wellRED podcast - #330 - RIP Cousin Ricky Peardon W/ Special Guest DJ DJ LEWIS!!
Episode Date: July 19, 2023The comedy community lost one of the good ones this week. Cousin Ricky Peardon was a southern legend and a man who taught Corey and DJ a lot when they were starting out. On this episode we pay tribute... to the man, and in doing so, take a trip down memory lane to our comedy roots! Corey and Trae have a new book and you can pre order it by going here: CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER THE BOOK! Drew, DJ, and Carmen have a Live Gravy Baby show coming up and you can attend by joining their patreon here!:GRAVY BABY Click Here for tickets to see Trae! For Bonus Stuff From Corey, go to PartTimeFunnyMan.com Yall have a great day, we love ya... and RIP Cousin Ricky!
Transcript
Discussion (0)
And we thank them for sponsoring the show.
Well, no, I'll just go ahead.
I mean, look, I'm money dumb.
Y'all know that.
I've been money dumb ever, since ever, my whole life.
And the modern world makes it even harder to not be money dumb, in my opinion.
Because used to, you, like, had to write down everything you spent or you wouldn't know nothing.
But now you got apps and stuff on your phone.
It's just like you can just, it makes it easier to lose count of, well, your count, the count every month, how much you're spending.
A lot of people don't even know how much they spend on a per month basis.
I'm not going to lie, I can be one of those people.
Like, let me ask you right now, skewers out, whatnot, sorry, well-read people,
people across the skew universe, I should say.
Do you even know how many subscriptions that you actively pay for every month or every year?
Do you even know?
Do you know how much you spend on takeout or delivery?
Getting a paid chauffeur for your chicken low mane?
Because that's a thing that we do in this society.
Do you know how much you spend on that?
It's probably more than you think.
But now there's an app designed to help you manage your money better,
and it's called Rocket Money.
Rocket Money is a personal finance app
that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions,
monitors your spending,
and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings.
Rocket Money shows all your expenses in one place,
including subscriptions you already forgot about.
If you see a subscription, you don't want anymore,
Rocket Money will help you cancel it.
Their dashboard lays out your whole financial picture,
including the due dates for all your bills and the pay days.
In a way that's easier for you to digest,
you can even automatically create custom budgets based on your past spending.
Rocket Money's 5 million members have saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions
with members saving up to $740 a year when they use all of the apps.
Premium features.
I used Rocket Money and realized that I had apparently been paying for two different language learning services
that I just wasn't using.
So I was probably like, I should know Spanish.
I'll learn Spanish and I've just been paying to learn Spanish without practicing any Spanish for, you know, pertinent two years now or something like that.
Also, a fun one I'd said it before, but I got an app, lovely little app where you could, you know, put your friend's faces onto funny reaction gifts and stuff like that.
So obviously I got it so I could put Corey's face on those two, those two like twins from the Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland movies.
You know, those weren't a little like the Q-ball looking twin.
fellas. Yeah. So that was that in response to. What was that a reply gift for? Just when I did
something stupid. Something fat, I think, and stupid. Something both fat and stupid. But anyway, that was
money well spent at first. But then I quit using it and was still paying for it and forgotten.
If it wasn't for Rocket Money, I never would have even figured it out. So shout out to them.
They help. If you're money dumb like me, Rocket Money can help. So cancel your unwanted
subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com
Well, read today.
That's rocketmoney.com slash well, RED.
Rocketmoney.com slash well read.
And we thank them for sponsoring this episode of the podcast.
They're the.
All right.
Hell yeah.
What's going on, y'all.
It's Corey Ryan Forster.
You're about to listen to the well-red podcast.
Let me fade this bitch out a little bit.
Sorry, I just got some new audio equipment and I'm having too good of a time.
DJ Lewis is on this episode.
The only reason that I'm talking right now is to tell you we had a couple instances where some people fell off the live stream.
And so there's a couple like little glitches, but it's really not that big of a deal.
I don't even know that you would notice it, but I always feel like it's better if I warn you.
So then it will be like even less jarring.
So anyways, that's all that happened.
There's just a couple instances where like DJ's country ass goat internet didn't work.
And then Trey also did.
Oh, my music went away.
Hold on.
there we go and tray fell off too but anyways you probably won't even notice it hey please before i go
remember to pre-order me and tray's new book round here and over yonder i'll put the link in the
description of this podcast but also you can just go to corey ryanforster dot com or traycrouter
we're about to plug all our stuff so i'll be brief i'm gonna go dj lewis was here it was a
wonderful episode i love y'all don't be mad about a couple glitches okay peace see ya and fade
What's up, everybody.
Welcome to the Well Red Podcast.
For you joining us on YouTube, you notice that we've got a guest.
Not that we need a reason to bring DJ Lewis in.
I think it's always a good time.
It's always a ratings popper and a chart topper having the butter gumption himself here.
The reason that I did want to bring DJ down is that the comedy community, what, Trey?
Nothing.
Butter gumption?
That's fine.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's what it says.
I like it.
Yeah.
That's good.
But it fucked me up.
I'll be honest.
I thought I said something wrong.
And I was like, no, I'm pretty sure.
I just hadn't noticed that until you said that.
That's precious.
It's pretty perfect.
Yeah.
We had, we had, we recently had a loss in the comedy community.
Cousin Ricky peered and died.
Now, a lot of y'all don't know who that son of a bitch was.
If you're tuning in from Chattanooga, you probably do.
But I didn't want us to get sad.
I wanted to be a celebration of life.
And, and cousin Ricky comes from, as DJ was pointing out to us on text yesterday,
He was sort of the end of an era with fellers.
So I wanted to have DJ on to share some stories about Cousin Ricky.
But before we get too sad and whimsical and jerk ourselves off in the past,
I believe that does Gravy Baby have a live show coming up for Patreon people?
We do.
July the 30th at 7 o'clock Eastern.
If you are a part of our Patreon, you can have access to that live stream.
It'll be me, DJ and Carmen, as always.
We're going to have a special guest, I hope.
And I'm going to run a set that I'm going to do on TV like a week later.
But it's going to be a variety show.
And also, just to plug the Patreon in general, there's, you know, bonus episodes and pretty normal stuff.
But also, DJ's got this project.
Trace has already been a part of it.
It's about the movie Deliverance.
DJ, I don't know if you want to tell people about it or not, but he's putting stuff up about it on the Patreon and it's rad.
Yeah.
Yeah, I just want to tell you that, uh,
A lot of people really, you know, and we all joke about, you know, what deliverance is about.
But I think people really forgot about it and what, in the effect that it's had on water conservation and stuff like that.
And just like who James Dickey was and what this part of the river and what this part of the wild, what the wild is.
Big water conservation to kill DJ.
Hi.
Did you get wrong?
You froze up for a second, everybody.
Okay.
Can you hear me right now?
Okay, so this is what's been happening.
There's a some bitch that's been going around here fucking with all the cell phone towers.
What he's going to say, I think, is that Riverside always does this to him.
Oh, really?
Did we discover that last time and I just forgot?
Well, it's not just Riverside.
There's somebody up here fucking with the cell phone towers.
Okay.
For real.
Is it a cryptid of some kind?
Some sort of Sam's quiet.
Yeah, very, very possible.
Very, very possible.
This is like,
Boogie-Wogie butt or whatever that,
I didn't even post it right.
What's the main of the thing up there?
Boogie-woogie-Buggy-But, regardless of what it was.
The boogeon.
The boogeon.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm more of a fan of boogie, boogie, but I'm not going to lie.
Yeah.
So, yeah, you can check out DJ's efforts to conserve water and use it as an allegory for the movie.
Deliverance is what I heard.
Over on the Gravy Baby Patreon, they've also got a live show going.
Trey, where are you going to be this week?
You're traversing the continent, aren't you?
Kentucky, but near my old stomping grounds, about an hour away from where I grew up at Bollinger in Kentucky,
home with Cage, the elephant, not far from Salina, Tennessee.
First time I've ever done a show there.
So we'll see how that goes.
I believe it'll hit.
Then Lexington and Louisville after that.
And then I'm like all over the place and over the course of the next like 10.
Omaha, Des Moines, Kansas City, Hartford, Connecticut, and upstate New York,
all in like the coming two weeks.
So it'll be busy.
Then a lot of other places after that, go to tricrouter.com.
Check it out.
Word, and you can always grab stuff from me over at part-time funnyman.com.
Well, Cousin Ricky died.
That sucks.
That's not fun at all.
Me and DJ, and I'm just now finding out that Drew, you never had a run in with Cousin Ricky.
I didn't either.
No.
That blows me away.
I think he quit right.
I think he quit or maybe not quit, but, you know, stop coming around the catch or whatever happened.
Yeah.
Like literally right before Trey and I started.
moving through those parts.
I'm trying to think I had to say this.
You guys kind of started talking about him like he was dead before he died.
Like, I guess because he quit stand up and that's how brains worked.
Yeah.
But y'all weren't doing that when we first started hanging out.
It would be like, oh, Big Ed, Cousin'Ric.
So, like, I think he must have just quit because y'all weren't talking about him like he quit yet.
Well, but I, okay, DJ didn't, didn't.
we start like around the same time.
I think you started before me,
but not much before me,
right?
Didn't you start?
When'd you start?
2009?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, it had it been.
Yeah,
open mic and it?
Yeah, at least.
Yeah, yeah.
I think about,
well, Corey, when was it?
Well,
you may, Trey,
have started going to Chattanooga before me,
but just to be clear,
I'm talking about when I started,
you know,
perusing the circuit.
Not when I started.
I'm just,
I think I,
like,
I feel like he must have been around and whatnot when I first started going down there and stuff,
but I just never crossed past with it.
I remember y'all talking about him, but I don't.
Yeah, 2009 sounds about right for when I picked you up for your first open mic DJ.
And I only say that because 2009, I would have been 21 years old, I think.
So in my brain, because I remember in my brain whenever I picked you up for your first open mic,
I was already a hardened veteran.
You know what I mean?
So you could have been 17.
Yeah, yeah, right.
Well, no, I didn't have my driver's license at 17.
I was driving then, so, like, I would have had to been in my 20s.
But, yeah, I guess I forget about, like, there's so many, like, different, like, sub-erras within the comedy catch.
There was my brief laugh before DJ Lewis, which that don't hit.
Cousin Ricky was there.
I mean, he was one of the first dudes that I, you know, I seen him at the bar, and I was like, holy shit.
Like, Cousin Ricky and Big Ed were these dudes.
Like, we all thought were famous just because they were headlining.
I can't talk to this.
And I remember I went up to cousin Ricky at the bar and I asked him for advice.
Like, hey, man, I'm just starting out.
What advice do you have for me?
And he was drinking a beer and sitting there.
And he goes, right, right, right, fucking right.
And then just, you know, carried on with his day.
But for those of you that don't know he was, he was a staple at the comedy catch.
But he didn't, he never like a fish.
quit comedy, he just would only do things when he wanted to do them.
And we never could really understand that about him because we all knew him to be the funniest
motherfucker that ever lived, but he seemed to not give a shit if anyone else knew that or if
he went anywhere with that.
And that was just like, only now in my older age, am I starting to understand a dude
that had priorities outside of comedy. Does that make sense?
I mean, yeah, I mean, before he got, he was doing.
in comedy he was huge in the iron workers he was union man he had a great job welding i mean he had a
he had a life rode bikes all around the country like he was truly the blue collar comic of
blue collar comics he was truly that person and that actually is what you i mean to hear ricky and
edd tell it that's kind of what big ed and cousin ricky were like actually pretty huge in the
south like they were doing a lot of shows and doing great and then blue
collar came along and like i'm pretty sure ricky like had he was about to do like a comedy
central presents or something and blue collar popped off and they're like yeah we've already got four
these so yeah yeah that ain't it no no yeah i was gonna ask y'all i thought i remembered some kind of
story like that uh that yeah something like that happened so much if it's about time and and whatnot
but i guess if he didn't he truly didn't give too much for a fuck anyway then i mean that's better than
alternative you know what i mean somebody gives very much of a fuck would kill themselves after something
like that happens but he was probably yeah else up my dick man or whatever but i just found a
facebook event from 2014 april of 2014 created by big ag caler that was uh billed that the comedy
catch is bang uh it says it says this is a cousin rickie's bye-bye to comedy uh hello to the open
road show is what it said on there that was april of 2014 so
So if that helps jog any memories or anything.
Yeah, I definitely, by 2014, dude, I was like,
I was coming around to catch like a lot by 2014,
but I still just never ran into it.
So I'll beg Ed all the time, but.
Right.
There's no cousin Ricky.
I guess that's when he, yeah,
he decided he was going to retire from ironwork or some shit
or retire from everything and just ride his fucking his Harley
across the,
across the world.
One of my,
I'm so upset that y'all weren't here
for this but like and i know that dj will agree with me the hardest that me and dj have ever laughed
personally was we were doing a you remember when ring you remember when like the town of ringgold
became actually like worldwide famous for like a three or four day stretch because of that
fucking tornado that came through so the comedy catch had decided we're going to do a benefit
for the tornado victims right and of course as comics the first all we're thinking is like that'll be a
big show. A lot of people want to come to that. We can run our new shit. This will be awesome.
Well, it just happened to take place on the same night that hometown legend Lauren Elena was in the
finals of fucking, what was it? Not America's Got Talent, the first one. American Idol? American Idol.
Yeah. So literally, literally nobody shows up. I mean, not nobody. Like there's probably, I don't know,
10 to 12 people there. They've got comics from Atlanta, Birmingham.
Nashville, Michael was like, we got to get the best
and the best from everywhere. There's like
20 comedians going up to do five minutes or whatever.
I'm talking, eat
shit, eat shit, eat
it was fucking brutal, dude.
Was it like members of the
community like the mayor,
or was it like victims or like
what's going on in this crowd?
The eight people that were there,
who were they?
It was like six people who got free tickets.
I see that there's like six people who got free tickets
yeah yeah yeah probably nobody that was affected by the storm
at all
motherfuckersers
trying to paper the room for a fundraiser is pretty hilarious
you know
not being able to pull it off mind
right that's so funny dude yeah
couldn't get anybody to come for free
I shouldn't a little bit everybody
wanted to get blood over
God damn
I'm giving them my money.
This is not like some of the comedy catch nights we were involved in where like, well, it was a bunch of shitty comedians up there.
There were some really good comedians.
Like Tim Murray was there.
Like, I remember like everybody's good, but they're going up and they're just fucking eating shit.
And we're all in the back.
Like, I eat shit.
So now it comes time for Ricky.
And we're like, okay.
And Ricky was one of those dudes at, if you're not in the comedy world, I, I, I, I,
Guess the only way I explain this.
It was a comics comic for the catch, at least.
Like, he's the comic that no matter, like, people aren't going to be taking their cigarette breaks during Ricky's shit.
They're going to run back in to see what this motherfucker's going to say.
Ricky had blown out the last candle on his give a fuck cake, you know, a long time before this.
Ricky gets up there.
And mind you, this is a benefit for people who have died from a tornado.
And Ricky gets up there.
And the first words out of his mouth was, God damn.
There's more people trapped under rubble than are at this show right now.
We're dying in the back.
And the audience fucking loved it.
Like he was the only person that had the wherewithal to be like,
why can we talk about this shit?
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, yeah.
And then he started talking about how whenever the,
he goes, whenever a tornadoes,
and don't fuck my house up,
I get on top of the roof with a broom handle and just start fucking it up.
And I call the Red Cross.
And he just does this whole fucking thing about how hard it would hit for him had his house gotten hit by a tornado because he needed the new deck.
And just like every comedian in the back who again, we're all good comedians that sitting there going, how the fuck did he just pull this off when we all just went up there and ate shit?
And that was just that was the type of duty was.
Yeah.
That was definitely.
Man, dude, that motherfucker.
He was just so fast on his feet.
There was nothing that...
I don't know how else to ask this.
On and off the camera.
That was so crazy to get introduced to comedy like that and get introduced by somebody who
really was that working class hero, who really was that, who was that son of a bitch.
And man, goddamn dude, he had still some of the best bits I've ever heard in my life.
Like, literally the identity theft.
Yeah.
I really...
Is that still on YouTube?
Because if it is, I might...
fucking, I'm not posted in this, in this, uh, let me see if I can look that shit.
That would be great.
Where are we at?
I was good at.
I'm a victim of identity theft.
I just found out this week since I've been down here, some low-life bastard has stole my damn
identity.
He is now cousin Ricky running the right.
But I don't care.
That prick don't know it yet.
All he did was screw up his credit.
He's got a paternity suit on him in five different states
That bastard owes $71,000 in damn back child support
I hope they put his ace in prison
I can't tolerate a son bitch don't take care of his kids can you
And a son of a bitch is not a good citizen either
That bastard ain't paid his income tax in 11 damn years
he might want to just shoot his fucking self
but he can't legally buy a gun
moral of the story if you want to steal somebody's identity
don't steal the damn comedians
I'm one canceled gig away from being a pauper
I was going to ask y'all like
you said he's about to do a 30 minute thing
blue collar becomes a thing and they're like no never mind we're good on that
was he like uh how subversive was he if it like was he just like a really really funny one of those dudes
or did he kind of like take the piss out of that whole thing at all he definitely both like he
honestly reminds me a lot of like kind of you know what you've always said which is like
ricky was and dj can back me up on this i mean i don't know many people smarter than him like
just straight up i don't know many people smarter than him
but he was always like
I'm this is also how I sound
you know what I mean
I'm fucking smart and it's not my fault
if when you hear this accent
you assume I'm dumb that's on you brother
and I kind of think that he used it as like a tool
like kind of like how we say we do
like well nobody's going to expect this to come out of my mouth
so here he wasn't like super super
political but like I don't think anyone could
watch a cousin Ricky set
even him saying some dumb redneck shit
shit and leave going, that's just
a dumb redneck. Does that make sense?
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, if you find it, then obviously
play it. Well, one of you
remind me of the joke Ron White tried to buy off
of them, because I only remember
the punchline, but I also
remember loving it. Do you guys
remember that about the ghost?
Shit.
But the haunted trailer?
The haunted trailer.
Somebody's like, I'm the only some bitch that's got a
haunted trailer. This damn thing
was brand new.
The only thing I can figure is that the some bitch who built it slipped, died, and
has been ruining my fucking life ever since or something like that.
He slipped off the roof.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what's so crazy too, man.
It's like, and I can't, I can't even, I can't even express how much it's like it was
wild to see like because, man, dude, I'd see fucking Ricky go up there and fucking just
burn it down.
Like better than anything I'd ever
seen before. Like better than any
special that was out there.
And you're like, how is this guy?
How is he?
And then, you know, he did some talking head stuff for like
CMT and stuff like that.
But, like, he was big on CMT for a while.
Yeah.
Hung out with the whites.
Like Jesco and Mamie and them, knew them.
Did like a bunch of stuff like that.
Steve Irwin?
Yeah, with Steve Irwin.
Yeah, they just, wow.
Wow.
to have just...
Did you say Steve Irwin?
Yes, and he had bits about Steve Irwin.
He had bits about Steve Irwin before Steve Irwin died that he used to do.
And then when Steve Irwin died, like, we were at the catch that night.
And of course, Ricky already had 10 on him.
But, like, CMT had Steve Irwin.
I think Ricky and Steve Irwin met each other at the CMT Awards or some shit.
And they became really good friends because, you know, Steve...
Like, we've always said it.
Like, Steve Irwin was...
Well, we hadn't always said it about Steve Irwin,
but Australians be kind of rednecky.
You know what I mean?
I mean, his accent and his haircut was called the Bogan accent and haircut in Australia.
Yeah, so I think that they just like, they got on like really good.
But yeah, yeah, but my point is like Ricky was doing all this cool shit.
And then it was like, but I never, like he told me that story about, you know, Comedy Central not wanting him or whatever because he would just be another redneck.
but he never said it with any sort of like,
so I'm fucked or blah, blah, blah.
He was just like, well, hell, I'm in the union.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
At all.
I don't know if we lost Ray or not.
But you know what?
Let's do take a quick break for our sponsors.
We will be right back.
Hey, y'all, did you know that me and Trey?
This is Corey, by the way.
Wrote a book.
We did.
It's a travel guide.
It's called Round Here and Over Yonder.
and you can pre-order it right now.
The link is in the description to this podcast.
But if you're not going to click on the link in the description, that's totally cool.
You can also pre-order it by going to Corey Ryan Forrester.com or Trey Crowder.com.
It's a super fun book.
We talk about our experiences growing up in the South.
We also talk about our experiences traveling to other parts of this country.
And hey, we got Harper Kyle.
to pay for us to go to the UK and write about that too.
Round here and over yonder, a hillbilly travel guide is available right now,
wherever you get your books, or go to the little gimmick there in the description.
We really appreciate y'all.
Love you, see you, bye.
It's really awesome when you hear about somebody just not giving a shit, truly.
I mean, for me anyway, because it's like, wow, that's a type of freedom I wish I had.
but the Comedy Central, like, only being the game in town,
he was in a different era in many ways
and not just like the culture of the comedy catch,
like the culture of the industry itself.
Like, you know, if he'd started later,
the internet might have, there's more games in town now.
I mean, sometimes it seems like there's too many
because everything's kind of, you know,
there's too much or whatever,
but it's unfortunate that there was only one or two ways
to make it back then, you know?
Yeah, I agree.
I mean, in his prime, him welding and fucking telling stories,
dude, he'd fucking, there's no, he would have, he'd be fucking,
the most famous motherfucker out there.
Yeah, dude, if he had, like, if he had somebody that had tech savvy to, like,
hey, I'm going to, Ricky, tell your stories on your porch while you're welding,
and I'm going to film you, and we're going to put them on YouTube.
Or, hey, Ricky, I would like to do a podcast with you.
I'll produce it.
You just show up and fucking talk.
Yeah, man.
But, you know, like I said, by the time that stuff kind of came around,
I think Ricky had already been like, well, fuck, you know, it's done.
I don't give a shit.
I'm just going to weld.
He also had to, you know, raise his grandkids, which was around this time.
Like, he's kind of shooting off in comedy.
Go ahead.
But dude, imagine he got to talk about that on a platform of the internet and connect.
Because like the way my mama feels about Leah and Morgan,
if she had heard somebody doing comedy at Leanne Morgan's level,
but also talking about working class stuff and raising your grandkids,
because Leanne Morgan's family,
and this is great,
good for Leanne Morgan,
is rich.
You know what I mean?
That's the one way my mama don't identify with Leanne Morgan.
Dude,
if he had had that opportunity and it blew up,
son.
Yeah,
man,
and it really does seem like a lot of times,
like the ones who would have hit the hardest,
they don't,
They didn't give a shit or they don't have the thing in.
Like, you know, Patrice had that whole thing of like,
I'm not going to play any type of the game.
I don't like,
Patrice was big.
Like, we would all love to be.
He's bigger now, dude.
Yeah, for sure.
We think he's bigger than he was, truly,
because we are comedy fans and the internet has made him bigger.
Yeah.
But nobody outside of comedy knew who Patrice was.
I mean, that was the sad thing.
That was the tragedy.
Well, I only said that because the roasts were really popular,
and he'd been on some roasts.
but yes, you're right.
Like, I'm thinking as a comedian,
like, all the people I talked to knew who he was,
but like, well, you're right about the roast,
but dude, that's right before he died.
I mean, that's the other thing that sucks about that if you do the math.
That's true.
The roast and, like, elephant in the room and all that,
that all was, like, right before he died.
Like, he was finally starting to kind of hit in a mainstream way,
and then the sugar took him is what happened with the trees.
But you'd hear a lot of people say, like,
like, a lot of Patrice was his own worst enemy in certain ways
because, like, they were like, dude.
the game wants you to play it.
You just don't play the game.
And like, I'm not,
Ricky was not,
you know,
at the level of Patrice or whatever,
but like,
there were just so many things that help me,
all of us are doing right now
because we know we have to do it,
not necessarily because we want to do it.
We're just not half as funny as fucking Ricky,
so it would work out more for him.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
But yeah, dude, like,
back then,
like when we were all started,
when we met at the comedy catch,
like,
it really was.
And it's so wild to think,
think how simple it was.
Like all your goals were kind of simple.
It was just like, right joke, get set.
That's the only thing that you thought to do.
Like there was no like, I've got to make an Instagram post.
I've got to fucking, you know, and like you were saying, like, it's a blessing and a curse.
Like you have all these opportunities to put yourself out there that we never had before.
But with that becomes the requirement to like, no, you have to do all nine of these things.
Check this off before anything's going to happen.
Yeah.
Well, dude, Trey, I'll obviously let you talk about your story and yourself, but when we got fired via email from the club in our town, for about a day, I was like, do I quit?
And then the next day, it was like, well, as soon as I can, I'm moving to New York.
You know, it was like that was the only option in my brain because it felt like it was at the time.
Yeah, no, I mean, yes, it's so weird.
I was a huge comedy nerd and comedy fan even as a kid, like the whole time.
I was obsessed with it.
I used to listen to specials over and over and over.
Like, I bet I listened to, listen to, not watched, listen to an MP3 downloaded from Napster of Eddie Isard's dress to kill.
I bet I listen to that 75 times.
When he hits that, chow.
Every time he says chow, dude.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Italians, how they're not fascists.
They're all motivated.
Chow.
Fascism took over because they didn't know what was going on.
They were too busy fucking smoking.
What was the rest of that bit where he was talking about how Hitler did it wrong?
Why was it?
He said Hitler did it wrong.
He's like if you kill, he's like, you kill your own people.
We're sort of fine with that.
You know, Pol Pot killed two million of his own people.
That's what you know, Hitler killed the people next door.
Oh, stupid man.
And then there's a whole bunch more to that whole thing.
He also talks about how like he's like,
talks about how many millions of people Hitler killed.
And he's like,
he's like at a certain level,
you're almost just kind of impressed with it.
You're like,
you killed how many people.
I can't even get down to the gym.
You know,
you must wake up very early in the morning, you know.
Anyway,
I used to do like just that whole thing start to finish.
But anyway,
I'm saying,
And it's not like I was very into stand-up comedy yet.
When I went to the side splitters for the first time in like 2009 or something,
as I started in 2010,
and I went for the first time probably 2009-ish.
And if I'm not mistaken, the lineup was I believe Jared Harris,
who we all know, I think, was headlining that show.
I don't remember if it's the whole weekend.
He also don't give a fuck.
Yeah.
quality. That's true. Yeah.
Or he was,
it was,
or gives too much of a fuck about other stuff.
Um,
dirt biking.
Hell yeah.
So none of,
and this is also inside baseball.
So much of this is not going to make sense to anybody but you guys,
but whatever.
Anyways,
he was headlined and Sandy Goddard was featuring and Riley Fox was hosting, right?
That was the lineup of the first time was at.
And I remember like,
sitting in the crowd watching it and thinking,
genuinely thinking to myself like,
man,
if I could just like,
if I could just like,
do what that guy's doing.
That guy being Riley, the host.
If I could be the host
show, if I could
be the host at a comedy club,
I think that would like scratch that itch
for me. That'd be great. That'd be so
awesome, just being able to do that.
What was ready now, Trey?
Almost nothing.
Not that's all.
None of it means anything.
Boy, he's got a
god-sized hole in him.
Yeah, absolutely.
Then when I went to the first open mic a little bit after that,
like Sandy Goddard was there.
And I was like, I was like, holy shit, that's Sandy Goddard over there.
You know what I mean?
I was like so, I was so intimidated by saying.
I was like, that guy features.
You know, like, that's fucking crazy or whatever.
And so yeah.
So when we got fired from side splitters, Drew,
Because up until then, for the first 18 months in comedy,
I didn't really do anything but side splinters because I was like that.
I mean, I've gone to the comedy catch too,
but like just comedy clubs because it was like,
I just thought,
I mean,
where else would you go to do?
What else would you do other than just go to the comedy club?
That's where comedy had,
you know what I'm saying?
So like,
yeah,
right.
I hadn't really done anything else.
Then we got fired and out the same way.
I was like,
well,
I don't know what to fuck up.
So I started going to Chattanooga more,
but I also started applying to those festivals that were popping up
all over the place.
And I started getting into that.
those and that, uh, that it didn't, I guess it didn't really amount too much for me,
but it was a lot of fun.
I felt like I got better and felt like I was doing actual like comedy.
That's where I met like Sam, Talent.
That's where I met Travis Irvine, you know, a lot of,
a lot of buddies of mine doing that whole thing.
So getting fired from side of twitters ended up hitting really.
But yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, me too.
And those festival circuits, that is like a changing culture too.
You know, like that's, that's something that like I was embarrassed.
to talk about in front of people like Sandy Goddard.
You know, it's like, oh, you paid to do comedy.
I get paid to do comedy.
Yeah.
But in retrospect, that was the change, you know.
Yeah.
I lost you for a second.
You were embarrassed to talk about what at festival?
Just getting into festivals in front of people like Sandy because it was like,
oh, you paid to do comedy?
I get paid to do comedy.
But that was one of the main beginnings of the change of the culture.
Yeah, Michael very much.
Michael being Michael Alfano
the owner of the comedy catch
who I love who I love
very father father son type relationship
but DJ can you imagine him
fucking firing us
around that time
like what would have like like
oh my gosh
what would have happened
like he dude he couldn't have fired
no if he hung on to Wade
for a long time
yeah yeah
brew and tray
two charming young men
who don't aren't anything
like me and Wade
get fired for
What was it a fucking you you you didn't give somebody a birthday shot?
What was that?
So I right before the actual thing, which was even dumber, what you're talking about happened.
I was hosting the weekend before.
There was this whole thing about comment cards at the end.
And I didn't I didn't call the person up on stage that won because they were literally sitting in the very front row right in front of the stuff.
Everyone in the room could see them right that they were right there right beside me.
So I gestured at them.
handed them the tickets said give it up for Wanda everybody everybody claps and then she the manager jumps my shit because it was a rule that you're supposed to bring the person up on stage and she was like how many times I had to fucking tell you what's your problem why you know that shit had been building for a minute because they had all these dumb rules like that and I told her to give me my check and get the fuck out of my face so that did happen right and then I left because that was the last show of the weekend that was Saturday night then on Wednesday Drew was opening for a like a shame mouse so
It was Shane Mouse.
I thought it was Mike Kaplan. I thought it was Mike Kaplan. I did Shane Mouse the week before,
and that's why the back-to-back was part of it. Anyway, sorry, go ahead.
Anyway, Drew was opening for Mike Kaplan at a like a bar show in Knoxville.
I wasn't even on it. Drew posted about that on Facebook, and I shared his post.
And me and Drew both got emailed at the same time.
Dude, I bet I could find an email.
We were fired and not to come back.
Please do.
because we were promoting other comedy shows that weren't at that club but he was a
Wednesday night the club wasn't even open that night like they literally weren't open and
so it was just they were just trying to get rid of us anyway and DJ would literally
puke in front of customers oh yeah at all yeah like yeah we had to be church clean and
all kinds of shit yeah the whole like because anybody anybody getting married anybody getting
divorced hey this side of the room when I do this fucking you know all that all that terrible
All that like stereotypical, terrible club MC shit.
Oh, God.
We had to do all of them.
I'll give it up to Michael.
He did not make us do that shit.
I mean, like, don't get me wrong.
If we stepped out of bounds with like, hey, you know, a host probably shouldn't be doing
those jokes.
He would let us know, but like, you know, we would do them first.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
We would just.
His whole thing was like, I mean, Michael's whole thing was like, I mean, look, I just
want you to be fucking funny.
So if you can go up there and be funny, you know, do your thing.
But yeah, that's a fucking nightmare.
But it's funny, man.
Like, bringing it back to what we were saying earlier, like, when you were like,
oh, my God, there's Sandy Goddard.
Like, bro, that's, I remember that too.
Because for me and DJ, it was like, it was Chris Williamson or, you know,
it was, uh, Ricky and Ed, like, I remember the first time I, like,
talked to Ed, like, he was smoking a cigar outside, just hanging out.
And I was like, holy fuck, man.
Like, he was Rodney Dangerfield to me sitting there smoking.
I was like, this is a fucking cool as shit ever.
Then like two or three years later, me and Ed are painting houses together.
Very glamorous life.
Yeah, like three weeks after that, I saw him.
Just like, I always like Sandy.
Sandy hit for me.
I just mean like he was, you know, he was a guy in Knoxville comic.
Like, and I was looking at him like he had an HBO special or whatever is all I'm trying to say.
But also like three weeks after that, the first open mic I walk in, holy shit that Sandy got it over there.
Like three weeks later, I come in.
and he's sitting at the bar and he's like moaning.
And I'm like, what happened?
And the open mic was on Wednesday nights,
which was also all you can eat wings at Hooters night, right?
And he was like, he was like, I just ate 75 wings at Hooters.
It came straight here.
And you can't go on stage?
He's like, yeah, you know, he went up there and had a good set or whatever.
But it was like, it's sort of demothologized him a little bit, you know,
demystified him somewhat.
I was like, oh, this guy's a fat sack of shit like I am.
I get it.
Yeah, yeah.
Did they do a tour?
Like an open mic tour?
Yes, that we all thought, holy shit.
That was, we thought, we thought that to go on tour meant to make it.
We didn't realize that like, well, shit, anybody could just pay to drive themselves with a camera.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Dude.
I remember, like, a detailed email, Trey.
Am I wrong about that?
Or they were complaining?
Maybe that was a Facebook message.
No, I definitely, oh, yeah, I guess it could have been.
I thought it was an email too.
It might have been a Facebook message.
The letting go was simply, Drew, I will not require your services for the weekend of September.
I was already booked.
And then, Trey, you forwarded me because I sent it to you and you replied with yours.
Mine was, mine didn't list the name.
It just said the weekend of 26 to the 28th.
You got fired from Harlan Williams for that weekend coming up.
So I got fired in September and you got fired for like a week and a half later.
and your entire email was whatever to me.
We will no longer be requiring your services.
It's such a goddamn, unnecessarily formal way to talk to two open micers.
Like, me and,
I wrote me and dang what I do now.
And she wrote back,
I would be more than happy to discuss in person,
but I will not be arguing with anyone via email.
email and I wrote back, oh, I didn't know it was an argument.
I assumed the hypnotist didn't need an MC.
Hilarious.
You can't open for this hypnotist.
Me and DJ could go on stage and accidentally say a racial slur.
And Michael be like, maybe take next week off, you know, maybe just chill out.
You know, come back.
Well, I might have got promoted at side splitters if I had done that.
I feel like, Trey, she's sitting.
me a Facebook response to whatever I promoted that was like the gripe but then in the official
email it was very you know HR which is so great thinking about like when you said Sandy Goddard
talking about eating wings before going to the open mic that like sent just a floodgate of
memories back to me of like the nights we would do the grill shows and like how horrible
we would all treat our bodies and how bad we would feel afterwards but also
going, man, we had a lot of
fucking fun. Like, for all of y'all,
what percentage of you
misses those times
versus the percentage of you that's like,
but I'm so fucking glad that it's over?
Like, what's the balance there?
Man.
I would definitely,
I definitely wish I still got that feeling.
Like, I still wish I got that feeling.
Yeah.
But, like, I don't know.
I agree with that.
There was a lot about it that was more like, because another thing y'all have heard me talk about that I think is true that I, that I grapple with a lot of times is like doing the type of shit that I do, same type of shit I do back then.
But back then it felt like you're a renegade.
I was a renegade.
I was a maverick.
It was balzy and edgy and that type of shit.
And I, you know, not to fucking jerking myself off over it, but I loved that.
I was like.
Yeah.
And like making that shit work in front of those crowds, which.
I often would and like killing and having all that.
I just felt, you know, I felt like I was like, I was like, dude, I fucking crush it
this shit.
Like that's how I felt about it.
I was like, I'm really good at this.
I'm about to figure this whole thing out, you know, whatever.
And now it's like, you know, I still love doing it and I still like hit at it, but it,
you know, it's become like a job.
Yeah, kind of.
And not fully, but it's that.
And also to finish that first thing I said about how the same type of shit,
when I did it back then coming up in the South,
it felt balzy and edgy.
Now,
because of the crowd I have,
it feels kind of the exact opposite.
It feels like I'm pandering a lot of time.
Yeah,
even though I haven't changed,
really.
But it's,
you know,
so some of that stuff.
And also us,
us,
we were,
like,
we were all,
we'd all,
like,
just met and just become friends.
We were fucking partying hard and all that shit.
That was all fun as hell.
so I miss all that
but it also like
don't get me wrong I wouldn't like
snap my fingers and trade places with my old self right now
you know what I mean like
it's nice getting paid money
to do this instead of like giggle juices
or whatever and fucking
you know not having to wake up
and go to the goddamn DOE
at 630 in the morning after doing all that shit
for a weekend you know like so
yeah do you ever think about the stuff we did
hope
I think about some of the shit that we did.
Think about, and I'm not, I'm not talking about the drugs, although that too, I don't know how I did so many of those all the time.
I genuinely don't.
But like, I think of shit that we used to do, and I'm like, I'm almost like impressed.
I'm like, I don't think I could pull that off now.
Like, like, when we would do black liver shows and like, we're all in different cities and we would just meet up like the day of the thing and be like, all right, here's fucking five sketches.
We're just going to do this shit.
Yeah, that shit was crazy.
We'd murder it that, man, on my opinion.
People love it.
Dude, like,
Brandon Williams called me the other day,
and she was like,
it was the first time she met y'all or whatever,
and she was like,
those fucking sketches y'all used to do were great.
And I was like, Janet,
do you know that, like, for the most part,
we kind of never rehearsed them
except for the day of.
And barely then either.
We kind of made it up.
She's like, that's fucking crazy.
I was like, yeah, I don't know.
But I think that's like,
because we were so,
only people who are, like,
insanely hungry and hopeful
can pull that.
I don't, do you think we can still pull that shit off,
through?
100%.
I guess we did it that.
Maybe, maybe we would need to get back on the road for a little while and be around each other.
But I think part of what was going on, dude, we talked every fucking day in.
And I don't miss that at all, but I do.
But what was happening is we were bringing what we were already doing to the stage.
And also appreciate it with the way you told the story, but I do think we didn't rehearse it all, but we wrote like we wrote a lot and we would do new draft.
So I think what was happening is just like we would talk every day online.
We knew how each other's, you know, we can finish each other's sentences type thing.
So I do think we can pull it off.
It would require maybe some more time around each other to get back in the group.
But I absolutely think I think we'd be better.
And honestly, dude, when we like do the Comedy Central stuff and stuff like that, by the middle of the day, I think we're.
funnier and rewriting the lines anyway.
So I think that shit's in us, man.
Honestly, we should have a fucking TV show.
That's what I think.
I think we were right back then.
I think Hollywood don't know shit.
Fuck them.
Fuck them for what they did to cousin Ricky.
Fuck them for what they're doing.
That's how I feel.
Hell yeah, brother.
I'm on strike.
But I remember, like, I remember even when it was happening, and I didn't
think about this way at the time, but I thought about it later.
So like Corey, Sam, we used to, we do these like,
variety shows where we do live sketches,
stand-up comedy, we did songs,
we did improv, all this type of shit.
And like he said,
they lived in Chattanooga, me and Drew lived in Knoxville,
whatever.
We had a text thread going where we'd plan all this shit out,
but we wouldn't physically see each other.
We wouldn't practice it.
We just get together and just do it.
And I remember one time...
Statute of limitations on the text thread.
One time Corey,
very ravenly, the day of the show was like,
well my sister rector lawnmower i can't make it you know or whatever happened and uh so corey
wasn't coming now last minute and we asked jeff blank to do the show our buddy jeff flanks to do the show
with us instead and so he did and we had improv games and stuff and that's fine but i had also
written this sketch right and corey had a part in this sketch so jeff gets there and i'm telling
him's like yeah we're going to do this to this with this whatever and i pulled the sketch out
I had a script for it.
I was like, you know, here, and you'll do this part.
And like, please understand.
Jeff is right in this scenario.
So like, I hand him this and, you know, whatever.
And I'm like, so yeah, you do this.
He's like, wait, what?
He's like, we do this whole thing, like on the stage.
It like 15 minutes.
And I was like, I was like, yeah.
And you'll be that guy.
So the concept is, I'm, see, I'm doing that whatever.
And he's like, he's like, dude, I can't do that.
He's like, I'm not like, I'm not going to be.
I can't.
do that and like get these lines right what are you talking about you know and i was like what's the and
genuinely i was like i don't understand what the problem because we did okay bro all right fine guess we
just won't do it that you know but like in retrospect what an insane request to make of somebody
like if we had cue cards or something that'd be different but there was nothing like that i was just like
okay get off book and eight minutes make me out there with this dress on you know or whatever we're
going to do, you know.
Yeah, buddy, I don't think I can do that.
Well, we used to do that type of shit all the time, man.
Yeah.
And knowing the lines wasn't the most important thing.
You know what I mean?
The gist of it was good.
But yeah, that is quite an insane ask of someone.
But I guess, you know, between our chemistry and, you know, methamphetamine, you could make
it worse.
I was trying to find the picture from that night.
I thought I had it.
It doesn't matter.
Jeff is standing there or I am.
I don't remember.
And one of us is behind the other reaching our arms through and is feeding the other one beer.
That was part of the sketch and drinking game.
And like in some ways, yeah, you didn't need to rehearse that.
Just fucking halfway through poor beer all over my face.
That was the one where somebody else was the arms, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
We did, though.
We did, like, improv games, too, that, you know, didn't require, it's not to everything we did most same people would rehearse, but we did do also things that same people would rehearse and we'd do them without rehearsing.
So we had a full wrestling sketch that night.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think about that.
Because we did that at the comedy catch too, and I swear to God, I, like, woke up from a dream.
Trey, you remember in the void, the short that you did where you were talking about how the.
Boyd was mentioning things that you had said in eighth grade and stuff, like, bringing on your depression.
I, like, woke up out of a dream.
And I swear to God, the first thought I had was, I didn't play the ultimate warrior insane enough that time that we were, that we did the schedule.
Like, I remembered it, and I was like, you fucking piece of shit.
Knowing that no one's thought about it since, but I was like, you just, you just really didn't play him crazy enough.
And I was so fucking mad at myself.
Did DJ die?
Yeah, it looks like we lost DJ now.
I thought.
Yeah, what are you going to do that?
What are you going to do?
I feel bad for you, Joe.
I haven't got all these technicalities here on this episode.
Listen, it happens.
I'm just happy.
Before this, we recorded this, I thought my computer had exploded for good.
So I'm actually in a pretty good mood right now.
It also bums me out because I was just about to try to, because I had, I knew we were going
to be talking about cousin Ricky and comedy and stuff, but I had a thing that since DJ
was joining us, I wanted to talk about it has nothing to do with any of that.
But if DJ gone, I don't want to do it.
I want to wait until he come back on to do it because it's evergreen topic and it's a very DJ type subject.
So hopefully he just gets fixed, but it ain't looking like it.
So anyway, you know, what are you going to do?
The past, huh?
The past.
Rest in peace, cousin Ricky and DJ's feed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It does, you know, take care of your heart, y'all, because your heart, it'll, you know, it'll slow.
But that's also like Michael, Michael, the owner of the comedy catch, like he said, like, you know, whatever his, you know, club-ownery type idiosyncrasies he might have, dude.
The fact that he, like, first of all, like, worked us also to the guys from not me in particular.
I remember he told me after that shit happened with the side spliters, he was like, don't worry about this is your home club now.
And I'm like, but this is two hours away.
But thank you, though, you know, whatever.
but the fact that he booked us to like do that that that variety show i'm talking about
on his like that was the sunday night at the comedy catch that was the show like we weren't
there wasn't a headliner that we were like opening for no you bought a ticket to come to
the comedy catch on sunday night the show was us in our fucking drug-fueled lunacy on
stage dressed up like pro wrestlers and rapping and doing all kinds of crazy shit and
And we sold fucking tickets, bro.
And it was like, and it,
you mostly weren't, too.
Like, you know, people like generally liked it.
It was fun.
But yeah, it was.
Social media was a thing back then, but it was, like,
we didn't all have our own Twitter personalities and Instagram shits and stuff.
But like, I mean, we were just selling tickets word of mouth, I guess,
through the people that used to see us in the grill, huh?
I was just saying, I think you and DJ had a following in Chattanooga back then.
I can remember doing shows with DJ Dog and motherfuck.
had to touch him.
I mean,
you know,
it might have only been
50 or 60 people,
but like after the show,
they wanted to hold him.
Do you know what I mean?
I mean, he was,
to use the phrase he used about cousin Ricky,
he was a working class hero,
uh,
to them and still is.
I also want to say,
I think we're gamers and like,
I don't,
I don't know.
Part of it was what you just said.
That was such a big deal to me.
Yeah.
I could not fuck that up.
Right.
Do you know what I'm?
mean yeah yeah i think i have you're talking about yeah what it big shit keeps
fucking up with sunday night show yeah is that what you mean like yeah the catch michael his
belief in us the fact that he told he told me the same thing about it being my home club uh frankly
dj and corey you know just like like i was transitioning into being your colleague but i was
like these fucking dudes are really funny assholes and who are mean to me uh so i had to like nail that
the whole thing felt super important.
It felt like, and maybe this is true on some level,
even if it's just for me internally and mentally,
it felt like this has to go well,
or I'm going to quit doing comedy.
Like, this has to go well.
Yeah, I know what you mean.
I mean, like everything back then felt like,
you know, because I can imagine,
like it sounds so stupid now for you to say,
when Bridget sent me that email,
I was like, well, what do I do now?
But like, dude, I mean,
if Michael at one point had told me I couldn't do stand-up at the comedy catch I too would have been like but that's but that's where you do it you know like I moved yeah like when Michael wasn't when Michael wasn't you know like he featured me some but then I'd go through droughts and I was like well he fuck I'm not funny anymore he hates I'm done I'm fuck it's over you know and like it's so crazy to think about that now because how many people make it in comedy now without really having to go through the system
how it used to be like i mean i know that in certain parts it's still like host feature headliner
but like that was the only way back then there was no such thing as like go get a bunch of
instagram followers make popular videos and shit and then you can kind of like bypass a little of that
it was like if you don't work it through the system you're fucked and if the club owner of the place
that's next to your house tells you know then like eh what are you going to do yeah right i mean yeah
like and you know a lot of people thought that i or we or me especially had done exactly that uh at the
you know when i first went viral and everything which is why it always bothered me because i
agree with you meaning like you know people not knowing that i had been doing stand up for six
years at that time and had been you know been a house and see and fired from that and featured
done festivals and all that type of shit and fucking bombed at biker bars and all that other stuff you
know, for years before any of that happened,
which by some people,
some comics take that personally,
that whole, like,
uh,
you know,
TikTokers who get a big following and can sell tickets.
And I,
I go back and forth on them.
Some of them are like,
ones that are like comics who just also do internet stuff that,
that they hit at it.
Obviously,
I have no problem with that at all.
That's what I am.
But like,
uh,
but some of those people,
dude,
so I'll try not to be like that because,
I know people put that on me and it bothered me because I'd be like they didn't you know that
wasn't fair for me to be lumped in with that categorized that way but some people I see and I
just know that they are yeah one of those and some of the things I see dude I just like
it sincerely blows my mind it really that that this is working to the extent it is it
just I cannot make myself wrap my head around it like sometimes like without saying the dude's
because I wouldn't even be able to tell you his name anyway.
And also, I don't know if he does live shows.
But he's like, you can find articles written about him.
It calls him like a TikTok comedian.
So comedian is part of his title.
And he's like on TikTok or whatever.
And his whole thing, right, is he'll take an already popular TikTok video, right?
And he'll insert himself making a joke somewhere in the middle of it, right?
I got no problem with that as a practice.
Okay.
Like, in fact, I, that kind of, Drew does that with like legal videos.
that shit hits for me. Like, but the point is the things he says are like,
not even, not even aren't that great. Like I'll give you one example, right? And this is,
this perfectly illustrates the types of like jokes he makes or whatever that he inserts in
these videos. He did a video once. It was like this dude, this little skinny white trash feller in
a kitchen smacking his old lady's ass, right? He smacks her on the ass. Then the camera zooms out.
And you see, it's not an ass.
It's her big fat ass belly, right?
And he was, right?
So he was slapping his girlfriend's big fat belly, right?
That was the video.
Okay, that was the original video.
That video's playing.
It zooms out.
You see that it's her big fat belly that he slaps.
Now, old boy cuts in at this moment and goes, I swear to God, verbatim.
He goes, who we?
I ain't seen a, I ain't seen a twist like that since the sixth sense.
I know that guy.
And that sells out shows.
That's the whole thing.
But is it stand up good?
I can't.
That's kind of,
it's sure it can't be.
It can't be.
Not yet.
But I didn't even know if he was doing live shows or not.
That's,
but like that type of thing.
And this dude's got millions of followers.
And I'm like,
how?
And I don't have a problem.
Here's one for you, though.
Oh, sorry.
I don't know.
How?
I'll say that.
No, no, no.
I don't have a problem with the followers.
part. Here's my thing is like, here's what bothers me. I get more mad at like, it's comedy clubs
that I get mad when they're in. Like, and I get mad at comedy club bookers. Like, if, if one of
these people can sell tickets, it's like, hey, go rent out of theater and do it. But when they,
when they go into the comedy clubs, then it's like, you're eight, you're taking away a part, like a, a regular,
a regular headliner that normally would have came that has one of those 52 weeks. You just took that
out of his pocket. And also, it's like, it says comedy club. That's supposed to be for comedians.
and then when these people keep getting in it,
everybody goes, oh, well, this is what comedy is now,
and it bastardized the whole thing.
Yeah, so here's one, and I'll say his name,
because he'll never see this,
and also because I'm not going to say anything super disrespectful,
because the cultures was changing from what it was
to what it became when you went through that tray,
and you were like at the forefront of a lot of that.
It's changing again with people sort of starting on the internet,
you know, like knowing that's like the way.
So I'll say the guy's name because I'm going to say some things that are like respectful about this dude.
Uncle Laser is a comic who lives in Knoxville who's like a TikTok dude.
He's good looking, but he looks like he looks like your uncle who like did nothing but get pussy and drive fast cars.
He's in good shape.
He's like 35-ish, 40 good looking, wears wild outfits.
And then like that's kind of what he does.
He'll be like, these are fucking snakes.
skin goddamn ratlers, baby.
And just like, he's just like,
curly hair.
Got curly hair.
I love that dude.
So I went and watched one of his stand-up videos when he came across my page recently
because I heard he was starting to do stand-up in Austin.
And some people were saying different things, some good, some bad, whatever, right?
Like a couple eye rolls, but whatever.
So I went and watched it.
The dude.
Hey, I know you don't care, Drew, but if you're talking about who I think you're talking about,
there's actually a fair to Midland chance he will hear this because I'm pretty sure
he lives in Austin with a dude who opens for me.
and who, so,
fair enough, small world.
But anyway, go ahead.
As far as I know, as far as I know, he's not somebody who's been doing stand-up for a decade.
Right.
If he is, this is going to sound insulting, but I don't think he is.
I think he's someone who's been doing stand-up less than that who got big on TikTok.
You watch his stand-up, there's jokes there.
Some of the jokes are great.
Some of the jokes are fine.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, my point is, I think what these clubs are dealing with now, Corey, is like,
some of these guys and gals can sell a billion tickets
and they are getting better
and they are trying and it's like
I don't think
and I don't think he'd be offended if he heard this
Uncle Lasers not as good at fucking stand-up comedy as John Malaney
but he's
he's getting better every
you know what I'm saying like there's jokes
there's work the dudes
yeah yes and like I don't necessarily blame a club
for going yeah I guess he's going to sell
a billion fucking tickets.
I guess something can both suck
and I get it at the same time and that's
probably just what this is.
But it's funny. You said it's not the
followers that you have a problem.
For me, it is the beginning of it.
Meaning like, I'll watch
some of these things. Again, I don't know the guy
Drew's talking about. Like the guy I was talking
about, I'll... He cracks me up.
I'll watch stuff like
that and I'm just flabbergasted.
Like, I'm just like,
this is millions of followers.
followers worthy, like making one five second joke that's like barely even a, like the best twist
since the sixth sense.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like a.
And really the funny part is the video, not you.
Right.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And it's like that shit, I can't help it.
It just drives me up the wall.
I found, though, from having my own children.
And I'm not saying it's the case with that guy.
But a lot of the times I have found if you see something on the internet and you are like genuinely,
you're like, who is this four, three million followers?
Who the fuck is this four?
Nine times out of ten, the answer is children who are stupid, right?
Right.
But yes, who are very, very, very lucrative, right?
Like, you can make a shit load of money catering to kids, but a lot of the stuff,
but like, they'll watch stuff that the boy, they watch like streamers and shit like that.
And I'll watch it and I'm like, I'm like, he ain't, this dude ain't even making no jokes.
He's not like even trying.
Like he's literally just being loud.
He's just making loud noises while playing Minecraft.
Like, what the fuck is it?
Like I'll do this in front of the boys, too.
Like I'll be like, you realize this is low effort garbage, right?
You know this sucks, right?
Like, they get all defensive about it and shit.
But anyway, so it's just an ongoing thing.
It's a whole thing.
I should probably be in therapy for all that, that specifically.
He does start doing it, man.
If he can't beat him.
Well, he does do his version.
of it because that's what I'm getting at.
It's like the world is completely changed.
And I only brought that guy up as an example of somebody who's like,
if that dude keeps selling tickets,
he'll be really good at stand and keeps working like he's clearly working.
He'll be great in five years because he's funny and he's getting the opportunity.
So it's like,
how do you there's,
I think there's a bitterness sometimes that comes in with folks around our age of like,
shit,
we didn't start out doing that.
So like we're seeing people who aren't as good as us at standup comedy selling.
out these shows, but it's almost like in some ways more painful when you're like, God damn,
but they know how to tell a joke. Like that sucks. It almost like feels like, oh, standup's obsolete now.
That's now just a tool that you have to be able to do to do this job so you can do a live show,
but it's not the job anymore. And I don't like that. I don't know if I have blame for anybody,
but I don't like that because standup is the art form that I love. I feel like a silent film star
and the talkies are here and I've got a weird voice.
so I can't do it.
Like, I'm still a great actor, but my voice sounds, it doesn't match me.
I used to play tough guys and I talk like this or whatever the case is.
It's passed me by, it feels like.
I wish I knew enough about that era of film to make a reference right now to some guy who was a very early talkie star,
who people like, this guy hits and then just a few short years later, like,
that guy never hit.
These people hit.
And I would say that I was that guy.
Well, anyway, there's the lady in, um, in, uh, citizen,
Kane that, you know, they were portraying that happening to where she was like a super big
silent star and like, like, one of the biggest silent stars and they were like put her in the
talking and she was like, hi, my name is Marlavin.
She sounded horrible and they were just like, ah, whatever.
They also did that and that was in, that, that happens in Citizen Kane?
That's, that's this, they're portraying this woman that that happened to, you know, like there's a
a woman there that's supposedly.
That was also, did you watch the Downton Abbey movie?
I haven't seen it yet.
I have a plot point in the
Downton Abbey movie.
Really? Yeah, that exact thing.
That's a great way to put it, Drew,
because I do feel like that we are like tweeners.
Like we're, we're like Generation X in that way,
you know, like we're just this middle thing that like this,
we started one way and then right in the middle of our thing.
Everything changed.
We weren't born into it, so we're having to get used to it.
And we're not as fucking good at it.
And we don't understand it.
but we know that like we have to fight every day being a papaw because it's like you you saw all the people before us who were like I'm not getting into podcasts or I'm not getting we've seen all them we're like I can't be that person and now we're like at the crossroads of like do I just go full papaw and say fuck it or do I go man this is what you have to do now and I you know I don't know well if I if and when I go full papaw which is coming uh I'm going into it like knowing it you know what I mean I mean that's my own
thing. I don't want to be this guy who's like, man, fuck it. I'll just, it's like, no, I'll just be
like, yeah, I'm not going to try. Yeah, right. Just get, just get way better at the things that you
are good at. I don't, and just don't, you know, don't worry about it. I mean, Stuart Huff kind of comes
to mind where he did a podcast and stuff, but I never felt like Stewart was like, given up or, like,
confused about the situation. He was like, yeah, that's what the business is now. And I'm just,
I'm not going to do it. And I like my job and my life. And I have a kid. And he's all.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I think I'm like lucky that I genuinely enjoy doing podcasts, which podcasts aren't a new thing.
But, you know, I do like doing that.
I do like making the occasional video.
But like I do think that I'm at a point where I've, it feels like I've accepted all the new things I can accept.
And so when there's a real like, when there's a new, new thing, I'm going to be like, I can't do it.
Like maybe I'll try, but I don't know.
Like, I just got good at all the other shit.
And I don't know if I got room in my heart, you know.
I don't know.
The name of the game is getting fans and this is what they want.
That's right.
Stand up now is a way to monetize popularity, not monetized jokes.
It used to be you were popular because you were good at telling jokes.
Now you're popular and you're like, well, shit, I got to get money from these people.
So I'll make them pay to see me tell jokes.
So whatever, you know, we're fine.
We are fine.
Thank you for listening to.
Wait, hold on.
Trey, where are you going to be again in Kentucky?
Kentucky, Kentucky this weekend, then the Midwest, then the northeast, and a whole bunch of places after that,
Trey Crowder.com.
Drew?
New York this Sunday.
I canceled my Asheville gigs.
I still have Austin gigs coming up, and I just announced Atlanta in October.
Oh, dude, speaking of Asheville, this is way off, a ways down the road, but December 28th,
I'm going to be at the Grey Eagle in Asheville in Asheville shit, so that's fun.
Part-time Funny Man.com.
Thank you all for listening to The Well-Red Show.
We love to stick around longer, but we got to go.
Tune in next week if you got nothing to do.
Thank you, God bless you, good night and skew.
I'm my only man in America that lives in a haunted trailer.
Think about that one for a minute.
You've never seen that in a horror movie, have you?
It's always haunted houses.
Never a damn haunted trailer, because I've got the only one.
And I don't know how that trailer got haunted.
I bought the damn thing new.
I'm saying, I figure the guy putting a roof on in the factory got drunk,
fell off, was killed, and his soul rolled out in my trailer
to make my life a living hell.
Because it's honed, it is.
I've heard so many scary sounds in that trailer.
I've almost quit shooting it down.
We first moved in, a door closed by itself.
I'd blow it off the hinges.
My wife said, you can't shoot a ghost.
I said, hell no, but I'll keep him on his toes around here.
