Timesuck with Dan Cummins - BONUS 10 - Timesuck Sucks Itself

Episode Date: October 6, 2017

Timesuck sucks itself in this special 1,000 review bonus edition of Timesuck! Why did I create Timesuck in the first place? Why did I get into standup at all? Where was I born and raised and by whom? I reveal more about myself, my history in standup, and what I hope to do with the Suck than I ever have before in this special episode for true Timesuck fans only. If you've never listened to Timesuck before, start on a different episode and this one later. If you're a member of the cult of the curious, I hope you enjoy! Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Want to try out Discord!?! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Here it is: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cultofthecurious/ For all merch related questions: https://badmagicmerch.com/pages/contact To vote on the topic choice for the 1,100 iTunes review episode of Timesuck two weeks from today, follow Timesuck on Instagram, @timesuckpodcast

How the hell did Time Suck get here? How did I get in a standup? Where do I hope to take Time Suck from here? Learn a lot about me and a lot about Time Suck because we go meta and we have the Suck Suck itself today on this 1,000 bonus edition episode of Time Suck. You're listening to Time Suck. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Alright, no announcements on this special 1000 review episode. Other than to say, I just, I owe you another bonus episode you sons of bitches. Cause now there are over 1,100 reviews on iTunes.

Goddamn it. So two weeks from now, the 11th bonus episode will be coming out on time stock. And what should it be? You're gonna decide again. It's gonna be DB Cooper, mysterious man who may have escaped with $200,000 in ransom money after hijacking a Northwest Airlines flight in 1971 and then he just jumped out of the fucking plane.

Somewhere allegedly, we think near Portland, Oregon, he was never found. Or what about Bruce Lee? Marshall Arts badass, who died somewhat mysteriously at the age of 32. What a legacy he has left. How much do we really know about his life? Or, you know, Halloween is coming up.

How about the Amityville House haunting? Amityville, man, that is supposedly the most haunted house in America. Is it really haunted? Do I really believe in it? Would I fucking spend the night there? Probably not. So if you want to vote on one of those, I'm going to post on the choices on at-time, suck on Instagram, whichever topic has the most votes by this coming Friday, the 13th,

how perfect is that? At midnight, that'll be the bonus topic. The next one for Friday, the 20th. And you guys, I think I already have like 25 more reviews on iTunes towards the next bonus. So apparently this is almost going to be a twice a week podcast, mother fucker. So now let's get into today's show. Let's suck the suck and let's start with a little time suck timeline about myself. And if you hear any different kind of sounds with this episode, it sounds a little different. I'm just in a different room again. I am in Los Angeles.

I'm at my manager's house and her living room recording right now. So I got my little mobile studio set up there. So that's why it sounds different if it does sound different. So let's get in to this time's such timeline. Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time, some time line. May 17th, 1977, Daniel Brent Cummins, his first child born to Daniel Neal Cummins, 23-year-old logger, Pentecostal preacher, son who has just moved to Riggins a few years prior. Riggins Idaho with his, was four of his, his five brothers. Uh, the Riggins and Idaho County Idaho right in the, right in the middle of the state

at the bottom of the Northern Idaho Panhandle there and on May 18th young Danny speaks his first words. He said I won't be a podcast Oh, and people are amazed and confused how could a fucking baby speak so early, but what in God's name is a podcast? Danny's mother. Yes, I will continue to occasionally refer to myself in the third person today Charlene Renee Cummins a beautiful waitress who was just turned 19 a few days before the birth of their first kid While the senior Daniel has spent his childhood kind of moving around from Kansas to California to Alaska to Idaho just just kind of all over the place following his father, you know moving from one assembly god Church to the next Charlene has lived a rigged her whole life. And life is pretty good for the young couple, young Danny.

At this time, and that's I say Danny because it's a kid that's what a peop out people always called me. It was Danny. Mine for my family still calls me Danny. You know, young Danny spent a lot of time with his mom's grandparents, grandpa, grandpa ward, grandpa Betty, warden Betty Hall, and his teenage aunt still, uh, loggers made almost as much in the late 70s as they do now so the young couple had you know plenty of money that friends family and small ten Idaho But then around 1979 Danny's young parents have some marital problems as young couples do and his dad moves to Anchorage, Alaska

his dad's father his Pastor Bill Cummins has recently moved back to Alaska to preach in Cordoba and Dan senior pastor Bill Cummins has recently moved back to Alaska to preach in Cordoba and Dan senior Younger brothers Phil John and Paul have moved back to Alaska as well Dan senior moves to work in construction with his brother Phil the trade He was kind of raised in His pastor father working as a is a construction framer alongside working as a as a pastor his entire adult life And then sometime around 1980, sometime during 1980,

Charlene and young Danny moved to Anchorage to join Dan in Alaska. See if the marriage is gonna work. So the marriage approves enough to produce a second child, Donna. Donna Lee, Donna Lee Cummins, born on August 1st, 1982. And Donna is noticeably less attractive

and far less intelligent as her older brother. She would go on to live in his immense, fucking Greek godlike shadow forever. Hitting. My sister, my little sister is very smart and very pretty. She is weak. She is physically weak. I will say that. She cannot deny that.

Still can't do one push up. Fucking wimp. Fucking wimp. By lover. Also, 1982, Danny attends kindergarten at Garfield Elementary, where he remembers getting punched in the face for saying a lot of stupid shit to kids who are bigger and punchier than him.

Sirius, I have a preposterous amount of memories of getting punched as a little kid, and I feel like I deserved all of them. I just have a sequence of memories with me and different kids, like these flash memories from early grade school where I remember one, remember looking to some little buddy of mine

with some kind of attitude of like, hey, check this shit out. And then just walking over and I remember him looking at me like, I don't think this is a good idea. And the other two kids that were older and bigger were having a rock fight, just weird. Just on the playground during recess and anchorage. I remember it was like fucking anarchy.

Apparently there was no teachers, a monitor and anything. These kids are just standing face each other. Just about, I don't know, 30 feet apart. Just throwing rocks at each other. And I think it's a good idea to tap one of them on the shoulder and say some smart-ass comment. And he responds immediately with a bunch of the face.

And it just kind of went on like that for a variety of other bunches. Dan Senior works in construction, the family lives with Phil. Uncle Phil builds family initially later. They get an apartment to themselves, then they run a house and Dan is uncle's, John and Paul live with them. I keep going back and forth between for Furn and myself. My self is dead. This is very weird for me to do this episode.

But kind of fun. A lot of moving around my young life and young Danny's life. 1984, I switched elementary schools to Sand Lake Elementary, start third grade in 1974, while the parents marriage crumbles. You know, it's kind of easier to talk about myself in the third person as if it's not me for someone. Shortly after starting school in Sand Lake, Dan Charlene Dan senior a separate Charlene's dad

You know award flies up to Anchorage and drive Charlene Danny Donna All the way back down to Riggins wall Dan senior stays behind in Anchorage and Yeah, you know definitely tough period childhood there. I was definitely a dad's kid and Sirius bummer to say goodbye to dad there and not know what was gonna go on. 1984 shortly after returning to Riggins Little O'Meat, remembers making other kids laugh for the first time.

That's the comedy beginning, it's 1984. My third grade teacher in Riggins, Mrs. Williamson, is asking all the kids in class who had pets. I have no idea why. Guess it must have been related to some kind of project we were doing and when it came to me Don't know why I said this. Don't know where this came from But I do remember just saying that I had a cheetah living under my sink

And apparently that was a good joke the third grade it fucking killed I pretty was laughing and I was a new kid in a small school that didn't get many new kids There's only about 25 kids in the in the class that time I was the only kid whose parents were divorced, which made me an oddity. A lot of weird your dad questions. But then when I said, you know, this thing, word got out, that I was funny. Now I was cool. And I was accepted by the cool kids in class.

God, I remember worrying if they were going to accept me. It was Ryan Shaw, Kim Dowdy, Holly Tumbleson, Michelle Gazzinski, cool kids. I'm Rachel Brunette. And Rachel Brunette. And I was well liked by the rest of the class. Life was all right. Life was all right. I got a golden retriever named Sam, who was the best dog,

a young boy he could hope for, love that dog. For the next few years, I was raised primarily by my grandparents, Ward and Betty, or my mom worked a bunch. My dad was kind of out of the picture for the most part. They were really like a second set of parents. I'll spend a lot of time with my grandma Betty's parents, my maternal great grandparents, which I know is rare. Most people never even get to, not alive,

when their great-grandparents are also alive. But I got to spend a lot of time with them. They were able-bodied. They had their minds were sharp. I'd go there for lunch all the time and hang out and play around. It was great. My great-grandpa, John, was from Sweden, great-grandma Stah was raised in Norway and in Minnesota her parents immigrating over from Norway just before she was born and it was cool to hear them speak in a different language. They'd argue and fucking Swedish and Norwegian. They have their weird muppet talk. I loved it. They would speak that more than they spoke English. It just seemed cool to me. My great-grandpa John had a national geographic subscription and he'd give me all the maps from them and I loved maps for some reasons the kid and hung them on the walls in my room

Grandpa John had an almond axe get us book a world records random trivia books And I just read that stuff all the time and that was where a great kind of curiosity about the world was, you know Born inside of me and they had a globe which I don't know if that's normal for kids But I used to play a lot with a globe Nobody else had the globe in the family, and I remember I would just like study the countries. And just, yeah, you know, I would do this weird game with my great-grandma still, where you just spin the globe,

and you kind of put your finger on it, and then wear it up wherever your finger kind of ended, you know, wherever you step, that's where you talk about living. So if it ended in Algeria, you talk about what you thought life was like in Algeria, just, I don't know how normal that is. I didn't see much of my dad again for those couple of years there.

Maybe just a couple of weekends in total, actually, but we did talk on the phone almost every Sunday. I had a best friend, Kyna Wilson, kid of year older, and good friends with his older brother, Chance, as well. We're on my bike all the time, explored the woods around town, fished, shot birds with my baby gun. You know, Idaho-shit, filled bad when I killed him, picked up my little sister. And around 1986 when we moved from an rental property,

my grandpa wore it onto a trailer down the street that my mom bought, I harassed a religiously homeschooled kids next door, ruthlessly, my dark sense of humor emerging, I would tell Paul Emory, a kid a year younger than me, who was very, very religious, that I worshiped a devil. I would talk about Satan all the time, just to freak him out,

because it would just get him so riled up. I make crank calls in the days before caller ID to other people around town. I tried to sign in the past drop. I'm kind of proud of this one, actually, for a playboy subscription. You know, it was like back when like, the playboy would have some, I don't know,

phone number would pop up in a commercial, and you know, call this number to say, get a subscription. I didn't think about it. You had to have like a credit card, not got enough proof of payment. I just tried to, Fred Emory, the pastor next door, I tried to get him a Playboy subscription because I thought that would be just fucking hilarious to have him try and explain that to his family. Uh, uh, Kyler come over from sleepovers.

We'd sneak out in the middle of the night, go change to signs in the businesses around town, they had those signs, we're just kind of like loaded the ground and they had those pop out letters. So you know, you change snow cones to blow, blow snones or blow cones or change to hotels nightly rate from $39 to $3.00.00. No vacancy became vacancy, just tell them she liked that. Sometime around 1986, my mom started dating again. She dated some delivery driver, dude, named Bob,

who I thought, yeah, Bob is okay. He's okay. But then she met Tim Hinckley, a logging mechanic who lived in Whitebird, Idaho, a little town of about 130 people, probably more like 80 or 90 now, to be honest, and 30 miles from Riggins. And Tim was known locally by his nickname of Spud.

I shit you not. A man known as Spud, living in Idaho County, Idaho. What a cliche, right? To dude from Idaho, just loving potato so much that he gets a nickname of Spud. Well, I like Spud. I still do. He's a great step down.

I had a satellite. He had a satellite TV. This is why I like him. He's a kiddie. He had a 22 rifle. He let me shoot. He didn't tell me what to do. And he had an Nintendo. What is why I like to music it, satellite TV, he had a 22 rifle, he let me shoot, he didn't tell me what to do and he had an Nintendo. What is not to like?

He also had four kids who lived with his ex wife and Lewis Nida-Hell, Jennifer, who was a year older than me, Jake, who was my age, two younger girls, Jody and Mickey. Jody, Mickey and Jennifer are all doing well in life somewhere right now. Jake, sadly, would take his own life much later after some roughly adulthood of, don't do heroin, let's just say that, do not do, do not get into

heroin. So yeah, so I, you know, I'd see them here and there, we all got along by 1988, I think 88, you know, probably should ask my mom, they get married at a stepdad now, officially now, who came and lived with us in Riggins. And a super cool thing you had, he had the, what was known as the black box. I don't remember other people really talking about this, but in small towns, you'd, with these big ass satellites, and like very different than the direct TV satellite dishes now. I mean, these things, I'm not kidding,

the radius of the satellite had to have been like four feet, five feet. It was enormous, feet, five feet, it was enormous, enormous, enormous satellite. And like it would move, you know, when you position it to track out with satellites. And you would get this thing called, it was just called like the black box, totally legal.

And it would desecramble all of the, like literally all of the channels. So you would pay like a one time fee, I think, for this black box. And you would just illegally get all of the channels. And that was like a thing. A lot of people had, we had that. And I remember Playboy was on there,

Spice was on there, these early kind of porn channels. And that was awesome as a young boy. Because there was parental lock on this and my mom and step that would lock me out of those channels. But I found in the instruction, the reset code, the master reset code that you could just always punch in to erase whatever lock they had on it. So yeah, so that was my introduction to naked ladies.

So thanks, Step-Dead. 1989 started off a little rough, my dog Sam, but a neighbor kid, Jeremy Baker, that mother fucker, I never liked that kid. And he wasn't supposed to be my yard anyway, but he came over my yard even though I didn't want him to. And he was a couple years older, and he tried pulling a bone like a dickhead

out of my dog's mouth. He was harassing my dog Sam, and my dog bit him. And he should've bit him. And then my mom, afraid to be sued, she took Sam away, and she told me Sam went to go live on a farm. And I was dumb enough to believe that there was actually a farmer out there who wanted a man-biting duck. He didn't live on a farm.

He was taken out to the woods and he was executed. He was shot. Oh, my sister and I spent half the summer after I finished sixth grade in 1989 with my dad in Oak Creek, Arizona. Little town just out of Sedona, Arizona, not too far from Flagstaff. And my dad in Oak Creek, Arizona, a little town just out of Sedona, Arizona, not too far from Flagstaff. And my dad had followed a girlfriend, Julie down there, was living with her.

And I remember going to work with my dad, who was working in construction, I'd ding around the job site where he framed, playing in the woods nearby, reading a book, whatever, cleaning up scraps of wood, sweeping other piles up, just kind of staying busy, killing time. And I loved hanging out with him.

I loved driving to work with my dad. We'd hit the Circle K convenience store before work and I'd get a box of old fashioned glazed donuts, some chocolate milk for breakfast. I still love convenience stores. I still love glazed donuts this day. Chocolate milk not so much. Lactose intolerance kind of killed that for me.

Back in Riggins, I got really into basketball in junior high. This is crazy. When I was 12, I could jump from the foul line. I could dunk on a regulation rim. Like fucking hard. I had jump from the foul line. I could dunk on a regulation rim, like fucking hard. I had a 49 inch vertical leap. I was and I still am a phenomenal athlete.

Just yesterday, just yesterday, mess around with my kid. I threw a football through a spare tire, hanging from a tree that was 200 yards away, 10 out of 10 times. None of that happened, that's fucking bullshit. I was never that athletic. I was actually very small and slow in junior high. I stopped growing for several years as a kid. I remember really freaked me out

Like I would say like around fourth through like eighth grade. I just didn't fucking grow And by the by eighth grade I was the shortest and the smallest kid like weight and everything just just overall size height Everything the tiniest kid in my class out of both the boys and the girls. But I wasn't a sports, you know, and I was good at it for a little guy. My friends got into sports as well. They also got into girls. I cannot figure out girls. I was like the ones who did not like me, and I had no interest in the girls who liked me very much because I was a moron. You know what, whatever. I had fun. I had an Nintendo. So who needs girls when you're a kid and you have Super Mario Bros. Zelda and Contra? God, I missed kid and you have Super Mario Brothers, Zelda, and Contra.

God, I missed the days of having so many hours of free time to play video games. I fucking love video games so much. I still love video games. By the summer of 1990, my dad had moved to Las Vegas, lived in an apartment complex called Anchor Village if that's still around near what was called the Lakes neighborhood. He moved there after visiting the town because the construction trade was booming and he had met a blackjack dealer named Colleen Fitzpatrick. And they were married two weeks later, because that's what my dad did. He full speed ahead always and whatever direction he felt like going, had a stepmom before I even knew

my dad had a girlfriend. That's how he rolled. Once my dad makes up his mind, he's gonna do something. Doesn't matter how fucking dumb the idea is. He is going to do it and he's going to do it with conviction. And then sometimes years later he'll realize, oh, maybe that was really, really stupid. But he means well.

My sister Donna and I spent most of the summer in Vegas, which was like a different planet compared to Riggins. There were a lot of people who weren't white. That was new for us. Riggins is quite white. There were huge buildings. Riggins didn't even have a single building bigger than two stories. And even those are rare.

Kids had earrings, dyed hair, kid wore hammer pants, Z-Cave Arachies, I have my first black friend, you know, some kid who lived in a building, I don't know, over in the same complex and we fucking, I don't know, dinked around, more kids. The complex had swimming pools,

where attractive women would lay out bikinis. That was also new. Did not see that back in Riggins. I liked that very much. By 1991, when I was in eighth grade, I wanted to live with my dad full time. Life was good in Riggins, but I was just a dad's, yeah, I was a daddy's boy.

And, you know, I made the mistake of telling my mom that I wanted to go live with my dad. She lost her goddamn mind as mothers may do in those situations when you tell them that you want to go live with somewhere else. I tried to negotiate some kind of 50-50 situation, you know, and she wasn't into it. So then in the summer of 1991, or 1991, excuse me,

I asked my dad if I could just stay at the end of summer break and not go back to Idaho and Riggins, and he and my stepmom Colleen agreed, and my sister went back and I stayed. So Donald went back, I stayed in Vegas, and it pains me to this day that I had to split up for my sister that way. I don't regret going to live with my dad

because I needed to know what that felt like, but hate that I had to split up for my sister that way. I don't regret going to live with my dad because I needed to know what that felt like, but hate that I had to leave my sister to do it. 1991, I started high school, Bananza High School in Las Vegas, Nevada. I had over 600 kids in my class. Riggins did not have that many people in the whole town. Only about 500, like huge culture shock. I went from being the starting point guard

with my little scrawny ass on the basketball team. Riggins to not being good enough to make the team at all, of course not in Las Vegas. I mean, these are kids that are going to play college, well, and stuff. I remember doing actually this Nike basketball camp, right? When I got there to like, you know, just kind of suss out the competition.

I was one of maybe two kids that were just going into like ninth grade, like summer between like eighth and ninth grade, very in there that couldn't dunk. Like all these other kids could already dunk. They're hitting like, you know, jumpers, three pointers. I mean, these kids are good. I'm like, I can do a reverse layup. I can do a reverse layup. I went from not know, you know, from knowing pretty much everyone in school and Riggins and having a lot of friends to not know a single kid in my class in Bonanza. So that sucked.

Combined all of that with an awkward growth spurt where I finally grew and just grew a bunch. I grew about six inches in what felt like a few months and I put on zero pounds. I just like stretched out and I was already skinny. And so now I'm just like in a very anorexic looking and I look at pictures of myself, I had an acne breakout, I was a social fucking leper. Guess who's sitting alone at lunch? This guy. I became friends with a few other outcasts, few other pariahs,

and then I met two kids, Russ and Chris, who lived in my apartment complex, Niagara Village, who seemed super cool. I just had to do a Chris lived right next door in whatever some conduce, but right on the edge, it felt like he lived in my apartment complex in Anchor Village, who seemed super cool. I just had to enter a chris lived right next door in whatever some condos. But right on the edge, it felt like he lived in Anchor Village. Chris was a year older, Russ was two years older,

and both of them just thought it was cool. They thought it was cool enough to hang out with him. I don't know, they thought it was funny. So yeah, me, man, Russ seemed like a movie star, man, he was a super muscular tie kid with his gorgeous Persian girlfriend. He made sure we all knew he was having sex with and a lot of it. I still hadn't even kissed a girl. He had a red to-door sports car. I can't remember the model, but I remember it looked fucking cool.

And no one in Anchor Village messed with Russ, dude. He was the man. He was a dude. He was everything I wanted to be. He was a dude with big pecs, washboard abs, sports car, girlfriend with huge boobs, he had sex with him. And he was Asian. I always wanted to be Asian. No, actually I never cared what race I was. But Russ thought I was funny. Again, we played Madden on his Sega Genesis, Russ thought I was, and Chris thought I was cool, which was awesome, and they were friends,

and Chris was fucking insane. Chris was also a social leper, but different by choice. He was an outcast by choice. He was a true nihilist looking back. A true anarchist. He just, he thrived on Mayhem and destruction. He just didn't give a shit about anything. Just so much anarchy energy around.

He was a skinny red-headed kid, whose dad wasn't around. Dad was completely out of the picture and mom was barely around. And he loved breaking shit, he loved stealing stuff, pissing people off, setting shit on fire, that sort of thing. And he took me under his dark wing.

And by 1992, Chris and I were inseparable. Life had not been working on Vegas like I hoped. School was rough, there was a lot of different clicks. I didn't fit into any of them. There was jock, stoners, preppies, gang bangers. Or at least kids who claimed to be gang bangers, I remember there was kids who would throw around like bloods, gang signs at school and stuff. And, you know, I wasn't going to question them. I don't think you really are punched

the face. And home wasn't working out that great. You know, I moved to Vegas, spent time with my dad. He was always working, you know, even on the weekends. It felt like my stepmom who I initially thought was really cool because she'd grown up in Los Angeles. She, you know, was different than anybody I knew. She smoked. I thought that was cool. She was really into psychology and reading self-help books. She was really into juicing fresh juice.

She was really into vitamins, all things, knowing my family and Riggins was into, you know, previously I was raised on, you know, hamburger helper and all the cookies you want. So this was new. Unfortunately, she was also, I'm pretty sure, mentally ill. Colleen's mom was an abusive, she gets a frenic in and out of the psych ward, growing up.

And her dad was a drunk and probably based on stories, Colleen would tell a pedophile as well. I mean, when she was a teen, he once tried to proposition her for sex, like sleep with his own daughter. He was that dude. So she did not have a good childhood, she had an abusive ex-husband before, she know, she met our family. She thought was going to kill her. Most of her social circle came

from AA meetings. And it turns out she never wanted kids and resented my sister and I from the start. So smart move by dad. Mary a woman who does not want to be explicitly does not want to be around kids. When you have two kids, who's a genius, my dad? Colleen was annoyed by everything I did. I didn't vacuum right. I didn't put away the dishes right. Whatever I did, I didn't do it right. And every time I didn't do something right,

she thought it was a personal attack on her because she was very paranoid because I believe she had, I don't know if you can have mild schizophrenia or just, I don't know, she had something. Something she was always reading these crazy motives into everything I did. Everything was a personal attack.

I didn't put a dish in the wrong spot because I was an absent-minded 15-year-old. I did it because I was sending her a strong message of fuck you, get away from our family. Like, I'm not kidding. Like she was always like, you know, cornering me and accusing me of craziness and if I denied it then I just got more trouble. She was also just really into new age shit at one

second and then some form of Christianity the next and if she sense I didn't agree with whatever flavor of the month ideology or theology she was into then I was being disrespectful and got in trouble as well. She was also a bum who just stopped working. Sure, that's just about my dad and just hung around the house and soaked and was paranoid. So fun times with her. So Michael became not to be away from home as much as possible. And that's where Chris came in.

Chris lived with his mom. His mom spent every weekend with her boyfriend. So Chris and I had his place to ourselves every weekend. Two pissed off social outcast teams with no parental supervision. His mom was happy not to be around him and my step-on was happy to not be around me. So my sophomore year in high school was spent

just fucking causing so much mayhem. Chris and I would steal from the 7-11 to the end of the block continually. Like just like as a game, like they knew we stole, they would follow us around the store, the employees, and then we would steal, steal stuff and run away.

We would, and then we would like throw stuff against the windows to harass them, like we were just, we were out of control. We'd set brush fires on vacant lots around us at night and then hide nearby and watch the fire trucks come, put them out. We got to hold the anarchist cookbook, a couple of pages, and we spent a lot of time trying to make bombs, trying to make car bombs, pipe bombs, just blow up, like we tried fucking blowing up cars around there.

We tried, luckily we weren't good enough to actually make it explosive, but it wasn't for lack of effort. We tried very hard to make bombs. We said dumpsters on fire, an acre village, and then we watched people freak out when they thought that like one of the buildings was on fire. We break into cars.

Few times actually broke into apartments, just steel stuff, broke into a local school, one night stole computers. We'd play catch on the side of the road. Just do dickhead stuff, play catch on the side of the road with the football and throw it as hard as you can but time it so that you'd intentionally miss

and just like try to get it like in a car and like pelt somebody or try, like we were just, we just wanted to cause angst. Like the world hated us and we hated the world. And I can't blame my stepmom for all that, man. I've always had a little darkness in me. Some of that is something inside of me and I don't know what it is, man.

Even as a small kid, when my buddies and I would play he-man, I wanted to be Skeletor. When we played GI Joe, I wanted to be Cobra Commander. And one of those guys, I always wanted to be the bad guy. I have no idea where that comes from. Sure, counselor could have fun talking about it. But I don't do that stuff now, right? Keep it in check.

Keep it in check. I get my hatefulness out in my comedy here and there. And anyway, any of them I saw for more years, spring in 1993, my dad decides to move back to Riggins. He still has friends in the area. He'd afforded by a little house there. So back to Idaho, we go. And it was weird being back, man. I was now, I was back in school in Riggins. He still has friends in the area. He could afford to buy a little house there. So back to Idaho, we go. And it was weird being back, man.

I was back in school in Riggins at Semmer River High School now. And I was both the new kid and the kid everyone already knew. I'd gone to third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth grade there. But then I went away for a couple years. I dressed and acted differently. The mile buddies brought back some Vegas with me. You know, I was wearing, again,

I think what was the Z-Cab Ritchies, that kind of stuff. My junior year, I tried to earring my junior year. I traveled with my buddies in the weekend to Lewiston or Boise, steal ship from the mall. I brought back my theft, my penchant for theft. For Christmas in 1993,

I actually literally stole all the gifts I gave everyone in the family that year. So sorry, fam. My mom got me a job at the grocery store in town. That time was known as Paul's. Previously the mercantile, something different now. I stole from work. I'd help unload freight before school on Mondays and Wednesdays

with a new kid named Zach, an unload a box of stuff, and I'd put what I wanted back in the box. Like so, that's like paper towels, whatever. You take out the paper towels, put the paper towels in the shelf, and then I would just like slip what I wanted back in the box. Like so, that's like paper towels, whatever. You take out the paper towels, put the paper towels in the shelf, and then I would just like slip something I wanted into the empty box, and then set the box by the dumpster, and I'd go pick it up like in my lunch break. And then what I usually was like playboys, like porn mags,

or cassettes actually. This is a little dated. It takes still a bunch of cassettes. And then I got caught. Somebody else picked up a box for a cassette tape, cassettes actually, you know, this is a little dated. It takes still a bunch of cassettes. And then I got caught. Somebody else picked up a box for a cassette, they found out that I did it, called my boss, who also then told my mom,

because my mom worked there. It's a bookkeeper, she was one who got me the job, but I wouldn't mess up and they didn't have an eye witness. So they couldn't prove it, I couldn't get fired, but they knew I did it. And I never saw anything again, and haven't seen it. My mom asked me if I stole those tapes me denying it to her face But then getting a look from her where I could tell she knew I did it and the disappointment in her face

Oh That was that was a low point for sure Glad you did that the tapes if you're curious. I think I stole that I think it was guns and roses user illusion one and two and temple of the dog Despite that low point when I quit who in Temple of the Dog. Despite that low point, when I quit the job the next year, I did leave my old boss a parting gift. This is not much of a dickhead I was a teenager.

I didn't like the way John, the guy who ran the store. I didn't like the way he accused me of stealing stuff, even though I did steal stuff. Like he was right to look judgingly at me. But despite that, I still thought he was an asshole. So my last day at work, oh this is bad. I got a paper plate. I drew a picture of his face on it, you know, wrote his name. I actually wrote, fuck you, John. And then I literally took a shit on it. Like literally just shit on it. And then I hid that plate of shit of my own shit

in his office where I knew he would smell it, but in a place a pie kind of behind some stuff where I didn't think he would find it. And I have no idea if he did find it. I was a dirty, filthy savage when I was in high school. It's 1994. I switched from kind of being a bad boy to, being someone with a goody two shoes,

you know, kick off senior year kind of, I got elected student body, eh, student body president. I have to run in a horrific smear campaign against my opponents. I ran against Randy Wilson and Ryan Shaw, two totally decent kids, totally decent kids. Ryan, my class, Randy the year below me, they did not deserve to have their names slandered, but I, it's what I did.

The theme of my student body president campaign was that you shouldn't vote for Randy because Randy was fat and all he cared about was hot lunch. And you shouldn't vote for, I know it's not funny, but I just think about it at the time. And you shouldn't vote for Ryan because he had AIDS. I wish I was kidding right now. How did this school allow that by the way?

I had posters on the wall of don't fight. I think it was like vote for Ryan and Diavades. How horrific. And if you're judging me right now, please keep in mind, well, you're right to judge me. This is 1995. Or 1994 actually. And I am in high school.

And I am in Riggins. All right, I know it's bad. I know now. I'm sure I knew then. I was a fucking monster. But kids thought the nonsense I wrote about them was funny. I wrote it in bad, I know now. I'm sure I knew then. I was a fucking monster. But kids thought the nonsense I wrote about them was funny. I wrote it in some kind of jokes. Just, I'll just, I remember Ryan had a nice job

at the gas station and he was like, that was part of his campaign. So I'm like, I was like, so what? He has a job. Gomer Pyle has a job. Like some weird old reference, a nerd having a job. Oh, I was a dick, but I won. And then to my credit, once I did win,

I took the job seriously. I think I felt, maybe I feel guilty of how I won. And then I organized a dick, but I won. Then to my credit, once I did win, I took the job seriously. I think I felt maybe I felt guilty of how I won. And then I organized a fundraiser for World Wildlife Fund. I started a positive action committee, where you could leave notes in a suggestion box in the library for how to improve the school. I'm pretty sure the PAC endured for many years after I graduated, which I thought was cool. I went to start going to church again. I was always kind of doing that off and on as a kid.

I went to church for a while. Mostly to impress a girl, Holly Tommelsen. I was kinda dating, but then she dumped me and church was back out. Met a Mormon girl towards the end of the senior year from another town, down in Southern Idaho. At the end of the senior year, started going to the Mormon church to impress her.

She didn't convert me, but she did take my virginity. So thank you. Shortly after graduation in 1995, and I've liked Mormons ever since. Always had a soft spot for him. I was also voted a class clown in 1995, along with Shana Nichols. I applied to the University of Idaho,

because it was where my friend, Kaira Wilson, was going. It was affordable. I applied to the University of Hawaii, because I thought it would be fucking awesome to live in Hawaii. And I applied to Gonzaga because some US news and world report article listed is the best academic school in the area.

And two cute girls from my class, Kim Daudi and Jenny Bittower were going there. So I ended up picking Gonzaga because they gave me the most money. Just plain and simple. I was a poor kid and they gave me the most financial late. And I started office computer science major because I took an early computer programming class. I can't even believe it was offered in Rickens. Two weeks after I started taking classes at Gonzaga I changed my major from computer science to psychology. I remember the class that killed my dream of working in the computer industry.

It was a one-on-one computer class. It was Pascal programming, some dead language, programming language. I was also taking calculus. Calculus was kicking my ass. Mostly because Rickens didn't offer advanced math classes. We had a class called Advanced Math that I took that was a go-a-your-own-paste class that I took for two years, taught by Mr. Buck Fitch, and he was a fucking horrible teacher.

He still lives in Riggins. Nice enough guy in some ways, but not a good teacher. I don't think. He didn't give a shit about teaching the class. He sat at his desk. He read the newspaper from the daily paper from Bo Boise, and he tried looking up girl skirts and down their blouses like obviously, he was not subtle about it.

And as long as you were quiet and appeared busy, he left you alone and you got an A. He was just killing time, just killing time and collecting a paycheck. So not really prepared for college calculus after that, where he actually had to know math to get a good grade in math. And one day in my Pascal programming class,

this is what I didn't like the other class, I couldn't stop thinking about how ridiculous it was as I'm a professor wore a dark button down long-sleeved college shirt that he constantly rubbed against a chalkboard. Like, chalk would get all over his belly, so much chalk. Like, he would turn around and just have this fucking white chalk dust belly and then a black shirt.

And he didn't think he needed to brush it off. He would just leave the chalk there for the whole class. He also had a pocket protector, not getting a nerdy pocket protector, pants that were pulled up way too high and kind of cinched too tightly with a belt. A pair of glasses straight out of revenge of the nerds. Even though he looked to be in his 50s, he looked like his mom still cut his hair. He was a caricature of a gigantic dork. And one day, a few weeks then,

I just remember leaning over and telling a classmate, just like, dude, look how much chalk is on that guy's cut. Right, like I like that. It's pretty crazy, right? And he just looked at me like, well, yeah, that's what happens when you have a large gut and you stand too close to a chalkboard. That's, you just, you would get chalk on your gut.

That's logical. Like there was no humor in it for him and none of the other kids in the class had any humor in it and I just thought there's no fucking way I'm gonna spend the rest of my life in a cubicle working with these nerds, I'll kill myself. What an idiot I was. The tech field is way cool now

and there's so much money in it, God damn it, right? Now to be clear, the tech field looked very different years later than it did, you know, coming out of Spokane in 1994. Google or 1995, excuse me. Google would soon have a kickass corporate campus, you know, as with Microsoft, the tech boom, would go nuts and Silicon Valley, just a lot of money to be made and you know, living in cool plays like Seattle and San Francisco, but I didn't know that. I just knew that there was a dude with a chalk cut and a bunch of people who didn't care about it but I didn't know that. I just knew that there was a dude with a chalk cut, and a bunch of people who didn't care about it,

and I didn't want to be around him anymore. And so I switched to psychology, because I found my psych 101 class very interesting. No two kids going to college now. Who gives a shit with your class as interesting? Think about the job potential. And there were probably a bunch of cute girls in it. And yeah, actually I know there was Kate Breco.

I think she was, oh no wait, there's a different Kate. I can't remember Kate Breco said, there was another cute girl I went to school with. Kate, there was another Kate. There was a strawberry blonde whose name also escapes me who I can picture and a platinum blonde whose name also escapes me and another girl's. And you know, and I was a hormone fueled idiot. Picking a major partly because I thought cool cute girls

were in that major. So, Kandagas, where I really came into my own know, man, I felt like I really hit my stride there. I loved college, I had a blast in college, so much fun, especially after how awkward high school was. I wasn't well liked in Las Vegas at all. When I went back to Riggins, I was well liked, but I didn't feel like I had much in common with my classmates. I love Riggins, but I just never wanted to spend my life there. I wanted to see more of the world. And kind of like, you know, I like I love riggins, but I just never wanted to spend my life there. I wanted to see more of the world And kind of like you know, and there's some cool people for sure who live in riggins But there's also this crowd of people who just you know want to get drunk around a campfire and talk about the shit They didn't high school 20 years earlier

Which would have sucked for me because I didn't do much in high school You know, it's not like I would have had touchdowns or prom night sex to talk about And it would have been pretty hard to stay in riggins even if I wanted. The world has changed since my dad first moved there and since my grandpa and great grandpa moved there years ago. When they were young, there was actually good jobs in Rickens. You could make a lot of money in the logging industry. My dad, grandpa, great grandpa, all worked in the logging industry, all worked around this mill that was in town, all starting in the 20s. You know, and my grandpa and great grandpa had full careers. But then the sawmill burned down to the ground somewhere around 1980, 82 in

that era, and the good jobs went up and smoked with it. And Riggins, after that, became largely just kind of a retirement and welfare community. There is a whitewater rafting industry there, and there's some jobs, seasonal jobs that well. But there's basically a lot of people who are either retired and kind of made their money and just settled down there or moved there from some other place just to be retired. or there's kind of people who have to live on government assistance and then there's just a small handful of survivors who don't have to do that. There's just not many people actually making money around there. You have to really kind of work hard to carve a life out for yourself there.

Usually by taking work out of town like a seasonally in Alaska, a lot of people do that like a Sam and a King crab boat or fighting forest fires around the west, working with smoke jumpers, that kind of like blue collar outdoorsman type of a shit that sounds hard. No thank you. Gonzaga was the first time. I was surrounded by a lot of people

as curious as I was about the world. Man, it really started to shape, you know, who I am now. For the first time in my life, I was having late-night discussions about philosophy, gender equality, race equality, psychology, music, politics, culture, my mind was on fucking fire. I was getting drunk and stoned having these conversations, so even better. I joined the GU Progressives.

We're not at various protests around town. I don't even remember what I protested about. I remember being into it. I felt alive in a way I never did back in Riggins. Riggins, no one outside of my family and a few teachers just really thought it was cool to be an academic, and at least not outwardly. And when my family was proud of me, you know, I was the first person in my extended family

to ever go to college, and they just weren't interested in, you know, the musins of a manual contour, you know, what we learned about, you know, a humanity from studies done by Stanley Milgram in the 60s. You know, before Gonzaga, I just didn't realize how a lonely I'd felt for several years, you know. I could really be myself and Gonzaga. I could dye my hair, pierce my ears,

wear weird thrift store clothes. I was in do at the time. I was very grunge, not be constantly mocked for it. It was cool to be different. It was not cool to be different in Riggins. College was the fucking best man. I was dating a Mormon girl when I got to Gonzaga, and I remember doing all this research

about some question of moments in the history of Mormon theology theology and she didn't care. And she just wanted to be a Mormon because her family was also a Mormon. And now I think, you know, whatever, that's fine, but it just didn't work for me. You know, because I wasn't that way. I've always been a questioner, a questioner. And I really became one big time in college. I needed to be with someone who thought out their belief system and really was able to be critical of it. And if you still accept it fine, but at least be able to question it and she just wasn't you know one of those people

You know being overly inquisitive did not work well in rigans, you know when I was a when I was in junior high back in rigans I was permanently banned from From a local Christian youth group my friends went to for literally asking too many questions I would ask Mrs. Cook you know stuff like but how come people who've never been introduced to Christ people in some remote jungle, how can they not go to heaven when they've never had a chance in salvation? And she would get flustered and she would just think, I was just being disruptive that I actually did want

to answer, but she didn't have one for me. And her solution was just to like, you know, say I was disruptive and toss me out of youth group. And then she made a new rule, get thrown out three times and you're banned forever and then three meetings later I was banned forever. Aote, that same lady was caught up in an embarrassing scandal about 15 years later when her husband, my old computer scientist, teacher, Mr. John Cook, used some type of biblical scripture, bullshit interpretation. And this is not a knock against

Christianity. This is an knock against him. He just tweaked it to justify having a second wife. Yes, so he took a second wife and then he got busted for a polygamy. So maybe you should kind of question things and come up with your own, you know, be Christian, you know, but be able to talk about some stuff. Aganzaga, Adam and I became Catholic there. I like the way the Jesuits studied the Bible. I respected the fact that their faith was grounded in a lot of intellectualism. And I still respect that. And in other's a lot of Protestants who are intellectual as well.

But yeah, man. So I found a new kind of respect for religion there, even though I didn't become Catholic. And in Gonzaga, I had a reputation amongst my new friends for being funny. And when, excuse me, while I get Zaga, I want you to show that would change my life forever and the relates directly to leading to getting a stand up, which then leads to time suck. It was a show called Waiting for FM, which if I recall correctly stood for Waiting for Frank Miller. Nobody really cared what the FM stood for. But what they did care about is it was an annual sketch comedy show in Zaga that is no longer there.

The Jesuits finally pulled the plug on it because it was too a reference. And it replicated the structure of Saturday Night Live. It had a host, a musical guest, a bunch of sketches, lasted about 90 minutes. And it would just go on for one run a year. There'd be a run of three shows, one weekend, Thursday, Friday, Saturday night. And it was a huge hit on campus.

It was well done. All the sketches were related to campus life and life in Spokane, Washington. And it was just very a reference, especially for a Catholic university. Skeaches made fun of students, done around school, made fun of dorm life, and life in Spokane, Washington. And it was just very irreverent, especially for a Catholic university, sketches made fun of students, done around school, made fun of dorm life, sports teams, professors, Jesuit priests themselves,

surrounding neighborhood, where there was a fair amount of crime. And I went freshman year and I laughed my ass off. Like I thought it was so fucking well done. And it was just so cool to have like, basically like an episode of Saturn at Live catered to your specific campus life So inside is so beautifully inside those are a little like club and I remember they mocked this one self-righteous kid this one

Like kid very involved like student body politic type stuff Jason something was his name so ruthlessly He took a couple weeks off school to recover. He had some kind of breakdown Cool, but if you saw this kid you would never problem with it And then so the next year, fall of 1996, I heard there were having auditions. My buddy Paul Ronald's, my best bud encouraged me to try out. So I did, just like an SNL audition, we have to bring the three characters and perform them.

That's what we did for waiting on the FEM. So I remember one character I did with this hyper masculine, violent member of the baseball team, just a parody of aggro baseball players at the school, because man, our baseball team was a fucking worst. People were always getting beat up at the baseball team, just a parody of aggro baseball players at the school. Man, our baseball team was a fucking worst. People were always getting beat up at the baseball house. They were just like, we didn't have a frat, we didn't have a frat row, we didn't have no Greek system,

but they were like the closest thing to a bad stereotype of like an angry frat guy. I also did an impression of this very odd European student. We called Toolboy, because he always wore this tool belt, featuring a large flashlight, some first aid supplies, a bunch of other shit. And he would just patrol campus, looking for someone who needed help,

that he could hopefully help with his tools. I shit you not, so weird. And so we were fasting it with him on campus. It was like, oh, that's Toolboy, just this weird dude, walking around with this giant fucking tool belt at all times, like, because what was weird is like, no one, he wasn't, it wasn't his job.

He wasn't, he didn't work for the school. He wasn't like on security. No one, you know, no one even asked him. No one even wanted him to do this. He just did it. And I can't remember the third character. And I made it into the play. And not to chew my own horn,

but I was a star of the own show of the show. I went from, you know, some kid from Riggins, a few kids on campus, mostly known for being the only kid at school with both ears, multiple pierced, different hair color all the time, to be known as the funny guy, right? Girls suddenly noticed me who didn't know me before. I was going to parties, I wasn't going to be foreign,

getting hit on differently than before. Now, who doesn't love that? Maybe feel good, so I love being funny. Following fall to fall in 1997, I was able to get enough student loans and my grandparents had set up a little bit of a couple thousand dollars for me. They had an account since I was a little kid. I was able to use all that and take a semester abroad, studied in London for a full semester, lived with the London family in Actin Town right off the Piccadilly Line, the Underground, the London subway, and

you know, mind the gap, all that. And this changed me again, man, every weekend we're taking excursions around England, visiting Wales, Stonehenge, Cliffs of Dover, Brighton, Portsmouth, watching plays in the West End. I'd never been east of the Mississippi before, and now I'm living with a family in Europe. And I realized that the universe didn't begin to end with the United States. I realized that while the United States is awesome, so is Britain, so is France, so is Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Holland, so on. I dated a girl from Germany, some German law student who had never been to America.

I was interesting to hear her take on the world in Europe. I learned that despite what country we're born in, we're all just fucking people suffering from the human condition. We're all just looking for love, acceptance. We also don't want to live a happy life, whatever that looks like based on your own temperament and goals. The notion that people from this country are terrible and that people from this country are great

is so fucking simplistic and childish. I hate it when people get into a country like they get into a sports team, you know? Like just like they're a weird, mindless cheerleader, you know? USA, I mean, I love USA, but like, there is a certain segment of the population that if you asked them, what do you love about it? They would have fucking nothing.

Because it's great. How is it great? Because it's free. It's free. But what does that mean to you? It's free, freedom. I'm just like, it is great. I think the US is the best country in the world.

But like, you know, part of the reason I think that too is actually even doing these time sucks. You know, like Teddy Roosevelt and JFK and all that kind of stuff. But I like like learning why. I like being able to have discussions about why it's great. And also, it can be great, but so, but I also like to realize that many other countries can be great as well.

And this was just kind of the first time that I encountered. I guess you just growing up, you know, I was just always told that we were the fucking best. And that was it. And because I was told that so much, I just expected when I got to Europe to think things to be kind of shitty in a way, you know, like things to be okay, but not as good as America. Nah, man, we're just, we're all just, we're all just human beings.

And I also love England because you could get into bars and clubs without being 21. So that was nice when you're 1920, or I think I was 20. You could buy two-liter bottles of hard cider at the grocery store, some strongwaves, for a couple bucks, a couple pounds. I got so fucked up in England, blackout to Runk Almost every weekend. My host family thought I was insane. I may be. Spring 98, I'm back in Spokane, back in the States, and I do another season of Waiting on FM, it goes even better. I really love it, but now, but I don't think of it as something I'd like for a career. And actually, soon after that, I give up on comedy for a little bit because I become,

this is so douchey, I become the serious guitar guy, you guys. All right? I start singing sappy grunge type love songs that I've written myself, I've arranged myself at the coffee shop on campus. I swear to God, I'm that guy. I've formed a band with some friends called Who's Lewis, which sounds a lot like Huey Lewis, I do realize that. We didn't really think about that.

We did not sound like Huey Lewis. We sounded more like the Totes or Everclear. We played a lot of Totes covers, actually, and Everclear covers. We did our own songs as well. We played parties, like the intense I got from Girls for Being in a Band, even more than comedy. I met my first wife at a rehearsal for the band. I decided not to do a wait on FM.

My senior year because I was fucking focused on my music. Okay, you guys, and I was suddenly in a meathead. I got way into lifting weights. I was more just eating a shit ton of beef and taking a lot of cretin, kicking up my bench press than I wasn't being funny. I'm also working at child protective services senior year, and late 98, early 99.

That was some heavy stuff, man. You know, having to like go to people's homes and then take kids from their families because the families were all fucked up on drugs or something. Wow, that was, ah, that was heavy. I graduated with a bachelor's in psychology in the spring of 99. I grabbed a little apartment in their campus,

got a job at the Crisis Residential Treatment Center, the CRC, an inpatient counseling center for runaway teens and teens stuck in the social work system. I think it's still open today, was five day and 14 day beds. Basically, like a social worker took a kid out of a parent's home, but they didn't have a foster home ready to put them in,

or they took them out of one foster home, and didn't have another ready, or they didn't have a group home ready. They could put them in like a two week bed, like a 14 day bed, they'd stay with us for two weeks, and you know, we just make sure they didn't do anything horrible or try to. Or if a kid ran away, then the police got them,

the police would bring them to the CRC for a five day bed, and they'd have to stay there for five nights, and the parents would have to come in for like, I believe it was like three sessions of counseling before the kid went back into the home. And as a counter, you're just kind of supposed to address, you'd have like these one hour counting sessions with the family and the kid.

You know, it just like why the kid ran away, try to solve as many, you know, family problems as you could in five days to reduce the likelihood the kid would run away. You have an intake session too, where you talk to about why they ran away in the first place, you know, solo before you met with the family. And a few months in, I just realized social work was, and the count was not the career for me. The pay was terrible after taxes, making 1100 a month. I could barely pay my student loans.

I was sending kids, and it just didn't feel like I was a competent thing. I was sending kids back into the homes of people who weren't abusive enough to have their kids taken away from them, but we're also like super shitty parents. I remember one mom who I couldn't get to understand why it wasn't okay to call her daughter a slut. You know, I would tell her that was a horrible word

for a mom to call a daughter. There was emotionally abusive and all that, and she would say stuff like, well, she doesn't want to be a slut, then she shouldn her that was a horrible word for a mom to call a daughter. There was emotionally abusive and all that and she would say stuff like, well, if she doesn't want to be a slut, then she shouldn't act like a slut. You know, so then she was like, okay, you're right. That sound logic. Okay, now I get it.

What's I sure to you wear? I need to order your mom of the year sweater right now. Well, the heavy work wore on me. Maybe filled the press man. And I was reading all these case files between CPS and CRC as reading all these fucking files between CPS and CRC. I was reading all these fucking case files about, you know, this person had been satamized by a sibling or this person molested by their dead or raped by a neighbor.

It just started made me feel like fucking sexual predators were everywhere, like that everywhere someone was being victimized. And so I would like be out at the mall or in public and I'm just like, I don't know what that guy's doing. And I wonder what that piece of shit's doing. And I just, it was just, put him in a real dark mindset all of the time. And I was also kind of afraid of the kids themselves too,

because that was another weird angle of it, like the kids, you know, that you're trying to help a lot of them, they would manipulate you and you're doing stuff like, look on the other way, like one, this one kid did that, like, you know, trick me into looking over here and then you stole a bunch of shit out of the medicine cabinet.

I almost got fired for that. Oh, you know, and there was, me to looking over here and then he stole a bunch of shit out of the medicine cabinet. I almost got fired for that. You know, and then there was other kids referred to as alligators. They would be called, these were kids who got off on making allegations about, you know, just anybody, but including staff members, like sexual allegations. You know, you end up in a room alone with one of those kids and they would, you know, if they tell their social worker or anybody that you molested them, it doesn't matter. If the police don't even press charges because there's no merit to their accusation, the stigma of the accusation alone just fucking ends your career before it starts.

So I'm always nervous about making sure I'm with another staffer all the time. It's very stressful. So six months in, I dropped down to part time. I started trying to find something else to do. I took another part time job working as a personal trainer 24 hour fitness. I was still really into lifting weights. I still lift weights today. I still like it.

I did that. I did pretty well at it for about six months. I sell them the most training packages in my gym. You know, the work just was what I thought I was. Most of my clients had no interest in working hard changing their bodies. They just wanted someone to talk to while they worked out. You know, had the money to afford that.

We call ourselves red to friends as trainers. I was basically just like a cheerleader for lonely old women. Just come on, come on Ruth, you got this. You got this 10 more, had the money to afford that. We call ourselves rent-of-friends as trainers. I was basically just a second cheerleader for lonely old women. Just come on, come on Ruth, you got this. You got this, 10 more, 10 more, keep it going. Doing great. Come on, Cheryl, three more good ones, make it count. Let's go Dorothy, two more minutes on that treadmill.

You got this. And then I'd listen to them complain about not losing weight even though they were eating more than they were eating before they started working out with me. You know, I'm a fucking trainer, lady. Not a weight loss wizard. 95% of my clients, they didn't want to put in hard work days. One of the pounds magically to fall off,

you know, because they showed up twice a week in a gym. Also, 1999, I got engaged to my first wife. It's crazy. I loved her, but I knew it wasn't ready to be married. I was 21 years old. Oh, I'm sorry, I guess it was 22 years old. We both were. But I also knew she would leave me

if we didn't get engaged soon. Max wife Heather was always very clear about the relationship goals, you know. And because I didn't live in Seattle, LA San Francisco, Boston or some city with a strong dating scene, I guess, I actually had this thought that if I didn't get engaged to her, like, who would I find? Who would I possibly find at 22? I just, I just, I just felt like everyone was going to be married. Like all of my friends were at 22? I just felt like everyone was gonna be married. Like all of my friends were getting married. I just felt like there would be no single people out there, which is idiotic, I know.

Little did I know at the time that I could have moved to LA and lived like I was 22 until I was 65. Oh well, oh well. Heather and I did have some good times, for sure, and we got two great kids out of the deal. So, you know, it was a win. So now I see your 2000, I'm out of college. I don't like my part-time work as a resident treatment center staff member. By this time I'm covering just, you know, occasional shifts at various places. Morningstar,

boys ranch, Riley House, Springtide. I don't like working the rest of my time as a trainer. I'm thinking to go back to school, thinking about a program in Eastern Washington University, where he get a master's in teaching in one year. Thought I'd go get a degree in graphic design, a spell can fall, a community college. I was all a degree in graphic design and a Spokane falls community college all over the place. And then my ex-wife heard about an open mic at a comedy club. Yeah, now we're finally getting to the comedy stuff. That's sure about an open mic at a comedy club in Spokane, Washington.

I didn't even know there was a comedy club in town. I didn't know there was an open mic. I didn't know what an open mic was. I had never considered a career in standup. I wasn't a big fan of standup before I got into it. I didn't watch it. You know, I watched that in my life. You know, for a few years as a kid, I was into that.

I remember getting like an Andrew Dice clay tape as a kid. You know, some blank tape that it was recorded on. You know, I thought it was cool because he cussed a lot. I remember I wore out a tape of Eddie Murphy's Delirious when I was in high school. You know, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll So I bought a notebook, voice recorder,

worked out seven minutes worth of ideas over a few weeks. I watched a few guys do stand up on Comedy Central. Dane Cook was one of them, and he was an early inspiration. I know it's fucking cool to shit on him, but I still think his early stuff was very, very funny. And a few weeks later, I showed up with Heather and a bunch of old college buddies, and I did a set at Lafse Comedy Club.

The Sunday open mic, it was August 3rd, 2000. It was this little tiny comedy club inside the sports bar called the season ticket. Near in the parking lot of a thrift store called Value Village in Spokane, near the Spokane Arena. I set about 150 people, and basically, I just did sketch comedy characters by myself. I had props, I had a mullet wig, it was ridiculous,

and it was terrible, and it was fun. I have a recorded somewhere, and maybe someday, I and it was terrible and it was fun. I have a recorded somewhere and maybe someday I will find it and post it on YouTube. And I loved it. I didn't do an amazing job, but I did better than most of the other amateurs that night because at least I had bits. I had a little bit of a stage experience.

I was trying to accomplish something up there as opposed to a lot of the other amateurs who would just spend seven minutes talking to the audience like What do you guys want to talk about? And you know, and there were some other people there who who tried but just you know, not it's comedy's not for everybody They just didn't have it in them. So I went back the next week I still no career ambition at this point and the second time I did it the club booker mr. Nick Tyson The man who got me into doing stand-up. He was there. He likes what I was doing

He invited me to do a five-minute set to fall in weekend during a regular weekend show. My first real audience expecting to see professional comedy. And it went okay. Not amazing, not terrible, but I maybe want to do it again. I got married on September 3rd, 2000. After a honeymoon in London, I go right back into being really into stand up. I was ridiculous really on a man. I remember I did one 10-minute set in a full full body cat suit, like fucking the head, like everything. I just had gloves, like cat paws, and just did 10 minutes of random standup

never addressing the fact that I was dressed as a cat. I wasn't good at standup early on, but I was fearless, and that made me okay at it. I experimented with songs on stage, I play guitar, and I played a song with, I'm called Spokane Man, my second year performing and waiting on FM and it went over well with the students. So I played that and went over pretty well with the Spokane. Crowd wrote some new songs, songs called Corporate Executive, He-Man, Love Barbie, a little bit lesbian. I had an acoustic electric, uh, sequel guitar. A few months in, I got my first road gig

for comics listening who, who think I must have been some prodigy to work the road just a few months in. I wasn't just a right place, right time. Spokane in this round in areas pretty geographically isolated and most of the comedy rooms in the area couldn't afford to pay opening acts enough to make it worth their while to travel there. So if you weren't terrible, if you had a reliable car, which I did and were willing to drive headliners around, you know, you could get some opening work. And my first opening gig was at a hotel bar at the Red Lion Hotel in Tri-States, Washington,

one show Friday, one show Saturday. You know, this is, this is late 2000, opening up for a comic at a Denver who still works, a guy named Brian Kellen, he was actually on last comic standing in 2015. And he's been like, like, George Lopez showing that was on. And I did 30 minutes in front of him, my first 30 minutes set to fucking dead silence. My first road set was the worst. Like they hated me so much. I mean, I'm talking nothing.

I'm sweating up there, just got that ass sweat, that anxiety sweat, just dying a death. But I knew I was supposed to do 30 minutes, so I did the whole time. And now I leave the stage thinking that maybe the crowd just sucked, right? Whatever man, they're a terrible crowd. Well then Brian goes up and murders for an hour.

Just murders. So they want a comedy, they just want me. So after the show, I'm too dumb to realize I should hide now. And I'm standing by the door next to Brian, thanking people for coming, like an idiot. No one will even make eye contact with me. It was that bad. And then this old man, I'll never forget that he walks up to Brian,

just gushing. Oh, just so much. It's like, man, you were funny. Wow, what a great show. You're going to be famous. That was fantastic, really good stuff. My wife and I would love to buy you a drink. And then he noticed me standing next to Brian.

I swear to God, he says, he goes, and you, and then he points at Brian, and he just kind of goes, ah, you should do what he does, not kidding. Like, you should be funny like that guy. And for some reason, I did not quit after that. No, I took every shitty gig that came my way. I started doing triple runs, notoriously tough gigs and dive bars and hotel lounges across Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, places like the eight ball bar and great falls,

great falls, montages, fucking shit holes, northern Nevada, Elco, these places, Wyoming. Often, off of these gigs, had long treacherous drives to get to each one. It was called triple run because the booker was named with David Trouble and they were just infamous runs. There might be like 800 miles in between gigs. I am not kidding. It was insane Triple Run because the booker was named with David Trouble and they were just infamous runs. There might be like 800 miles in between gigs. I am not kidding. Like it was insane. You'd have to like, you know, do your show, get to bed early, get up at five in the morning,

drive all goddamn day to make it to the next shitty show. And I'm doing that in a little Honda, a Laundry with no snow tires, driving over the winter over fucking mountain passes and blizzards, crazy. I remember sliding on the road, you know, here in there, cause I got to make it to the gig, bomb and blizzards, crazy. I remember sliding on the road here in there, because I got to make it to the gig, bomb and all the time, but I'm dependable.

And I guess very few other people are willing to do these drives for a hundred bucks a night. And so I keep getting work. And then in October of 2001, I did almost quit before I really got going and stand up. I did a three week run of gigs. It was a weekend in Albuquerque, followed by a weekend inque, followed by a weekend

and two-son, followed by a weekend in Grand Forrest, North Dakota. It took a greyhound bus to each city. It took about 24 hours to make it from Spokane, Washington, to Albuquerque, to host shows, a laughs comedy club, for a psychotic club owner named Russ Revis. This weird dude who, you talk like a gangster, but also said, dude, what the fuck, you think you fucking own the place, you fucking MC, fucking is dude what the fuck you think you fucking fucking own the place You fucking emcee fucking emcee want to be feature act you think you're fucking hot shit me you ain't shit He just constantly insulted you He was the kind of guy he paid you while having a while yet a gun on the desk

But like like for intimidation on purpose I stopped on a couch for the weekend listen to the insane ramblings of this drunken career metal actors J something Maybe J web or something. He wouldn't leave me alone. I had to wait for him to go to his room. So I could fall asleep like three or four in the morning. So I have to have that weekend. I don't do that well on stage.

I take a Greyhound bus to Tucson to work another club called LAS. All these clubs called LAS sleep on another couch for the week. Then I take an insane almost 48 hour greyhound trip across America to Grand Forks North Dakota, from Tucson to Grand Forks, and somehow they lose my fucking luggage, which I didn't even know was possible on bus. We transferred buses to Omaha,

they didn't transfer my luggage correctly, so I shoved her in a goddamn snow storm on the middle act now, not the host, it doesn't matter, the club is weeks from closing, I find out, no one's in the audience, no one cares. I'm wearing clothes, I've been wearing on a bus for two days. I'm only placed to eat in my shitty hotel that had been partially condemned previously

to me getting there since a huge flood hit the air, and I had mold issues, so I'm saying I'm fucking the mold hotel. It was actually called the Westward Ho. There's this Chinese buffet across the street, I'm only placed to eat where I get food poisoning. Also, next to the hotel is this the sugar beet processing plants

that smelled so bad, the fumes coming out of it that I would dry heaf in the parking lot. So this is my life right now. I get food, yeah, I get food poisoning at the fucking Chinese buffet. So that night I'm staying in the shitty hotel where it smells like fucking death from the beet plant. Literally, shitty out nasty Chinese food,

where in clothes I'd put on a Tucson a couple days before, after having bombed in front of 10 people at a bar where no one cared about the show. Oh my God, my luggage shows up the next day. The club owner won't give me a ride to the Greyhound station because he's a dickhead. Chris Lingred was his name. I'm too embarrassed to get a cab because I'm only making a gross total of $900 for the entire three-week road trip. This is before travel expenses. I walk through the snow without a coat about two miles to the bus station where I grab my luggage.

I'm dragging it back through the fucking snow. Some dude, I think, takes pity on me, picks me up, gives me a ride back to the hotel. When I get there, he's like, hey man, this wasn't for free. He wants money for helping me out. It's like giving ten bucks, I hate everybody. I go to my room, I feel moderately suicidal. What the fuck am I doing with my life? Why am I staying in this shitty motel? Why am I taking these grayhound trips?

And if I hadn't been invited previous to that to perform in the Seattle comedy competition, a few weeks later, this big annual month-long comedy competition has been going on every fall in Seattle for over 30 years. Competition in Mitch Hedberg and one at one point, I would quit. I would quit after that week. I'm pretty sure of that.

But then I enter the contest, and for the first time, I'm performing in front of packed crowds around Seattle, smart crowds, crowds who knew comedy, crowds who were just at a bar that happened to have comedy that night, in addition to the drink special, they came there for real comedy club crowds. I was the least experienced comic in the competition that year, but in the first week in order to move on, you had to place

in the top five out of your group of 15 comics. You're in a group of 15 comics, you're all doing like five minutes a night. Three judges are watching the show. They're grading you on performance, you know, originality, timing, et cetera. I placed fourth overall after six shows, and I make it to the semi-finals where you face the five winners of the other round of 15 from the opening rounds. And so then 10 comics who have each moved on, you know, from their rounds, go ahead to head. And you do 10 minutes each. And then the top five of those 10 comics move on. And I do move on from that. I think I got fifth. I barely move on. And then in the finals, We each get 20 minutes and I and I do great actually and now we're performing in theaters first time I'm ever in theaters

And it just felt amazing and I end up almost I get second place. I don't almost went I get second place Dwight slayed One in the landslide, but I got second and I got second to a guy who would do in comic for like 20 years You know he started off with Bill Hicks. And it was just a huge confidence booster. It was fucking awesome. It made all the bullshit with Grand Forks and the Greyhound worth it. And after that, I just knew that, you know, in some form, men stand up with my destiny.

And in the finals, one of the judges was this kick ass veteran in Seattle comic named David Crow who wanted to try and do a two-man sketch show, like sketch, music, stand up. And so he started taking me with him with these clubs in the Midwest, clubs like Crackers in the Napolis. I would go on first, do a little stand up, he would do, stand up. And so he started taking me with him with these clubs in the Midwest. Clubs like crackers in theapolis. I would go on first, do a little stand up,

he would do more stand up, and then we'd close it out with a few sketches and some songs. He would play the bass, I would play guitar. Our duo was called Cobb Dog, which is Crow on bass, Dan on guitar. It was fun, but it didn't work out well, enough in the clubs, money-wise, and everything to keep doing it.

And we stopped after about a year, but it got me into some new clubs. And one of these new clubs and this cracker is the booker, manager Ruth Ann. She recommends me to a couple other club bookers, dude in Florida named Gary Menki, the manker who booked Orlando Tampa and Miami, a guy in Columbus, Ohio named Dave Strupp,

who booked access to the club as funny bone, all over the Midwest. And suddenly by 2004, I'm a working club comic. I'm working like good rooms, you know, not making a lot of money, only about 500 week before expenses, but I'm working with comics like Daniel Tosh, David Tell, I'm seeing how they work,

which was great for somebody not living in LA or New York, it doesn't get to see that. And so I'm getting good stage time. And my routine on the road became the same routine I have today where I go to Starbucks, work on comedy all day, and then try to get a little better, throwing out stuff on stage at night.

And then sometime in 2005 Dave Strupp from Columbus, he recommends me to an LA comedy manager named John McDonald, who is the same manager as Ron White at the time. He was looking for some new acts. I'm 28 now, not as young as he was hoping for. He wanted some, but John flies up anyway after seeing a tape of me to Seattle to watch me do a live show at this club called Giggles in the University District. He likes it, tells me he wants to manage me, it was awesome. He does want me to lose the guitar, he thinks I'm a better at stand-up than I am as a comedic singer, songwriter, and I think he was right looking back. You know, I do have two early self-recorded albums,

feature and comedy songs. I have an album called Small Town Superstar from about 2002, and another one called Lower Your Goals from 2004 that I will never release. Again, maybe someday I'll put them on YouTube. So more people can find them. But yeah, I'm a little proud of them, also a little embarrassed of them. The comedy, the comedy he works for, John Works for also manages Larry the cable guy.

Yeah, and I said Ron White and I started opening up for those guys, Ron's Crowds, did like me a lot better than Larry's, but it was still fun working for Larry. It was just cool to work in such huge venues. I did a show in Reno in front of 14,000 people. Now the crowds, they didn't care for me as much, but it still felt great just to see what comedy could be, how many people could show up for it. Following your regular audition to perform with the new faces showcase in Montreal Comedy Festival,

and the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival, I get in, it's a prestigious Comedy Festival. And now I'm seeing guys like Greg Geraldo, all my comedy heroes floating around. And there, I do some shows, they look pretty well. I'm seen by the guy who booked the late late show with Crick Ferguson. I'm seen by some of the people who booked

a Comedy Central Show called Life at Gotham. I get sets on both, my first national TV sets. I bomb Craig Ferguson. I'm seen by some of the people who booked a Comedy Central show called Life at Gotham. I get sets on both. My first national TV sets. I bomb on Ferguson. Oh, well, but I do really well in Comedy Central. Random kind of fact about that. John Malaney was on the same Comedy Central showcase that I was, or the same taping of Life at Gotham.

We did our first Comedy Central sets together. He's done very well for himself. My son Kyler is born in 2006. 2006 was a good year, man. I'm a state home dad, but I'm on the road, love and life. Comedy Central likes me well enough to invite me to submit 30 minutes of material the next year for a Comedy Central Presents. I do, and I get it, and this is 2007 now, and I also get a taste of the bad part of the business, 2007. I auditioned for last comic standing. It was my third actually audition. The first two times I didn't make it past the first round,

but then there was like these secret auditions, where if you got invited by them, you didn't have to wait in line and you knew your chances of moving on were better, well, I get an invite. And I move on. I get a red card, they give me a red card, and tell me I'm moving on to the semi finals at a Minneapolis.

To tell my family, everybody's excited for me. The show is at peak of popularity at this point. I'm thinking this could be a big career move for me. And then I get a call a couple days before I'm supposed to fly to LA telling me that I've been uninvited. They tell me that they actually passed 35 people total to the semi-finals, but only take 30 of them. Fuck that sucked, man.

Big let down, embarrassing front of my family. The next year, last Comic Standing Producers tell my manager they'd like to have me come out again. They feel bad about the previous year. Tell me they will definitely not screw me over again. I go back to Minneapolis. They move me on again, get another red card. Tell me I'm into semi-finals.

Tell me that, oh, sorry about last year. And then 48 hours before, or, I don't know, not 40 hours, about four or five days before, I'm supposed to go to the semi-finals in Vegas. They tell me I'm out again, I get invited again. And then 48 hours before, then they invite me back in. It was the fucking weirdest thing. And that was the year the Liza Sleshinger wanted it.

And I had a good set, the semi. I got a partial standing, no. I would say definitely a top five set. You know, I'm pretty honestly, I bomb, also honest when I do well. But I'm not picked for the top 10. Comics who did bomb horrifically are picked, and that was when I realized that reality shows are not real. And that being funny does not always matter,

when it comes to career advancement and standup. The producers have other agendas. They could see this person being a host of a show, they could see this person as sitcom, they don't actually care about your standup a lot of the times. So it was a little eye-opener. And not even bitter about that now. It just is what it is, man.

And, you know, and frankly, my artistic heroes have never, you know, necessarily been the most popular artist. So, whatever. So, I keep going. And things aren't too bad at all, man. I take my comedy set of presents in 2008. And I still, my favorite set of my comedy career as far as just kind of what it meant to me at the time.

You know, I was just a kid from Riggins, and now I feel like a real comic man, taping a 30-minute special where I did a great job in the theater, the Hudson theater, just I have time square. It just felt really fucking cool. I led to a bunch of college work. I do hundreds of campus shows between 2008 and 2012 through an organization called NACCA, the National Association of Campus Activities. My daughter, Minro, is born in 2008. I'm hoping to be living with the family in LA by 2009 or 10S, where I'm planning on life is very good. I make a new career goal of wanting, you know,

to do a one hour special. And then just do more specials, man. Hopefully I can do theaters, it'd be so great. And, you know, and I've kind of come to a new appreciation for the art form after doing it for a while. And George Carlin has become my favorite comic of all time. The man who just kept getting better as he got older. The man who just kept working on his craft, Art form after doing it for a while, and George Carlin has become my favorite comic of all time. The man who just kept getting better as he got older.

The man who just kept working on his craft, kept cranking out specials. Well, my wife, Heather and I have been talking about moving to LA for years, you know, previous to this. Before we had kids actually, I told her I would know, I had no intention of staying in Spokane and she agreed. I was kind of her deal early in the marriage,

was, you know, she really wanted to have kids. Okay, that's fine, but I really want to move. Okay, that's fine. And, but then she started getting promotions at work and she started kind of dragging her feet on the move and then she said, but then she said, once I made an X amount of money each month, she would feel comfortable taking a break from her career and we could move to LA and I could tour there

while she, you know, stayed home with the kids. And then in 2009, I hit the goal that we had set, very excited. I also get word, I get a one hour special from comics that are my main career goal, fuck yeah. I feel like all those days spent on the road, being away from friends and family, was all about to pay off.

And then in 2009, about six months before I taped my one hour special, which was my second proper album, Crazy with the Capital F, Revenge is Near. My first album had a lot of this stuff from the Half Hour Special. My wife told me that she'd met someone to work and that we were done. So that's fucking sucked. And then because of the stuff from the half hour special. My wife told me that she'd met someone to work and that we were done. So that's fucking sucked.

And then because the 2008 real estate crash, I was also upside down on my mortgage and this house that I got in the divorce and fucked over kind of financially. So 2009 was a terrible year. I felt like everything I had worked for had just been pulled out from under me. It was devastating.

I felt like I was doing things the right way. And, you know, I'm putting in all this time and working really hard and paying these dues and now it was paying off. I got my one hour special and then suddenly it felt like it just didn't matter because I was losing my family. So Heather and I agreed to join Custie. I moved to L.A. in early 2010 and it was bittersweet, man. I had daydreamed about living in L.A. with my kids for years now, able to spend more time

with my kids in L.A. and now I'm just fucking down there without them. You know, they come down a week a month to be with me in the custody arrangement, but obviously not the same. I did meet a nice girl named Kristen, Columbus shortly after the divorce. She moved with me to LA, and I went to a dark place for a couple years, man, I drank too much. Never wanted to have the kids, which was, you know,

well, again, the one week a month, but a lot when they were gone, you know, I did a, I did a sit on this night show with Conan. I was invited back, then he lost the show to Jay Leno, so there goes my end. Then I'm a Memorial Day weekend in 2010. The special comes out, crazed with the Capitol left, and it felt like no one cared.

I was the worst time for, I came out like Saturday at midnight. I'm a Memorial Day weekend, like they just buried it. The next club, I was at after debut, Dr. Grins and Grand Rapids, Michigan, still only half full. Every club after that, the rest of the year, same way. And I got really depressed, man, I spiraled down a little bit.

I got a DUI in Santa Monica in 2011. I was with CAA, I was just on Conan, I was working with the former senior writer for a rest development on my own sitcom pilot and I was fucking miserable. I I was just on Conan, I was working with the former senior writer for a rest development on my own sitcom pilot and I was fucking miserable. I started cheating on my girlfriend, I did a little coke, my weight drops to 160 pounds, when a year before it was 2010,

I just didn't wanna eat. My career was stalled, critics liked crazy with the capital F, but the head, the new head of Comedy Central didn't, barely got played and then this new president told my manager that they just wouldn't do another special with me and that is how the business can work. People are always like,

why don't you do another special? I would fucking love to. But if the powers that be don't like, you know, subjectively what you happen to be doing, then you just, you don't get one. And I felt really, really lost, man, I'm like, what do I do now? You know, when the special didn't do well,

my agent at CAA dropped me. Luckily my old agent, Stu Golfman, took me back and innovative. But I stopped getting good additions. I felt like I had moved to LA for nothing. I was divorced. I didn't know what to do with my career, Chris and I break up.

I put together various pitches for some sitcom and animated shows, for some host-driven shows. While my agent manager liked them, no one bottom. Over and over again, no one bottom. But I just keep trying. I keep grinding it out. 2012, I get a role in a talking head show called World's Dumbest. I do a taping for a show time standup show in Amsterdam.

The segment director there likes me, cast me in a hidden camera pilot when we get back. It doesn't get picked up, but we stay friends. And then he gets to run some reality shows and that's how I got into consulting for a reality TV. He brought me on a show called Port of Ridge. The producers of that show, liked me, brought me over to a show called Duck Dynasty, worked on that for a little bit, worked on a bunch of other reality shows. In the meantime, I'm still working the road, putting out an album,

putting out here this, Chinese affection. And then last year's Don't Wake the Bear. 2012, I also met my wife, Lindsey, during a taping for an ill-fated Nickelodeon standup show called Moms. I don't know why, I don't know why, fucking Nickelodeon thought they could get into the standup game, but I'm glad they did because it led to me meeting my wife. She was the wardrobe supervisor. I mean we hit it off, fell in love, and when the kids met her they loved her too. Yeah I'm

very very lucky to have Lindsey Manchee as fucking awesome. I was one of the last comics to appear on this night show with Leno in 2012. Had a damn good set, it was a great night, celebrated it with Lindsey. I was invited back a last comics to appear in this night show with Leno in 2012. Had a damn good set. It was a great night, celebrated it with Lindsay. I was invited back a few weeks later, but then Leno was off the air. Fuck man, if you want your late night show to fail, just have me do a set. I kept seeing the kids every chance I got in 2013.

I kept trying to sell a show down on L.A. No luck. I kept trying to get a new special, no luck. I was getting very frustrated with my career, but then Pandora breathed new life back into it, man. Pandora started playing stand-up as a lot of you know, how a lot of you found me, and a lot of people started making Dan Cohen's Pandora stations, unbeknownst to me, and people started showing up at shows, and allowed me to keep touring. It felt like, okay, some people do actually care about what I do.

So that is awesome, and thank you guys, any of you who made a station, thank you. In 2014, my son, Kyler, said he wanted to live with me in Lindsey full time, but I didn't want him to separate from his sister like I had as a kid. So Lindsey and I agreed to move to the Spokane area. So, you know, he and Ro could split time between my house and their mom's house and not have to like make that decision. So to raise money, I toured like crazy,

took reality show consulting jobs on the side. At the end of 2014, I landed a two-year job at Playboy, which I didn't even know was still a channel hosting a silly show called the Playboy Morning Show. So weird. I co-hosted it in four days a week, and it was a show with like Playboy, a co-host that was Playboy model

and former reality star, Andrea Loh, great co-host, Monday through Thursday, nine to 10 AM. And then I toured doing the stand-up gigs most weekends, man, I was busy. Each show featured a few celebrity interviews and like a four-new-plate nude Playboy models playing like random weird games. Like know what or show it. Where you know, models are asked trivia about a celebrity guest career and if they don't

know the answers and they take off normal clothes. So you know, working with nude Playboy models in Burbank, pretty surreal way to make enough money to buy a house for the family in quarterly and Idaho, but that's what we did. About it in 2015, my wife moved up to Idaho just before Christmas in 2015. I moved up in November 2016 when my contract was up. And I'm Playboy was an easy gig, man. But it was also kind of just a mind numbing gig, very artistically unsatisfying. Hard to complain about working with new players models, but when you're somebody who has something to say, that's just not who I am, that's not what I wanted to do.

So I did start to feel a little dead inside. And I wanted to feel again, like I did when I was working towards that hour special, I wanted to feel like, oh man, I'm doing what I'm passionate about, doing what I love. 2015, I did take a new special, don't wake the bear, Warner Brothers produced it, we started at the Depot, a rock club in Salt Lake City,

sold out show, standing ovation, fucking great night. My manager Maggie Hoolahans there, Maggie the manager, I'm still with today, the one who's house I'm taping this podcast in today, the one I left John McDonald for after my half-hour special came out when he told me that I wasn't ready for an hour special and that he couldn't get me a record deal. Well, Maggie got me both. And Maggie and my agent Joe Eschenbaum, Warner Brothers Label, exact Peter Strickland, they all saw it, we all celebrated, they're like,

they knew it was gonna sell, they knew it would sell to either show time or comedy stencil or Netflix, and then one by one, every network passed. And honestly, felt like my fucking career was over. But then the album was released, it went to number one on the iTunes comedy chart, stay there for weeks,

I'm like, okay, people still like it. There's people who still think I'm funny. Eventually made it to Amazon, where I guess you can stream it on Prime. And I guess out of the Prime specials, it plays quite a bit. So that's cool. If you want to watch it, give me a rating, if you don't mind.

And that takes us stand up wise, almost up to now. So let's hop out of this timeline and talk about getting into time suck. Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of it. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of it. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of it.

All right, so that's the basics of my life, man. Outside of a lot of fun, family stuff that has nothing to do with time suck. Fun, family stuff being, I have an amazing wife and two fantastic kids and a dog that I couldn't love anymore. Love Penny, Kyler, Monroe, and Lindsay. And overall, I mean, I do want to, I don't want to come across a bitter thing that said before.

You know, comedy has been very good to me, but it's just, you know, it's ups and downs. I've had a lot of wonderful moments in comedy, some frustrating ones. And while I've tried a lot of different things, tried to sell a few sitcom ideas, tried to sell some reality shows, you know, ideas, did a lot of other things. I didn't mention in this tale, wrote some sitcom episodes, appeared at a one and done sketch comedy show with historical emphasis on history, on a history channel called American Wise Ass.

All I've ever really wanted to do is have a fan base big enough to keep pumping out material that I like and make a living. A lot of the other things I've done, I've just done because I'm like, fuck, I better do this, I better not turn down this money. I got bills to pay. But all I've really wanted to do artistically,

the whole time is just, you know, basically time suck, this kind of thing. Do something that artistically pleases me that other people enjoy that I can make a living at. And then, you know, keep putting out stand-up albums, hopefully some specials, you know, and just cater to fans. And the most frustrating thing about trying to go the other route, like trying to sell a special or a TV show or a creative project to tradition away, is that at the end of the day, it comes down to the decision of not your fans, but just a few random gatekeepers, you know, some network execs, you know, you know, and not that I have put together the best pitch ever, but you could theoretically, you could spend years putting together this pitch, writing out a fucking pilot, you know,

character Bible, all this work, all this work, and then eventually you get like five meetings. You get a meeting in NBC, you get a meeting in FX, you get a meeting in Netflix, and then if all those people say no, the project's done and no one will ever hear about it, it's maddening. You know, and I spent like, you know, six years in LA, you know, doing that, and then a couple of years

before I actually moved in LA, you know, putting together these projects, man, putting together an animated, you know, pitch, having, you know, putting together these projects, man, putting together an animated, you know, pitch, having, you know, paying somebody to draw out the characters, putting together, you know, the whole narrative, writing out a pilot, you know, practicing the pitch, and then setting up meetings, and then getting the meetings, and then doing the meetings, and then doing a follow-up meeting

after notes, and then every single time, in my experience, it always no matter how close I've come to selling a show at the end of the day, it's a no, and then, you know, it just goes away. You're just back at square one. You have nothing to show for it. So, you know, so then I just thought after a while, I'm like, well, what can I do?

What kind of show could I produce? And that's where I came up, you know, on doing this podcast. I'm like, well, you know, I know the audio medium has worked, you know, well, for me, with like Pandora and stuff. I'm like, well, I know the audio medium has worked well for me with Pandora and stuff. I'm like, well, maybe I could give some new audio content and put it out there.

And then it took me a while to figure out what should it be. I'm like, what am I doing anyway? And naturally, what I'm doing is reading about weird shit my whole life. It's like I love, open some weird magazine and I spend 45 minutes being like, huh, learning about this, you know,

narco, trafficking, or, you know, I'm online supposed to be writing a script and all of a sudden I'm like, what's OJ Simpson? Where is he right now? And you know, an hour later, you know, I've learned a bunch of rams shit about him. And it was always like, as a form of procrastination,

but I'm like, well, what if I could do that as a job essentially? Because what I did like about that is whenever you spend a lot of time reading about something very interesting, you naturally wanna share it and I find that people tend to like hearing it. If you have some interesting story to tell about World War II

or Napoleon or fucking whatever, if you tell it the right way, people are like, oh my God, that's awesome, I didn't know that. Like people love to receive cool new information, it makes them feel smarter, it does make them smarter. And I'm like, what if I can find a way to make that work as a thing? And so, you know, I had done a few podcasts before that didn't really work. One called Naked In Fearless with a couple other guys where we just shared very personal

stories. One called Fire Up, which was just me kind of riffing about whatever I was, you know, pissed off about. But the recording quality wasn't that good. I didn't really know much about audio and they didn't go anywhere. So I thought, okay, I'm gonna do it right. I'm gonna go on a podcast network.

And so now I go back to the traditional way. I'm like, now I'm back to pitching my time suck idea. I wrote out a one page description of it to various networks, like all things comedy and feral audio in these places, and nobody wanted it. Like, no one wanted it at all. And I'm like, God damn it,

now I'm even getting rejected on a podcast. Well then one place finally does. CBS's podcast network, the play at network, they're like, okay, we're interested. And they wanna do it. Well, they sent me a bunch of equipment. We signed a contract. They come up with a little logo,

not the one I've used, but they come up with this little, we're ready to do it. I send them the initial kind of pilot, I guess, you know, I do a sample, they don't like it. It's too long. They're like, make it a half hour, which is why my podcast started off being a half hour. They're like, nobody wants to hear one person talk

about this stuff for longer. And for some reason I listen to them, I redo it. I resend it back and now they just don't like it at all. And they're like, this is not marketable. Like it's just, sorry, we don't know what we can do with this. And they just fucking drop me. So now I'm dropped from it, like that was a low point. I'm like, Jesus Christ, they don't even want to do

a simple podcast and I'm going to do all the work to put together and they just don't even want to have their name on it. So I'm like, fuck these guys. And I get really pissed off and I'm like, I'm so tired of having all these projects die off of the opinions of three fucking people. And I'm like, I'm going to put something out

to my fans and let them decide. And I got really motivated, I got really pissed off, I hired a buddy of mine, Jacob Kubon, awesome comic, he's the guy who actually helped me with the Daddy Bear book as well. And he designed the website that I'm still using right now. He designed the initial logo with another guy, got it all going. I bought the equipment that CBS had let me borrow. I just replicated and purchased all of it and then sent their stuff back to them. And I'm like, fuck this.

I figured out how to do audio editing. I'm like, I'm gonna do the whole thing myself. So no one can interfere with it and no one can take it away from me. And I just started putting it out there in September and then the email started coming in. And people had suggestions and I started molding it and the show started to morph.

And what was funny, the main initial suggestion was make it longer. Those idiots at the play at network, they're like, no one was to fucking hear it for more than half an hour. We're totally wrong. So the show stretches out, I let the stories take, whatever they're going to fucking take. And then, you know, and people start suggesting topics now. So now I start doing list and suggested topics and then fans start helping.

You know, fans, this fan, Jordan Kassuzik, you know, he just grabbed all the social media handles, you know, made sure the time sequels were served. He did that on his own. He started helping me with shows early on. Another fan, Sidney Shives, man, started helping me with managing, you know, the emails and the topic lists and doing more with social media.

And she still helps so much today, just because she loves it. We just had an email exchange yesterday, where I told her I felt bad, I didn't have, you know, like real money together. And she's like, I just because she loves it. We just had an email exchange yesterday where I told her I felt bad, I didn't have real money together. And she's like, I just believe in this project. And I just keep getting, and to invade, another dude out of New York,

fucking awesome graphic designer, he believed in the party. He designed the next logo, and he designed some merch, just because he wanted to fucking help. When I worked at Playboy for two years, I didn't get a single email about anyone telling me they thought I was doing a good job, not one.

And I can't tell you how artistically depressing that is. And now it's like, it's just like you guys just keep me going on this time suck thing, and it just keeps growing. I keep spending more time on it. You guys helped it grow enough by spreading the word, by spreading the suck. Bojangles, Hillmimrod. You know that I was able to get some sponsors. You know, and I was able to put the sponsorship money

back into better equipment. And I used to start paying for an app to be designed. And I'm so excited about, you know, just last night, the first live time suck at the Melrose Improv Hollywood. I'm not sure I'll be able to release the live recording. There were some weird tech problems, unfortunately. I think so, we'll find out on Monday.

But it was a great show, you know, and one of the people there, Maddie Teeter, she's gonna be an intern. She's actually gonna get college course credit for a history major to help with time suck. Next in the spring and be a research intern. And I have other people, Sarah and Rebecca Lilly, Josh DeCruz, all these other people helping with research

is because they love it. A professional editor, this guy Jesse Dobner's, man, would help me correct grammatical stuff and my research and continuity mistakes on the episodes, on the scripts, before I record them. So many other people just offered to help, and it's fucking amazing. Chris Pakell, another fan, he's heading up the app,

the design team gave me a great deal on an app. Another fan, Sebastian Soroka, who runs a creative for an awesome branding company in Florida called Danger Brain. He's working on some cool time suck stuff. You know, it's just, it's fucking awesome. And I love that it's fucking organic. I love that it's just, you know, I didn't know.

I just wanted to see if you guys would like it. And you did. And now I can tell by the emails that it really matters to a lot of you. And I get why it matters. It's the same reason it matters to me. It's just, you know, when you get frustrated with the world sometimes, it's nice to know that everyone out there isn't who you think they are if you think they're all bunch of dickheads. You know, there are a bunch of people who are just curious about the world sometimes. It's nice to know that everyone out there isn't who you think they are if you think they're all bunch of dickheads.

There are a bunch of people who are just curious about the world, who are cool, who are polite, who are respectful, who want to have intellectual conversations, and who don't care if you're liberal or conservative or atheist or religious, they're willing to reach across defense, man, and shake your hand and fucking look in the eye and just talk about things. The transgender episode, I know a lot of you guys don't agree with what I said. That's cool. That's fine. But Erica, the person I interviewed, she said she's gotten like 20 some emails from people,

just asking about it. A lot of them were for more conservative listeners who don't agree with some of the choices she's made, but they're cool with the way they approach it. She starts a dialogue with them. And maybe people's minds are changed. Maybe they're not, but at least they're asking the right questions. It is this cult of the curious.

It's people who want to reassess their beliefs. I've changed since I've done this. It's just been fucking great. And I just want, it's the most rewarding project I've ever done. And if every failed project I did, all those frustrating years lead to time-sub being a success, so worth it. You know, since I started time-sub my own kids are more intellectually curious than ever.

You know, we have discussions with my wife and the kids that are amazing about religion, politics, historical figures, and you know, a bojangles, of course. You know what? And I want to take it further, but I need your help. So here's what I, this is all leading up to in this one, a little bit. The sponsor shape landscape is a little unstable right now. Stats are being redefined by this place called the Interactive

Advertising Bureau in a shaken up podcasting, and probably will for a while. And it makes it kind of hard in the short term to get consistent stats. It's a little kind of techy, a little confusing to discuss, but basically they're trying to define how to figure out what constitutes a download. And I know that sounds weird,

but it's like I guess sometimes people could play and stop and then play and stop, and then that'll count multiple times when it's really only one listener. They're just trying to make sure to find a correct way to identify how many people actually listening to your podcast, so sponsors know, so they're getting proper bang for their buck. That's in a nutshell. But what that does is it's kind of fucked up, you know, sponsorship income for a while, which makes it hard for me to make

money to kind of, you know, be able to like hire somebody, which is what I'm going to need to do to keep the suck going in the right direction. I'm going to throw some money to the volunteers too. This is what I'm doing. This is what I want to develop, not want. I am developing a premium option for Times Act that I hope you are going to want to participate in, because I really want to turn this into a community and it's the only way I can. You guys have been the one supporting this show from the beginning, and now if you can, you know,

part with a few dollars a month, I can actually get a little office, I can get a proper kind of managerial assistant, and we can really fucking turn this into a community. And here's what I wanna do. Pretty soon, I'm gonna start asking for $5 a month for this, and in return, what you're gonna get is you're gonna get an extra podcast episode a week.

The regular time suckers can continue to be free, no change in that, no change in what you've already experienced. You'll still get all of that for free. But there's gonna be a second podcast a week called the Secret Suck. And it's gonna be a more in-depth version, basically, of the time-sucker updates, and it'll play through the time-suck app,

which is looking awesome, by the way. It's gonna be an awesome podcast player. And you're gonna be a space lizard. That's the name for premium listeners. And not only can you send me written updates, but you're also able to send me voice message updates through the app that I can play on the secret suck and address, you know, play your message and then me commenting back. Each episode will end with a new segment also, a new special segment where we, the space lizards are going to monitor David Ike, the man just for fun, the man

behind the space lizard illuminati conspiracy theory, you know, episode one of TimeS to monitor David Ike, the man just for fun, the man behind the space lizard illuminati conspiracy theory. You know, episode one of Time Suck, David Ike is terrified that space lizards are monitoring his every move and soon they're going to be. He has a podcast about the lizards and I'm going to play a little bit from that each week. We're going to monitor what he's up to or I'll read from one of his lizard books or I'll play something from an interview he's done about the lizards. We'll have a good laugh. It's going to be like the idiots of the internet, but it's the same idiot every week.

And I love it because it's going to be a secret podcast. He'll never find. He'll never know about it. It's going to be our private joke. And it's going to be our imitating life. David Ike's worst fear is that a secret society of space lizards are watching him and monitoring him. And soon, a secret society of people

called space lizards are actually going to be watching and monitoring him. But that's just one little part of it. That's just a little joke and need to be a gem of a joke. The meat of it will be just a more in-depth discussion of all of our topics, you know, greater sense of community. And if you're a Space Lizard,

you will have access to the list of show topics. There's hundreds of them and kind of like image or where you can upvote or downvote, you know, pictures to see which is the most popular. We're gonna do that. You can upvote and downvote topics every know, pictures, to see which is the most popular, we're gonna do that. You can upvote and downvote topics every two weeks. And the show topic with the most votes at the end of the two weeks will then be

the time-sub-topic, time-sub-topic for everyone to hear two weeks later. So the space lizards will control the fate of the show. So basically like, you know, two episodes a month roughly will be picked by the space lizards, by the premium listeners. And then the other two episodes, I'll pick like I've been doing out of your suggestions. Also, as a space, you'll get a 20% merch discount

in the store. So you buy one shirt and your discount has paid for that month's membership. And if enough of you time-sucker subscribe and I can hire an assistant, I need 2,000 of you at least to subscribe for me to hire an assistant, rent an office, make enough to be available enough to turn it on other work to get everything I need on time

suck done. If that happens, I'm going to keep adding more features to the premium version of the app. Like a private message board, our own little private message board on the app, not on Facebook or no one else knows what you're commenting, but you go there and you get to talk to other fucking space listeners. You get to talk to other time suckers, have more in-depth discussions about what's going on. Maybe set up your own little meats in various cities to, you know, talk about things, set up your own trivia night if you want whatever, you know,

set up dates, meet the love of your life. You know, it's all gonna be there in this little cult of the curious, little message board. And keep going with the options. If you get a premium membership, you're gonna get a new standup album on recording this fall. I'm doing another EP like Chinese affection. Roughly 35 minutes, previously unrecorded bits that are not gonna be for sale on iTunes. They're not gonna be on Pandora,

not gonna be on Spotify, not gonna be on Amazon. The only way you get to hear this album, the only way you get to own it is if you tried the premium app, and then you get a link to the album, email to you, and then you know, then you just get to play it on whatever player you use. Cancel in the first 30 days, and you just got a link to the album, email to you, and then you know, then you just get to play it on whatever player you use.

Cancel in the first 30 days and you just got a new album for five bucks, which is what I would have to charge for a digital EP anyway. So really, you pay for the album and then you get a free trial for 30 days of the app. So the more people to sign up, the more perks I can get, you know, I wanna do this little trivia game about Time Suck, built in.

I wanna just make fucking Beena Space, lizard and beena time sucker. You know, the coolest club you've been a part of. And all of that for the cost of one Starbucks mocha a month. Hoping to have that out by December. It's the best thing I've ever done creatively. And I just, I hope we're getting started, man. Just the feedback has been so amazing for you guys.

And I want to make it so much more, turn it into a true cult of the curious. You know, where we can all just keep learning about this amazing world, you know, starting with friendships, you know, just keep pushing each other, question our ideas, keep reminding each other that everyone is a fucking idiot of the internet.

So that's it, man. That's how TimeSug came to be. That's where I wanted to go. No TimeSugger updates, this bonus episode. No idiots of the internet, no Top 5 takeaways, man. All of that back on Monday, when you'll hopefully hear the first live recording. I hope I'm hoping to pick that up today.

If not, I will rerecord the episode for you. So you're getting the Wonderland murders either way, but hopefully the live version. And yeah, it was such a fun show. And so for now, I'm just going to end by saying, sense of positive thoughts to our time suckers and everyone else recovering in Puerto Rico and Las Vegas. I'll have donation links available for some stuff with Vegas on Monday's episode. And that's it. I hope you enjoyed learning a little more about me today, a little more about how the show came to be and a lot more about Time Suck.

So, enjoy your weekend. Let's look forward to that app. Let's fucking build a cult, the curious, Hail Nimrod. Keep on sucking. Thank you.