WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 510 - David Huntsberger

Episode Date: June 29, 2014

Comedian David Huntsberger has a life story unlike any Marc has heard on WTF. It involves roping, branding, rodeos, engineering, horse shoeing, anvils, alcoholism, barrel racing, Last Comic Standing and Tig Notaro. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Calgary is an opportunity-rich city home to innovators, dreamers, disruptors, and problem solvers. The city's visionaries are turning heads around the globe across all sectors each and every day.

They embody Calgary's DNA. A city that's innovative, inclusive, and creative. And they're helping put Calgary and our innovation ecosystem on the map as a place where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look at CalgaryEconomicDevelopment.com. Are we doing this? Really? Wait for it. Are we doing this? Wait for it.

Pow! What the fuck? And it's also, eh, what the fuck? What's wrong with me? It's time for WTF. What the fuck? With Mark Maron. All right, let's do this.

How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucking ears? What the fucking, buddies? What the fucking ears? What the fucking ucks? What the fuck? I'm in a car. I'm driving through Indiana. This is Mark Maron.

This is WTF. You know who I am. What do I even got to go into it? Let me try to capture the feeling and the moment of what's happening right now. I'm recording this in a car. Why didn't I record it in my hotel room? I could have, but I didn't because I thought I was all set. Everything was going to be okay. I'm just going to fly from Indianapolis.

Oh, I'm going to drive there first from Bloomington, which is where I was. I got two local comics in the car, Josh and Jordan. They're just going to sit here and be quiet, I guess. Look, there's corn. There's corn, you guys. That doesn't surprise you, though, does it? No, not at all. It's corn country. I'm not being condescending. It's just a reality of America. There happens to be a lot of corn around,

especially in Indiana. What is on this truck? Oh my God. How often do you see this? It's a carnival in transit. Look at that little roller coaster. I just saw a roller coaster on a truck, you guys. And this is another ride. It's the Sizzler. That's a ride. I just saw a roller coaster on a truck, you guys. And this is another ride. It's the Sizzler. That's a ride. I just saw two rides on a truck, and they're more corn. This is America. I feel like I should break into the national anthem right now. What's happening?

So you wonder about the road life. Some of you really enjoyed that episode of Marin that was on last Thursday with me and Dave Anthony and Brendan Walsh, who played a comic, who picked me up at the airport. That happens. These guys are driving me to the airport. I don't know why there's two of them. I guess one of them felt like he might fall asleep on the way back. He was looking out for himself.

Might need someone to talk to. What was it, fellas? Talk to. Talk to? Yeah, we're working on projects. They're working on projects in the car. They're doing a, what are you doing? Putting together, we got a web series.

Josh and Jordan have a web series. Is it on the air now? No. It's not on yet, so look forward to that. What's it called? I don't have a name. Super Duper. It's called Super Duper?

Yeah. You're going to need a better name. All right, well, look out for that on your web. Now we're behind a bus. We had to turn the air conditioner off. Is there an accident? I'd like to do some reporting. Right now I see a downed barrel. All right, we're moving through. Today on the show, David Huntsberger, who's a comedian. He also co-hosts the podcast Professor Blastoff with Tig Notaro and Kyle Dunnigan. And I didn't really know David,

and we had an amazing conversation. It was one of those episodes where I left the garage going like, holy shit, I had no idea that that life existed. Completely surprising. Outside of the box. It involves rodeos, it involves horses. I'm not good with horses. Are you? Oh my God. Look, I don't even know if if i'm going to be using this but i'll tell you right now if i'm using it it's been a bad morning okay let me explain to you what's

happening and and i'm a little out of it i slept like five hours because i did two shows last night and i want to meet everybody that comes to the show who wants to hang out and take a picture what is that stuff over there just rocks bricks what Bricks? What is it? White things. Where's that quarry that was in Breaking Away? Do we have time to go there? Uh, not if you want to make your flight. Alright, then it's not worth it. I would like to go to that quarry. Can you jump in and swim in it? Yeah. You can?

Yeah, of course. Have you done that? No. You live here, though? Yes. And you know it's right there? Yes. Alright, I understand that. You know, maybe see if I would have thought about it earlier and I would say, hey, I'm in from out of town and I'd like to go swim in that quarry where that was in breaking away. We could have done it.

Right. All right. But I. So I fucked up. All right. So here's what happened. So I get up this morning. I got a 1240, a 145 flight out of Indiana.

And I didn't look at my connection to Chicago because I don't book my own travel. I agree to things. And I'm like, oh, it'll be fine. That sounds good. And now I've got less than an hour to connect in Chicago, which is a huge fucking airport from the T terminal, which is where these little buddy Holly planes fly into. And then I got to run with my bag that I got to wait for on the, what do you call that thing? The jetway to wherever my gate is, HRJ. And that's a nightmare. I almost died the last time that happened. So I'm recording this in preparation to wherever my gate is, HRJ. And that's a nightmare. I almost died the last time that happened. So I'm recording this in preparation to miss my flight out of Chicago to LA to record the

show in my home, in the garage. So you're experiencing me in pure preemptive panic mode. I think that's a fine name for what I do. You could say it's worrying about shit that you have no control over. I'm going to call it preemptive panic as if it's something helpful. I'm just fucking freaking out because I don't think, I don't want to be running around the Chicago airport having missed a flight trying to figure out where to record my show. There's farmhouses.

Oh man, I could live here. I had that moment in Bloomington a couple of times. It passed very quickly though. So what was going on? See, I don't want to be condescending. I had a great time in Bloomington. There was good food. I had that moment in Bloomington a couple of times. It passed very quickly, though. So what was going on? See, I don't want to be condescending. I had a great time in Bloomington. There was good food. I had good coffee.

I think I saw John Mellencamp, but it might have been a homeless guy. But apparently that's sort of the way it goes with him. We had great shows. I really love the Comedy Attic. I'm glad everyone came out. It's been kind of a weird whirlwind Midwest thing. But anyways, thank you for watching the Marin on IFC

and I'm glad you guys enjoyed it. There's more episodes coming up. I wish I remembered if I had it in front of me, which I probably wouldn't have had it in front of me in the garage either. I would be able to tell you the episode that's on this Thursday. How about I tell you Thursday? How about I just be general about it and say it's a fucking great episode

because they're all great episodes. Did that sound confident? It's not like me, is it? So David Huntsberger, who you're going to hear in a minute, like he grew up. I don't I don't even want to tip it. I'm just going to tell you this. I'm not a horse guy. Don't like horses. Not my thing. I don't know if it's a Jewish thing. I don't know if it's just a human thing. But I went to camp when I was a kid. I went to Brush Ranch in Pecos, New Mexico. And that was the kind of camp where my parents sent me. It was a non-Jewish thing. And I don't need to be specific, but I think it's important to be specific in these situations.

There are Jewish camps where Jewish kids go with different degrees of discomfort and basic crafts and whatnot. But this was not one of those camps. This was a non-Jewish camp. It wasn't advertised that way, but it didn't cater to the delicate sensibilities of Jewish kids. So what you had to do when you went to Brush Ranch is you had to buy yourself a Stetson. These were required. These were on the list. You had to have a Stetson hat. You had to have a cowboy hat. You had to have a fly fishing rod with a flywheel. God, I'm stuttering. And you had to have boots.

You had to have cowboy boots to go to this camp. And that's because when you went to Brush Ranch, you were expected to ride horses and also to fly fish and also to shoot guns, both shotguns and.22s. So this is a secret part of my life, but I did those things. And I think I have an apology to make. I do think I have an apology to make. It just dawned on me. So I show up at Brush Ranch with my hat. And then there was a guy there who was the counselor in charge of horses. His name was Gil, and he was a little scary. He had his own horse there and that was a female horse and i think this is one of those times where you learned about sex i must have been 13 or 14 years old his female horse gills was in heat and the horse in the stall next to gills wanted to fuck gill's horse really

bad and that was the first time we saw a horse's cock. And that's something you don't forget because they're huge and there's no way to recover from that. But that's not really what I want to talk about. So I get there and you get assigned a horse. So I was assigned this horse. I think the horse's name was Mums. Now Mums was an old horse. And I think this was anti-Semitic now that I think about it, I think it was Gil having a good time with the city boy from Albuquerque like that even makes sense. The Jew. Maybe I'm being a little martyry right now. Maybe it wasn't even the case. But Mum was this old fucked up horse that was bitter, that did not want to be ridden. And we had to learn how to saddle these horses. So you had to saddle it and pull the thing down. I don't remember. I might be able to do it in a pinch. Like if I had to, if like, all right, everything's on fire. There's some horses.

Damn, they need a saddle. I bet you it would come back to me. Whether I would have the courage to get on the horse, don't know that for sure. But I'd have to assume if I was in survival mode, I would fucking ride like the Lone Ranger. I wish I had a better reference. All right, so I fucking ride like, uh, like the Lone Ranger, I wish I had a better reference, all right, so, I got this horse, trying to figure out how to saddle this horse, and this horse

reaches around and bites my side, bites my fucking side, and you know what, that marked the end of my experience with horses, because there was no, it was a nightmare, and, and I could not saddle the horse, because it would always bite me, and it's paralyzing, it was a nightmare. And I could not saddle the horse because it would always bite me. And it's paralyzing. It's a paralyzing fear right now. Right now I'm feeling it. Because let's be honest, horses are like dinosaurs. They're huge. They're bigger than me anyways. And people are always like, well, you just have to not show fear. How is that possible? You don't think the horse can sense my 13 or 14 year old fear after it's bitten me and made purple marks. Horses are not my thing. I rode, but I bounced. It was hard

to get a gallop going. I never fell off a horse, but I was never comfortable on a horse. And I think all of you need to know that about me. So what's the amends I have to make? Well, I'll tell you. I'll tell you what that is. There was this dorky kid named Jeff. This is a sad thing, but it was pretty hilarious. All right. There was this kid named Jeff who come from Texas. You know, he comes from a, you know, rich Texas family. He thought he was a real cowboy, but he was just, you know, kid that was a little too arrogant. And, you know, look, I, you know, I didn't come up with this. This was not my idea. All right. But I did go along with it. So that makes me part of the bullying process. Okay. All right, Jeff, if you're listening to this,

this is a heartfelt amends. Let me see if I can frame it correctly. All right. You know how when we were at Brush Ranch and we had to load our own shotgun shells? Well, we had to do that. We had to load our own shells to shoot skeet. And, you know, we had a do that. We had to load our own shells to shoot skeet. And, you know, we had a counselor. I'm going to call him Mike because, well, I want to protect him. But his name was Mike. So Mike would show us how to load him up. You had this machine where you you'd fill it with I think the powder went in first and then the plastic piece and then the buckshot. It wasn't buckshot, but it was shot. It was smaller ones. And then you sealed the top of the shell. So Jeff was really annoying. We all hated him.

He was cocky and stupid. And, you know, he just annoyed everybody. He was just horrible. And we loaded him a double shot in a shotgun shell. Like there was no pellets in it. It was just all gunpowder. So the kick was going to be pretty bad. and it was just all gunpowder.

So the kick was going to be pretty bad. So somehow or another, you know, we were able to get him that shell when we were shooting skeet, and we were just all waiting. We were all waiting for Jeff to shoot the double-loaded shell at the skeet and be knocked on his ass. And sure enough, Jeff goes, pull, and he took his shot and ended up on the ground. It just went boom and knocked him right over.

It was hilarious for about three seconds until he started crying, and then we all felt bad. And I'm sorry, man. That was a shitty thing to do. You were in good form, though. You were in good form. You probably would have hit that clay pigeon hadn't it been for us laughing briefly and then feeling bad for what we did.

So we're all sorry. I'm going to speak for the group of us, Jeff. We're sorry. All right. And also, I guess to close this up, just so you know this about me, I can tie a fly. It's another thing I learned at Brush Ranch. These are all very practical things for when I got to go off the grid. I can ride a horse if necessary and saddle it as long as it doesn't bite me and sense my fear. I know how to load shotgun shells and shoot skeet and miss primarily, but I think it's just the effect of having a gun is usually all you need. And also, like if I'm pushed to the wall, I can tie a pretty effective fly and catch trout in a stocked pond

if you throw food pellets around where you cast your line. So I'm ready. I'm ready. All right, let's talk to David Hunt. We can wait for clean water solutions. Or we can engineer access to clean water. We can acknowledge indigenous cultures. Or we can learn from indigenous voices. We can demand more from the earth. Or we can demand more from ourselves. At York University, we work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth

at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. David Huntsberger. That's right. I don't really know you.

No, we don't. But I keep seeing you around and you seem like a smart guy and a funny guy and you do a podcast with Tig, Professor Blastoff. Yeah. Yeah, we don't know each other where the hell do you come from man how old are you what i know you are you a child

no i'm 34 really yeah i'm an adult how long you've been doing stand-up 12 years wow not quite almost 12 yeah yeah i started uh open mics in 2002 where i started at the comedy store in San Diego initially, and then moved to Austin a couple of years in. Austin, Texas. Yep. And that's where... Why'd you do that? I don't know. Then I would tell people that I was working a lot in San Diego. It was way more expensive and i didn't feel like i was getting to devote enough time to one the lazy life i wanted and more than that to like focus on comedy so where were you working then i substitute tot thinking like day one of comedy well i'm gonna need some free time at the drop of a hat if i get some gigs not knowing i've known a

couple of substitute teachers todd bar Berry used to be a substitute teacher. Oh yeah? Uh huh. It was good for me because you have to develop this fake persona of like confidence in front of a room which I wasn't naturally. With children? With children. How old were they? I did every single grade. So kindergarten up through 12th graders. Really?

Yeah. Kids and drunk adults are not that dissimilar. I would imagine drunk adults you probably have a better shot at managing. Maybe. There's a threshold. Like fifth graders I found to be really great. They don't have any pompous. How old is that?

That's like 10, I think. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Hormones aren't kicking in yet, but when they're younger, they don't mean any harm. They just can't follow instructions. Their ability to pay attention is so limited that they just wander off and they go, hey, hey, where are you going? Yeah.

And once they get about 10, they know that they're supposed to sit in their chair or they're not supposed to get up and wander off. But what did you do? You went to college for teaching? No, I went to college and got a degree in engineering. What does that mean? it's a strange story i i was on the rodeo team in high school all right hold on back up yeah it wait this all ties in uh but yeah let's back up wait okay all right so rodeo team engineering substitute teaching comedy austin all right where'd you grow up man man? Reno, well, like 15 miles north of Reno, Nevada.

Really? Mm-hmm. How the, why there? What kind of assorted business? So my parents met in New Mexico. They went to college there. I grew up in New Mexico. I did know that.

I watched the show. No, I've seen the first season of the show. I liked it. Oh, thanks, buddy. Yeah, it was good. And they met in college. At University of New Mexico? New Mexico State. Oh, thanks, buddy. Yeah, it was good. And they met in college. At University of New Mexico? New Mexico State.

Down in Las Cruces? Las Cruces, yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah, and I was there a while ago and saw some of their old college friends. Well, it was probably like five or six years ago. In Las Cruces? In Las Cruces, yeah. They're still down there?

They're college friends? People don't leave Las Cruces? They said, this is it? Yeah, they said, we're going to- We're going to settle in las cruces new mexico yeah oh my god it has some pretty qualities there's a rock outcropping i enjoyed well it's like southern new mexico there's some stuff down there it's not too far from white sands or carlsbad caverns i think you can you know it's sort of like some of the landscape

is sort of texan in a way oh definitely uh but yeah i mean okay cruces is all right it's a real city yeah and not a that's no that's an over Cruces is all right. It's a real city. That's an overstatement. You know, it's a thing. It's got that, there's like a dairy or something there you have to drive through that's just- Creamland dairy, maybe? There's a dairy? A dairy. It might be a slaughterhouse, but it's a lot of cattle.

Oh, yeah. And it's a feedlot for sure, but it smells the whole town up. So that's what I think of Las Cruces. The stink. The stink of Las Cruces. Not far from where atom bombs were conceived or tested anyways. All right, so they meet there. And what's your old man?

What do they do? So my mom had done a little bit of rodeo type stuff, barrel racing, that sort of thing. But she was actually getting her degree in like animal science. Hold on a second. Your mom had done a little barrel racing. You kind of throw that away like, you know, like stuff moms do. Barrel racing, some rodeo stuff. Yeah, yeah.

And she... So you come from horse people. Yeah, kind of. My dad, though, was born and raised in Los Angeles or the Camarillo area. Yeah. And I think was one of those guys that had an affinity for the cowboy lifestyle and then went to college and got a degree in range management. And then after college, got offered a job.

Range management. Yeah. That's a thing. Like a rancher. Yep. So of course that's a job. That means like, you know, let's say you got a herd or two, got a certain amount of land.

Yeah. You've got certain lots that they can go and into and out of. Yeah. You got certain gates you got to keep open and closed. You got to make sure wells are working. You got to make sure there's hay and whatever you're feeding the thing. It could be several different kinds of animals. Yeah.

My dad's real good with knowing like uh different types of plants and yeah how many animals you can have at a certain amount of water if a spring or a well is giving off however many oh he can he can test how many gallons are coming out versus how many cows are going to drink it and what each cow will drink maybe i don't know i haven't really seen him do too much but i do know walking you haven't seen the hands-on range management uh expertise your father not sadly i was like we never will like when we go fishing he'll point out like that's this type of bush that's about the most i've seen of it really this guy knows the name of bushes but beyond that can you eat it or not will we be eating that my dad uh got a job offer to uh be a foreman of a ranch like 50 miles north of reno and so he and my mom moved out to where the mailbox was like 10 miles away i mean there's

nothing it's just a long dirt road and this ranch back in there and so i spent the first three years of my life there and then they got divorced and we trickled down into Reno and then Reno is like I've never been there but my my mind and in my heart the one or two times I was there it felt like a morally bankrupt place yeah it's hard for me to am I wrong Macy like there's people in Reno gonna take that personally maybe it isn't it's just like it's not Vegas yeah it's not Vegas. Yeah. It's sort of like, I don't know. It seems like the next stop over. Yeah. It has a charm. It has a personality.

And people, there's an old Reno that's great. I mean, everything that Colorado is sort of revered for of like biking and mountains and lakes. There's all of that there. People, whatever you'd want to find outdoors, it's there. Nevada is beautiful. It's gorgeous. It's like 4,500 feet there. It's at the foothills of the Sierras.

And it is cowboy country. Yeah. I mean, you know, like there's a certain type of cowboy that comes out of, I think, California, Nevada, Colorado. I mean, they're Oklahoma cowboys. Yeah. Texas cowboys. But there's definitely a real ranch-oriented, real American cowboy up there.

I was in Iowa once once and I saw these guys come in with like spurs on their boots and I was like, you don't even have hills here. Like we used to like ride our horses over really rocky, dangerous stuff.

You did? Yeah, yeah. I spent a lot of my like high school years doing ranch work and stuff. And so... What? Yeah.

Like it's pretty... Was that the one, the rodeo club times? That's where it came in, yeah. I always roped, you know, like just branding calves and things like that. Whoa, you branded? Yeah, I've branded and all that. And...

Whoa, wait, whoa, whoa. All right, so wait. All right, so your dad's a ranch engineer. A ranch, what is it? He was like a foreman of that ranch. But what was his name? What was his degree? Oh, a range management.

Range management. Yeah. And your mother was a rodeo barrel racer. Yeah. Is that what it was? A race? A barrel race? Yeah, she was a barrel racer.

A barrel racer. Yeah. On the horse, whipping around those barrels. Whipping around the barrels. Her parents used to let her, when she was like 15, just take off with the truck and trailer and a CB radio and just head off to rodeos and she would compete. And she had this horse. It was kind of like a wonder kind of,

of barrel racing horses. If you left barrels in a corral, he would just race them on his own. He just really, your pedigree is, you know, uh, livestock and agriculture people and,

and, uh, horses. Yeah. All right. So, all right. So you,

you, your parents divorce, you go to Reno. Yeah. With right. So your parents divorce. Mm-hmm. You go to Reno. Yeah. With your mom. With my mom through, and then we moved to Lemon Valley, which is north of Reno. It's so strange.

Our address had Reno on it, so I never associated being in a small town, but it was one stoplight, a general store, a school and some houses. When did your mom decide like, we got to get this kid on a horse? Was that something that was a no brainer for her? Oh yeah. Yeah. When I was like one, there were pictures of me being led around on the back of a horse.

And then it was important to them. It just was what they did. You know, they had horses and- You had horses as a child. Yeah. Yeah. I grew up with horses. And then as we moved into the city more,

and neither of my parents made a ton of money, we were like those people that had horses, but it was a struggle. We were always trying to hunt. To keep the horse. Yeah, always figuring out ways to fix fences or come up with feed for cheap and stuff like that. That's a sad time.

It was fine. I mean, I'm sure for them it was a lot more of a struggle. Did you ever have to put a horse down? and stuff like that. That's a sad time. I was fine. I mean, I'm sure for them, it was a lot more of a struggle. Did you ever have to put a horse down? Yeah, that barrel racing horse that ran the barrels of my mom's. The amazing horse. Yeah, he got real old and angry.

He would just like try to attack people. Like anything old, usually. Yeah, and it was not fun to, have you ever seen that happen? I mean. What, to a horse? To just an animal in general. Where they get really old and they're just like, they look like little old people and

they're just mad. You can see all their bones. Yeah, they were just mad. Their eyes get real sunken. So because it was so well cared for, it probably outlived its expectancy. Yeah. And it knew it. It's like, I should be dead.

Oh, absolutely. I think it's just like, I can't, there's nothing I can do in here to end it myself. So who had to take, put it put it on, put it down? Uh, my mom called a vet out. Oh, he did that way. Yeah. Just for some reason in my mind, I thought I just wanted to, I pictured you shooting a horse.

I, that almost happened once. My dad had an older horse. Like, so my mom's college horse was that one, you know, younger horse. My, and then I learned to ride on both of these horses and my dad had one that a few years later was in the same shape just grossly you know bony and ugly and yeah the vet came out and gave him a shot yeah and we thought like oh it's gonna boost him up he'll be back he'll be all healthy again yeah and then the horse my dad and i were out on the porch he started walking through a ditch and then he started to go up the other side.

There's maybe like a foot, a foot and a half of water, and his knees got all wobbly, and he fell over backwards into the water. Yeah. Oh, and he broke that thing. So I ran out there. No, he just, his head was underwater. Oh my God. So I ran out, jump in the water, and lift his head up, and this is the craziest thing.

It should have been really traumatic. Yeah. I was probably like 16 or 17 the horse just goes and i see his eye roll over sees me along the way but just like rolls back in his head and then dead just this horse i'd like learn to ride on just laying there in your lap yeah his head yeah but not in not in a weird traumatic way it wasn't even that impactful emotionally my dad came out. He was holding a gun.

I thought he was going to have to shoot him. And he just looked at me. He's like, are you okay? I was like, yeah, I think I'm fine with this. It was way easier to see that than the shot, the needle, that my other horse had to do, or my mom's horse. Because you had to sit there with the horse as it died. Yeah, it's just weird.

Do you get emotionally connected to these animals? Oh, yeah, definitely. There's a weird thing where horses, you connected to these animals? Oh, yeah, definitely. There's a weird thing where horses, you spend so much time with them and on them, and it's quiet out there that, you know, a rabbit will jump or something, and they move, and you just kind of move with them, or you sense their body language, and there's definitely a connection. Between you and your animal. Yeah, yeah, it's a symbiotic.

Really? Mm-hmm. It's a symbiotic. Really? Mm-hmm. It's pretty cool. I always enjoyed that about the Native Americans, their ability with horses. I'm sure a lot of people would think that was weird spiritual nonsense, but there's definitely something there. Really? Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely. What more than twitching? What do you feel when you get to know a horse? Because I was petrified of horses because I went to a camp and i for a couple years with a horse and they're just too big and they sensed my fear and i didn't know how to to navigate a relationship with them or take control of them yeah i mean i imagine since you were around them for so long that was sort of second nature. You never thought like, well, this horse is going to get the best of me necessarily. Yeah.

I started, so I had a horseshoeing business out of college. I did it through college as well to just make money, putting shoes on horses. Where did you go to college? Were there, this business was something you could do? I went to Fort Collins, which is in- Colorado, yeah. Yeah. You had a shoeing business while you were in college?

Yeah, I was working at this Italian place and- And what does that mean, an Italian place? Like making paninis. Oh, okay. And I was making no money and I wasn't getting enough time to study. And then I was like, someone needed a horse shod. And I was like, I can make 50 or 60 bucks in like an hour or two, as opposed to when I'm waking here in a week.

So I just like put an ad out and started going around and doing that how do you do that i bet you know like the thrifty nickel things like that no but how do you how do you shot horses oh i you know my dad uh when i was younger his back wasn't too great so i'd watch him struggle with it and then i'm like just let me help you so when i was like 14 he kind of gave me some pointers and showed me how to do it and then but you you like i'm picturing a blacksmith making the shoe you can buy the shoe or did you actually hammer out the shoe you bought i've done both i as i got into it more i i bought a forge and i could you know black sports shoes a little bit really not from bar stock like a lot of people do that but i would buy yeah like just kind of blank shoes and then you know you just tweak a little bit yeah but you're in college yeah so yeah this

i i start shoeing horses the end of that story is that i i was working for a guy and when i moved to san diego after college and i went into a pen and just the horse turned its butt to me and i just shoved it away yeah which is a standard kind of a horse move. But if you didn't know horses, that would look really weird. Yeah. And he was just kind of like, oh, all right, you can work for me. You kind of know what you're doing.

Wait, this was in San Diego? Yeah. But wait, let's get back to the, you're like, I'm done making sandwiches. Yeah. Might as well put an ad in the paper to, you know, shoe horses. Yeah. There were enough horses in the Fort Collins area. Yeah. San Diego was the best. Colorado, they're all There were enough horses in the Fort Collins area. Yeah.

San Diego was the best. Colorado, they're all spread out. It's everyone owns so much in New York. I just want to know where you set up. Were you in a dorm room? Yeah. You were in a dorm room. I would drag my anvil up into the room.

No, you're lying? I'm dead serious. And then I had a pickup truck, and when I got a call, I'd take all my gear. Yeah. You had a roommate. I had a roommate. And you were the guy who had an anvilvil and you're hammering horseshoes. Yeah.

And he's what? Smoking weed? What's he doing? He lived in Colorado Springs. He worked at Red Lobster. So we were both bringing terrible smells into that room. Him smelling like cooked fish. And you're smelling like horses.

Yeah. But you got an anvil. Yeah. And you're like, are you going to be, can I, are you studying? Because I need to hammer out i need to pound some horseshoes i wouldn't be pounding anything in the room that's all on site oh so you brought oh you just brought the anvil out of the truck because you want no one to take it exactly yeah steal your anvil that was your college i got an anvil stolen in in my life that

like my great-grandfather had given to my uncle who gave to me and some anvils are passed down in families absolutely well yeah i guess so i mean because no one needs them so i'm to my uncle who gave to me and someone stole it. Anvils are passed down in families? Well, yeah, I guess so. I mean, because no one needs them. So I'm sure my uncle was like, I'm going to give you this. But in his head, he's like, thank God I can get rid of this. Just a big piece of metal. It's just weight. Yeah.

It's just this giant piece of weight. So you lost your family anvil? Mm-hmm. Because someone took it. It was a big deal. Like it was something that my dad and I were like, we'll never tell anyone. Yeah, we could not share this. Who was there to tell?

My uncle. My dad thought my uncle was gonna, I don't know what he would have done, but we were both scared. Like this is a family keepsake and you lost it. You irresponsible child. Did you cry? I drove back to where I thought it had been

and like knocked on doors. I went around to strangers. Have you seen an anvil laying around out here in the street? And they were like, no, I think I would know that if I saw an anvil. But that was important. Absolutely. Yeah. I was so mad.

I don't, I hate losing things. And especially something that had, you know. The heirloom anvil. Yeah. Our one family thing. All right right so you got your anvil in your dorm room and and so you're you got a truck you bought a pickup you grew up with pickups grew up with pickup trucks yeah it's weird like i i didn't know you and i you know and i you know i didn't know uh you know i've seen some of your comedy and we've talked briefly here and there

and uh no idea. And no idea. There's no idea. I thought you were like David Steinberg or something. You were like this smart, do kind of straight up stand up, not too much goofiness, just intelligent jokes. And now we're talking about heirloom anvils.

Yeah, everyone probably runs into this, but people always tell you who you are. They go, oh, yeah, I'm sure those guys. Oh, yeah, they could never quite label me. You're the angry guy. You're the neurotic guy. You're the guy. I don't know who I am.

Yeah, but I certainly- But I didn't think you were the horse guy. No, and I kind of like that, that when I saw the blue collar thing become so popular, I thought, like, Jeff Fox really worked at IBM. Yeah. There's no way he's done as much blue collar stuff as i have but i just all right but okay so you made sound he rode you roped let's go back to this roping business where'd you learn how to rope so i mean you you know

you could go into a western store but not just like you know a shirt and boots place yeah but a place that you know sells grain and and ropes. Right. And you'd be like, you know, not this one. No, I like this is a good one. This has a good feel to it. It's got a good weight to it. Yeah, yeah. There's three eights and five sixteenths and then different lengths. And it's hard on your, I rope right-handed, so like your left hand's holding all the coils.

That's weird. I do too. Yeah, generally when I'm roping, I rope right-handed. You rope right-handed? Yeah, I do. We could team up then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we have a different definition of roping. I rope right-handed. You rope right-handed? Yeah, I do. We could team up then. Yeah, yeah. I think we have

a different definition of roping. Yeah, my dad made me rope a bucket I think 30 times in a row and then I could like get on a horse and try it out.

And then when I was probably like 12 or 13, I got decent at it. And then- Then you started roping calves? Yeah, then, you know, being out being out like you go out to doctor calves so it's like well we got to give them some medicine so then it was just chasing them down and roping them and so you can just like fucking ride right

next to a running cow yeah rope it yeah pull it and then you jump off well it's not like in the rodeo you know like in out if you're in a pasture and there was a sick calf they're not running at full speed most of the time every now and then but they're sick so a lot of times they they're just dogged and so then you rope them and kind of slow them down gently yeah hop off your horse quietly yeah kind of work the rope down and you know get them on their side and stuff so it's not as quick and aggressive as you'd see in the right so you have a symbiotic relationship with a horse and you've had, you've owned,

how many horses have you had in your lifetime? I, there've been a lot that have come in and out of my possession, but, uh, as far as like ones that I paid for and actually owned, I, I owned one when I was 12 until I was 20.

And then I had another one kind of concurrently with that, that I still technically own, but my dad looks after her. She's still around? Yeah, she's only 20. How long do they live? They live to be about 30. Really?

Tours up to 30? Really? And they're still functioning at 20? Yeah, I roped on her at a branding last year and she was fine. That's what you do when you go see your dad? I hadn't in a while and it felt good to kind of get back to that, you know i because i've lived in alay i've kind of become this sort of like guys be gentle be easy uh you know there's a part of me that looks at it like this is so archaic why don't we just use like blow darts and knock them down and uh-huh and then you know you start doing it

and realize like their threshold for pain and and all of that is is way higher they pop up and just shake it off and walk off. Yeah, that was my question. So horses, you build a relationship with cows, they're stupid, right? Cows, I always go back and forth on. There was once where a friend of mine and I, I worked on this ranch where we drove cows

way up in the mountains and lived like 20 miles away from phones or TV for like the whole summer. And at one point we had to gather a bunch of cows in this meadow and just kind of let them settle. And Hey, so we were just sitting there like doing tricks off the back of our horses, like on the saddle. And all of a sudden this little calf came over and just kind of started

sniffing and letting us pet him and stuff. It was unsettling. It was like, he got it. That calf was like, Hey, I know I'm supposed to cross these boundaries, but fuck that man. Great. calf. And Sarah was like, hey, I know I'm not supposed to cross these boundaries, but fuck that, man.

This is great. Yeah. So then I had a hard time after that thinking like, oh, that calf's going to be one of them. The rest I don't care about so much. I think if you open the gate and let them go wild, they'd be killed immediately by other predators. But I felt so bad for this little one. The gifted calf. Right.

The special one. The one that gets it. He gets it, man. He's the goodwill hunting of these calves. So the branding thing. So you went back up a year ago. You've been living in LA how long? Five years.

And your dad, like he wears a hat. Do you put a cowboy hat on when you? Yeah, I own a hat. I like wearing it, you know, but I. You don't wear it here. No, I. Where do you keep it? At my house. I have like a little hat rack I like wearing it, you know, but I... You don't wear it here. No, I... Where do you keep it? At my house.

I have like a little hat rack I made and put it on there. So you made a hat rack. Do you have an... Do you currently own an anvil? Yes, I do. But again, it stays at my dad's. So I don't have it here in LA. Yeah. Your dad is where?

Outside of Reno still? Yeah, he lives about 30 miles east of there now. So you go see your dad. You guys get along well? Yeah. Yeah, we're in a good spot. We've gone through our trials and tribulations, but we get along pretty well. What were those about?

You know, same old stuff as everybody, like substance abuse, those sorts of things. What was your substance? That was him. It was just him drinking. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. substance that was him it was just him him drinking and oh really yeah so we kind of it's i don't know if you do this in your life but i find people that have similar behaviors

where like that you grew up with yeah that's all we do that's all everyone does right yeah but you know it's like the trick is is like you know here's the the fucked up thing about that is that once you're aware of that like like you, you realize that like, well, the reason I can't meet a normal person is that it doesn't even register. What's going to register is this bullshit I came from. Right. So then you have to meet somebody who,

who actually is symbiotic with you in that bullshit and hope that they're mindful enough to want to do it differently. So it's just like when you meet somebody and you're like, this feels great. That's, that's the last time that'll feel great because you're like all right this is you know this is real so now we start working on it so you know within a week you're like all right that was the honeymoon phase and now let's hammer this shit out because you're triggering all kinds of

stuff in me yeah i'm just i'm just dealing with that now i waited a long time though before being in a relationship and i went through a lot of like maybe he's just gay or maybe he's asexual or putting those things like being afraid to invite anyone in or being afraid to put all that on them and now my girlfriend she comes from like a cartoonishly well-adjusted you thought you were gay no no other people would you know show up to family events year after year with never bringing anyone home they'd be like all right buddy we get it yeah you're okay it's okay yeah don't don't bring it around here but we'll accept you yeah and i was just like i'm fine with that but you were just shut down yeah i just when i you know a lot of high school you know not wanting to bring anyone home so i spent i just like oh why was that bad

it was pretty bad yeah it just was we lived in a tiny house and uh was just your dad or you have a woman at that time too just my dad yeah it's just my dad so what was he like uh angry drunk or just yeah just pick at you that sort of stuff you know just like from a table with a drink or from a chair it started at the table and then we we'd sit down and watch tv and he'd be in one sort of recliner chair and i'd be in another and then you just feel the head turn toward you yeah oh boy yeah yeah and then what was it it would just be sometimes it'd just be the staring and then you think you're pretty good don't you know that yeah stuff like that so i still now on occasion i would never lay this on my dad i don't think it's him but you know

would like self-esteem things be like is it okay to to feel? Yeah, I feel all right. This is okay. I don't think I'm too cool, do I? But that's interesting though. So did you find yourself involved with people that picked on you? I just wouldn't let anyone in. I just was hardly ever involved with anyone at a level where like I would share anything like that. Out of fear.

Fear and then just being picky also, just being kind of like i i don't feel like i met anyone that really well when you get assaulted by you know a drunk dad emotionally it has an effect i mean they're they they know it's gonna hurt you over and over again yeah you just learn how to sort of callous to it yeah and that callous be is what you walk through life with you know you just assume someone's gonna come at you oh it. Yeah. And that callus is what you walk through life with. You just assume someone's going to come at you. You think you're all that, huh? Yeah.

You're like, no, no. Yeah. There is something to that that I... Yeah. I let that callus go down, I think, quite a bit. And then when Tig was diagnosed with cancer, I was feeling things a lot more than I had in a long time. Like, oh, I'd let it kind of open up a little bit.

It's an amazing moment. Yeah. It's really... I almost missed the long time. Like, Oh, I'd let it kind of open up a little bit. It's an amazing moment. Yeah. It's really, I almost missed the callus. Like, ah, this. Yeah.

It's, it's, it's, it's exhausting, but it's also, uh, you know, it,

it, it shows that you, you know, you care and that your heart is functioning properly. You know, the other, the other option is just to feel. And if you've shut down the feelings long enough,

you know, all you can do is cry for weird reasons. You know what I mean? As soon as you don't do all the things that you're used to and someone's coming at you with real pain or real emotion, you're just like, I don't know why this is happening, but I think it's good. I think I'm crying now.

It's good, right? This is good. This is what normal things feel like. Yeah, it's crying. I'm not yelling. I'm not's crying. I'm not yelling. I'm not running away. I'm just crying. So, when T got cancer, you felt?

Yeah, I felt a little bit like exactly that. Like, oh, this is normal. This is probably how most people should process this. Yeah, yeah. It's okay. You can handle it. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't like someone was going to pop out like, are you crying, you pussy?

Or something like that. Well, you guys were pretty close. I mean, were you guys doing the podcast every week and you were friends? I mean, how'd that podcast come about, the Blast Off? How do you know her? Well, we lived together. I met her at Last Comic Standing in 2006

and then I lived in Austin then and when she would come through, her and Martha Kelly were doing the Crackpot Tour and they'd check in with me, see if I want to be on the show or we'd go out and have a meal. I think the second time they came through town with it, they stayed at my house.

And so it's just one of those, when I'd be here in LA, I'd have dinner with her or something. And at some point I was opening for her at, she knew I skied. So she invited me to Idaho and we were in this little kind of bar

just chatting about this and that. Yeah. And I was doing a lot of material. I guess I kind of always have about, you know,

God and science and robots and things and said like, I think that'd be a good podcast and she was like, I do too and Kyle really likes

that idea. And he lived with her too, right? They're just real close. Yeah, Donegan's and he lived with her too right they're just real close yeah done again it's just real close with her so she sent him a text and said would you want to do that and he said yeah and then she knew uh you know scott and jeff at earwolf and i mean i knew scott as well but how often do professor blast off once a week once a week yeah it comes out every tuesday and uh we've been doing it you know two and a half years now, I think. Well, okay, so let's go back to,

let's go back, all right, so you got your, you go to high school, you're roping, so like when you get, is your dad still drinking? Yeah, he still is. It's weird, he's kind of gotten into a level now where he's, I will never drink with him just out of principle,

just out of a lifetime of like, I trust you now, I feel like you are a guy that can have a couple beers, but I still, it's just still it's just it's too much don't let your guard down yeah yeah and i it's got to feel horrible for him like my own son i can't even sit down and have like a couple beers with but i just feel like you blew it so do you ever have a physical fight with him no my sister told me once that my dad was like kind of preparing for that though. Oh, really?

Yeah. Like, I think I'm going to have to fight him and I will. He's training? Yeah. I don't know what he was doing, drinking more, but I never wanted to fight him. But yeah, it seemed like kind of like it might get hostile a couple of times. Because you're trying to find your own way. And at some point you have to stand up to them. Yeah. Yeah. And I, uh, it was just, I lived,

I'd, I'd lived with my mom going into high school. And then once high school came, I decided to go live with my dad. And so I lived far away from all my friends. I lived like on the opposite end of town. It's just me and my dog out there basically. And then I had these horses and I got a job riding horses for this guy that was really wealthy, which was great. He had these- Riding them? Yeah, just exercising his horses. So he had really nice horses. Did he sit there and watch you?

That's it. No, he was like five feet tall and a millionaire. So weird dynamic there. And he would come over and hike up the stirrups or put on a new saddle with shorter stirrups and then he'd ride the horse and so that i kept my mind on that a lot you know i was my horse at the time was real young so i was kind of starting her out and then i'd oddly gotten hired by a few guys around town to like break their horses so i was like kind of a bronco buster for a while and really yeah so i could kind of like just put my effort into that and i didn't

come home after school, usually like hang out with my friends. I played sports. So I would like practice. I imagine you'd take a warm bath and just sort of like, you know, put some like tiger balm on.

Yeah. Just let it all come to me, man. Well, no, but I mean, it's like, it's got to beat you up. They didn't buck that much. I mean,

really. And as a kid, you know, it wasn't, you almost want that to happen, but for the most part, they're just gentle. You're like talking about Mars to me. buck that much i mean really and as a kid you know it wasn't you almost want that to happen but for the most part they're just gentle you're like talking about mars to me you're like you almost want that to happen no i'm not frankly no uh no it's a fun feeling

like when a horse really wants you off of it and you stay on it's a very much like now are you gonna listen to me and then you're friends after that maybe do you bring a little of that to your new relationships i gotta let her know straight away you're not getting help from under me yeah yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna ride i'm staying on i'm gonna stay in the saddle no matter what but uh all right so where does comedy come into this man yeah so that all started with like the reason i moved to austin what well i just always liked comedy you know my sister from san diego but you moved to san diego for what for horses my sister had been living there and i'd done a little research and saw they had a comedy club and thought like well the weather's definitely warmer than colorado it's pretty close

to la yeah so i'll i'll start there and kind of get my feet under me so it wasn't about horses not necessarily no you got into horses in San Diego too? Yeah, and everyone there, it's like a status symbol. So they all keep their horses in one place. It's just stables. So that was great. I'd just drive to one spot. And shoe them?

Shoe, you know, as many as I could get my hands on. What's something like that pay? You know, I would, to shoe a horse for, there's all kinds of different, you know, the corrective shoeing, but for four flat shoes, back then I think I was charging like 80 bucks. And how often do they need new shoes? Every six weeks to two months. Okay.

So you get a steady, you get to know those people. And when I left to Austin. You get to know the horses? You get to know the horses a lot. There were some, you know, it's weird now to live in Los Angeles and not really have that because that was a good job. Regardless of what you're doing,

you're helping animals, which felt great. Yeah. And then at the end, you shake someone's hand and get a check and go, okay, see you later.

It's a very like wholesome endeavor. Yeah, it's earnest. It's an honest buck. Yeah. Yeah. And so I liked that. I really thought,

you know, you can see your work right there too. Yeah i looked down and go that nail's pretty horrible but uh i apprenticed for some guys there i'd always kind of gone into it in colorado like i know what i'm doing i worked on ranches yeah and then you come to find out like ranch shewers are the utilitarian they're like the hacky road comic right of right there she's probably last six weeks exactly yeah yeah just kind of to your troubleshooting all the time yeah yeah so i worked for these apprentices or these guys that were really good one guy wasn't anyway and he taught me a lot of tricks so then i went to austin thinking like they gotta have tons of horses down

there but texas is so spread out yeah i would have ended up driving it was so hot that i i never did any shoeing down there so you go okay so you went to san diego to do a little comedy but you knew you know you were your your business was sort of shoeing horses you knew how to do that and they had that there so that was good that was your day job you didn't have to make go the italian place and you're doing stand-up at the la jolla comedy store dark little fucking hole that is yeah and i wasn't feeling you know, I mean, it was a good scene. I liked all that.

I'm still friends with some of the people, but I didn't feel artistically challenged a lot of the time. I just felt like it was people trying to tell the same joke at a louder volume than the previous person. That's the comedy store style. Bully through it. Yeah, and it being expensive and all that, but it seemed weird to me that LA was just up the street. And I knew I wasn't really where I wanted to be.

And I thought Austin, I could kind of go get my bearings. And still shoe some horses. Yeah, yeah. It was like a good, I don't know what you would call it. Like if you have something you can lean on. Like, well, if nothing else, I could always just shoe horses. It's Texas. Yeah.

So you got to Austin. I got to Austin. I ended up just substitute teaching and then with your engineering degree with my engineering degree and this was great like you in san diego's like 50 pages and a background check and fingerprints in austin it was like one piece of paper i filled out and there's just a box check here if you graduated from high school check here if you graduated from high school, check here if you graduated from college. The difference in pay per day, $5. So my college degree earned me five more dollars a day. This is one of the babysitter. Yeah, exactly.

So when you did the engineering degree, I mean, what were you thinking? That's where the rodeo thing came up. I had to go get my transcripts or my grades signed off on by the school registrar every week that I wanted to go to a rodeo. And then you like send in an entry and an entry fee and all that. And so I got to know her fairly well. And she'd be like,

are you going to go to college? And I was like, I really don't know what I was studying. What were you doing in the rodeo? Just roping? Just roping. Yeah. I healed. So I was like, if you've ever seen where someone ropes the horns and then it turns, I roped the back feet, the back legs. Oh, okay. Right. Were you good? I was all right. Yeah, I did okay. Were you ranked? No.

My partner and I, we were pretty good. We were like that dark horse team where we won a couple times, but we'd win like individual rodeos. You have to win like every week, and we couldn't really afford to go that much. So our place in the points and the standings wasn't all that high. Did you ever hear of Dan Campbell? Name sounds familiar, but I don't know.

He's a contractor now, but he's a big rodeo guy. Oh, nice. He built my closet. Oh, I know old Dan. But I think he's a pretty big rodeo guy. Yeah. He did some acting work and some stunt work. He gave me a picture somewhere of him on a bucking bronco.

I know a lot of guys still that will travel down here and any big movie that has a lot of guys still that will travel down here and you know any big movie that has a lot of horses there's always a need for experts and things like that so you don't do that though no uh i wouldn't even know how to get into i mean i don't have horses i can like bring with me somewhere but well you can ride one yeah if that thing ever came up maybe an indie film will need a guy who knows how to ride a horse yeah true i and then i'm the guy. Yeah, that would have happened in Austin, I think.

The Indy Cowboy movie. Where's that? Yeah, why hasn't that? I had one that I wrote where this, I wanted to write where this guy tells his sister that if her husband cheats on her or something, he's going to kill him. And then that flash forward a few years

and the guy's just been drinking and being a rodeo bum and then the woman calls and goes hey so-and-so cheated on me and then he sets out to kill this guy like that'll be the movie but he's like roping his way to get there and stuff i never put much thought into it but it sounds like there's a little thought there's something there yeah i mean i knew a lot of those guys that just live in like essentially rv campers but can really rope or just amazingly- They just love the thrill of it. Yeah.

Yeah. But anything else in life doesn't appeal to them. Yeah. Because it's not immediate. Yeah. It's like comedy. That's kind of where I was in Austin. I just wanted to do comedy.

So I had to get all the other subbing and anything that was taking hours out of my day, I just thought like, I could be writing. So I moved to this place where I lived in the Greenbelt. I just had a porch that looked out onto trees. And I would sit there with my notebooks open to sketch comics and to write jokes. And then I would just sit there with them blank all day. I never had any thoughts for the first month I was there. Who was down there when you were there?

Lucas and Bearden? Yeah, Lucas and I were... Bearden was kind of a class above me. Was Brendan Walsh down there then Brendan he was he was just starting to work the road when I got there he and I would like wash dishes at the comedy club together did you ever see me in Cap City was I ever there yeah I told you about that set where it was like nine people and then you did like the sprint commercial after that that's right you were there I was there for that set yeah that was front room yeah and those two women were there yeah i think hunt sales was there that night too uh soupy sales son the drummer oh really and his chick yeah that was like yeah you saw that yeah i was there all

the time i was really i wanted to be like a comedy club rat or whatever for a better word and uh so i ran dishes and i worked the phones during the day. And yeah, I saw everyone there. So I definitely saw that set and remember thinking like, this is great for a weird reason. But I think the reason is because it's kind of heartbreaking. Yeah, yeah, that's good. I'm glad I gave you that experience. I'm glad I was the guy that showed you the heartbreak.

But it's awesome. I mean, so many... I don't remember it being a bad set, really. No, it was really fun. I stayed and watched the whole thing, which, you know, like how often do you do that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. It's interesting when I get into that situation because you can't really do material.

So you kind of just kind of fly by the seat of your pants and. Just your body language. You're like sitting on the stool, just crumpled. I think, I feel like I, that's become sort of a signature thing for me. Crumpled stool-age. Yeah.

That was the impetus of it. Yeah. It was probably the beginning of it. Like I eventually, yeah, it just started, like I, I, I,

I seem to have leveled off in that. I do do the stool thing. The reading through the notes and looking up at the people and no. No. Yeah. That's not gonna happen. Yeah. yeah that was great it was really fun to watch and i always feel like you kind of put earmarks or things on people like they'll do it they'll and so you want to see you be successful now it does kind of reinforce that okay my instincts are okay i have a good idea that who i think should or could get to a point beyond having nine people in

front of them. Right. Well, I think that wasn't a weekend night, was it? It was probably the Wednesday or the Thursday. Yeah, it was like the Wednesday show, yeah. Yeah, but that room in back's big, dude. It's a big room. Yeah.

I kind of like that front room. Oh, the front room's great. Yeah. At Cap City. Yeah. You get like 80 people in there and it feels jam-packed. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. yeah sorry so you

stayed in Austin for how long I so it was weird for me to get there and be at the bottom of open mics me and Lucas my truck got broken into and someone stole my stereo and that was like maybe same guy took the anvil guys following me and torturing me your whole life just taking weird items yeah just stealing things. And that stereo had been passed down from my great-grandfather. Yeah, it was a classic AM, FM, single speaker unit. Yeah, so Lucas and I went everywhere. We did Art Max Hack Shack, which was this terrible little open mic.

Just any place they had open. I like him. He used to open for me occasionally. Lucas? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's real funny and um and uh then my truck got broken into and the manager of the club was like to make it up for you you could be on like the um the mishmash show which was kind of the showcase show

yeah so i did that and then margie saw me do that margie margie coil she's the manager owner at cap city and so then they, they were like, you should do the contest, which is, I hated, the idea of that was sickening to me. I don't like it. But they talked me into it.

And then I did a spot for Comedy Central because of that. So I went from being dead last time. On Premium Blend? Yeah. So I was like last on all the open mics to suddenly like, oh, now he's going to do a TV spot. And then I did Last Comic.

Then you had a few comics hating on you a little bit but austin was i always liked that there wasn't a lot of that it was a lot of like this will be good for our scene this will be good for us in general and so it was it was much more cathartic and sort of uh communal in the let's be creative in all different ways yeah that's cool yeah that is a good community there yeah yeah i feel like it's one of the more artsy communities oh definitely so you were there once you make the jump because tig inspired you or what i i spent so even having done a couple tv spots i would like email occasionally to clubs or you know people i knew to see if i could go work. I just wanted to go do comedy. And Eddie Gosling said I could middle for him

in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Eddie. And I was going to make $400. So I took the Greyhound bus 26 hours up, 26 hours back. And then I was really like, oh man, I don't know if this road thing is the thing to do. And that's where Brendan was real helpful because when he would, he was working the road a lot then we'd be like washing dishes and he would he was

you know very much like it's gonna suck but it's good for you yeah so then i got a straight up dude that guy yeah yeah good guy yeah and uh i got a call from an agency after last comic standing and they just started looping me out on the road a bunch so what do you mean you did last comic standing yeah well okay before we get to there so so you got to know the registrar when you were signing out to go rope things and you go to college and you got an engineering degree was that just by default you didn't really she said she goes you know i think you're kind of similar to my husband and my son and they're both engineers you should look into that and so i got accepted to a school i was going to just stay in Reno

and a friend of mine kind of backed out of that deal. And so I just sent in my, yes, I'm coming there. And you check a box what you want to major in. I just checked engineering. And you went the whole ride? Yeah, I'm just stubborn. I read books all the way through. I watch a movie all the way through.

I mean, engineering did not start great. My GPA was horrible. My parents sat me down like, hey, if we're going to keep you in this, you got to prove to us that you want to be there and you got to get better grades. And GPA was horrible. My parents sat me down like, hey, if we're going to keep you in this, you got to prove to us that you want to be there and you got to get better grades. And I was like, why? I'm doing my best. And they were like, oh, okay. Just keep doing that then. Did you learn anything in engineering? Yeah. I passed the EIT or they call it the FE, which is like essentially saying,

all right, maybe you got good grades, but now you have to pass this practical thing if you ever want to be an engineer. What's on there? It's just everything you've learned in four years. What do you learn in engineering? So I did civil, which is a lot of structural things, the forces.

They should, when you go into it, just tell you like, hey, have you ever seen a building or just anything in life and wondered like how it's built and what sort of forces it has to withstand? It's that. So it's the,

how much you have to pre-stress like the rebar and concrete. So an engineer basically becomes sort of a state inspector in a way. You become the builder ant. Right. Like we want to put more people pissing and shitting on the other side of the river over there. We need a bridge. Yeah.

And that's what really didn't appeal to me. Like, I don't like people that much. I don't want them to keep spreading over the planet. Yeah. I'll entertain them. That's as far as I'll go though that was the that was the thing it's like they don't need to be on the other side of the river yeah i don't want to be part of this

yeah that's how i felt really it's just like i don't want to be part of this is gross and it was just real boring too i had like an internship where i got to do all this fun soil sample taking and stuff but they were like that's the job for the intern yeah when you work here you'll just be behind a computer and i was like i don't do that so now like when so you do premium blend out of austin so things are starting to happen and you audition for last comic standing in austin uh yeah yeah i worked at the club and i didn't want to do it i came in just was like working the phones and they were like you know bob and ross i think with the guys they're here and if you don't go they'll be very upset they'll be really offended if you don't do it and i was like

i don't like the show yeah i think it's gross and they were like you know they booked it's a night show if you don't do this you'll really be so i was like fine i'll go do it and i did a set and then you know moved on and went and did the whole i hated it what season were you um season four house and everything no i did the theater where they narrow it down to like 40 or something like that so and that was the end of it yeah and then went home from that and oh thank god yeah i was really uh there's still parts that have to bug me we had this sketch show that we were doing we had like a show planned on say like sunday but if we got cut from last comic standing we'd be home saturday so i was like let's keep our show let's let's not cancel it and my friends were like no you'll probably

end up staying in the house let's cancel the show and as soon as we got cut i was like damn it why didn't we just keep this is the thing i want to be doing i want to be on this dumb show but it got you a little traction yeah it's like anything everything i've hated has really worked out better for me than the things i really wanted to well it was the best of both worlds you didn't have to be dragged through the humiliation of of those final rounds right yeah you got a little attention a little bit yeah yeah and you get to tell your jokes on nbc i mean it's not the worst thing so yeah in hindsight it was a good thing and i should have probably been a better sport about it. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. I don't, I don't necessarily think it's, people fare that well in the long run from doing that show. Yeah. It's like star search. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. It's just like, you know, if you win or you place, you know, you get a good run for a couple of years and then you're just back sort of not too far from where you were before.

Yeah. A lot of people anyways. Yeah. I mean, it's not a testament to them. It's just the nature of that thing. You know, that, you know, it's not about comedy as much as it is about, you know, people investing in the personality through the process of the reality show element.

Yeah. And wanting to support somebody. Exactly. I remember my mom calling me going, there was this little guy on American Idol with kind of bad teeth and he didn't have the best stage presence, but I just really liked him.

And I was like, that's everything wrong with it. He's not a good artist. You just feel sorry for him. That's not fair. I guess it's sympathy or empathy or I don't know. People like seeing the struggle of people. And people like seeing normal people or people that don't

feel that different from them you know succeeding somehow even if it's just winning the lottery right so you're like sort of it seems not compelled but you create you're making and and you know by the titles like uh you know tickets still available things like that that trilogy the not sold out tickets still available final things like that. That trilogy, the not sold out, tickets still available, final engagement. Yeah, I thought it was really a plan. I thought I was going to be out after final engagement. I thought that was really going to be it. But wasn't there a freedom to that

where you're kind of left to do your own thing? There wasn't pressure. Well, yeah, no, there was pressure. There was internal pressure. But I mean, really what it came down to was that I couldn't do it any other way you know and i and i was i don't know if it was ambition or just persistence that you know i don't think i ever got into it to entertain people i just got into it because i thought that was where i could

talk and i could you know i could you know make my own choices so you know i was always very frustrated it's like if only just wrote nicer jokes or if i wrote jokes at all would be good so it was never like i never really appreciated the freedom of it until now, until the podcast, really. That was the big payoff is that I truly am free and I can do this. And then some people, now more people like me and they will come see me do the other thing. And it's all very true to i am very true to myself yeah and i'm accepted for that like before it was like i was true to myself because i didn't know how else to be and it seemed like most people didn't like it and that's not the greatest feeling in the world

i wasn't functioning on principle like fuck them you know i i'm me and they better like it it was sort of like i don't know what else to do. I'm giving you everything I can think of. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. But yeah, it was touch and go, dude, for a long time. So after Last Comic, you move out here? I did the road. I bought a station wagon through a weird series of circumstances where a friend of mine had a friend whose wife was in a sorority. Because I had my pickup truck.

I'm like, I can't work the road.'s an eight cylinder you know old pickup truck and so we wrote this sketch they they were like we've got a budget of two thousand dollars i know it's not a lot i was like tell them we'll do it for two thousand dollars so they they we didn't make that much to write like a three page script for like their rush activity yeah so we wrote this thing and they paid us you know enough for me to buy like a thousand dollar station wagon uh-huh and i i bought it like on a friday and i think saturday did a gig in el paso so you run around your station wagon yeah yeah i hauled my dog around with me a bunch and i would still have the dog it's still how he's gonna be 14 soon i mean he's heading

toward the end dogs and horses yeah how do you like i've the guys i've known that grow up in a way that you do you know not necessarily writing but but in in you know uh ranch situations they're they're very sort of like you know they they may get emotionally involved with animals but they do know there's a a limit to it oh Oh, no. I'm a baby. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. I've talked to my dog in an annoying way. I'm probably a lot like a Beverly Hills.

I mean, I'm not saying you're not loyal, but you understand that animals die. Yeah. Because there was one guy, Jim Geppner, who had a mouse problem in had a mouse problem in a story and I couldn't, I could not see mice as anything but little animals. And he's like, they're vermin. You're like cockroaches. You just kill them like bugs. I'm like, no, but they're furry.

You know, but he grew up in a ranch, you know, and he just had this sensibility about animals that was different. Oh, I'm not that way. Because I split time. I didn't grow up on a ranch. I mean, I was around them. But you know those people? Oh, I definitely do put it down yeah yeah they're the dog got loose and got into the cattle shoot it those and that to me if you could put a like a a mic on me when i was out

riding through the cows you'd hear me talking to my horse going good boy you're doing great just such a pussy when you have like like, hey, rope that thing. You got it. You know, it's just seeming tough. But when I'd have like, you know, a rope tight on my horse tied to a calf, I'd be like, thatta boy, keep holding them. I just, I wasn't as tough and rugged as everyone else. Because I'd go be in the city and go, you know, not the city, but not on a ranch.

Right. I had to kind of wear two different hats. Or wear a hat and not a hat. A hat and not a hat, yeah. But I tried to. You have a secret hat life. No one will ever know. I remember once in seventh grade wearing Wranglers,

and they were like kind of my laundry pants. And people making fun of me endlessly. Oh, look at this shit kicker hey hillbilly yeah and then so i was like i'm never wearing my wranglers again that was so embarrassing wranglers were the pants though right no they were it was levi's or nothing no but i mean when you're really doing work oh yeah absolutely yeah if you want to actually be using something that's not gonna rip wranglers for sure and then in eighth grade this kid moves to town who wore wranglers just because he dressed like a cowboy but he was a new kid so he was cool everyone starts wearing

wranglers it's the thing to do and then so same thing happens laundry day i'm wearing the wranglers yeah look at you you follower you know i had to deal with that i was like you should have challenged that guy to a rope off i know i would have destroyed him but um never did and i wonder what because i doubt he ever was around horses or something his life was probably kind of sad in that way he's reading magazines saying oh horsey and i was getting to go out and do all that stuff but i tried to keep a lot of that to a degree like with my dumb station wagon like i'd have my fishing pole in the back or my dog just i wanted to have you pull over and fish i wanted to i just wanted to think that like you don't have to sacrifice

everything to do comedy yeah i like that what that meant to you is having your dog and your fishing pole and your hat yeah and your anvil so you're driving around doing road gigs with an anvil a hat a fishing pole and a dog like i'm i'm not i dog. I got integrity still. I'm still me. You should have pulled them all up on stage. Like Demetri Martin. Yeah. Show everyone my life. Like a sort of a highbrow prop act. They're just

for show, folks. Just bring an envelope there, set it on a stool and not mention it. And then at the end go like, I shoo if anyone needs a... Is that what you would say i'll shoo it i'll shoo it yeah so you move out here after the road experience well tig would call me a lot i spent two years just staying on friends couches and it was really the most artistic i think i got to be i hauled around my scanner yeah and i would just draw comics in hotel rooms

do you publish comics i haven't published them in any sort of books or anything like that. I've sent them out and been resoundingly rejected or just ignored. But I've always put them on my website. What's your website? DavidHuntsberger.com. Okay. And it was just a thing. You know, you need some sort of outlet like that.

And I didn't play music, so I just drew a lot. Yeah. That really felt like a free time. I didn't have rent. I didn't play music so i just drew a lot yeah that really felt like a free time i didn't have rent i didn't have a relationship i didn't have really bills and so two years just zipping around and doing comedy it was great you got you got hard yeah i think i got you know built up uh a little bit of that weird callus yeah and uh and then tig called and said uh they were looking for a roommate and i said said, no, thanks. I don't really want to live in LA.

Yeah. And then a few months later, it's like, we're still looking. And then the economy really tanked. And a lot of the little gas money gigs you would get. And some of the other clubs were shutting down. And I was like, this might be a sign. So I moved to LA. And I don't know if it was a good move.

But at least I'm steady now. You're doing all right? I'm getting by. I'm doing all right. I'm getting by. I'm not flourishing. Why not? I don't think I was one of those people that envisioned it or came in with a plan. I just thought that Mitch Hedberg joke,

I got into comedy to do comedy, which is weird. And they were just sending me out on a lot of auditions for like, you seem like you'd host an E-channel show. Yeah, that's how they think. Because they think that a comic, that's a job that we're available for. Yeah, it's like you'd host like an E-channel show. Yeah, that's how they think, because they think that like a comment, that's a job that we're available for. Yeah, it's like a party favor. Oh, you can just be funny.

It's a thing you have. It's a fucking death knell, man, when you do those interstitial things, the guy holding the mic stuff. I mean, you get those. I did a few of those. And there's always this pitch from your management, like, no, it'd be good.

You learn how to read prompter. You learn how to do this. You learn how to wear other people's clothes you know yeah you know you can be yourself that's that's always the killer yeah you know they just want you to be you and then you get there and like i gotta be me and read that yeah yeah and then more energy that's all i ever heard a little more energy like you said i could be me this is get me a horse i'll show you energy so yeah i just i don't think me and this town ever synced up in like what was maybe expected and what I wanted to do.

There's time. There's time. Oh, yeah, yeah. But I mean, like, from just talking to you, I feel like you should, you know, find yourself a horse situation here. Oh, yeah. That'd be great. Why don't you?

I have no idea. What do you mean? There's horses out there. Oh, you mean like shoe horses out there oh you mean like shoe horses in burbank oh no just go find one you can ride yeah it's a thing it's like skiing how much does a horse cost depends on what you want you know if you could get a mid-range horse mid-range horse that you could enjoy you could find one for 1500 bucks okay so you get a 1500 horse and then yeah what does it cost to put it up?

It's expensive hay right now because the drought is outrageous. I like that you keep up on the hay prices. I still hear it. My dad's telling me, and I hear it. But I don't have anyone I can go chew on the end of a straw with. Yeah, hay's going up. I'm glad that you know. You're on top of that shit.

Yeah. So, yeah, I'm sure i could get my skiing at big bear just feels like we you know it's not much of a mountain it's not much mammoth mammoth's great you know so if i do ski that's where i go i try to go up near the sierras but the same thing with right i don't want to just go ride out and do a trail ride yeah it's just one of those weird things like if you've ridden a horse with like a purpose like i'm going out to gather some cattle or what it's hard to be like now i'm just gonna go do it for fun you know it's the equivalent like why don't you go take a drive in your car like i'm not i don't do that so so that feeling that you had when uh what is whatever a

year ago was when you went back to your dad and you actually did some branding, A branding, as you said. So A branding is like you do a bunch of cows. We do like, I think that day maybe like 150. So that's a hell of a day's work. Well, there's a squad though. They're probably- Yeah, but still- Oh, it's a lot of work. Yeah, it's dusty and dirty.

But you haven't done it in a while. So you're visiting your dad and he's like, I don't know if you still want to do this anymore, but we got branding kind of thing or what um he just mentioned like hey you know your uncle's gonna brand some calves this weekend he kind of tells me that every year and so if i'm gonna be out of town or whatever a lot of times like i can't i'm gonna be where does he actually need your help or does he want to spend time with you both we and we've go fishing and we we have a great relationship you know we we bond a lot in these sort of things. And my dad really dug that, that I came home.

Yeah, and did the grin. Yeah, I got your saddle. I did this thing to it or things like that. Yeah, he wants to make sure it's a good experience. And then his horse is my horse's son. So that's kind of cool that we're riding relatives. And yeah, so we both were out there roping at the same time. My girlfriend got some great photos of you know me having one calf like around the neck and my dad roping its feet that sort of

thing and um yeah it's uh it's not something you'd like pressure me into like this is your heritage you got to come home no no but it's like something you do together oh yeah totally and i liked it really did feel like i still have my old pickup truck. It just sits in a yard and I have my horse trailer right behind it. Where? Outside of Reno? That one's actually at some, my mom's old neighbors who are friends of mine just said, yeah, you can leave it here. You got a truck and a horse trailer sitting there?

Yeah. And I know I have to get it out of there, but it's kind of like my link to that world. Living in LA and kind of, you know, I don't have those things. I don't have space. I don't have open areas. And so it's kind of like, well, I still have this last little sliver of that left and I, you know, want to kind of keep it, I guess. But so going home and doing that with my dad was fun. It was like, oh yeah, this is, I can still do it. And in an ego way, it did matter to me that people were like, you know, for a guy in LA, you can rope all right.

I was like, yeah, all right. Still got it. Still got it. I felt good. I was mad at myself that I cared about that. Oh, man. Well, I hope you get your own ranch someday. Thanks, man.

It was good talking to you. Nice talking with you as well. Thanks for having me. Yeah. All right, that's it. That's our show. That was interesting, right? A cowboy tail.

Who would have fucking thunk it? A cowboy tail. I'm coming to you from a car in a panic, driving to Indianapolis to get a plane to another plane that I'm probably going to miss. Go to WTFpod for all your WTFpod needs. Enjoy your life. Hopefully everything works out.

And I don't want to be misunderstood. I have nothing against horses. They're just not for me. What else? I don't know what else, man. I can't live like this. I got to pay more attention to my travel. Can you hear the air conditioner?

Look, they can't all be perfect. You know, I'm just happy I had the equipment. I could have done this in my hotel room, but I didn't because I thought it would make my flight until I saw the schedule. And now I don't know what's going to happen. I'm probably going to be running with a bag from Chicago, sweating. Not even having time to go to Rick Bayless' restaurant to have a Cuban sandwich. I'm not even having time to go to Rick Bailis' restaurant to have a Cuban sandwich. I don't have the Ambassador Club access anymore because somehow or another there was a falling out between Amex and American Airlines, so I'm not even special in that way anymore.

These are luxury problems, as they say. Ugh, goddammit. Boomer lives! So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goaltenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now.

For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in

Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com.