Yes, he will.

Yeah. It's awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you, man. It's a pleasure. Oh, wait. I do have to ask you. Advice to your 16-year-old self.

Thank you very much. You want me to do it in Hebrew? All right. Can you do it in Hebrew? Do it in Greek, brother. I got a lot of Jewish friends I grew up with. When you're from Brooklyn, you just have three or four Jews, you know. Jewish friends I grew up with. When you're from Brooklyn, like you just have three or four Jews,

you know. Advice to my 16-year-old self would be, yeah, take the pressure off of trying to like be perfect. Just don't do that. Just keep going forward. That was like a don't, and that might have happened to me. that's a big flaw of mine i would get so discouraged if it wasn't perfect i think part of that might have been because my brother was brain injured so um i just felt like uh i was scared to not be perfect or something to compensate for him never being able to get better which is a weird thing for a young kid to to have to do it like understand i remember when i was young i would like try to i'm bringing it back down again i'm bringing us back to the middle of the episode going right we're trying to go light but i remember trying to force him to read like when i was young

because i didn't understand and i was like trying to get him smarter so which like yeah that doesn't work if you know so um that's what i would tell my 16 year old kid is like there's no such thing as perfection don't get discouraged. And just like, you know, life's about getting up. It's not about like getting it right. You know, that's it. That's great. Yeah.

Thank you so much, man. Thanks, man. I am Ryan Sickler on all social media, ryansickler.com. We'll talk to you you next time.