This Past Weekend - #671 - Casey Rocket
Episode Date: July 23, 2026Casey Rocket is a stand up comedian and writer. You can see him live on his “Return of the Prodigal Riff” tour happening now through the end of the year. Casey joins Theo to talk about his ...mysterious southern origins, why he left Austin for Chicago, and the perils of riffing too close to the sun. Casey Rocket: https://www.instagram.com/caseyrocket ------------------------------------------------- Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ Shopify: Take control of your income. Start your free trial at http://shopify.com/theo Mountain Dew: Look for Mountain Dew in stores near you at http://mountaindew.com Better Help: This show is brought to you by BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10% off at http://BetterHelp.com/theo Perplexity AI: Ask anything at https://pplx.ai/theo Watch on Spotify. Spotify subscribers get fewer ads on our episodes. ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Mail stuff to: ATTN: TPW PO BOX 40137 Nashville TN 37204 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend X: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Trevyn https://www.instagram.com/trevyn.s/ Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Andrew https://www.instagram.com/bleachmediaofficial/ Producer: Halston https://www.instagram.com/halstonrays/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Today's guest is a stand-up comedian.
His origins are mysterious.
Yes.
But you'll know him from his wildly popular Kill Tony appearances.
He's on the road.
Now you can see him live.
There's no one like him.
There's no one like him.
I had a great time with today's guest.
The Sultan of Riff.
Mr. Casey, Rock it.
As soon as I can't tell if I'm having like male hot flashes or whatever.
Sure.
Men of a certain age.
Every age.
Every age maybe.
Men of a certain age being the spectrum of all ages, yeah.
Dude, I think these days, things have gotten crazy.
You'll see a little kid having a hot flash or whatever.
He'll be like, you know, you'll see a little kid just like just looking from like a faucet.
People are trying to do anything they can.
To cool these kids off.
Yeah.
Yeah.
To help themselves.
Sure. Yeah, a spicket.
You'll see people doing, like, the level we've gotten to in a society of trying to help ourselves is crazy.
It's like people are playing like a lot of like certain hurts of sounds that is supposed to like, you know, help you pass old trauma or help you, you know, win the lottery.
Like there's a lot, like, there's a lot of megahertz that's variable for different options, you know.
Yeah. Yeah, there's all kinds of sounds that can help you win the lottery.
I'm the first to admit that.
Yeah, so certain like tonal shifts.
So if you go like low, like you'll win, what is it, like 10 to 20 grand.
Yes.
But the higher ones, they get dangerous for your like, what do they call it, like terminal mental velocity.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, when people win too much money, it induces a lot.
I think it's called high dollar trauma or something, HDT.
And you will see people with that, like rich.
people or whatever and they're suddenly eating like rare cheese as cheese is made from you know obviously
that you know cultivated or pasteurizing the tears of the poor and young yes well what did they say
it's like old money at the poverty line so it's like L.A. by way of New York so the lower the
cheese is on like a vibrational frequency the higher the dollar amount you don't have to pay it's like a
tax right off yeah yeah oh definitely if you get because there's somebody run
around with a 425 megahertz
casso dip right now.
I know there's a truck that just stalled out on the way
to the Hamptons that was full of it.
The engine just could not function like that.
Yeah, I think when you're pushing
that much high dollar dairy
and you're pulling it behind you
and you have a fucking probably a
seventh or eighth grade reading level driver.
Yeah, the polarity there is just not healthy.
And it's like where does the buck stop?
The buck stops when the truck stops
as I say.
Yeah, that's good.
God, if Koso made us
Frickin' smarter, God, can you even imagine?
Can you imagine the mental bandwidth
I would have right now?
Because I had to get all Koso breakfast.
Did you?
Yeah, so frozen solid liquid, yeah.
Oh, wow.
So you get like, what is it, like a fudge pop
of like frozen Koso fresco.
And then you go like, okay, you go chili concarnay.
Pure liquids, you leave that on the dashboard.
And then you go with the gas.
which is just like a handful of like writs.
And those are so good.
And what I've also heard is that they have those new queso whippets or whatever,
like a whipet, like pimento cheese whipets.
And you fucking...
Galaxy gas, yeah.
Yeah, you hit a couple of those, brother.
Ooh, I got a stomach ate.
Oh, you'll get sick.
Yeah, you'll have to poop.
Yeah, it's bad for your appendix, yeah.
Oh, these days that your appendix will burst or a rich person will hire you to burst your
appendix so they don't have to.
Sure. Yeah, they'll tether you up. That's what I've been to Duff McCagan from Guns and Roses.
He accidentally tethered to himself.
We've been dancing with Mr. Brownstone.
God, dude.
Too much of a good thing.
Too much dashboard. Koso.
Yum.
That's our band name.
Like the string cheese incident.
Oh, God, dude.
I used to follow widespread some.
Did you?
Really?
Yeah.
I think I know.
Well, not widespread, but I know someone in the Tustigi Trucks Band.
Do you?
Dwayne Johnson?
Alman.
Dwayne the Rock Johnson.
Dwayne Allman.
Yeah.
I've always wanted the last name that was a nut.
Bring him up, Dwayne Allman.
Peter Pistachio.
Or a Pee, or like Ronnie Garbanzo or whatever, like a bean maybe.
Yeah.
Wait, is Dwayne Allman dead?
Oh, no.
He died in 1971.
Who have I been talking to?
Oh, dude, it's probably one of those Nigerian scammers.
He's like, hey, I want to teach you steel guitar.
And I'm like, great.
That sounds great.
Melissa.
You're playing that, dude.
What's the catch?
I'm going to teach you how to play Southbound.
All right.
Casey Rocket, good to see you, man.
Good to see you.
Happy to be here.
Thanks for talking Koso.
Oh, yeah, dude.
It's almost, well, I misread your name earlier.
And that's what even had me thinking about it.
I thought it was Caso Rocket.
Sure.
Yeah.
Caso object permanence rocket.
There should be like a Latino version of you that comes out named Caso Rocket.
And I go, this person's an imposter.
And he's like, no, I'm not.
Huh?
He's all liquid.
So sick.
Oh, God, I hope we're okay.
Me too.
A riff like that will make you start questioning like your, your,
purpose in the world.
Yeah, things get rough, dude.
Well, I was, it reminded me, it took me to a place when I went to see, um, I went and
we watched, it was at a music festival one weekend.
It was in New Orleans.
It's called a jazz and heritage festivals every year.
And it's, uh, they had, who was playing?
The guy, uh, shit.
Some guy that was going to die soon.
And was that, I just, so was that the general.
consensus or you like retroactively
you were like he was about to die
I mean
he would have like he was out there
but his kid was singing with him kind of
you know like when they get the kids out there
and he's sitting over there and somebody
just kind of spraying water on him almost like he's like
like one of those Indian plants
or whatever that helped David Allen Co
that happened with Ozzy too they like hooked him up
to a life support machine
I was there I was in Birmingham I saw Ozzie's last
concert were you really yeah and did they
like was he on an ivy and stuff while he was up
Um, yeah, he was in like a UV light.
Oh, really?
Yeah, they had him in like, it was like a makeshift, like final destination tanning machine.
So it was like, but it was like pointed outwards so you wouldn't have to be laying down.
But see, so that is a tanning bed.
You can see the blue.
Yeah, it helped him like, he had like photosynthesis.
It made him like effervescent.
I mean, that's the darkest tanning bed you can get.
They're like, how dark do you want to go?
It's like we offer like, you know, Pensacola, Alabama, Tri-Delta, Pensacola Beach,
or we also can go all the way.
We can do Ozzy last show dark.
We could do South Padre Island or you in a casket.
So that, they're actually pointing an EMP at him.
That's a sound weapon.
So he has Havana syndrome.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah, dude.
And he's just singing that song.
San Juan
Meijo
Have you seen those freaking TikToks dude
It's like
It's a bunch of people that can't read
And they're going to Puerto Rico or whatever
And so they made a song about
Have you seen that Trevin?
I have not
What was the song?
San Juan?
It's like
It's a lot of people that are in trouble reading
and writing who refuse to teach their kids
that are reading right
Because they can't, right?
Sure.
Well, that's a good reason
We're not doing it.
Yeah.
I agree.
But for years, people have been
pretending they can, and then they show the kid.
And that's like trickle-down ignoromics, right?
Sure.
It's Reagan started it.
And that's the kind of shit that we don't need in the community.
So a lot of them are going to San Juan, and they're doing this song on the way there,
to gain points with their lord.
Okay.
And then when they land, hopefully they have enough, like, spiritual savings account to not go bankrupt.
Yeah.
Yeah.
To get a Carlos and Charlie's shirt on the way home.
Can you bring it up?
You haven't seen this thing, dude.
No.
I don't even know if we can play this or not.
Hopefully it's not copyrighted.
I think it was, oh, A.I made the song.
That was the craziest thing about it.
This is it.
Oh, okay.
So I am into stuff like this, yeah.
Have you heard this?
No.
So it's basically, it's music pretty much for the learning disabled, okay?
We're just where we are.
There's a whole new show.
genre of music for the learning disabled.
Sure, it helps with like shapes and colors.
Well, we thought for years they were listening to what we were listening to, right?
And finally people were like, no, they need their own music.
Play a little more.
Play a little.
Just keep going.
In the boot scoot and boogie.
Yeah, so it's like spiritual dyslexia.
Yes.
Well, that's exactly what it is.
And I think it's, I want to say it's Baptist based.
I'm not sure.
But is there some.
Well, you can see kind of like the proving ground of like the Pentecostal religion as well.
You can see some of that seeping into the groundwater.
Oh, it's, you know, sometimes you wake up and your legs are all soggy and you're like, you know.
How do I dry these puppies out?
Who did this?
Who did this and why?
Who did this and why?
Because I used to always know someone would pee in my bed every night and it wasn't me.
Mm-mm.
How could it be?
Dude, it couldn't have been that many times?
Mm-mm.
No, once or twice you go, all right, I've been making some mistakes.
Four, five, ten times.
You get up to double digits, you go like, I'm being persecuted.
Yeah, definitely.
I'm being gangstocked by a bunch of pissers.
Yeah, dude, it's obvious that they're sneaking in through our broken window downstairs near the kitchen.
Yeah.
They're coming up.
They're pissing on you boy.
Okay.
I've talked to the landlord.
He won't answer me.
It goes to Mallor deem on.
Yeah, dude.
Every time I call the landlord, it goes to a front desk.
Christian Dior somewhere.
So they have no clue what we're talking about.
No, they go, first of all, how can you smell through the phone?
I don't know, you tell me who's pissing my bed and I'll answer your little inquiry.
They're like, we could replace the sheets.
That'll be $1,100.
And you're like, God damn.
I'll just sit here in poverty and piss.
I'll sit here in the potty bed I made, a water bed full of piss.
Oh, do that.
That is what we need.
Yeah. This is where we're gonna get to because the society's getting weird. Can we agree?
Sure. I'm the first. I'm the second to admit that you were the first. Yeah. Okay, and I'm glad we're here and I'm glad we're here and society is getting weird people are not wearing gloves anymore when they drive
Yeah. Okay. I saw an animal the other day no hoofs on his feet. Okay. Yeah, what happened to the nuclear family?
It's a big question dude. I saw two gay men. They were wearing dog collars
Dog sitting there smoking in the car by himself
Okay.
Windows up.
Yeah.
Ruins the resale value.
It's just nobody, I don't know if people don't care or if they've taken our ability to care away.
Hmm.
Yeah.
If it is endemic of a greater social, sociopolitical problem or if it's engendered upon the human race in general.
Yeah.
Because that's a big question because the first thing you would take away from somebody is their ability to care.
Yes.
Yeah.
Because it leaves you in a spot, you know?
Yeah, well, the one true export of all of the maleficence of consciousness is hope without faith.
God, that gives me the shivers.
That's so scary.
So people are now dogs without nails.
God.
And they still think they're scratching each other's backs.
No, they were born on third base and they thought they hit a triple.
Yeah.
It's a different time, man.
The zygotes are different.
Yeah.
I'll say that.
Sure.
Have you seen a cat scan of a woman's belly recently?
Isn't it like a recent, like an up-to-date cat scan?
I've been looking at like old ones to see how the technologies progressed.
One woman.
One woman had a frisbee and an eight ball in there.
Oh, no.
That was it.
So whatever is living in there or part-time or whatever is keeping its luggage there.
Sure.
Okay, obviously.
likes to party at the park, you know.
That was a great WCW pay-per-view, the party at the park.
Was that one?
I know they did the bash of the beach,
so I could only hope that they did the party at the park.
Oh, I hope they did, too.
And it was like kind of a, it was a beautiful day.
It was by a river, right?
Yeah.
They hung like a briefcase full of the world's like the finest charcutory board in the world, right?
They hung the finest charcutory board in the world up,
and you had to climb up a ladder, right?
And then you had to get three strong kids.
and you had to climb up one of their backs, right?
And you didn't know which one and the winner got.
You didn't know which one had the best back.
Yeah.
Because they kept their shirts on.
So it's purely intuition.
Which, and also, if you're staying in there,
intuitioning, which kid has a nice back, dude.
If you do it too strongly, you go to jail, right?
So it would take you longer to get to the charcutory.
Yeah.
And if you do it too long, also, Booker T's going to hit you with a chair.
So, it's, yeah, that was like a good thought experiment.
that was like the Stanford Prison Experiment in action.
Oh, it's where we are.
Casey Rockett, dude.
Good to see you, man.
Good to see you.
Happy to be here.
It's awesome, dude.
You're such a talent,
and it's great to just see you, like, in the wild.
You were in Huntington last night I saw?
Yeah, I was in Huntsville.
Or Huntsville, yeah.
They keep changing the fucking name.
I know.
Because they're trying to avoid the IRS or whatever.
Yeah.
I actually, it's funny, before I came here,
I took a shower,
a Gregorian Greco-Roman
hour, which is, of course, a cheese Danish that I put in a bunch of socks and I kind of
strain it out over my head. But I wrote on my hand, I wrote on my hand last night, I don't
know why, but I wrote Santa Cruz or Santa Fe, one of the Santas. So that doesn't really
answer your question, but I did just look at my hand. But if the question was, did you just look at
your hand? The answer is yes. Okay, okay. Yeah, I was in Huntsville at Levity Lodge.
That was great.
Oh, yeah.
The location from the stage to the audience,
it has a unique ratio there.
Do you feel that there?
I do.
Like the height of the stage
and the ratio of the audience
is very rare there.
It is, it is quite unusual.
Actually, the heliums aren't set up like that.
Even Zanis Nashville, Zanee Chicago.
Zanis Rosemont's kind of like that.
Is it?
Slower to the ground.
I haven't spent time out there.
I would love to get out there.
or I'm not allowed to go.
I shouldn't be there, I don't think,
but one day I will go when my mom passes.
Sure, yeah.
I'm going to get out there
because she would want me to see it.
That's why.
She'd want you, yeah,
to see how they make the spaceships.
They do the spaceships there.
She would want me to see it, man.
Lockheed Martin.
Oh, is that where they're based?
Yeah, Lockheed Martin there.
That's where they reverse engineer
the anti-gravity technology, so.
Uh-uh.
Apparently, that's where some of the scientists are going missing, you know, those scientists.
Oh, is that where that's happening really?
Yeah.
One of them went the way of the dodo.
Not not Rosemont at Huntsville.
Oh, that's where those scientists have gone missing out in Huntsville.
So one of them in particular, she did go the way the dodo.
She did take an early exit.
But, yeah, they're being missing all over them place.
It's crazy, dude, from MIT to MIA, bro.
That's the craziest.
at least 10 individuals connected to sensitive U.S. aerospace, nuclear and defense research have died or disappeared recently.
That's two different things, though, disappearing.
Yeah.
That gives me more pause that we're a part of some, like, greater, like, neo-no-ar detective thing.
Yeah.
Them just dying, I mean, people die every day.
People die every day.
Yeah, William Neal McHaslan, a retired U.S. Air Force Major General.
He vanished from his new Mexico.
Mexico home in February 2026, leaving his phone and identification behind.
Well, Santa Claus or Santa Fe, dude.
That takes you back to that question, man.
That's a tough one.
Sure.
Yeah.
Well, somebody let the door open and the wrong dogs came home.
You know, I know who it was.
It was some of those piss warriors from freaking Christian Dior probably pulled up and wet that
dude down a little.
You create enough of a, you know, of a, of a, of a, of a, of a, of a, of a, of a,
a stream in the kitchen, a senior is going to
fuck. Yeah. Flash flood.
Oh, a senior does not stand a chance against
a flash flood, and I'll say that out loud, brother.
I'll run into a damn vineyard
vines and scream mad. Sure, and I'll be
receptive to it the whole time.
Yeah, yeah. I'll be sitting
back there with a good book, just going
God dang.
He's right. He's right.
You'll poke your head out of a changing
room, be like,
I never had a chance.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't fucking never had a chant, bro.
Yeah, if you slick somebody up, like, and I've said this for months.
I was there when you said it.
Yeah, if you slick somebody up good enough, anything can be a slip and slide.
So a staircase, most homes have a staircase, so if they're slick enough, bye, bye, bye.
Grandpa!
And he's gone.
You can barely even, you know, or you try to use his real name, then Henry, you know, like, that's a crazy.
easiest thing. Now, a black grandpa, they'll mill around a little, but even the stream is even
going to get them, you know, you would think. Well, yeah, they, you know, they're probably more
worldly and they'll see the stream, maybe before the white grandpa, but either way, when the flood
comes, come on, man. You don't stand a chance, baby. That's the Bible working. Yeah, that's Noah.
The piss flood. That's it.
brother.
Grip, drip.
It's scary to think about.
It's scary to think about, dude.
You're living in...
Anyway, you're living in Chicago now, huh?
Yeah, I moved from Austin in December,
and I lived in St. Louis for six months,
and now I've been settling in Chicago, yeah.
How's it been there?
It's been good.
They have a hot dog culture that is out of this world.
Relish mustard the works.
Oh, yeah.
And the people have been treating me with grace and kindness.
And I, in turn, have been passing on to them a smile.
Very fair.
Yeah.
Did you miss Austin when you let?
What was the reason of leaving Austin?
Because things were going good there, right?
Sure, yeah.
Yeah, I worked at a mothership for a year, and I won the equivalent.
I won the Austin's not the funniest person, but the Austin comedy competition.
So yeah, I was really ingrained in the scene there.
And that was 2021, was it or no?
When I won that, I moved there in 2021.
I think I won that in 2023 maybe.
Okay.
But yeah, I have a lot of really great friends there.
I felt like maybe it was time for me to do something else.
I'm going to grad school, so you wrote me a letter of recommendation for that.
And I'm going to DePaul to do screenwriting.
So I just wanted to make some changes in my life, yeah.
That's wild, dude.
Congratulations, man.
Thanks.
On getting in over there.
Are you excited about it?
I am.
It starts since September, and then I'm going to write my Great American novel.
Dude.
Yep.
Is there a novels you kind of were inspired by?
Like, was there a novel that you kind of read that led you to even kind of spark
that in your head?
Or a book that you read that kind of sparked that in your head?
Because I think, like, I like, I like, I like to write.
So I think there's things in, like, there was one book I read, and I was like, huh.
Yeah, there's some good, like, memoir-type books that I really liked.
One of them is a book called Permanent Midnight by a guy named Jerry Stahl
that they made in two movies with Ben Stiller.
Another great one is Sing Backwards and Weep by Mark Laneigan,
who used to be the lead singer of The Screaming Trees.
Oh, wow.
So, yeah, some memoirs.
And then a lot of, like, screenplays, like, obviously I'm a big fan,
as most people are of Paul Thomas Anderson, who did Magnolia and one battle after another.
PTA?
PTA.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I love movies, and I like movies, and I'm just as happy with a good book.
I can't stress that enough.
But, yeah, I want to learn how to, like, write screenplays and stuff like that.
And I want to be a multi-hyphenate.
I want to be a bad boy, and I want to be a sweetie.
Hmm.
How do you do that?
I wonder, I'm trying to think of, like, a candy that really presents itself like that.
Oh, Sour Patch Kids.
You think?
Oh, because they're kids.
And there's nothing more rotten than a kid.
Right, but they're also very cherubian.
Kids are very cherubescent.
Sure.
They're very much like the angels,
they're God's little wiggers or whatever, right?
And so when you add that sourness to them,
you're saying this is another thing about them.
And you might not like it, white boy.
You might not like a little piglet.
Yeah, so I think there's a lot of that that goes on.
Sure.
When you combine stuff like that,
there's also some candies that some people,
even get through. Like, we had kids that couldn't handle gobstoppers, whatever, and they had to
another school. We'd have, you know, and people were like, you know what I'm saying? Like,
they just couldn't, they couldn't figure it out. Sure. Well, they, it's a lesson in patience.
It's, for me, when I think of gobshoppers, I think that the line of demarcation is only visible to those
outside the cultural means of production. And so, so it really is Leninism at its most
Stalingradian, but it's, it's beautiful. So you can see that's actually a model of the
universe. Oh, they call them the Berlin Ball, you know? That's why, because you just, there's so much
to go through. Which you have to be willing to do it. You have to be. If you want to get to that center,
which is just plutonium, it is yellow cake uranium. So it'll make you sick as a dog, but it'll make you
grow in ways you should not. Oh, dude, I saw a kid who had to take his shoes off in the middle of one
because they just, his feet were popping right out of them. This is forever chemicals. These is,
And a lot of rumors is that Wanka was working early with Forever Chemicals.
That's rumor.
Yeah.
But there's a lot of PFAs in there.
I saw a video the other day that people's grandparents now have PFAs in them.
So they're suggesting like shutting down hugs, shutting down.
Yeah.
Well, the original recipe was Zyclon B.
So it does make people like, it don't make you happy in the moment but sad for a lifetime.
So it's your choice, buck-oh.
Yeah.
Pick your battle.
You don't mean one.
Mr. Grinch.
you know, that's what's going on.
Short answer, yes, several
popular candies formerly marketed
under the Wonka brand,
like nerds in Lafey Tavia recently tested
positive for very high levels of arsenic.
Thank you, perplexity,
which is a persistent, forever contaminant
in the environment and can accumulate
in the body over time.
It's not good.
It's not good.
It's not.
Is it worth it, though?
Sure.
Yeah.
They make the candies good.
When you're a kid,
and you get the nerds
or what was it for you?
Was there a candy that you were like, yeah?
Maybe like a Charleston shoe.
Oh.
Inside the freezer and a fridge that's unplugged.
So it's planting this seed of like this is getting...
So it's like...
So like my body's telling me this is getting colder.
Yeah.
But my heart of hearts is like, brother,
you know this is room town.
Yeah.
Here was an old trick we would use
if we were driving around and doing Coke, right?
Sure.
We'd fill the glove box with Charles and shoes, right?
So when the cop pulled you over, you opened that, he sees him all fall out.
And he goes, oh, oh, sorry, fellas.
Be on your way.
Sorry, boys.
It was just like, it changed the level of anger and curiosity of the cop.
Sure.
It put it a little bit more of a joy.
Yeah.
It was a little bit more, oh, wow, there's pinatas in here.
Yeah, these are just a couple of candy guys out for a midnight stroll.
Well, the original tagline for,
Sour Patch Kids was there is no greater sin than the sin of being porn.
So that is powerful.
Well, it's something I remember Sugar Honkies Unite had that.
Who had that slogan?
Okay.
Because that was a big one.
Isn't there a candy called Sugar Daddies?
Oh, there was.
And then a website bought it out.
But there was also Sugar Ain't got nothing on this clan.
Who had that?
Who had that, dude?
The Sugar Union?
Yeah.
Oh, no, they're like the Pinkertons.
Sugar Daddy's, that was it, man.
Oh, they were a thing.
And then you eat a couple of them and you go,
I shouldn't be eating this.
Yeah.
You have one sugar daddy, you go, I shouldn't be eating that.
You're right.
And then they gave the babies away.
Here's the craziest part.
And this is, going back to the nuclear family breaking down,
there's never a mother involved, you know?
No.
It was sugar daddy, sugar babies.
Sure.
It was like, yeah, the pursuit of happiness.
It was like gorgeous.
but tragic.
Oh, yeah.
It was like I am legend or whatever.
It was like I robot.
Yeah.
It was very similar to some of that, dude.
It was kind of like her with Joaquin Phoenix.
It was just a challenged man dancing around in a mall,
willing to dry up the air to get a little sugar in his system.
The old reboot.
Yeah, they called that the old Milwaukee handshake.
Yum.
Oh, God.
There's nothing that'll make you leave your family faster.
than a good bit of sugar.
I thought, and I hate to default to riff,
I thought, surely you were talking about Wonka being a progener of forever chemicals.
I was like, oh, surely this is just a Christmas riff.
And then you pulled up the paper trail, which engendered this idea that was very much factual.
Yeah, it is bad.
It's giving people bone stuff.
That's not good.
Yeah.
And the saddest part is the injuries, our grandfathers had real injuries, like missing a limb from like, you know, he was, you know, got drunk and he was petting a landmine or something in Iwo Jima, right, right?
Sure.
Missing his wife.
Maybe put some of his wife clothes on a landmine, got a little crazy, whatever.
Lost a limb, lost half, you know, lost something important that had semen hiding in it.
But now it's just some guy, you know, you see some guy in a wheelchair and you're like, well,
what happened.
You know, I had too many nerd ropes, you know,
it's something.
Like, just the turnover, the embarrassment of our injuries is going to start to get real
and it's going to start to get real fast.
Oh, yeah.
Well, it's already, they call it, it's at the event horizon.
So, like, we can't stop what's coming.
We can only hope to, like, build a fallout shelter.
But, yeah, I've met some older guys who thought that, like, nerds clusters were, like,
basically like a
like a tasty hydrogen bomb.
So it like looks like the atom,
like the base molecules of human life.
But they eat them and they like shit their pants
and scream at their family or whatever.
What they're saying.
But then the crazy part is they start to choose that.
Yes.
They choose that behavior.
Yeah.
They don't know any better.
But it's going to get weird when or what,
you know, what happened to you, you know?
And you're like, yeah, I hurt my, you know,
like I was after years of plowing or working or whatever,
doing trade work or whatever.
doing trade work or whatever.
And now it just seems like, you know,
after years of hiding from my wife in the other room,
meaning what you'm going to call it or whatever.
Now, you know, I have a fucking,
I have a pH balance of a fucking fluorescent light bulb at a mall.
I have cellular mitosis.
If you eat, what is,
there's a limit on the package.
If you eat more than five, you get Osmosis Jones.
Oh, really?
Yeah, so you get like a little guy like fighting slime crime.
Oh, I love that.
And I'm guessing that's happening at an Aussie concert
Yeah it's
Yeah like young blood doing Aussie covers
And then yeah the whole crowd
It's like Astro World
They just start dropping like flies
That's hilarious dude
That's a world we live in
I guess
If we're really here
Yeah if we're not just an interference pattern
On a different plane of consciousness
Let's take a call
Okay
Let's take a call from ourselves man
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That's Shopify.com slash T-H-E-O.
You all ever think about how something got its start?
Like Mountain Dew, for example.
I always thought it just sort of appeared one day, you know,
just sitting in a cooler, just a little newborn can of beverage glory.
But nope, it's actually, it's right out of Tennessee.
Yes, it is, real place, real people.
Two brothers working tirelessly to nail that citrus kick that we all love today.
Appalachian roots.
baby, it's bold, it's loud.
It's got that I'll figure it out myself attitude.
That attitude is still in it today.
Still bold, still unmistakable, still do.
It's an American original that's been tasting great since 48,
which feels right, man.
It just, it does, because this ain't just a drink.
This is a hometown story in a can.
Yes, sir, right here.
Next time you grab a do, just know it's more
than just a drink.
It's an American original.
Mountain Dew,
tasting great since 48.
Do you,
so you've taken a break from comedy
when you moved out?
I did.
Yeah,
I took like,
well, I did some gigs.
I did some shows
with Fiona Collie,
our friend Fiona.
Oh, she's so funny.
And Matt is her husband.
Yes.
I don't know if I've met him,
but I guess I'll meet him tonight,
probably.
That's Aeemies.
And then Dylan Carlino.
Do you know Dylan Carlino?
Yeah.
I do know him. He's in Austin.
Yeah. He's so funny.
So, yeah, I, like, kind of stopped headlining for a bit and then got back to doing, like,
some local stuff. I got involved in the St. Louis scene, and I, like, featured again.
And, yeah, just kind of started over a little bit. I'm running a new hour.
And it's been good to enjoy doing it, you know, when it feels like a job, you get kind of jaded.
And it's like, I just ever wanted, all I ever wanted was to riff. So it just, things got complicated.
Yeah.
Um, were you happy with like, because Kill Tony was, was, was, and is kind of like the Tonight Show in a way, right?
People would call it that.
Sure.
Kind of like the Tonight Show, but, you know, a different like amalgamation of it, right?
Or like a present, semi-present day.
Yeah.
You know, there's also dark sorcerers that are involved with it.
But it's exactly where we are in the world.
And it's great.
It's a great show.
Did you feel like being attached to that became too much?
Or like, how did you handle like the popularity and celebrity?
because I would say you were one of the most popular guys
that kind of came through that system.
Did it feel like that?
Because even in my own life and recently,
like in the past year,
I've thought a lot about ego
and what is popularity or mean
and the value of it and stuff like that, you know?
Yeah.
Well, I think I started to assign some of myself worth,
some of my self-worth and the opinions of others.
Not that I would never look at stuff online,
but I guess I got too wrapped up
and my sense of self, like the poltergeist of self.
Like what all of this meant?
Because all I ever did was stand-up for years and years and years.
All I did, seven days a week.
And then if it wasn't going well, then I didn't know who I was, you know.
So, yeah, more so than the Kill Tony thing.
That, you know, it gave me a platform and it allowed me to do all this stuff.
I just tried to take the good and not think about anything else.
But, yeah, I was just really wrapped up in all this pressure that I was either misinterpreting or putting on myself.
And I didn't like it.
I didn't enjoy doing it anymore.
Yeah, and as you say, like, when it wasn't going well, I didn't like myself kind of.
Yeah.
Yeah, dude, I can relate to some of that, man.
Yeah, I felt like, you know, I try to improvise so much riff.
Some have said, many have said.
And if I wasn't able to catch my thoughts perfectly,
and that opens the door for so much pressure on myself,
where I was thinking of myself, maybe rightfully so,
maybe not, duality, yes, laws of polarity,
that I had so much potential.
And so every night I would go out and I would try to use 100% of my potential on stage.
And when I set myself up for that,
there's no way I can possibly reach that,
which makes it fun to keep going,
makes it always exciting but i will never be satisfied with it right and always set you up for a
little bit of failure in a way yeah which a little bit of that is good it's good to strive and you know
comedy is a it's a lifelong thing um if that's what you choose to do with your life but i came to realize
and in probably in december that there has to be more to life than this there has to be more
than a performative affect um i have to be worth
more than what I think I'm worth to my friends, just as a performer.
And if my whole world is wrapped up in the business of show business,
then I am doomed to go spiritually bankrupt.
There's nothing that will ever be enough.
So, yeah, I just try.
It was really nice.
You know, I made a lot of friends that weren't comedians for the first time in a long time.
Wow.
And it was just great, you know, people who didn't know who I was to know that I have worth
to people like not being funny.
Like I can just go to the movies and I can talk about movies or we can kick a soccer ball around, which I never did.
But I could have.
Yeah.
And if we had found a soccer ball at any point in the beginning of the year, I could have kicked it around.
And that kept me going.
So I would wake up every day and I would make myself a promise.
And it was firm.
And it was if I run into an unattended soccer ball today or when I could borrow just for the time being,
I will kick it back and forth with whoever's around.
Oh, yeah.
I know exactly he'll kick it back and forth with some victim of who had too many of those little crackle bars or whatever and is now in a wheelchair.
And the last limb he can move is just soccer and back and forth with a stranger passing through.
He has to do one of those muscle tests or he has to hit his knee at the exact right time to kick it.
And he does it himself now.
Yeah, because that's his insurance provider.
They mail you the little hammer with the little triangle and you do it yourself at home.
Oh, yeah, that's Moderna.
Yeah, that's that's Moderna or Pfizer, I think.
I mean, I just got a kit the other day to take a couple of sists off my own body.
They'll mail you the scalpel now and all of the stuff.
They'll mail you a picture of a nurse.
You put that up in the corner.
And you do it, man.
It's pretty cool.
And the picture, not to get you off, but I think that it's one of those pictures where you look at it one way and she's beautiful.
Yeah.
And then you look at it the other way and it's a witch.
Yeah, dude.
Yeah, her name's Ramona Lisa.
says her name. It's an Italian nurse. And you can pick what ethnicity you want the nurse to be.
Oh, good. And it comes with a chocolate, which is ironic because...
That's what got us into this position. Exactly, dude.
You're like, okay, I feel like this is cyclical. Yeah, yeah. Great. This is what happens when
there's no free health care. Exactly. That's where we are right there. Two different women.
And both of those were drawn by Christina Mariani as well. I want to let everybody know that.
On an etch-a-sketch, which is unbelievable.
I've seen Christina do freehand, which is, if you've never seen someone freehand draw, I highly recommend it.
Well, she's in that new musical.
It's a one-person musical.
Yeah, it's a one-woman show.
She's doing it at Edinburgh.
I've seen it.
Yeah, it's by Statesboro, yeah.
It's in the Delta, yeah.
It's the male version of Statesboro.
Sure, yeah, it's Statesboro by way of Waldal stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's where I went to college.
I went to college of Georgia Southern.
Did you go over there?
Yes, by Savannah.
Oh, wow.
Were you jealous that you weren't at Savannah?
Because, like, you're just being like an, like, I think you're a creative and artistic guy.
I think one of the most unique guys in comedy.
Or I think, I don't know if that's a best thing to say to somebody.
I think it's true.
But I think you just have a unique way of being alive.
Sure.
Which I think is pretty cool because it's hard to figure that out in the world.
Yeah.
But did you ever want to be over there at Savannah?
a scad, I think it was.
You'd always hear about that place in the south.
I went to college to Charleston for a little bit,
and you'd always hear about Skad, like the people that's Sked, you know?
Yeah, it was like ground zero for guys in scarves.
Yes.
Summer scarves, too, which is of rare.
Oh, my God.
You know what they say?
Summer scarfs bring winter tears.
And that's George Orwell as well.
Yes, that's 1984.
That's so Orwellian, truly a demurge of,
existential pessimism.
But no, I never,
I didn't.
And I'm happy that we are bringing up the tenets of
the hermetic order of the Golden Dawn, but it has
been, it's been a crazy summer.
No, I wish I went to SCAD.
I didn't have artistic inclinations
until I was probably
20. That's when I started
doing stand-up. But, no, I
didn't know. I was more into boozing.
So it was the only school I applied to,
and they call it States Vegas.
And it had some great bars
out there. Good bar scene. A lot of field parties,
parties in the woods, mudding.
Oh, yeah, a lot of that. So you got into that culture.
Yeah, my mom's a horse trainer. So I grew up in North Georgia,
sort of by the foothills of Appalachia, I think.
Is that like near La Grange?
No, it starts with an L or a different letter.
It's Toka. That's what I'm thinking of with a T. Beautiful little area.
I was about Gainesville by like Forsyth County, so like up there on 400.
I want to get up there one day.
What's one of the major outputs up there or like exports?
I don't even know what they do up there.
The commerce isn't exactly bustling.
Oh, it's not a busy area?
Well, now it's become, it has become like nicer, like sort of towards like Alpharetta,
where they had that helium there in Alpharetta.
Oh, they got free helium up there?
Yeah.
Yeah, so nitrous will cost you, but helium's a handshake.
And that's, um, and I do sell stickers that say that.
And we're printing them right now.
But no, it's, I don't know, when I live there is really rural.
So anyways, we got into mudding at an early age as most kids of my generation.
Oh, that's a good way to be it.
And did you feel like, because you kind of have like, I don't know, you created such like a unique you, right?
And do you, do you ever think, like, is this the real me or is this a me that I
created. Does it ever come to your mind yet? Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, it's no judgment against you.
I've just had that happen in my own life recently. I quit, like, I took a break from touring.
And so much of my life, I didn't realize have been like attached to. Oh, well, I always have
somewhere to go. Oh, I got to get going. Yeah. There's somewhere to be. There's somewhere I need to be.
There's somewhere I'm going to be seen that's coming up. And then now it's not really like that.
And it's okay, but it's just been interesting to be like, okay, well, say if we're going forever,
then what, you know, who would, how would I? Yeah. What's going to. Yeah. What's
going on with me, you know?
Yeah, how would I...
Because it is, it's a degree of show business
past a certain point,
is almost not even like seeking, it's like running.
It's like you're running...
You think you're running towards something,
but you're running, like, away again
from this idea that I have just coined
the poltergeist of self
about the visage of, like,
who is Casey Rock?
Who is this interference pattern
of like where I grew up,
what my friends were like,
what I like to do?
And then also this person
I try to present on stage, which is, you know, it more or less is me.
I'm just letting myself be a goofy god.
Yeah.
But yeah, I mean, I have had instances of like ego death, either chemically induced
or just being in a really low period of depression where, yeah, I look around and I go,
what is all this for, you know?
But if I did have any answer, it would be that the macro mirrors the micro.
so that in the little victories of my life,
I figure out my greater purpose.
So it's easier for me now,
because I've gotten used to it,
the first six months of this year
of not running around so much,
I've been so much happier
where I'm just a really stressed out guy.
You know, I get, I wear the world really heavily.
So if I have to do anything,
like even just like go to a local showcase,
it used to drive me nuts.
It ruined my whole day.
Just to stress and not.
knowing that it's coming, it's hard to operate.
Yeah, some people seem to be able to operate kind of freely,
even if there's something looming, you know?
Like me, I'm already like, fuck, man, my marriage,
what will my wedding day be like?
That shit's just gonna fucking be net.
It's gonna be hectic.
And if my wife's there, she's gonna be pissed or whatever, you know what I'm saying?
But that shit will weigh me down.
It's like on a regular Thursday afternoon, dude,
not to mention whatever else I have to do.
Or sometimes like, yeah, that's such a cool way to say it.
That's, yeah, sometimes I just feel like I wear the world,
And some people just seems to be like this like summer saw that you know
Yeah, that it's nothing like it seems to be like just like a little baby kite landed on their shoulder and they just brush it off, you know?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But like sometimes I wouldn't want to go to sleep at night because I'd be like shit this is just leading to tomorrow and it already feels like so much. I know. You know? Yeah. Not to complain. I'm just I'm also okay. It's just like yeah, you just think about this. Sometimes that shit gets heavy, you know? Yeah. Well, I think that
professionally and just part of our gumption,
and I am not using the correct word when I say that,
but we just want, you know,
we have lives that are based on creation, right?
So there, we're engendered to create.
And I know if I have any down period
where I'm not creating or I don't have to,
I feel like I'm not doing enough.
So yeah, it would drive me baddie.
I'd be running in circles chasing my own tail.
Um, but it's nice to do just like regular stuff.
Like I'll read for a bed and then,
because I'll get so stressed out about like nothing.
Yeah, I'll be like, man, I got to, like, knock up some barista.
Like, I got to have a child with like a barista soon.
And then I'll be like, well, who's a barista?
Yeah.
What am I going to name the kid?
That's beautiful.
And I think it's beautiful, though.
Yeah.
Oh, I feel like anytime I go in a coffee shop,
I hope maybe I fall in love or something like that.
I am the kind of guy who I do think anytime I walk into a place could be,
gas station, coffee shop,
um,
you know,
tire center,
not tire center,
but somewhere a place
they're going to have women.
Sure,
like a firestone.
Yeah.
Like a firestone,
but that's been in business
and then has a little bit
of extra loot to keep a decent
looking broad at the front.
You know,
a hostess?
Yes.
Is there anything more divine
than a greeter at a firestone tires?
And she's standing there
and there's three tires right by her.
And I'm like,
hey, baby,
let's hit the road.
You know?
I got one in the trunk.
Yeah.
I got one in the chamber, honey.
My car is on cinder blocks right now.
You got three.
I got one.
Let's start a life.
Hey, honey, I put the sin and cinder.
You feel me?
Let's get out there.
I got a pair of cedar tires up back.
A pair of cedar sinise.
Oh, dude.
That has had to have been the worst tires.
Back in like the wagon wheel days,
back when a little house in the prairie was just starting out or whatever.
Yeah.
Which is a new season out now.
Go watch it.
My friend Crosby Fitzgerald is in it.
And I've been watching it.
Someone called me watching it yesterday on my phone at the gym.
So I'm going to go to a different gym now.
Yeah.
They'll pull the lunk alarm on your ass.
Like at a planet fitness, the lunk alarm you to high hell.
Bring up the lunk alarm.
Because I got to make sure they're still using it, you know.
That is one of the better.
I wish all places of business had something comparable to a lunk alarm.
They used to just yell fatty or whatever, you know.
Yeah, they would yell something like that, you know.
Bad bones, bone structure.
Yeah, they used to yell steroid boy or whatever, but now, there we go.
They still have it.
Dude, he gets it with a 20 feet of a Planet Fitness.
They're hitting the walk along.
Planet Fitness just outside Chicago Friday night.
Just got their train some chest, but you know what?
It's Jake Cutler from the Chicago Bears.
Oh, my dear God.
Wow.
They hit him with it.
And it's just for somebody that's being, I guess, overtly...
What?
Strong and in good shape?
Yeah.
They hit that like the doomsday clock was at one minute to midnight.
Yeah, dude.
This is some people's Y2K, dude.
Yeah.
That caused a splinter of effect that effectively ruined reganomics.
Here's the crazy part is, dude.
That guy, like, now we don't even realize it.
They're getting us to think that being in shape is bad, right?
It's all this slow.
Let me tune the dial a little different, right?
Let me just mess with the opportunities here a little.
That's how they're doing it, man.
Yeah, it's planting bad seeds.
But cedar cyanide, dude, those, if you got cedar cyanide wheels on a wagon, that was the worst, dude.
It was, yeah, it was terminal.
It was like having fleas within your, like, roost, yeah.
Yeah.
That's so rude.
It's a fox and a chicken coop situation.
So they just go wild.
But it's built in.
Imagine you get fresh cedar wagon wheels and they have cyanide in them.
And they're like, people are like, these are cedar cyanide.
You're like, yeah, it's the best we have right now.
It's all we have.
If you want to go take the route through the Sierra Nevada's, you're going to have to get this before the fall comes, like the donner party.
Yeah, yeah.
But you just had to do what you had to do for your family back then.
Families were tougher.
Well, things have just changed, man.
I mean, now you would have a Jeffrey Dahmer would have a footwear, you know?
Sure.
He would have a shoe.
Yeah, well, Charles Bukowski should be sold to a rich family as a midwife.
And I've said that for, oh, my God.
Yeah.
Look, we are becoming new slaves.
That's what I've been saying that.
Oh, man.
Get the F.
You're on a chain gang.
Yeah, you're making license plates.
That is just what the prison industrial complex is.
So I am happy that there is a problem endemic to the state of Alabama that I might as we could bring up.
There's a documentary called The Alabama Problem.
Is there?
Yeah, it's on HBO Max.
I haven't seen that one, but I have seen the one about the mall that's kind of going out of business.
Have you seen that one?
About the death of the American Mall.
Yeah.
But this one is a specific mall in Alabama.
Bring that up.
This is a great documentary.
If it's raining or something and you want to watch something.
I think I saw the trailer for it.
Jasper Mall.
See if it officially closed or not, man.
This was pretty cool, dude.
It's a good documentary.
It's enclosed.
or is it closed?
Yeah, that's not a lot there.
Rural King.
Well, that's good.
They replaced it with a rural king,
which is what they're going to do
for our nuclear families to...
Well, that's just where we're going.
It's like when this...
JC Penny closed its doors there.
But yeah, that documentary is pretty good, man.
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Have you kept in touch with a lot of the people from Austin still,
or did you kind of like take like a break from the communication there?
No, I still talked.
I had to go back in May, and I did my last,
show at Creek and Cave and Creek's always been really great to me. So I'm going back on the first of,
well, I'm going back soon. There's a special event. I don't want to spoil it, but I'm going back.
So yeah, I talked to a lot of my really good friends from mothership. You know, we were all door guys
together. So I chat with them on the phone. And yeah, part of like changing my life. And I have no qualms
in saying this, but I'm sober. And I, and that's a part of my life. And part of that for me just means being
there for my friends.
So, like, every day I'll, like, call a friend
and stuff that I would do, I guess,
when I was younger in the pre-social media age.
You know?
So I'll call people and feel like all these kids
are on their fucking phones now.
Yeah, I think that's popular.
Sure.
But not, nobody calls anymore.
I agree.
You know what, that's a good thought.
Sometimes I've certainly gotten away from texting
and I'd rather to send a voice note.
I think that's better, at least if you can kind of get a feel, what's going on.
And even then, like, I will enjoy a call.
And I think, honestly, some people appreciate it.
It's like, yeah.
And I think you just have to establish if you want, like, hey, that's where I'm out in my life.
I want to hear my friend's voice, you know.
Like, I want to know, I want to have some semblance just in what they're saying or how their energy is as to how they're really feeling.
Because that's what we're based on.
You can't pick it up through text.
It's pretty much impossible.
So.
No.
And that's just a little bit of the tuning of the dial.
It's like where we're at, where the future's taking us, it feels kind of scary.
Yeah, some of that is lost, yeah.
Yeah.
I feel like I operated better as a person before technology got too bonkers.
Because I used to like to daydream, even though a lot of it had dangerous Voldemortian people in there.
Like, even though there was like a lot of pillaging of our home in a lot of my daydreams, it was still like it was a chance for.
my mind to rattle on a little.
Yeah.
So my mind didn't always feel like it was so attached to me.
I did like the time when you had more space just to kind of daydream and your mind got to like.
Yeah, you're right.
You know, I do that a lot when I'm driving.
So you're saying you would daydream in a way that was like the last bastion of free speech
for a mind of, uh, cut this.
part out.
Cut this
fucking part out.
Yeah.
I mean,
my shit would be pretty lit.
Frederick Douglass would show up
at some of my daydreams.
Like, sure.
There was always someone at the
pulpit.
Yeah.
To let you know the type of energy
that was there.
It was life or death.
There were trials that were going on.
Like, it was very Salem witchian, you know?
Oh, sure.
It was like the crucible.
Keep that part.
Yeah.
It was like the crucible
kind of meets McDonald's kind of.
Sure, so if Grimmis was like judge, jury and executioner, which he often is in so many of our afterlives, as I come to understand it.
Grimmis is like a tulpa and of, he's like an amalgamation, like a transmogrification of St. Michael.
Is that what people are saying?
Yeah, he's like a figurehead for like this, for like this demi-god we know as St. Michael.
And when he lets you in, it is just a big pool of creamy jelly sauce.
Oh, good.
I know I've prayed to him before for new condiments.
That's him answering a prayer.
Okay, there you go, dude.
But, dude, this is where we're heading.
People don't want to look at the signs that, like,
there are children who go to bed and you'll wake up in the morning,
and they'll piss the perfect shape of grimace into their sheets.
Like, moms are like, oh, that's nothing.
It's just 100 nights in a row of that.
Like, nobody's connecting the dots of where we're going.
No, like that you piss the shroud of Teren.
Like, you pissed a perfect exact gallum of things come to pass.
Dude, yeah, I know they cracked some kid open and he had 11 scenes from the Patriot with Mel Gibson inside of him.
And Heath Ledger.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, well, as my understanding, it was just the Gibson scenes.
There was no Heath Ledger, which is like, okay, what is this the director's cut?
Yeah, what is this?
And then he just screamed, aim, small, miss small, and disappeared into the ether.
it's just where we are.
You mentioned, what do you want to say?
No, I'm just kind of just like coming to terms with some of that.
Because it is, it's an absolute, you know.
My will, like my will's greater than myself, you know.
I have a higher purpose and some of that is grimace,
like putting a kid in a wood chipper.
Yeah.
I remember when we were in school and some kids didn't understand
how the greater than or lessen signs worked
and we weren't allowed to kill those kids.
No.
That always kind of made me upset.
I don't know.
I'm not even trying to get into some of that stuff.
But I don't know my time stables.
Oh, yeah.
So what do we do?
Where do we go from here?
You're right, dude.
And it's weird if I'm willing to give you a pass,
but I'm not willing to give them, you know?
Sure.
Well, it's not a meritocracy, you know.
It isn't.
It was.
It was in a perfect world when Tolstoy was kicking around with Doskayovsky.
It was, dude, when down that.
Abby was doing their shit when that shit was popping.
Oh yeah.
When they, oh my God, me and my boys, we would sit down every downtown and Abby Tuesday.
It was good, dude.
It's so good.
The first fucking season of it?
So good.
God, I wanted to be a butler.
I'd be a butler's son or whatever.
Yeah.
Just to be grandfathered end of the butler trade would be such a blessing.
And the butler comes walking and he's like, Gregory's gay.
You know?
And you're like, what?
He told you in confidence?
I know, dude.
Dude, just get the dishes.
Leave your son out of this.
That guy was so good, bro.
Yeah.
It's weird to see him like that
not sleeping, standing up in a closet.
Well, he was a stunt double
in a lot of coffins.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
And people don't give him any credit, you know?
No.
Who was his name?
That guy was a great actor.
He looks like the guy
who did the Wilhelm scream.
You know what I'm talking about?
The guy who just won the contest?
There was something called
The Wilhelm scream, which is a scream they use in like a million different movies,
you would recognize it if you play it.
Jim Carter.
I think he's the guy who does that special, special scream from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Let's look at it.
The Wilhelm scream.
See it again?
You sure?
That sounds like Wilhelm Memphis.
Where is that from?
Yeah, that's Beale Street.
If Beale Street could talk.
It would sound like that.
Wow.
So yeah, that guy did that, and then I guess he had to go to court to get, like, his residuals from him.
You really?
So that scream, they're calling it the scream of hope.
So it was one of the first famous scream of hope?
Are you serious?
So, yeah, it's like a symbol.
How bad has it gotten?
Well, it's like, you know how like South Africa used Rodriguez and his albums to like fight against apartheid?
So like this is the American version of that.
Yeah, I remember in Tyler Perry's Mandela goes to jail, I think.
Exactly.
So Shep Wully was the stage name of that old old guy who lived in the closet.
And he just did this special scream that became like a message of hope.
Oh, I love hearing this.
And this says it right here.
And this says the famous Wilhelm scream was originally.
voiced by actor and musician Shep Wully in 1951.
It was recorded for the movie Distant Drums for a scene where a man is bitten and dragged
underwater by an alligator.
Play it one more time and let's put it, let's put it where it belongs in our heads.
Oh, he gay, bro.
That's all I'm saying, bro.
He's a friend of Dorothy.
Yeah, let's just say he's a friend of Dorothy.
That's what they used to say.
Or yeah, he's a toto owner.
Sure.
Yeah, people would say that.
A to-oh.
Have you seen that guy in Austin?
He got a toto?
Who goes on the streets and he's like,
you think this guy is gay, man?
Have you seen those videos?
No.
Oh, my God.
Pull this up.
This is worth watching, dude.
This is one of the best things that's ever happened, I think.
And it just goes to show how men are obsessed
with pointing the 11th finger at each other.
Yeah.
They're making a call to the bullpen,
but nobody's showing up.
Yeah.
Sure.
You know what I'm talking about, Trevin?
Yeah.
Have you ever seen Elijah Wood?
He rides around Austin on a little scooter sometimes.
No, but I would believe that.
I know, right?
And I hope that happens.
Me too.
I hope that for the rest of the world and the rest of today.
Well, here's what we should do.
There's one day in Austin that changed everything.
Okay.
So this is how rumors get started here.
And let's go into this.
Let's click on this.
This is a picture for those at home.
of Elijah Wood on a bird scooter.
Oh my God, he's ripping a heater.
Fuck, yeah, he is, dude.
Dude, hands-free, pro-union ripping a heater.
Bro, he saved the whole freaking world.
The day that changed everything.
He's got a thousand-yard stair
that's staring into the future of American society.
He's hunting gollums, dude.
Yeah, he's hunting the Nephilim.
He's the watcher.
Yeah, dude.
Oh, definitely.
He's got his ball certificates out.
Can you? What did that say?
Did it say anything else about him on that? That's crazy.
And did you see him while you were there?
I have never seen something like this in person.
It's by evil Mopak.
So this is, yeah, this is spellwork right here.
This is deep.
Elijah, a spellwork, I told you, equals magic.
I fucking told you.
This is an incantation.
Despite my joke ways online, I actually quite miserly with my laughs.
It's just how I was paved.
But when something gets me, it really gets me.
So on the faithful day, when I saw the most quintessential
2018 Austin photo humanly possible
pop into my Twitter timeline, I was reduced
to a queve. Okay, Lovecraft.
What are all these adjectives?
This is just some fucking Overwatch addict
putting this shit together. Can you zoom down
a little? Is this
say anything else after that part? Oh, that's it.
I only have to pay to read it. Come on.
He said it was taken in September 2018
in Austin, Texas, while attending
the Fantastic Festival. He
tried out the app-based
rental scooter lime for the first time while holding a cigarette.
Oh, that's pretty cool.
That is so cool.
This is like pictures taken moments before tragedy.
Well, let's hope not.
I mean, well, actually, he's fine, so it's not.
He avoided his destiny.
We're not casting anything.
That's the only thing I don't want to cast anything.
No.
No, no, no, no, no.
I don't do any spellwork.
No, and we don't have to.
And I don't do talismanic magic.
It's my understanding neither does Elijah Woods.
But I saw you brought something.
I saw you a little thing that bag of hair or whatever.
What's that for?
Yeah, sure. So that's spare hair. So that's hair care. It's part of my self-care routine. So if anyone while I'm talking to them says like, hey, a big clump of your hair just fell out.
You're ready to go?
Yeah, I'll be like, oh, thank you. First of all, thanks for holding space for that.
Second of all, do you have any Elmer's glue? So, yeah, it allows me to kind of like keep my hair line, like how I want it.
Yeah, it looks great. Thanks, yeah.
And I think if someone mails you their hair and you care for it.
It's everything.
That's crazy, dude.
That's what fatherhood means to me.
It's like having a son who's bald as a baby like Cayu or like Franklin the Turtle.
And then just getting a big old glob of mush and just smooch it on top of that freaking think tank.
One time we were on a cruise ship.
Not one of the ones that like sinking or as like shit floating on or whatever.
Sure.
That Netflix keeps advertising.
But one of the regular ones, we were on there and we had Halloween, but we didn't have any costume store.
So some guy would sold a bunch of his pubic hair and people were like gluing it on with honey as mustache and stuff.
So everybody could be like the husband from, um, everybody could be Sam Elliott.
Oh, that's so cool.
Let's play this video right here.
Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
How are people going to think that?
I think most people will, but I don't know.
I feel like he gas straight
I'm straight
I like he gay in a bitch
every time this guy
every time it's gay
you get out straight
you think man what's time
you think all the people going to think that
I feel like he get out straight
Why you say that?
Because you get out straight.
I'm straight.
You think other people going to think that?
They're better.
I feel like he gay off straight.
Every time, dude.
What you said that?
You get out straight.
Out straight is a pencil.
Why do you think other people going to think that?
You feel like he gay out straight.
He could be bisexual.
Fat.
Why you said that?
You get out straight.
I don't care what the fuck.
He loves guns.
Like he'd get out straight.
Gay is fuck.
What?
What is he weird, nigga?
Who is that?
John Jones.
Who is this?
That's Spons Jones.
Is that Indiana
John Jones, dude?
Who is the fuck is that?
George Jones, Jones.
That's good.
Yeah.
That's pretty cool.
That was a cool outfit.
I'd like to get to a place in comfortability and
metaphysical wellness where I could wear a chain around my neck with a lock on it.
Yeah, I think you could do it, dude.
I think I could pull it off.
I used to paint my nails, and then I would go to rehab like a week later.
It happened several times in my adult life.
I would paint my nails, like, you know, twirling my hair, talking on a corded phone, like, paint my nails.
And then I'd wake up, like, a couple days later, and I was like, I need help.
Yeah.
I was like, I'm being fashion forward, but I am turning the clock back.
Oh, you're a fucking just a little leap year you were.
Yeah. I'm a leap year, baby.
I have Benjamin Button's disease,
but I'm right in the middle
between young and old,
so I'm normal.
Brutal.
So, so, Roddy, so you,
can I ask you something about it?
How has it been?
Was there like a point that you got?
Was it like drinking, was it?
Or was it just like you were just feeling
like disconnected from your own life?
And congrats on having the wherewithal
to like try something new.
Like even just to be like,
okay, I've been in Austin.
This is what.
what's going on, I'm going to try something new.
It's so hard to come to that conclusion for some of us.
Yeah, well, I struggle with those things since I was a kid and I would have long stretches
of sobriety.
When I was younger, it would be alcohol.
And then where I grew up in Georgia, I was in high school during like the Purdue
pharmaceuticals, like that, all that stuff.
Oh, really?
So a lot of my friends got addicted to like oxycotton and stuff like that.
So yeah, so like that I was exposed to drug use like that when I was younger.
So off and on and mostly I would sometimes go back to it when I couldn't deal with pressure.
You know, there's a lot of excuses for things like that.
But yeah, it had gotten to a point where I no longer wanted to do comedy.
I no longer wanted to really do anything.
I just felt like almost not like I had wasted my life
because I love what I do.
And I really like getting to meet people
and I love to make people happy.
But it got to be too much when coupled with a habit
that I had developed of various drugs and alcohol
and things like that.
Yeah.
Where I was like something has to change.
Like something has to change.
Right.
So you got to that point something has to change.
Yeah.
I had resigned myself.
to the idea of a certain death.
And that did not scare me.
It would have been, I looked at that point
as some sort of like welcomed relief.
Like I had gone past the point of anyone being able to help me
or me being able to help myself.
And then when I did reach out and I did seek some help for that stuff,
I realized that that's not what I wanted at all.
What I really wanted was to figure out a better way to live.
That I really just wanted to have some peace in my life
that I knew, even in the three,
Roosevelt was not being given to me by drugs and alcohol. It was the opposite of that. It was making my
life a thousand times worse. And by, yeah, I've been able to cut so much guff out of my life,
so much guff in slime. And I'm able to look around today and I know that I don't have any,
I don't live in shame about my life. I don't do, I don't say things to things. I don't say things
to people I don't mean.
I don't hurt my friend's feelings.
I can be a better partner.
I can kick a soccer ball.
I can't.
It's basically it was soccer ball based.
So I looked around and I was like, you know what?
This house is missing.
Soccer ball.
And then I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
And I said, you're in no condition to kick a soccer ball.
You're going to hurt somebody.
But it's just really basic things.
You know, I wanted to be involved again.
I wanted to be in the stream of.
of life and yeah dude it's been so beautiful i'm just so happy and i don't think it's a temporary
happiness i think it'll be sustained if i continue to work on myself i know huh yeah are you able to
look and see uh congrats too man i know it's not like a thing it's like is a congrats thing but
it's a it when you think about our world to take a break from anything yeah and make a commitment
to take a break from something and do it it's tough oh my gosh it's
stuff for any of us.
We're all,
there's so many ways
to get addicted
to distract ourselves
from us.
Absolutely.
It's a,
it's a diseased thinking
of I'm constantly,
because you know,
I can do with all kinds of things.
I would spend too much money.
I would gamble.
I would do these things
that on paper
seem like a lesser thing
than the usage of substances.
And they are,
but it's all just a symptom
of a greater,
I want to distract myself.
And I want instant
thrills that are followed by continuing to chase that thing.
Yeah.
What team were you betting on too?
Can I tell you when I've been on it?
I never did sports betting.
And I didn't lose, I don't think I have like a gambling addiction, but I would go, I don't
gamble anymore.
I'll say that.
I would do slots.
Oh, you do slots, yeah?
I do some spins.
Dude.
$5 spend, have a slap at the pokies.
Yes.
Oh, yeah.
I would love, dude.
Sometimes I like, this time I didn't, I was just in Las Vegas, but I would, I'd like to
slip down there at night when nobody.
would be around and I'd sit there and play some slots.
Just putting in 20 bucks, 40 bucks.
You know, and just fucking try to get a little bit of money out of China.
You know, I'd yell at the machine.
I'd be like, we're going to fucking get your cash.
We're coming, Beijing.
Yeah, we're coming, dude.
Congratulations.
Pork boy.
You've popped the pig big.
It's so funny because it will give you, and this is not a bit.
Heaven forbid I do a bit.
But it'll be like, congratudition, congrubidibis, you've won, you've been awarded dollar.
Like you won a dollar, like a singular Judeo-Christian dollar.
And they sound it out it takes for, and you're like, fuck, dude, if I would have just called it in a way, even like, just fucking taking a call on a phone and asked them for $2, I would have made more money doing something else.
You've been accepted into the winner circle.
Press B to trust.
And then you got to like press B
And then it's $1.47.
And you're like, okay, I'm betting $5.
You just told me I lost money.
Yeah, and it's like, oh, you've won the deceased sibling round.
We're going to bring back Anna Marie.
And you're like, oh, my God.
My sister's back.
My sister's back.
But it's so funny.
But that's how it's going to get.
Don't you see where we're going?
I know.
I mean, that's going to be in our freaking textbooks one of these days.
You're going to have to go to.
the win or encore or you're going to have to go to dragon's beard or whatever the casinos will
be named in, you know, or fattigots realm or whatever they're called, right? You're going to have
to go to some of these places, sorry. You have to go to the circus of life or Trump's nuts or
whatever the, whatever the casinos are going to be called. You're going to have to go there
into Biden's Oculus, right? You're going to have to go there and they'd be like, you know,
get four spins and you'll see your father, you know, and that's really what it's going to be
like.
Yes, and you have to keep playing.
You will use your social credit score to go have a round of spins at John Carpenter's
cigarette burns, and you will be lucky to walk out with a talisman.
Yeah, yeah.
Or an amulet of any repute.
Yeah, dude.
It's brutal.
And it's so, I always just think it's so funny how they'll be like, gar, gar, gar, gar, gar, gar.
You've awarded the pig some hooves.
And then they'll just like print you out one U.S. dollar.
Yeah.
Yeah, dude.
What do we, I mean, where do we go from here, you know?
What are some things that you feel like?
Because like I'll go to meetings.
I'm going to go to a meeting probably whenever I get done with this today.
What are some things that the meetings do for you?
Do you notice something like that over time?
Yeah.
Like going to recovery meetings.
Yeah.
There's a lot of 12-step meetings out there, you know.
Sure.
I went this morning in Nashville.
I like to...
Did you go to that 7.30 meeting over there?
No, it was at a sober living in Nashville.
Oh, nice.
At 1130.
But at a very base level, what I can say is that I have never ever walked out of one feeling worse than I was walking in.
I will always, even if there's two other people in there, and I've been to plenty of things like that.
newer meetings or smaller towns,
I'll always hear something
that relates to my life
or relates to how I want to have my life be.
So it's just, I like to meet random people too.
It's like, makes me uncomfortable.
And then when I leave, I feel like I did something good
because I know it's good for me.
And I know I need it.
Yeah.
Yeah, it kind of cultivates a part of you
that you can't even access.
Like, I think for me, like I share in meetings,
I try to share most of the meetings that I go to.
And I always want to kind of why,
it's like, uh,
and then I was like, oh, well, when I was a kid, I didn't,
there wasn't like a place that was safe for I could speak up, right?
Like at our house, you couldn't speak up.
Nobody cared how you felt or wasn't even, I didn't even know,
I had any feelings except that I wasn't feeling good.
Sure.
And it was like nobody, and that was our whole, like, system at home.
Yeah.
And so, like, sometimes when I go in there, it's like,
well, this is a place that's safe enough where I can speak up,
even if I don't know exactly what I'm going to say or how exactly I feel,
it gives me like a little bit of space to explore it.
So it's almost like sometimes I feel like I'm,
it's almost like the kid me or the younger me that's in there that's kind of like,
I mean it's an adult me,
but it kind of like it helps me honor a little bit of that.
Like here's this younger me that never got to speak up.
So in here today,
I'm going to sit here with you and we're going to,
you know what I'm saying?
We're going to speak up for ourselves.
Yeah, that is really beautiful.
I can definitely identify with some of those sentiments
from feeling like a bit voiceless when I was young.
Yeah, it's so nice to, anytime I'll try to like prepare something smart to say, it'll be like you're a bumble, you're a troglodyte.
Like I'm a mute, I'm a mute deaf, speechless, but I'm like, it's summer's, summer's hard.
And they're like, what are you?
Not even who are you, what are you?
And why?
The big three.
Do when somebody will share something in there and that you've been wanting to say your whole life or here?
Yeah.
And you'll finally hear it or, and you're like, oh, I feel like a part of me, like, almost like,
the locks will like turn.
Yeah.
And a new door will open.
Yeah, you feel like a weight has been lit.
I can't even describe how it feels like really get involved in that stuff.
And it's so crazy.
It makes you feel like, you know, I'm of the belief that the universe is all mental.
And it unfolds just for us.
You know, how can it not?
Our live experiences are designated and interpreted solely for us.
And when I'm in there, almost every time,
something will happen that's so kismet or a synchronicity and you'll hear something you were just
thinking about or something that's upcoming you've been worried about and you're like what are the
odds of that and it happens almost every day where you're like I'm on the right path you know
when you do the right things you get the right things it might be the things you want but the things
that you need at least and the little things you hear in there man yeah the little things like
contrary action like there's a lot of times I won't want it if I don't want to do something
unless it's for like a reason where there's like safety control
or something like that, then I need to consider trying to go do it.
Like, I don't really need to do this yoga.
I don't really need to go and, like, walk over to my neighbors and drop this off.
Just a little, it's because there's a darker part of me that wants me to be by myself,
that wants me to stay, like, isolated and sit and think and ponder about everything.
And just learning those things.
And eventually, I have to learn things a lot, right?
Yeah.
I have to learn things a lot.
It's like, my forgetter is really big.
It's like, it's almost like when I wake up in the morning, it's like, there's a
part of me that's forgotten if people care about me, that's forgotten if I care about me.
You know, it's not exact, but there's a lot of, like, somebody comes in almost at night and
cleans, like, the dry erase boards, you know?
I need to be reminded that I matter.
And at a bigger level, other people matter more than me.
Yes.
Yeah.
Other people matters.
You know, I was the main actor in my life for so long.
And it was all how things were affecting me and what I was doing.
And it's so nice to, yeah.
just genuinely give a shit about other people.
Dude, some of my best moments,
or my moments are my favorites,
or if I wake up and my first thought about somebody else,
it's almost like, God, thank you.
Or if I'm just driving and I have to remember something,
somebody had said yesterday, like,
oh, I'm going to call them and check them on them about that.
Or something somebody cared about.
And I was like, oh, let me see how that played out for them.
The more of those I get, like, the better it feels.
Yeah, because we're meant to have community.
And my mind does the same thing.
It's so much easier.
There's a million other things I could be doing for an hour a day than doing that.
But when I'm alone, if I make an excuse like that, I'll make another excuse, you know.
And I'll make another excuse.
And it may not lead to drug use, but it definitely will lead to me having a sadder life.
And at the very least, I don't want that.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's so.
And it's like, I just remember people care about me.
I walk into a meeting and I'm like, oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Dude, I remember.
And it's not that I forgot them or anything,
but it's just like,
I have to have this thing replenished.
Yeah.
That's like, yes, your heart works.
You work.
You're okay.
Things are okay.
There might be problems,
but they're not that big
and everything's going to be okay.
It's almost like you just like,
I don't know.
It's definitely is like church.
Some people are like,
do you go to church?
And it's like,
I don't go to church every week,
but in a way I go to church
four or five times a week.
Yeah.
You know?
And you feel it.
And you feel it.
Yeah.
Like I walk out of there.
I'm like,
Okay. If I'm, like, I mean, there's some days when it's rough.
If somebody sit on their phone next to me, the whole meeting, dude.
There's a kid running around, God forbid.
Oh.
A little Christmas kid.
You can tell it's like a New Year's Eve, baby.
Yeah, and he's like, my birthday's coming after whatever.
And I'm like, no, it's not.
Yeah.
No, it's not.
We're in July.
I can tell you're a New Year's Eve, baby.
Get the hell out of here with your holiday spirit.
Yeah.
But no, man, I think that community's great.
What do you think if there's somebody who's scared to try to go to a,
first meeting, you know, I'll have friends that'll ask me sometimes about, like, or what do you
say to somebody who's thinking, like, maybe I might be struggling with this, you know?
Sure.
Well, something that I go back to is that it's just so nice to be around people who, I, you know,
there's a saying, the saying of terminal uniqueness that makes people continue to struggle,
that we think that we're so different in our suffering, that we're put on this earth just to
suffer, and who am I to say if that's not the case?
But everything you've been through has meaning.
And of course it has meaning to you.
But it doesn't really have that much helpful meaning to you,
the things that you've gone through that are really bad.
Ruminating on that does not help.
But when you put it out of you and you see that, it helps someone,
even just for a day.
Like being around people who also hurt that way,
it's just an incredible feeling.
It's not a chore.
It's not something you have to go do.
It's something I look forward to doing.
Yeah.
Because it's so nice to look around and go,
oh, my God, I'm not this little freak.
Yeah.
I'm not this little guy that God forgot.
You know, I'm someone that has purpose, even if it's just for today.
I can have a purpose of hanging out with these people.
And I know that when I'm in there, I feel better.
Even if it's just for the hour, even if I leave and I get back and I feel like shit again,
and I'm going a little crazy and I'm riffing a little too hard about the wrong things in my little rain.
It's a safe place.
And I hate to use that term, but it's, you know, places like that are just somewhere completely free of judgment.
man, it's so beautiful.
Yeah.
It's so beautiful.
And there's nothing else like it.
I agree.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's crazy.
Sometimes some people like,
hey, do we come do this?
Like, nah,
I don't know if I'm doing that.
You know,
I don't know if I'm driving over
to meet you at a,
uh,
Waterberg or something,
you know,
just because they're popping off
because it's new
or whatever and the seats are clean
or whatever still.
Yeah, I'm not going animal style.
You can't make me.
Yeah.
But you were like,
hey,
you want to drive 20 minutes
across town to go to like this 11, 30 a.m.
Like meeting.
It's going to be mostly older folks
I dig wisdom.
Yes, dude.
I love to talk to some old farmer.
Oohie.
I get off on talking to an old farmer.
Our plants got AIDS.
You're like, I don't know if that's what happened.
He goes, when my arm's crying, I got to feed it.
When that baby's crying, I got to feed it.
And he goes, hell yeah.
Don't come on my back and tell me it's raining.
You know, shit like that.
You're like, yeah.
People always have crazy quotes.
But no, man.
It's definitely like, I don't know, and it's there for you.
It's like if you have a tough time, if you leave, if you come in or out, the meetings are there, you can go back, right?
Yeah.
It's just so nice to, like, something that really sat with me, this last go-around when I was trying to get my life together again is just the simple thought that I don't have to live like that.
Like, whatever is making me feel like my life is, for want of a better term, escalating towards some terminal velocity where I've had so many times in my life.
life where I feel like this is going to end bad.
I'm either, you know, I'm working too much,
or I'm worried about the wrong shit, or I'm, you know,
I'm using again, and I know it's going to end bad.
And to know, I don't ever have to feel like that again.
Because I know that I'm in control of my emotions now, and it's so great.
I like to let yourself have peace.
It's so hard.
It's like the hardest thing in life.
Yeah, why is it hard, man?
That's such a fascinating statement.
I have never really said like that, to let yourself,
have peace. Yeah, like, I don't want to let myself have peace, man. It's like, or I don't
think, or I'm not saying I don't, but it's like, that would be the, like, yeah, I don't,
do I not deserve? Like, what is that? I don't know if it's something just the way that we're
wired where, because that's it. That's, that's, some of the wiring is right there. Why won't
let myself have peace? I have friends that are, that like, and I've struggled, I've had some tough
years, you know, over the years for sure. And, uh, but I've had some friends that, uh, won't, won't, won't,
won't get close to it, you know?
Yeah.
We'll try to get close to the fire.
They want to just keep trying to do it.
What's familiar.
It's familiar.
And there's a thing of like, I'll figure this out.
You know what I'm saying?
Yes.
Like, I've gotten myself this far.
Right.
And the world feels like you, I don't know,
when I was a younger, I put a chip on my shoulder
like the world was an enemy.
Yeah.
And I'm going to figure this out and watch me.
And then the worst part is if you have some successes in your life
or things that go kind of your way,
it's hard to realize that like something, you know.
Yeah.
Because then you feel like, oh, well, I'm doing, I'll figure this out too.
Yeah, because I did this for myself.
I uprooted myself.
I made this happen.
But then also, I've made a lot of the bad things in my life.
That's true, dude.
You know, drinking tuss, walking down the road, having a little slip and slide.
Oh, yeah.
Carmically speaking.
I'm a carmick patsy.
I'm a charlatan of redemption.
I'm a tuss man.
Oh, dude.
You're the Jack Ruby.
Yeah.
Of that realm.
I am Jack Ruby and I am Nikola Tesla and we are building a free energy circuit that Edison will shut down.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, but that ego is so good because, yeah, it's like no one really helped me become a comedian.
No one taught me how to tell jokes.
No one, you know, I slept in my car for a long time.
I spent my whole life working on this thing.
So when we're able to turn that into something that is working, of course, I think,
we're apt to believe like, oh, I'll turn this around too by myself.
That's just, you know, we both know that's not the case.
It's just possible.
Yeah.
It's just willpower.
It's vibrant willpower.
I'm amazed at the willpower sometimes of people that struggle.
Like I have friends whose parents are out on the streets and, or we've been struggling
for 20, 30 years, you know?
And I'm sure some of them, like, some of them even ask me, why do you think they say it?
What's going?
You know, it's like, I don't know.
but you just try to talk with somebody about that stuff
and it's just the willpower of some of alcohol
of people that are in recovery of alcoholism, of alcoholics.
It's, man, it's strong.
It's like, I'll figure this out.
Everything, I'll turn this around.
Or then sometimes, but you just get,
you just get trapped in shame
and then you just want to stay away from your life
because you feel like I don't want to go around these people
because I'll only make things worse for them.
That's got to be kind of a crazy trap.
Yeah, that you're too far gone.
and you're like radioactive.
Yeah, it's heartbreaking.
Yeah, definitely.
But that people, you feel like people will be better off without you,
which is such a dangerous thought that is never, ever, ever, ever true.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's never true.
Yeah.
You've talked about the occult a lot, right?
And I feel like you've gone around up and down those realms.
You reference, you low-key, your closet occult, people say, okay.
A cold adjacent.
No, I've read about all kinds of religions and stuff.
So sometimes I'll throw some buzzwords out there.
Will you?
Will you do that?
I'll throw some buzzies.
I'll do a little buzz.
I'll catch in a little fly trap.
You're the oral hirshizer of throwing buzzwords out there.
Casey, Ornthal, James Sensen, Maraca.
No. Oral Hirschizer.
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
Sorry, I think he was one of the best pictures before you were born.
Dude, when I was a kid, like the best pitcher was kind of an old white dude.
It was like, okay.
Randy Johnson?
It was before him.
was like Randy Johnson's daddy or whatever.
And Candy Johnson.
Yeah, bring up Oral Hirschizer.
And there he is, dude.
He's a legend.
Yeah, him and Walker Bueller actually look alike.
But from Buffalo, New York, man, he's a legend.
But he was a legend when I was growing up, you know.
It was just like a white guy that was able to do it.
And then things got Latino and just more diverse.
But what I was going to ask you, yeah,
where do you feel like we're at spiritually as a people right now?
Do you feel like we're in a tough spot?
do you see a different future for us?
Like, what do you really see?
Having somebody who, like, kind of is willing to kind of massage the crystal ball of different realms?
That is an interesting question and happy to be here.
But it, that's difficult.
I think for me, as part of a better life that I've tried to live, yeah, I love reading about different kinds of positive philosophy from antiquity.
so you know stoicism marcus aurelius up through different i've had different times my life where i was a
more or less a believer of existential nihilism that life had no purpose that we were put into this
world simply from a dying god sort of a gnaustic worldview of um we don't have any purpose
because we will ultimately die right so in doing so the end justifies the means in the sense of
whatever we end up doing it does not serve any sort of greater good.
But I believe the opposite of that today.
I think as human beings and these thoughts are sort of a mishmash of various other things,
mostly the tenets of hermeticism and some sort of cabal.
Kabbalah, not Kabbalic, not like a cult.
But the universe is always in motion and we're a part of the universe, right?
So I know that my life serves a greater good today.
And I also know that I can be a driving force in my life while also knowing that I can only drive so far.
So all I can choose to do is, as they say, the right hand path of doing the right thing and the next right thing.
And if I do do something wrong to a friend, small things.
The mistakes I make today are smaller.
I can be snippy.
I can be rude.
I can be not emotionally available.
I can immediately act to correct that, right?
So it's some iteration of karma
and some iteration of the understanding
that life is suffering.
You know, it hurts to know that we're alive
and to know that we're worth more than we'll be given.
But...
Dang, that's crazy.
I never heard that before.
Yeah, you know, people...
The meaning of life is just...
It's the small things.
It's to mean something in a moment by moment
basis and to do things without the purpose of distraction.
So it's so much easier, you know, we've both struggled with drugs and alcohol to turn that knob off.
But I'm gonna have to wake up again tomorrow.
And that's the thing about like developing a drug habit is like, I would always be so furious when I would wake up and I go,
like, God, I have to do this again. I can't believe I have to do this again.
But I'm of the belief that we were all created so the universe can understand itself.
self, you know. So I'm simply a cog and such a greater machine of I only exist because
at the end of my timeline, I served some greater purpose, you know, for the creator of the
universe, whatever you want to call that. And who do you hope it is? Like, say if it is like a,
and I think that's beautifully put, dude, I really do. That's pretty cool, man. Thanks. Your eloquent
speaker, you're going to be a great screenwriter. Thank you for saying that. It's going to be
exciting man. I admire the fact that you're willing to do something that you want to do, right?
Like, I think it's easy to get trapped and like there's popularity here. There's some money here.
There's reward. There's like ego reward here. But it's just really like what I really want to do.
Like sometimes I really want to just focus on learning Spanish and be a writer, right? Some of those.
Those are things that I think, right? That gives me self-work. Right. And but then you get caught in different things.
And sometimes they're blessings and it's great past.
and stuff, but it's like, yeah, do we reward
like that, you know, do we
reward that thing inside of us that also we,
that was the reason maybe we started
out wanting to be creative. Like,
sometimes you'll get on such a path that you never
get back to those things sometimes.
Yeah, it's been so nice to
bring it back to comedy in any capacity,
to do things just for fun
to go do an open mic at like a hot dog stand.
Yeah. It's like I used to love stuff like that.
I used to live for shit like that.
And then when you get caught up in all the numbers
and how are the tickets and
what a bra brawra braw me me me me when you get caught up and all that it some of it gets lost yeah
and i'm tired of losing stuff you know i needed to trim some of my hedges right tall poppy syndrome i
needed to cut down some of these egotistical parts of my life that i know don't serve me and then it's a
daily thing of figuring out you know chipping away at the block of happiness and trying to get a
firmer picture of what that looks like yeah yeah hard to say i think well said um in the end when we
get there do you and it's and we realize oh this was just a big masked singer right sure and they
take it all they take the mask off who do you hope it is bill paxton yeah who played for the bulls
that bill paxton that's john paxton so uh bill paxton i'm american actor who was
and aliens and frailty.
Just famed character actor, Bill Paxton,
who did have leading man potential
and was sometimes given the option to exercise that.
Died in a medical...
Died in a medical malpractice incident,
and he once told...
Yeah, he got malpractice to heaven.
Oh, that's what happened.
Like Kanye's mom.
It was him and Kanye's mom then, maybe.
Yeah, I think they were doing, like,
a dual surgery or something.
They were doing...
sutures or something. It was a suture day.
Oh, it's probably one of those new, because I know that insurance is offering if you both get surgery on the same day with someone you don't know.
It's like, it's like, um.
Cancels out.
Then, yeah, well, it's cheaper.
Sure.
Yeah, it's half as much for twice the people.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a new, and they're doing that new drive-by surgery where some got his reaches out of like a, yeah.
Ow.
But, yeah, he's a lot of great offers coming from the gods above.
Oh, yeah.
We're simply vessels, man.
Bill Paxon died February 2017 from a fatal stroke.
Oh, man.
11 days after undergoing heart surgery, his family fought a wrongful death lawsuit accusing the surgeon in hospital of medical malpractice,
alleging the doctor used an unnecessary, unconventional technique.
Cedars Sinai.
No, uh.
Full circle riff, put a bow on it.
A.K. Cedars cyanide, a lot of people call it.
Yeah, which is another.
And they are coming out with a yogurt, I've heard.
So that's good.
we are doing squatters rights on that riff
we are here to cut the ribbon on that riff
before you go Casey
the riffs you are you're
there's your
you're a different instrument man
you're a different instrument
how do you best set yourself up
for the ability to riff do you have to do a certain sequence of events
before you go on like and not to put a lot of pressure
yourself but if you notice certain things
lead to better tuning for yourself as an instrument
oh that's a good question
without giving away my entire process,
which I am not even capable of replicating,
which really gets me in a bind.
When I can't even do my own act
and I'm the one who does it, yikes.
I like to have some tent poles.
So I'll go out there, I'll cause a bit of a fuss,
I'll cause a fuss, and I like to, I'll say this,
I like to go up there and sing because it gets me out of my head.
So I learned a long time ago,
the most embarrassing thing you can ever do
is try to sing genuinely, like,
in a circumstance, it does not call for it.
So I'll go up there,
I'll do a little grunge number,
who, do a little Alabama shakes,
Britney Howard, and
I can feel
super embarrassed, and then I go, well, surely
nothing for the rest of this hour will feel like how
that just felt. So
that allows me to just sort
of peel the mask off and then do a big
Scooby-Doo reveal of me
to myself in the mirror. And then
I do a quick wink, and I will have some tent pole.
So I'll try to do three jokes that I know I'm going to tell.
So before I go up and I do my hour, I'll look at, I'll know three jokes that I'm going to say.
Okay.
And then I'll do joke.
Joke.
Yeah.
Joke.
And then from there, hopefully I've gotten about 10 to 20 laughs at this point.
And if you extrapolate, let's say the room's 500, which is bigger than rooms that I do.
let's say in a perfect world I'm headlighting 500 cedars.
If I get 10 laughs out of 500, I go, ooh, I only got 490 to go.
So that I'll do a couple jokes up top, and that'll give me the confidence I need to string it all together.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I, you know, we're...
But I have like a thousand half-sentence jokes.
So if I ever lose my train of thought, I'll just like hit them with...
I'll just do a quick...
stinky.
So that's like an example of a joke.
Oh, dude.
You're like an Easter basket that has matches in it, dude.
You're like, there's just something going on.
Careful with the plastic wrap, you'll set the whole thing off.
Cadbury and Diesel.
It's just, yeah, there's something just so charming about your presentation of yourself.
Thanks for saying that.
It's the truth.
Thanks.
I hope you feel that in a place where we need to feel things that are important.
And not that, but I just think like, yeah, I don't know.
I don't mean that because I'm saying that to you.
But I just think, yeah, there's a, I don't know.
It's a great thing to watch.
You're a great thing to watch, Casey Rockett.
Thanks.
Me and my friends watched no offense on Netflix.
You're special.
Oh, thanks.
Right when I started comedy, and it was very formative for me.
And I thought it was so funny.
And I'd never seen anything like it.
So I really appreciate you saying that.
Thanks, man.
Well, you bet, dude.
I'm glad that we've been able to communicate, man.
I hope we can do it more.
I think I'm going to try to come out there tonight.
You should.
Come riff or at least come hang out.
You don't have to riff, but come hang out.
It would be so fun, dude.
I think I'm going to go up because I think it's probably what I need to do, contrary action.
It's my crowds and I'm sure your crowds too, but they're so, they'll just be so happy to see you.
You'll have so much fun.
Yeah.
It'd be great.
All right.
Yeah.
All right.
I'm coming then.
Yes.
What time did your show at?
Seven o'clock.
It is?
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm supposed to go to a 630 meeting, but maybe I can find a 6.
Sorry, maybe I'm going to one after.
Casey Rocket, you got some tour dates coming up?
Yeah, I'm on the road.
Yeah, Casey Rocket Comedy.com.
Up in Liberty Township over there, Cincinnati.
That's a good place over there.
Doing some more funny bones this year.
One thing I want to plug, I have an hour of my stand-up on my Patreon.
Okay.
It's $6, and all the money goes to harm reduction programs in Chicago.
So community outreach, clean needles.
harm reduction, all kinds of good stuff that helps people get help up, people get the help that
they need. So yeah, my Patreon's on there. And if you feel like doing that, just know that all that
money goes to charity. So yeah, that's awesome, man. Congrats on all the success, dude. Thanks for talking
with us. They had Liberty Township. What were some of the other ones? Let me just rattle them
off real quick. Columbus, Ohio. I love being in Ohio, dude. St. Petersburg, Florida, Asheville,
North Carolina. Have you been there?
I have not done the orange peel yet, but I've been to Asheville.
It's so cool.
So cool, dude.
Baltimore, Maryland got offered a threesome there by an older mixed couple.
One of them wearing who I think was wearing an Ed Reed jersey.
We got Chicago back at Zanis, Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Louisville, a lot of places.
You can check them out online on his website, Caseyrocket.com.
Caseyrocketcom.com.
Caseyrocketcomedy.com.
Yeah, thank you, guys.
And before you go, I just want to get this note in for viewers.
No, the Jasper Mall and Jasper, Alabama has not officially closed.
It is still operating, though, in a very reduced and dead mall state.
Dead mall state, that's what's going to happen when the nuclear family collapses.
Not to be confused with Dead Mall 5, actually, who I think is still doing well.
Can you bring up Dead Mall?
Yeah, I think that's one of marshmallows aliases.
So it's like dead mouse.
Yeah, he's in the, what do they call it?
The marshmallow extended universe.
Yes.
Oh my God, face reveal.
Okay, spoiler alert.
Didn't know that was him.
I hope he's doing good.
Anyway, um, cool, man.
Dude, thank you so much for your time.
Have a great show tonight.
I'm going to come up there and, uh,
I'll figure it out when I get up there.
Yeah.
I wouldn't have it any other way.
And I'll say one more thing.
Yeah, for sure.
There's more to life than riffs,
but there's not more to riffs than life.
Hmm.
That's it.
That's it.
See you at the mall.
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