Whiskey Ginger with Andrew Santino - Ryan Sickler

Episode Date: April 14, 2023

Andrew Santino sits down with Lefty's Son Ryan Sickler to talk about his near death experience, and so much more! Check out his new special Lefty's Son on YouTube! Link Below! #ryansickler #whiskeyginger #andrewsantino #podcast Ryan Sickler: Lefty's Son https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXGHgyr2MNA ==================================================== SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS BETTER HELP Get the help you need from a licensed professional 10% off your first month https://betterhelp.com/whiskey BESPOKE POST PROMO CODE: Whiskey for 20% off your first box https://boxofawesome.com AURA 14 Day FREE TRIAL! https://aura.com/whiskey ==================================================== Follow Andrew Santino: https://www.instagram.com/cheetosantino/ https://twitter.com/CheetoSantino Follow Whiskey Ginger: https://www.instagram.com/whiskeyging... https://twitter.com/whiskeyginger_ Produced and edited by Joe Faria IG: @itsjoefaria Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What up, Whiskey Ginger fans? Welcome back to the show. If it's your first time joining the show, welcome to the show. We got a good one for you today. Like my man, Steve Harvey, don't say. It is Ryan Sickler, the sick dog, the broken back boy. I love him so much.

Lefty's son is out right now. His special is available on the YouTubes. Go on there and please watch it. Same for us. Please subscribe. Please like it. Leave a comment down below for the Al. Go rhythm and go see him sickler so

funny man go see him on tour and go watch his special and spread it around to the world also come see me me and bob are on the road right now we are doing a ton of dates and we're adding dates as we go come see us uh badfriendspod.com badfriendspod.com to get those tickets to see me and bobby do the bad friends Tour with Jesse Jutski Johnson. Also with Carlos. We got all sorts of fun planned. BadFriendsPod.com. Enough rambling from me.

Let's go to the episode. In here, we pour whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey. You're that creature in the ginger field. Sturdy and ginger. Like vampires, the ginger gene is a curse. Gingers are beautiful. You owe me $5 for the whiskey and $75 for the horse. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Whiskey Ginger. My guest today is one of my favorite people on earth. I say that for all my guests, but I mean it once again. Today, it's Ryan Sickler.

Wow, that was good. That was fucking good, dude. Some days it's not good. Today was good good that was like white guy rap shit right there dude thank you for having me dude i love you back on the whiskey ginger all right so here's the deal uh i texted you in the airport i think i was in the airport and why don't you explain what you've been going through all right i've been but make it funny i'll do my best i um first of all go watch my special there's my camera go watch my special right now right now before we before we do anything else yeah go watch lefty's son right now on youtube my youtube subscribe the link is going to be in the description below to watch his

special go watch it and spread it around baby i took a page out of your book i was very inspired by what you did i also directed my own special hell yeah but the thing is i've been the whole time i've been doing stand-up i've also been writing and producing i've started it like fox family abc family the cw wb fox sports oprah you know you name it i've worked there i'm not even kidding you food network style arcinio hall dude i've done so many yeah and um and more and you know i watched this i've said this before i watched this interview with jamie foxx after he won the oscar and he said that his grandmother used to make him come home after school and play the piano and he hated it yeah and he did not understand why she would make him fucking do it then all these years later he plays the piano and ray wins an oscar he's like now it made fucking sense so all these years of working in post-production and seeing how people sucked like i got to be a good producer

because people sucked i'm like did you guys get room tone they're like huh like did you guys get any artful b-roll out there that we could use to cover the shit you're giving? Nah. Nothing. You know what you should do? You should have somebody saying, oh, man, I like that. I'm like, yeah, we should. Did y'all shoot it? Did you get it?

No, but we should do that next time. No, but we should. Yeah, you should. I hate that. So working in post-production, I would see all the things that we're not getting from these fucking shitty people who are half-assing their jobs. And I'm like, all right, now when I go to that side i know i need room tone i need artful b-roll i need laughter a lot of laughter is good we can cover shit up with laughter even if it's fucking so it comes time to shoot my special and i'm like i'm just gonna fucking direct this thing myself

and i i originally wanted to have eric abrams do it but he's like look i'm the easiest budget cut and he's like i'd hire you to fucking produce on it but he is great he is because i was with him in new york for ari special and he did he did so good he was so good the only reason i think i didn't go with him or we didn't use him um is because he was underwater he was doing like 50 things and was mine was budgetary mine was strictly budgetary but he couldn't do it i love him the next one the next one bro but but i had the same the same idea i was like if you can get a good dp who you trust to set up all the shots and do all the right things with you on what you like it was almost like let's do this dance together then yeah like let's you

know let's let's figure this out together instead. Yeah. Like, let's, you know, let's figure this out together instead of me throwing stuff out to somebody, walking away. And I know some people like that. They're like, I don't want to think about it. And then you'll get to the end, the edit bay and go, fuck. Why'd they use that? I don't like this. Why is that?

Why'd they do that? That made me nervous. So even with, like, trailers, I hit Segura up. I'm like, what do you think? And he's like, I don't know. He goes, even with a trailer, traditional comedy trailers are, for me, it would be like, he's a single dad. He's a blah, blah, blah.

He's a blah. And I was like, I don't want to do it. So I'm just using raw clips from the fucking special. And that's it. No fancy music under it. I'm not bumping the fucking, putting fake laughter in or any of that. I'm taking it as it is. That's my favorite when somebody goes, they sweetened it up.

And it's like, no, we didn't. No, I didn't't what you hear is we leveled it we leveled it so it sounds balanced yeah when you listen to it but nobody sweetened anything i didn't add filler laughter i didn't do any of that shit and um i shot it at the dynasty in here in la and my the guy you're talking about for me is sam vol and like he just crushed it on this. And then, you know, so many... I'm lucky I shot it in December because this whole thing goes down right after this, and I wouldn't... I would've had to cancel shooting,

all this shit, but my producer, Kirsten, like, that poor girl drove me... Like, she drove me. She would have to come to my home, pick me up, to take me to the studio to do podcasts.

Because you were... My stepson. Yeah, I couldn't do... I was on a fucking walker. I was on a walker, bro. Yeah bad when i called you i well when i i wanted i think i texted you first to check in to see how you were just to say hi and also like i was you know you were on my mind and i was seeing you online and i was like man i need to say hi to sickler i haven't seen you in a long time and then man when you gave me all that news i was like i couldn't believe it you hit me up and i was like dude thank you so much i'm just in here i just had this back surgery so i went in for a spinal um what is it called stenosis decompression

spinal stenosis decompression and it's an old ass fucking injury from high school that i've been dealing with my whole life yes as i've said like our high school had a weight training i'm 50 now i graduated in 91 so good looking cat for 50 that silver fox in the house huh look at him i'll tell you what i've always said i wished my self-esteem matched my self-confidence because it doesn't why i'm confident in things i do i just not never been confident in the way i look or sound or anything. You got a mirror at the house? I mean, I know I'm good. I'm going to buy you a mirror.

Thanks. You sexy motherfucker. I know I'm good, but I always doubt, self-doubt. I mean, I know I'm good based off statistical results when I look at things. Because the reward is there. I was better at sports because I made the all-star teams and all these things. I graduated in a 3.0. I knew I was in the smarter classes, not a 4.0, 3.0. But i was in the smarter classes not a 4.0 3.0

but but back then it was out of three kids it wasn't if you got a 3.0 back then let me tell you something you got a state farm insurance good student discount and a free pizza at pizza hut when you would go in and it was a family restaurant when pizza hut still had a motherfucking fireplace in it i remember those days the original fucking, dude, Pizza Hut used to be sit-down. Now it's a walk-up counter. Yeah. Now it's a walk-up counter. You don't even go in a Pizza Hut anymore.

They're gone. You take it and go. A machine made it, and then you just grab it and leave. Dude, I remember Pizza Hut in high school, we would go have sit-down dinners at Pizza Hut. It was a restaurant. And I'd bring my 3.0 report card,

and I'd get a free personal pan. Hey, hey. And I'm like, there it is, motherfucker. You think I ain't getting that? Save money at State Farm and get my free pizza. So, uh, those are the days. But we had weight training class.

That got you. Well, I played football for a heartbeat and I got hurt. And my dad looked me in the face when I got home and goes, look, you love basketball so much more than football, yeah? I said, yeah, that was my sport. And he goes, do you want to get more than football yeah i said yeah that was my sport and he goes do you want to get hurt playing football so you can't play basketball i was like no that'll that'll be the biggest disappointment he goes you're not that good at football you're

good at basketball stop doing it i mean he like was so straight he had never been that way anything i tried he was like do it yeah do it have fun but he was legit he's like dude football you're fine you're good you're fine but he's like basketball, dude, football, you're fine. You're good. You're fine. But he's like, basketball, you're, you're great. You're better at basketball than you are at football. Yeah. Football with basketball is like, you'll make varsity.

No sweat. He's like, you're not a varsity football player. And I was like, respect that hurt, but respect. But so I hung it up for that reason. So I didn't do basketball. Rate weight training was different. It was mostly cardio and you know what i mean it was lightweight and lots of reps so there wasn't like you know squatting and no one did any of that

stuff on basketball yeah see for me i was a good student i wasn't a great student but also from 16 on i have no parents and i'm still going to school and trying to get good grades you did it without mom and dad cracking the whip telling us to go to go. Still going. But I was terrible at math. So I would get a C in math. And in order to get straight Bs, you had to at least get an A to counter that C. And then you could hit Bs and you're at a 3.0. And I couldn't miss that pizza or that motherfucking discount. State Farm discount.

I'm paying it. I'm paying it at 16. Not my parents. I'm paying it. So I need that motherfucking discount so i need this a so i would take a weight training class which was also separate than a gym class i'm like now i got two a's so i could fuck off this math and maybe even social studies maybe social studies i need english so i was into shakespeare so i would get my straight b's

doing that and that would be my 3.0 that was the balance that was my balance but this weight training class um it was all about be strong don't be smart so we had a wall here that said the 300 pound bench club and your name i remember seeing that right and the 500 pound squat and your name will be painted right then you would get a shirt that was a 300-500 combo shirt to walk around school and let everybody know, you better not fuck with me. What's up, ladies? Yeah, ladies. You see the tree five?

You see the tree five? You see the tree to five? That's what it was. What are you guys doing tonight? And so many of us. I have a few friends I'm still in contact with from high school, and we all have fucked up backs because we're all under that fucking squat rack. No one's telling you the proper form.

No. They're just telling you, you just get under that, and you put it on the back of your neck, and you look up and fucking go. Throw that shit. We're shooting it up fast. So bad. Didn't even know what a squat was when I first got there, so that fucked my back up

and it's just been this thing i lived with and then um it's always been a six seven sometimes eight pain there's been times where i can't walk or anything and i would go get epidurals just for pain management so you did that yeah because you know we spoke we're back bros you know i i had a fracture in my back when and we talked about it and everyone i know that had that they all got epidurals all of them and the one dude every every one of my friends was like do it do it do it do it and one guy uh that i met through another friend who was like um kind of like a trainer a little bit uh you know he did physiotherapy or whatever and he said do yourself favor try to avoid it it and get into yoga.

Go to Pilates. He's like, try these alternative things to stretch and learn to use your own body weight. And he goes, just try it before you go get to Eberdo. Because one day, we had talked about this last time I saw you. I was in bed, so much nerve pain. Dude, I've been hit by a car. I've been knocked out in fights. You've been hit by a car?

I got hit by a car. Yeah, I got hit by it in college. In college. Tell that story. In college. I deserved it in college. You've been hit by a car? I got hit by a car. Yeah, I got hit by, in college. Hold on, tell that story. In college. I deserved it in college. It deserved it. It deserved it. Where they like,

Well, I was crossing illegally. I was being a drunk idiot. Yeah, but that, I don't know if you deserved to be hit by a tank. I deserved it. Obey the law. No, I was crossing illegally.

We were drunk. I was fucking around and I got clipped on my leg. It wasn't bad. Did you like flip and shit? My shoe came off. Yeah, it hit the side of my leg and my shoe came off in the intersection do you remember you better believe i fucking remember what i was it was a saturn uh it was saturn they're not even around i know

saturn uh what was the one solstice or what was the one the little coupe saturn yeah i know what you're talking about like the turquoise one that was popular yeah i'm probably lucky that i get hit by a little tiny car because if it was a big car it only it clipped my leg if it was a big car it clipped my whole body it would have it would have smoked rupture your spleen like the internal damage of being hit by a car is crazy really i got clipped because they were turning and i was running i was being stupid they stopped they did yeah they stopped but i mean also they were like yeah i deserved you good i deserved it but after that that was crazy pain that was pain just like a fight pain where i was sore for like a month

when you got into a fight when you were a kid you know the next day and the next day and the next day was like it would compound the pain you know what i mean you were like god damn i didn't even know how did i twist my shoulder all that kind of pain over the years never compared to the pain I had from my back. It was. Nerve shit. It's unaccounted for. It doesn't even, it goes under the radar in conversation of like, dude, it hurt so bad. Couldn't sleep.

Couldn't piss. Couldn't shit. Couldn't sneeze. Couldn't sneeze. Couldn't cough. Nothing. Dude, every time you'd go. Sneezes.

I got to get over to a counter and hold on for these motherfuckers. Yeah. call. Nothing. Dude, every time you'd go... Sneezes. I gotta get over to a counter and hold on for these motherfuckers. Like, yeah! If you freehand sneeze in your 50s, it's a wrap on you. You out of your mind? You gotta brace. Look at this guy freehand sneezing over here. What are you doing, dude? Hold on to something! Gonna blow your

back out, Gary. But that nerve pain I experienced when you told me about the pain in your back. We were eating pizza at Joe's and you were talking to me about your back. This is a while ago before you got surgery. And you were like, I just have to do it after all these needles. I gotta do it.

And I'm lucky that I didn't have to go through it yet. Who knows? Because you never know with back stuff. But you just showed me the scar in the parking lot here. What are we talking? That's gotta be six inches? Seven inches? Dude, it's... Yeah, yeah, that's right. Seven inches is huge. Put your dick up to it when we're off camera.

Let's see. We'll measure. Six and a half. But honestly, that's big. That is a big bitch. It's bigger than I thought it was going to be. Yeah, it is. So post-surgery, though, then you had to lay in bed.

Because my boy almost died. Yeah, I did almost die. So I went to do the surgery, and then it wasn't healing properly, and it kept bulging up, and, like, just fluid and blood is building up back there. So, like, you need to come back in. We need to take a look at it. They opened me back up, fixed whatever's going on, tell me there's this one-millimeter tear back there.

Then that was just pumping blood out, and now we're good to go. But now we've just opened you up two times you're gonna need to lay in the hospital just for a couple days and chill and i get into the general population area and that's when you text me yeah and i'm like dude thank you i'm just here for a couple days i'm good man i thought nothing of it you were like no i'm straight don't worry about it i kept telling everybody i'm gonna kick this fucking physical therapy's ass. You'll see. You'll see.

I'll tell you, man, you don't talk shit like that to the universe sometimes. It got you. But I have this, and I know I'm going out there everywhere talking about this, but I have something called factor V lightening. I found out a few years ago when I had kidney stones and I was on bed rest because I couldn't move and my legs, both my legs clotted. And it was a six-month adventure of them thinking I had cancer, leukemia, lymphoma. I'm just freaking the fuck out every time they're telling me something.

And it turns out that I have this blood disorder. And it's genetic. So then my mom and brothers have to get tested. They don't have it. My dad's dead, but the math is easy now. He had it, clearly. And he died at 42 of what everyone thought was a heart attack back then. And now they're telling me that medicine is realizing that back then, if you died young, it was just a heart attack.

But they're realizing more and more it's actually these clots that are killing people, breaking off in their legs and lungs, brain, whatever. So he gives it to me. So I've had this thing my whole life. But this time I'm armed with that knowledge, and I tell everyone who will fucking listen, I've got this shit. Don't let me lay here and clot. Even one guy even said, man, you're really worried about that, huh?

And I said, yeah, I'm very worried about that. My dad died at 42. And I just clotted. And you guys guys the last hospital told me nothing was wrong with me and i'm i passed these clots now i realize with no medicine no help no nothing like i should have died in 2016 and i remember laying on my bed one night crying i gave myself up i was like if this is it it's it's i can't take this anymore yeah and i wake up and i just fucking keep it finally went

away i went and got a steroid shot and i don't know coincidentally what the fuck it was but it helped this time i tell them not to fucking let me clock and i lay there for three days turns into five turns into seven this shit's taking a while like why is this taking so long and then this is what's humbling too and i've had this said to me taking so long? And then this is what's humbling, too. And I've had this said to me before. But I'm like, this is taking longer than you all said. Why? And they're like, well, because you're 50.

You're not 20 anymore. And I was like, ugh, I felt every bit of that. Yeah. I wasn't even 50, actually. I was 49. I was like, let's not round up. I hope I'm going to be 50 after this. Yeah.

But yeah, I felt every bit of that. Like, oh, yeah, I still think I'm young. but my body's like, it's going to be a minute. So they come in, and to their credit, they ultrasound my legs, and they say I have no clots in my legs. I'm like, great. They've got, I put these calf pumps on. They've got these automatic calf pumps. You've got them calf pumps.

Pumping my legs all day. Just to keep the blood moving. Just to keep blood circulating. Nowhere else in your body, just your legs. Because it's got to get back upstairs. You got to come back out. Let's go.

Come up. And then this one, they come in on a Saturday and ask me to pass this test. I have to pass a couple tests. I have to pass a walker test first. They're like, you've been laying on your own body for eight or nine days.

You're going to be sore. Your back is fucked up. You got to pass a Walker test. And they said you might be dizzy and shit when you get up. So I sit up. I'm fucked up. I lay back down. He's like, all right, we're not going to do it today.

I'm like, I just want to get the fuck out of there. I just want to go home. Now I'll be back tomorrow. Tomorrow is Sunday. I sit up. I feel good. I do a 360 a tiny ass senior citizen walk on this walker and uh i'm like all right what else and he's like that's it i'm like come on dude he's like that's it i'm telling you yesterday you couldn't walk and today you just

walked on a walker and i'm telling you in my world that's a big deal so tomorrow you pass a stairs test you're going home and i was like like, great. Show me them stairs. Thank fucking God. I failed the test the day before. And thank God I have fucking stairs going into my place. So the lady comes in the next day. And she's like, how do you feel today? I go, I feel weird.

I just feel different. She's like, do you want to do this? I go, yeah, I want to go the hell home. I'm tired of being here. And that night they moved me into my own room. And I'm them just leave me here i'm going home tomorrow they're like we're gonna put you in your room i'm going home tomorrow just leave me now we're putting you in your own room i go to my own room like all right i'll get a good night's sleep because now i'm out of general population you sound like prison by the way it is how was your celly it's prison do you talk to your celly yeah i met cheryl uh or uh cheryl i think it was cheryl or i forget now cheryl it might have been

cheryl nice older black lady over here yeah i knew that when you said it i knew it um cheryl but see the thing is when you're in these this area you i'm laying on my back i see nothing all this is audio only everything Everything I'm putting together. And this side, this room over here, just curtains, but you might have come in and got thumb surgery. You're in there for two hours. Right. You're bumping your fucking music with your family and shit. I'm on day seven, bitch.

You know what I mean? Like, you're leaving after four hours because you had arthroscopic on your knee. I'm on day eight, bitch. Shut up. Like, quiet. Be quiet. Yeah. Cheryl's in there for three or four days with me, and I hear her one day.

She's like, how you doing over there? I was like, I'm all right, man. This is fucked up. And they're putting Dilaudid in my IV. And I'm not a drug guy. I'm weed and shrooms. That's it. I don't like the pills, nothing.

No, I don't like pills. Dude, you're talking to me, and I'm seeing fucking flesh. My face starts to move. Chunks fall off. Bloody chunks fall off and hit the table. I'm seeing the bone up under and everything. And I'm just like, what the? And you're wearing a mask because they were still making you wear a mask. And I'm seeing it flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip.

Oh, no, no, no. I call the nurse. I'm like, hey, I'm tripping in here. I'm tripping. I'm scared. She's like, what do you got to go? Right now now where you're talking to me chunks of your face are falling off she's like that's not supposed to happen i go yeah i know i know get this shit out of i want oral pills only like i don't even want the pain you're giving me that that fucking i don't want

it because a lot of his strong cheryl over here goes i'm seeing the same thing i go nah she goes i am i go why are you taking it not saying something she's like oh I'm tripping I go yeah we are tripping so both of us requested that shit like IV Dilaudid it's mainline bro

it's right in it's too much because pills you at least get the process your body slowly breaks it up this shit's like

ding and I'm like no no man your face is falling off dude it was non-stop in here we pour whiskey. This episode of Whiskey Ginger is brought to you by BetterHelp. Hey, I've spoken very openly and candidly on this show about therapy

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It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Fill out a brief questionnaire, get matched with a licensed therapist, and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. So if you're looking to make some moves in your life, both mentally and physically, to get yourself back aligned and feeling better, discover your potential with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash whiskey today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, BetterH-E-L-P dot com slash whiskey. One of my favorite days of the month

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Ginger. I like gingers. So they move me up. Lady, they dope me up. And I tell the lady, like, look, man, they just put all this bullshit in me, and I really want to pass this test. It's fucking 6 a.m. I don't know if you're ever in the hospital. That's what they do to you.

They come in. You never get the rest. That's what the nurses tell you, too. The one thing you really need in here is rest. But someone's coming to clean the room, take your lunch, check your vitals, give you the pain meds. There's doctors. Now, I've got so many in and out.

And they'll kick your motherfucking bed and be like, hey, Ryan, I know it's 5 o'clock in the morning. You just going through some crazy shit. We're about to tell you a bunch of new medications you've never heard of with different milligrams that you better fucking remember. So you might, and I'm, I'm taking an eye mask off. I'm taking earplugs out. I got a white noisemaker next to my head and I'm like, what is fucking happening? So I'm like, just come back. They dope me up. Will you please come back at noon? She's like, yeah, I was back at noon. She's like, how are you feeling i was like i don't know i feel weird she's like do you want to do this and i'm like yeah i want to go home so she's like all right all you got to do

is go up and down these stairs so i walk up and down and she goes now i want you to go up sideways like you're holding on to a rail and i go okay i do that and i go back down and she goes mr sickler as your occupational therapist i can tell you that you have passed the necessary steps to go home today and i fucking collapse on my bed immediately after she says that and i go i'm clotting and she goes what i go i'm clotting she's like oh my god i still want to find this poor lady she runs out gets a doctor he comes in he's like what's going on i was like i'm clotting he goes how do you know i said this has happened to in, he's like, what's going on? I was like, I'm clotting He goes, how do you know? I said, this has happened to me before

He's like, what do you feel? I said, I feel three elephants on my chest He checks my blood pressure He goes, okay, Mr. Sickler, you might be having a heart attack and clotting And I said, huh? And then I black out That's when I wake up and that nurse is there And I don't know why

And I just say, am I going home today? And she's like, no Your discharge has been canceled And I was like, am I going home today? And she's like, no. Your discharge has been canceled. I was like, so now I'm on like, who knows? And they tell me, you have a pulmonologist, a cardiologist, a hematologist, an oncologist, and a spinal surgeon, and every person on all those teams has to tell you that you can go home before you go home.

And I said, yeah, that's a great fucking plan. bringing all the jibs and i've said it before if there's 12 of you and 11 of you say i can go and one of you doesn't i want to talk to that person what are you seeing that you don't like over there you know right so the problem is every day they test me, something's different. And now what that means, I learned, unfortunately, is that it's a 12-hour fast, right? And then they come and test your blood. So then that's another eight hours. So it's a two-day process every time you have a setback. It's two more days. And it just keeps going.

And they wheel me into CT scans, and they come back, and they say, all right, you didn't have a heart attack it's two more days and it just keeps going and they they wheel me into ct scans and they come back and they say all right you didn't have a heart attack i'm like great they're like but your heart is swollen i was like what do you mean my god and it's swelled up to where it's pumping 50 50 it's supposed to be two-thirds one-third in our heart i didn't know any of this i still don't know that yeah 50 50 and they're like it's gonna be a minute that shit took like six days to go down and again i thought i had a clot yeah uh and they were like you have massive pulmonary embolisms that's the fancy term for lung clots covering both of your lungs and i was like huh and they were that's when they're like you could also have a stroke and i said what i don't even think. Right? Right? Yeah.

Then I made a rule. I go, listen, new rule in here. Put it up on my dry erase board. Stop telling me the shit that could happen. Stop. You're freaking me the fuck out. You don't want to know that kind of stuff. I could have a stroke, a heart attack.

I just got over I didn't have a heart attack, but my heart swung. Don't tell me about a stroke. Right. But you need to know all this because it's touch and go for you. The next 48 hours are kind of scary. So I have to call my daughter's mother, family members, and start talking to them about, you know, I called Segura crying. Yeah.

I was good at first, and I was like, listen, something happens to me. He's like, if there's any way I can help. I said, my special's in good hands. Put it on your YouTube and give whatever money you make to my daughter. He's like, you got it, man. I said, thank you. That's all I want. That was my only request.

Put my special up. Give the money to my kid. On your YouTube. And you're like, but also. Not on mine, please. Also, all the YouTube ad generated. Anything that you do. Can you make sure in perpetuity?

You know, like it's not just one month. Perpetuity. It's not just one month. It's not just one month. Yeah, not just one month. You know, she does. That's the shit I was saying. Still thinking about her. And also, I don't get to see my daughter.

I don't get to see her. And so now I'm in there. And I'm telling you, dude, it's nightmares. And there's a lady over here. There's always a yeller when you're in the hospital. But I have one down in the fucking gen pop and i got this lady and uh one night i have this horrible dream those those drugs man and i have the dream that i'm first into like a like an east coast or midwest basement like a club basement you know those basements oh yeah i grew up in them got a bar back here and i'm

i'm yelling for help across the room. But I know I've dreamt enough and I'm not deep enough asleep. And I know I'm yelling in real life. But I'm in the dream going, oh, help. You know, when you can't get it out. You're like, help. Mm-hmm. Help.

So then they take me. I don't know who that is. And they throw me in the back of this old Toyota Corolla. I've been in the back of those. Like an 82. Uh-huh. I remember it. who that is. And they throw me in the back of this old Toyota Corolla. I've been in the back of those. Like 82. Uh-huh. I remember it. Cloth seats.

And then they start fucking throwing bodies on top of me. These are the dreams I'm having on these drugs. And I'm buried alive under bodies. And I'm trying to, and I fucking dig, the whole time I'm screaming. I dig myself out of the bodies. And now I'm crawling back to the hospital. I'm outside the hospital obviously in my dream and i'm showing my wristband like i'm supposed to be in there

i was supposed to be in there and then some fucking like i wish people could have got my mind for sci-fi movies some like businessman walks up with dark glasses like matrix type shit and i stand up and homeboy lasers my fucking eyes out of my fucking face i can hear the dirt crunching under his fucking loafers and i'm screaming and then finally i'm like i come out of the drum like ah and i hit the god i'm hitting the button the lady runs in i go i know i was screaming you didn't hear me screaming she's like oh my god we thought it was the lady next to you that screams all day so we paid it no mind i'm like listen had a new rule too don't let me hit rem sleep i had a rule don't let me

get that fucking deep because this shit is crazy like i can't sleep like this i can't and then they keep telling me i'm gonna get out and a week turns into two weeks, turns into three weeks. And I'm losing my shit. I'm losing my fucking mind. I'm on my back. I don't get up higher than 30 degrees. If I can get out of bed and get to my walker and go and sit and take a piss, it's the greatest day I've had since I've been in there. Damn.

But that day when I clotted and everything, I had like three surgeons come in and be like, you should have died today. I'm like, I know. I would have passed that test and been home. I would have called. I said, I definitely would have called 911 for what I was feeling. They're like, yeah, but you wouldn't have made it. I'm like, hmm.

They're like, something's watching over you in this room. Wow. I was like, that's interesting. One guy came in crying. Surgeon's crying for me. I'm like, what are you doing, in crying surgeons crying for me i'm like what are you doing dude crying for you crying because every day he's checking on me telling me you're supposed to go home and then he comes back in the morning he's like what the fuck you're still doing here i'm like i don't know they saw something they didn't like he's like all right well hopefully

it's tomorrow comes back he's like you're still here i'm like yeah dude this dan van kirk calls this my gilligan's island It was supposed to be, legitimately, it was supposed to be a three-hour outpatient procedure. And that's it. Turned into Gilligan's Island. Turned into a fucking month-long near-death experience. Was Marianne there? Unfortunately, no. No Marianne?

No. No. Just a bunch of skippers. Bunch of skippers, bro. I'll say this. Have you ever almost died? No. Have you ever had a near-death experience? And I'm glad that you're alive man thank you i'm glad i've never come close to like that nothing like that the only thing i ever had that was traumatic was uh my legs taken out in basketball what do you mean somebody undercut you

oh yeah i fell on my neck you hit your neck i fell on my neck all my weight the wheel you out of there from there well what happened was is i we were playing ball at, oh, man, what is it called? A Lifetime Fitness. Yeah. Lifetime Fitness. You're going to be paralyzed for a lifetime. Yeah. I went up to get a board, dude.

I came. I thought. Oh, this wasn't even high school or anything. No, no. This was just fucking around ball. No, high school. This was high school. Yeah, but it was playing.

It was during high school, but it was right. It was playing pickup ball. Got it. And I went up to get a board, and I thought I came down. In my mind, it was crazy. I thought I landed and then fell because I had blacked out. I had my legs taken out. I fell on my neck, on the back of my spine.

Like, all my weight went backwards. And when I came to, I was asking for a sub i was going sub sub wave and sub but i realized i'm not standing upright i'm actually like sideways being held up it's amazing that basically your brain just paused yeah for what all this could have been 10 minutes it could have strapped you down everything and as soon as you come to you're waving one sub that's a ball player right there. I got to tell you, that's a ball player. And I kept looking for, and then my buddy,

two of my friend's faces, I mean, white as a ghost. That's what you're seeing? I just, all I could see was their faces blurred, and they were white as a ghost. And I was like, what the fuck is wrong with you guys? And they're like, bro, sit down. Like, I kept trying to get up, and they were like, sit down. And I was like, why are you guys acting so fucking weird, man? I got fouled. I got, whatever, we're good. He's like, bro, sit down. Like I kept trying to get up and they were like, sit down. And I was like, why are you guys acting so fucking weird, man? I got fouled. I got whatever. We're good. He's like, bro, sit

down. And then I remember sitting down and then I opened up my eyes again and I was horizontal on a, on a gurney. You were. And two paramedics were over the top of me. And I said, I think I'm going to throw up. And he goes, go ahead. And I turned over the gurney all over the place. And he said, I think I'm going to throw up. And he goes, go ahead. And I turned over the, all over the place. And he goes, oh, yeah. And they start talking, checking my eyes because I had a severe concussion. And bruised my spine. Or I can't remember the terminology. I bruised multiple spots in my spine.

It was about to break. Damn. And it was like so many inches of pressure away from. P.S. Huh? That's absolutely. A near death? No. Well, it is a near death

I mean I could have broke my neck but also it's probably contributing to all the spine shit you have now I'm sure years later arthritis and everything when I went in when I got to the ER because I kept holding his hand I was freaking out but I kept moving my legs

I was like well I didn't break my neck but something's wrong were you is that what was going through your mind like i thought i broke my neck yeah i was like man maybe i broke my neck i kept wiggling my legs i kept did it maybe a hundred times and then by the time i got there he said doctor was like you know my mom when i i don't remember it's in pieces but then i remember my parents in the room my mom balling and my dad looking crazy concerned and the guy was like the doctor was like you you know you're so lucky you didn't break you're so close to breaking your neck he's like you should have broken your neck you are so lucky you didn't break your neck and i had to live in a you know i had to live in a fucking neck cast for a while to support it did you have the halo or

just the neck thing i had a full full neck but it went all the way up, like, behind on my neck to hold my neck straight in place. Oh, you had that fucking Brian Cox, that fucking old NFL neck collar on. Yeah, the horse collar. The cowboy collar. I had it, bro, at lunch, you know? Someone was like, Santino, what up?

What up? Trying to still be cool. I was trying to match my fit to it. What's up, man? Nuh-uh. We're hanging chains off it. I was so nervous about it, man. Hell yeah.

But I got lucky. I mean, the only thing I got from it was a concussion and I had severe spinal bruising. I don't know if that's the terminology, but I was in that thing for I don't even remember. Maybe it was like a month or so before I could even get back to like doing neck therapy and all that stuff and neck muscle regeneration because it would deteriorate it, right?

Your muscles in your neck. Dude, tell me about it. They deteriorate. Yeah. My neck. My back. It's more sore than my back. It is.

Yeah, it is. Because I didn't really, like, i had recorded just enough podcast for patreon and the honeydew subscribe to the honeydew by the way go get that honeydew go get that do because i thought i'd be spending the month of january just simple rehabbing and i figured i'd give myself time to do that and i don't need to go sit and record and right yeah this shit happens and i get right to the point where i finally get out of the hospital kirsten has to come get me drive me and we do a patreon because i value it they pay for it i want to make sure i don't miss this guy's dying and he's worried about the fans man crazy and then my first guest in the studio after the which was only days later was

neil brennan so you go back that's my first interview on the regular honeydew out of the hospital but i'd recorded just enough and i was able to just at that time sit for an hour and a half, an hour, an hour and 15 tops. I was getting so tired I couldn't fucking figure out why. And I'm like, oh, my God. I finally, after a while, I felt my own shoulders, the weight of my own shoulders just naturally pull it. Because I hadn't sat upright for a month. You know, I said when I got home and i rolled to my side i cried i was like oh my god i'm on my side and um it and and just the weight of my big ass head on my neck too like it's it's still sore as fuck

you got a big dome what are we talking eight eight and a quarter no hell no i used to be seven and a quarter but it did get bigger. God, what's the next size up? Two-thirds? What's the next? I don't know. I don't know my fraction. You said you're bad at math.

That's where that 3.0 came from, those weightlifting classes. I'll be doing curls outside this room to outweigh that fucking fraction math I just did. Well, let me say this. I'm so happy that you're alive. I hope you live for a very very long time thank you and if anything ever happens to you i'll post your special online as well give it all to my daughter and i'll give your daughter three months i said three months of youtube i'll let her know i got your daughter called me over the fourth month like santino what's up with

the check and i'm like listen man your dad and I said three months. That's the deal we made, you know? Yeah, hell yeah. Was your daughter, I don't want to lean on it too much. Go ahead. I want to move on, but was your daughter, that was heavy, heavy, heavy for her. Yeah, so the way I explained it to her first. Because she's a teenager now? No, she's only eight.

Oh, I thought she was 10 or 11 or something like that. She knew it was a back surgery. So I kept it to that. I never really alluded to, you didn't want to tell her. Yeah. I just said, Hey,

my back's all messed up and it's not healing. Right. So, but the things that got me was she was going to school, telling her friends that my dad's not doing good. And I found out cause her teacher emailed me and I was like, yeah, well here's what really happened.

And this is what I'm going through. And I'm not letting her know about it yet but but now without telling her when people in life come up to me and ask me what happened and i talk about it she hears it that way i don't i haven't sat her down to say well this is what happened but she's too young to like hear all that heavy that's heavy heavy for a kid but i do need to the unfortunate thing is she it's genetic so she's got to be tested oh right for clotting right and if our pediatrician already told us like you don't need to do it now but you know if she's on pregnancy and needs bed rest that could kill her if she

doesn't know she has it if she wants to take birth control that that is prone to making women clot so it's not a good idea for her to do that so i gotta teach her about raw dogging and shit like i gotta have a real conversation with my kid like listen baby girl you better use condoms and don't raw dogs i'm telling you you can't take birth control the birds the bees and the wheelchair let me tell you about the bird to be in the wheelchair that's wild they finally let her come in and and she knew she was she knew it up. She came and hugged me nonstop. And then one day I surprised her, picking her up at school with my cane. I was off the walker, and she's like, Dad, you're okay, and came running up to me and hugging me.

And I was like, this is all I want. Life is good. It's all I want. I've never craved palatial mansions and fucking fancy cars or any of that. Because I always go back to when my dad died when we were 16 and we're alone I'm like a mansion wouldn't make this feel any better right now Somehow it'd make you feel worse big room to be all alone and yeah big house all alone Which is a lot of times what you see when you see people with like so much money and so much excess

Success and excess that you're like What are you doing this big thing when you're all by yourself? Yeah, 14 rooms. What rooms what are you doing you're in one yeah what are you doing with all these all these fucking rooms that is that is a very uh deep philosophical ideology that like when you get sick or get hurt uh you'd rather have a one-bedroom apartment so you can see everybody all the time you know you i'd rather be i just rat you'd rather be closer to the people than further away with all of the the bullshit that you acquire over life. That's deep, though. And also, you know, that's heavy for an 8-year-old, but—

Yeah. You know, but they only need to know what they need to know. Do you know what I mean? When she's older, it'll be different. She'll hear it all. She'll get all of it. Yeah, she'll get all of it. She'll hear all that bullshit.

She's got to. She's got to get tested for it. I'll be like, here's the fucking deal. This is what can happen to you. I think about that all the time. Like, you know, whenever you go in and they're like well what runs in your family and you got to make the phone call you're like what he had cancer he had cancer too okay i'm telling the doctor i'm like yeah so i guess everybody had this kind of cancer and this

kind of cancer and this kind of and then you like add it all up and you're like how come i never knew that and your parents are like you know well i guess we know we never we never you know we never talked about it i don't know i mean i get but i guess it does run in the family we're all we're the generation of i love you the dads that say i love you and love their kids and try to figure it all out messy bros with feelings trying to figure it out we're also the people like how many seven people died of colon cancer huh you're like holy shit how come i never knew that? Not talking about that? Yeah, how come that never came down the line? We're also those people. So now we're like the, we're these middle people that are trying to pass all this, like

trying to break cycles of trauma and bullshit, the whole walk it off generation, and then the genetic bullshit that we're finding out that we have. Like, wait, what? I have what? We are the walk it off generation. That's so funny. We're the walk it off generation. Walk it off.

That was me asking for a sub. Sub! Sub! You know, my tongue was probably, sub! Start this fucking pussy over here. But that was your instinct, was like, you're good. Yep, you're good. You're fine.

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I got smoked, I got smoked the kicker was hurt, and they're like, Santino you can kick, you're the only one that could probably kick, you know, on the team, no one else wanted to kick, I said, I don't want to fucking kick he's like, dude, you gotta, we have no one else that can kick the fucking football, fine so the kid snaps me the ball, goes, you know

30 yards over my fucking head and I jump, nothing, I turn, I grab the ball and I'm thinking, I'm running for the first down. Fuck this. Dude. Ba-na-na-na. I'm like, oh, I'm doing a scruff.

I got some more. How many steps did you get before? And did they get you, like, when you had mid-steps? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, dude. I was mid-stride. I was horizontal. That's the worst, dude, when you got one foot up. And I remember my dad going, you got your bell wrong, boy. I was mid-stride. I was horizontal. That's the worst, dude, when you got one foot up. And I remember my dad going, you got your bell rung, boy.

I was gone, dude. I think I spoke Chinese for like a month. Dude, I couldn't see straight. That fucked me up so bad. But that was it. My dad, after I got clipped, was doing that. He goes, you're good. You got your bell rung.

You're good. Welcome to the club. It's the first time you ever got smacked. Because before that, you know, I played safety and DB. I didn't really ever

get popped hard. I got to pop, but it was all strategic. You know what I mean? Like, I never had an open field smack, but that one got me bad.

That kid still talks about that. He's like, y'all watch that show, Dave? Man, look at this guy right here. I fucked him up in high school, man. He's somewhere on a patio smoking a heater with somebody going, you know that redhead from Dave?

See that guy right there on TV? Fucking murked that kid, dude. He is definitely telling everybody, you're highlighting that kid's fucking career, dude. You really are. But true, man. I remember, dude, the whole team went, oh, my team, my team. Oh, Santino.

You never get it the other way? What's the hardest hit you put on somebody? As a safety, you know, like we were, this was this is back in the day too when cheap shots were still a thing you could still hell it's so funny you could still turn around just to go to i had a couple i had a couple of cheapo peepos that i wasn't it's so funny like when you're a kid you got clapped out for that like your coach was like let's go but then you get older you almost killed him let's go dude you're like I think I really fucked that kid up. That kid might be paralyzed.

That's what I'm talking about. Dislocated a kid's shoulder. I fucked up a kid's shoulder. And I think I might have fucked up his collarbone. But I hit him so hard on a side hit. You know, on a half front facing side hit. So he's coming up the field. He doesn't really see me.

And I hit him so hard. His shoulder went up, took his helmet off of his fucking head. That was bad. That kind of stuff, in retrospect, you're like, man, cheap and he it's it's fine because it was back then but now you know you're like that's why everyone can't speak anymore that's why uh you see any stars of old i told you one time i saw uh at a golf course i played with um in the group we were paired in a big chunk of groups they were right in front of us. But Elway, you know, it was amazing meeting I see in him. I've never seen somebody so like brutally fucked up from all those years.

You could see it. Brother, the way he walked was crazy. I bet. He walked like it was like a, you know, those Boston Robotics, like the. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he was walking like they were all on different fucking algorithms. He couldn't really walk that well,

and it looked like it was every step... He was in, what, his 60s? Gotta be late 60s by now, yeah. So he's gonna be shitting his ass. Brother, he was... You could tell it was painful

to, like, get through. I mean, he went with a smile on his face, but the way he moved looked like, you know, 20 years of just... constantly getting beat up i read an article uh not too long ago about earl campbell i love earl campbell yeah man earl campbell's one of

my favorite one of the best of all time and they said it said that it takes him 30 minutes to get up out of bed in the morning and put his pants on like that's how put his pants on just to just to get up out of bed sit there and put pants on takes about 30 minutes. It's a different game now. It's a different world now, which is good. But you know what the irony is? Because we were taught as kids, we were the walk it off. We were taught, dude, hit him with your fucking helmet. Throw that head in there.

Go nuts. Spear him. Who gives a shit? Who cares about your neck either? Yeah, dude. Hit him. Hit him. You got a helmet on.

That was the old phrase. You got a helmet on. But being a pussy, you're wearing a helmet. It's not like anything could happen. You're next to an accordion just. Yeah. Shooting up places. What was wild about all that, all these years later now,

learning about that stuff, going overseas, watching rugby, and I went to an AFL game, an Aussie rules football. You know what that is? It's wild as shit, man. But you watch the way they clip each other. It's very, very coordinated. It looks like a perfect little dance. They know exactly how to get low.

They know exactly how to take the hits. You have to. You don't have all that padding and the plastic. That's what it teaches them. It teaches them not to just go balls out. Proper form. I mean, I know you and I know you. You went ham when you were playing football.

Oh, God, yeah. Right. So you didn't care. You didn't think anything twice. You're like, mean, I know you and I know you. You went ham when you were playing football. Oh, God, yeah. Right, so you didn't care. You didn't think anything twice. You're like, brother, I'm in fucking armor. What could happen? The whole time I'm playing with this back injury, that's part of being young and dumb and full of cum is at 16 and 17, I'm like, who cares if I can't feel this leg?

I can still run. You know what I mean? I was literally like that. Yeah, that's nuts. I had two good ones. I would that's nuts um i had two good ones i would say career ones i had two good ones this poor kid probably hates it too i broke a kid's collarbone on a hard clean slide tackle and i he flew over me and i heard it go you got an extra sticker on your helmet for that, boy. That was soccer, actually. It was a slide tackle. This was wrestling. So in wrestling, my dad had just died, and I'm just full of absolute rage. Rage, yeah.

Just full of rage. And we had a holiday Christmas tournament, and it's like maybe 12, 15 schools come together, and you just wrestle, you know, whatever in your weight class, pair it all the way down and then you know you get the bright light and we we are our high school did it right man they shut all the lights off had a cone light single spotlight yeah that's sexy now during the tournament no because you've got matches going on sure sure no no the final every weight class all lights off fucking don't look just like vision quest yeah it was awesome no other school we went to did that yeah so everyone loved to come wrestle at our school because they're like fuck yeah under the light it's just one dome spotlight right and um they were like ryan we need you to to wrestle

uh 175 and i was like 165 or whatever it was and i's a big leap. It's big when it's muscle. That's what I mean. I could fuck you up if you were 10 pounds fatter than me. No, but 15 of muscle is bananas. Bananas. It's a whole different category. Bananas. Yeah, that's great.

Especially at that age. Yeah. It's visibly noticeable. Right. Jesus Christ, I got to wrestle this motherfucker? He's like 6'3". I'm 5'10". But I'm wrestling normally in that 65 or 68 Whatever it was, pound class

So I get on the scale in my whole singlet I'm eating a cup of pudding And that thing ain't even moving I'm like, fuck So then I go against him He was from Gilman, I'll never forget You know them Gilman boys Those Gilman boys

It was a big motherfucker And we square up And we're going at it and i just chuck him by the side of me just to see if i can get a headlock on him i just grab the bag and just give him a little chuck and his neck sticks out and i was like there it is and i put the headlock on this motherfucker i I flipped him, dropped him, and I held it. And then I was now not only am I'm not excited, I am terrified. I'm terrified that if I don't pin this kid, I'm getting fucked up. And I'm doing I'm leaning on my weight and I'm taking his arm because he's yelling and I'm throwing it over his face like that. And I'm on my feet and I'm, I'm like, Oh God.

And then I hear boom. And I'm like, Oh dude, this dude was so fucking pissed. I pinned his ass. I went down in the locker room. I bawled, bawled like a baby.

I was so fucking like emotional about like my dad not being there. This is for him. Ball and ball and ball. And I'm feeling so good about myself all day. We get on the bus to go home. I do really well in myself all day we get on the bus to go home i do really well in the tournament we get on the bus to go home and the coach is like doing that bullshit giving out like all right um best comeback from behind wins santino right there but yeah you know they're giving pumping everybody up and he gets to me and he goes all right this award

goes to the guy that should have never won but won anyway i'm like what the fuck kind of shit is that dude should have never should have never i won yeah there was a chance going in but man i pinned that fucking kid and that was that was fucking awesome you remember that forever i'll remember that forever he remembers it he's probably he's smoking a cigarette on a patio fucking This one motherfucking time, a guy chucked me and stuck his head out. You stick that head out, I'm going for it. All those days of all that stuff led to where we are now, broken bodies. Yeah, broken. Broken and in pain. My ankles are shit.

My knee still jumps out of socket. I had arthroscopic on. If I sit even close to, it'll jump out, and then I have to fucking go, and I got to straighten it, and gotta straighten it'll go boom hardcore back and pop back in the next special has got to be all about that body injuries lefty son lefty son will be the last regular this motherfucker gave this shit to me yeah thanks a lot i can't believe how appropriately named it is this is the guy that gave me this shit that almost fucking killed me right genetic listen i know a lot of you out there probably are like man fuck my mom or dad or

whatever but i'm telling you on the sly figure out what the fuck their genetics are yeah even if they're pieces of shit they're your genetic code you got it that could save your fucking life my dad for some reason is a medical anomaly like you know how old is he now uh almost 70 and you know was you know the story i've told you about in and out of prison when i was a kid and was a was an addict and is now clean and healthy and life is good but making up for you know all those years and brutalizing his body and he smoked for i want i gotta say maybe 40 years i don't even know damn gotta be 30 some odd years yeah i gotta be um and quit multiple times and then quit quit finally now has been cleaned from cigarettes forever and uh and he had polyps or something all over his lungs

and then he called me one time and said that he said i know i gotta go in and go all these polyps gotta take a look something all over bumps and popcorn stuff on my fucking they say you know it's probably no big fucking deal and then i immediately i didn't you know i i know 10 years ago i wouldn't have thought anything of it and then now i was like well we're because i'm getting older so i'm like oh man is this the thing is this it so then he i started to think i wonder if that's that's the thing now is this gonna be it and he said you know there's no no cancer and none of them and they're slowly gonna you know go down if i do this and this and all this stuff and then you know a year or two ago called me again and was like i'm all good they said i'm all i'm totally good but this guy dude this guy has lived a thousand lifetimes

so it's incredible so that hasn't taken him right so i'm like how meanwhile on my mom's family it's like these irish motherfuckers they're dead from you know you know yeah right yeah from a no-hold sneeze these these motherfuckers die a fart a fart outside crippled them i mean honestly they're all they all have something something so my dad's side medical anomalies it's it's till this day it's still shocking they've all my grandfather just died 92 you know a couple years ago and was not the pinnacle of health but still lasted for some reason sometimes people it's pure luck that's the one thing i learned i agree it's pure fucking luck i think we're all like the same innards when it comes to the computer and it's just a matter of whether this computer it gets cancer or leukemia or diabetes or high cholesterol or whatever i agree with you it's a matter of luck yeah everyone's got something

for sure we all got something that's gonna take us you got it baby it's coming everybody's got something it's coming for you on a happier note i'm glad that you're here i'm glad that you're back can you taste and smell i cannot still can't taste and smell i have maybe all these years that's that goes back to december of 2020 when i got the first covid i got the iphone one you got you got the first version when we talked about it that day and i can smell here's what i the the if you blow weed my face can't fucking smell it when you smoke a joint like outside you can't smell it nothing but what do you taste do you taste it a little cigarette right but they smell different now now i know what that smell smells i can smell coffee but coffee smells

different now i know what that smell smells like um chocolate tastes like shit i mean so many things taste like shit tastes like shit all the way off bland like i could i could have there's you could if i was an alien to this planet and didn't know the difference between cold or whatever i couldn't tell you the flavors of ice creams none of that shit does anything taste good no nothing tastes good but there are things that don't taste bad what does it taste by memory like sushi still doesn't taste bad pizza doesn't taste bad but it doesn't taste like it used to taste i can't taste that there's no pop on sauce damn you know i can't smell fresh cut grass no i can't smell the the when that all the rain we've had that rain at first about to come

and you can smell in the air can't smell that yeah dude yeah dude that's my favorite smells fresh cut grass but you know what else i can smell, though, that's really funny? It's always a dude. Any dude that's overdoing it with cologne. Oh, yeah. Oh, I get a scent. I don't know what it is. It all smells the same. And I'm like, geez, I get in an elevator.

I'm like, man, somebody overdid it in this motherfucker. And if I can smell it, everybody else in here must be dying. Don't go to Glendale with all those fucking Persian dudes. Yeah, for real, dude. Yup. That's the shit I'm talking about. You know when you smell somebody when they've already walked away and they're 15 feet away? You're like, bro, I still smell you.

Or remember— You infected the atmosphere. There'd be like an older lady at the school that would hug you or something, and then she would get her perfume on your face, and then it would just stay on there like oil. Dude. And I'm like, why is this on here? It's on here all day on my face. It's soaked in. I'm wiping it and shit. I'm like, why is this on it's on here all day on my face so i'm wiping it and shit i'm like why is this still on there i don't know who i uh you know tehran you know

the comedian tehran the kid that wears the robe tehran always wears too much perfume and i haven't seen him a long time but i remember one time you know he wears and it's always like gender neutral it's always like could be a girls could be a guys you know what i mean you know these like really fancy ones that i remember one time i go to go to the club i see him you know give him a pound he gives me a big hug i hadn't seen you a long time you know that the rest of the night i smell like this guy and and literally i go back home and i'm like in your clothes this is to run i've smelled like this dude and she's like who is that i'm who are you hugging i'm like fucking a middle-aged pers Persian dude who wears a robe just drenched in his cologne. Yeah, you can still smell that.

I guess that's a good thing to call people out. If Sickler can smell you. If I can smell you. You got too much on. Way too much on. I'm sad that you can't taste or smell. Me too, dude. My doctor's like, it should come back.

I said, you said that shit two and a half years ago. You got to get on Ellen, by the way. And he still can't taste or smell taste i've done all the bullshit that's the other thing going back to like backs and things like the thing that ended up happening to me was it was such an old injury my nerves wrapped around my spine both my legs started going numb i sat on the stool for the first time on stage that's why i needed to get this shit but there are people that like have you tried pilates yeah yeah man yeah yeah let me show you the the dick scar on my back yeah tried that too like you think i didn't do all that

before i went under the knife for sure even the surgeon said until the quality of your life is affected i don't want to operate on you i was like i can't stand on stage so now that you're you're touring well i start at the end of may so what are you going to do now? RyanSickler.com. RyanSickler.com. Go get those. Right now I'm promoting the special and working on writing and doing in-town spots. No, but I'm saying when you do go back out, are you going to sit on stool the whole time? No.

You're standing up still. You're good. Well, you know what? That's a great fucking question because I just started doing stand-up because I physically couldn't stand for 15 minutes without pain where I could concentrate on my set and timing and shit like that. You know what? I don't know. I might have to getting into it.

I might be able to do 30 minutes and then be like, damn, I need to sit. Yeah, I need to call that. Because there's days when I'm on tour, you know, that if we're touring a lot and we're doing multiple shows a night and I get tired and I think about stooling because I'm like, man. And people at home are probably like fucking smallest violin but you're like yeah man there's days where you're like i'm tired i'm tired like i can stand up but you do get exhausted like even now like i have to keep adjusting my because it gets it's sore it's just sore the whole time but no pills nope i've taken i don't like the. I've taken one oxycodone, and I have to have that because the other ones make my stomach sick, which is why I don't like them. A lot of people do that, yeah.

I've taken one in a month. But the doctor said, and the reason we're not having anything to sip on right now is because, well, you're not a big drinker anyway. You were never a big drinker anyway. No, but I would sit here and have a drink with you for sure. You'd have a whiskey, yeah. But now doctors know no more because of the blood thinners. But he did say, give him the good news, he did say, smoke away, my friend. Smoke away.

He said, four of them, and I have it recorded. I said, I did. I've recorded everything. Are you talking to this place? Yeah. I'm like, say that in here. They said it's a two-part message. We obviously are doctors, and we prefer you smoke absolutely nothing.

But we live in real life. And if you are going to smoke anything, smoke marijuana. Cannabis is fine. You heard it here, kids. If you're going to smoke anything, smoke that. Smoke marijuana. No cigarettes. Doctors love cannabis.

You forget about that. You know, you're like, oh, yeah, you're a cancer doctor. Cannabis is your friend. He's like, yeah. For sure. Cigarettes are not. Cigars are not vapes there's are trash and too new and they're like don't even fuck with those and then you know

it's not like i shouldn't drink alcohol the rest of my entire life but it's you know i'm brand new to blood thinners and stuff and i'm not after what happened to me i'm not fucking around yeah take it easy way bro i'm in that 0.01 It's literally like.01% of people this happens to. It's nuts to me. Still, it is so funny to think how weed is such a— weed was the thing that I got yelled at by my mother when I was 16, and now my mom takes edibles sometimes. Right.

Do you know what I mean? The flip that's happened in the universe— Think about the parents back then. Like, I know you guys are going to drink out there, so you can just stay over here and drink here. But if you lit up weed, they'd be like, Jesus Christ, he's a convict. Fucking criminal.

Yeah, he's a convict. Yeah. When's your next bank robbery? Now it's like, man, why don't you all smoke some weed here and don't fucking touch that alcohol so you can drive home in three hours. But it is true. And I was smoking a joint in Australia

because I was there for two months. And, dude, I forgot that everywhere isn't california but we were smoking a joint outside of the hotel and the guy was like hey man you go around the corner i was like oh what why why he's like oh it's fucking illegal there's cops that are up out there at the event that's going on i was like wait will they'll come say something he's like yeah what the fuck you'll get yes you'll get arrested for it for smoking house and i was like that's still say something he's like yeah what the fuck you'll get yes you'll get arrested for it for smoking and I was like

that's still a thing all over the world I mean I'm being ignorant as an American but you're like it's Australia do you know what I mean

I was like what the fuck this is this is America 2.0 what's the difference no still crazy illegal and you had to get it through a guy

like the old days yeah we had to get a guy it was kind of fun it was actually fun to get a guy I had one of the Irish kids Mal go get me weed santino you want some weed i hear you want a little bit of a pot how much do you want i said just get me you know whatever whatever you can get me but he had to go get it from his guy and it was still like an old the transaction of those old days it

did remind me how smoking out of a fucking soda can yeah me out of an apple smoker no but it's so funny that it was back to the old days of having to go through a middleman to get weed and it was kind of adventurous and fun and he had he like snuck it to me i was like this is kind of fun now it's you know going to the fucking apple store it's not as fun anymore i didn't know it was like that over there though but i i'm i mean no one said anything but i think people were conscious of it that you shouldn't just well they're also they just they're like would you like Xanax

and I'm like no I don't want also you guys are putting me on so many fucking meds and pills right now I don't want another thing and they said we listen to our patients if marijuana helps with your anxiety then we prefer you take that than Xanax I'm like yeah I don't want another pill and that's Xanax

I don't like pills when I fucked up playing basketball again than Xanax. I'm like, yeah, I don't want another pill. And that Xanax is... I don't like pills. I don't like pills, man. When I fucked up, I... Playing basketball again. I tore like a fucking hot dog bun, he said. He said, usually they split this way, but I fucked up the muscle in my leg

and the tendon. And right away, I mean, they were throwing pills at me. Right away in the hospital. Here, take this. Give me a big, huge thing of Vicodin. I don't even think they give out Vicodin anymore. That was the old days.

That was a big thing. Oh, man. Everything now you put a wristband on, and it is scanned and scanned. Oh, you're not getting a pill out of that motherfucker. Brother, they gave me just a huge oversized pill thing of Vicodin. And I took one. I took two. I took three three and it made me itchy and anxious yeah itchy and anxious and same thing man i had to i had to when i did go to sleep i had the craziest nightmares and i didn't shit for like a year and a half that's the other thing i didn't shit for two weeks in the hospital that's insane regular yeah i didn't shit for two weeks. And I said to the surgeon, too, the one that came in crying, he goes,

every surgeon has one patient they remember. I go, get the fuck out of here, dude. Do not be in here telling me. He's like, you're the one. I go, I don't want to be the one. Tell me another one. He goes, okay. Tells me about this guy.

Had the same shit going on. Laid in the hospital for a while. Didn't shit for almost three weeks. And he's leaving la to drive to fresno he's released that day and the surgeon says listen i'm not going to sign off on this until you basically take a shit take a shit take the shit and then you can go and i'll be comfortable signing you out and the guy's like no i'm not i gotta get out of here that's what three hours maybe up to fresno that's deep three and a half four hours and um the surgeon's like please just and he's like not gonna do it and he's like all right well

you can't hold the guy there against his will but the surgeon's like i'm not signing off on this just so you know dude walks out of the room into just the little area collapses on the floor right there the nurses call him and he says get an ultrasound on his stomach right now. And they do, and his abs ripped open from all the feces. He now is toxic, and he's going right back in the motherfucking hospital. No. And I was like, how's that not number one, dude? Yeah.

How is number two not number one? There it is. There it is. Clean him out, dude. Just put a pump up his ass. Seriously. Get him out, dude. Seriously. up his ass something get him out dude seriously i was like holy shit literally not to get more injury stuff but i'm quickly my my old man just went through had you know had to get his prostate then he had then he had uh gallbladder surgery and then

they said this is just like my dad he had gallstones so big that they laughed when they took them out dude they cracked up all three of them were in the room and he was like they were dying laughing because they're supposed to be the size of marbles that's the average size is a marble his were the size of golf balls get the fuck out of here holy shit because he was gonna live it wasn't like a life it's not right you know so but they had a laugh because when they took it out he said it went on the table like hard as a fucking, just slammed on the table. Usually the little tiny things, he goes, they hit so hard. They still, they laughed that they were like, we've never seen this, this big.

And he's like, I didn't, he was in pain, but he didn't know it was like that. And he goes, the surgeon goes, surgery goes, I never seen these. We might have to save these. And he goes, well, he goes, we might have to save these to show other people. This might go in the books. They were going to to measure it and how because it was one of the biggest i'd ever seen and now he looks like he's got stab wounds man but he still made it to australia shut out to him they still came down they still came down and did the thing with us that i think would kill me oh bro i have to talk to like people before i make a flight that's that

long it was deep it was too deep too deep it was too deep i'll die on a plane like that. 16 hours. They're like, you know, we can't land. And I'm like, I know how planes work. You can't just be like, we're going to go right down real quick and get you on the ground. That was the first thing I thought. I said, what if there was a medical emergency on the plane? That person's dead. Well, no, but you know what they told me? There's little islands all over the place that they have for emergency landing spots on the way.

Oh, is that right? I've thought about this before. Yeah. Well, first of all, you reach Hawaii. Then you get to, like, Fiji. And then you can do either, you know, what's it called? Papua New Guinea and all those islands. There's so many fucking islands out there.

They can get you somewhere. And then good luck to you. Good luck, dog. Yeah, you land in Papua New Guinea. We're out of here. Like, oh, man. They're like, listen, we can save you, Ryan, but we have to get to Papua New Guinea. You're like, just get me to Australia, man. What language are these people? Push're out of here. They're like, listen, we can save you, Ryan, but we have to get to Papa New Guinea.

You're like, just get me to Australia, man. What language do they speak? Push me out the plane. I only know English. What do they speak, dude? I got an A in English, but it was Shakespeare, bro.

I don't know. I don't know. Where'd you shoot Lefty's son? The Dynasty here in LA. Oh, that's right. You said that. Yeah, Jamie. Shout out to Jamie.

Is he still over there? That's his too, right? Hell yeah, man. The Dynasty here in LA. Oh, that's right. You said that. Yeah, Jamie. Shout out to Jamie. Is he still over there? That's his too, right? Yeah, hell yeah, man. They do a great job. Everybody go watch Lefty's son right now. You're one of my oldest friends, one of my favorite comics because you're in a corner. It's cheesy. I hate the phrase, but a guy's guy, like the old school guy's guys.

Because for a long time in comedy, it's like a bad thing to be a guy. Everyone wanted to be like the smart nerdy, but you're still a guy's guy. There's like seven of us that like sports. That's it. Really, truly. That's it. And I know when I can talk to you, I know every time I'm like, oh, he'll be excited that baseball season started.

Cause you commented, you said, what's up with the Oakland A's hat. I support, I support those Oakland boys. I like the elephant up there. I asked you if you threw out a first pitch. I never done it I'm saying now the Orioles are starting to get good I'm like god damn it my chances are going to be down here I was asking you when we were last place in the league

not the AL East in baseball when the bird was out there throwing them out because they couldn't get anybody I'm available I'll fly to throw a first pitch can you throw you think you can huck still with your back now you know what damn good question there too it's gonna be underhanded for you baby a minute before i can throw but i if they call me

i'll be ready i'm going from the rubber though you will you would go from the rubber you're not doing that bullshit from the front the dirt the fake yeah no the fucking t-ball pitch no you got to go from i'm going from the mound. What I said I said the other day. I'm hitting the rosin bag, too, a little bit. Dropping it down. You ever see Swartzen? You know Swartzen did it at, I think, the Twins. Minnesota, yeah, of course.

And he did the fake pickoff, the first, and then the third. Did he? Oh, that's huge. Dude, dude. There's a brother in Payne's arms. He was almost blind from his surgery and all that stuff he said he would i he had like pre pre uh pre-diabetes or whatever and it messed up messed up his vision for a minute and this motherfucker we're out at sushi and sportsman's

phone you know it looks like one of those phones that you see on tv for old people where they're like for 12.99 a month you know dude each, each letter was this big. He was reading it from here. What the fuck are you doing, bro? He had to scan. One sentence took him five minutes to get through. Slowly scanning. He's doing this. That's comedy.

Comedy is pain, pain, and then tragedy. And then we made up for it. I'm so stoked that you're alive. I know i said that seven times i am too and thank you fuck me up man as much as you want oh i was at the bag i was at baggage claim uh waiting to catch my next flight i remember when i called you on the phone uh and it did didn't really settle set in until i stopped talking to you until i hung up that i was like i really hope you're okay i mean it really kind of you don't think about it when you're young and then you get older and friends have real things happen and you're like, I really hope you're okay. I mean, it really kind of, you don't think about it when you're young.

And then you get older and friends have real things happen. And you're like, fuck, it really does hit you in a hard way that you, you always think everyone's going to be, I'll see you again. There's been a lot of comedians dying too. Emily was hitting me up, Emily LaFleur. And I was like, you're not putting me on that motherfucking marquee. I promise you that. Don't put me on that fucking marquee.

You get on that death sign out front. Make God laugh. Put me on the wall, but keep me off that motherfucking sign. Don't put me up on that fucking sign. Fuck that sign. I'm not making God laugh. Don't do that shit to me yet. Make God laugh.

Uh-uh. Hell no. But you know what? The thing I felt when I was traveling a lot, because there is a moment when you're living overseas that it hits you that you are far away from home. And I was traveling a lot because there is a moment when you're living overseas that it hits you that you are far away from home and I was far away from home and I was like man if anything happens

this is where I am now so it does make you value coming home and seeing people like seeing your daughter and hanging with her because you're like dude it's it's hard being out there. We did April Fool's jokes today and shit on her mom What'd you do? Well, yesterday we lied to her and told her that she had knots in her hair,

and I took her to the hairdresser, and we lied and said she had to have it cut real short like a boy, and I didn't say anything. I'm on the phone, and her mom's like, and then she goes, Stella, are you okay? And I didn't have to look back at my daughter or nothing. She just went, no, and you okay? And I didn't have to look back at my daughter or nothing. She just went, no. And I was like, fuck yeah.

I could hear her mom's anxiety set in. Oh, my God. And I was dying. I was like, we fucking got her. And then today she came to pick her up. And over the door we put a Halloween bucket full of just, like, confetti and shit so that when she opened the door It hit her on the head and spilled on her You're liking this shit whether your daughter is I'm like that's gonna hit mom. She's like it's okay. I'm like it is

Look I love you. I appreciate you forever Listen everyone at home for the for the thousandth time because we mean it, please go watch Lefty's Son. The link is in the description below. It's on YouTube, available right now. Go watch it. We end the show the same way. You look in that camera and you say one word or one phrase to take us out. I think I know what it's going to be.

Go ahead when you're ready. One word? Or one phrase. Or a phrase. I can make it a phrase. It's great to be alive. Go watch Lefty's Son. In here, we pour whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey.

You are that creature in the ginger beard. Sturdy and ginger. Like vampires, the ginger gene is a curse. Gingers are beautiful. You owe me $5 for the whiskey and $75 for the horse. Gingers are hell no. This whiskey is excellent. Ginger. I whiskey is excellent. Ginger.

I like gingers.