54: Forever Silly with Casey Rocket | Soder Podcast | EP 54

Hey everybody, it's almost the end of the year.

I got some dates left.

You should come see me.

Number one, I'll be in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

November 21st through November 23rd, I will be at the Pittsburgh Improv.

So come check out a show there.

Then late show, Friday, December 6th in Chicago, Illinois.

Two shows at the Vic Theater.

First one is sold out.

Thank you guys.

Second one, tickets available.

So go get your tickets right now for the late show, December 6th, Chicago, Illinois, The Vic Theater.

Saturday, December 7th, I will be at Turner Hall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

So come on out to a show December 7th in Milliwauke,

Wisconsin.

And then closing it out, Sacramento, California, December 12th through the 14th.

I will be at the Punchline, one of my favorite clubs in the country.

Haven't been back to Sacramento since my grandmother died.

So that'll be fun.

Punchline rules.

Get tickets right now at dancehutter.com.

Absolutely.

Yeah, Mary Kate and Ashley Olson, for you were like, were those movies you watched when you were a kid?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I'm going to wait to say it on the podcast, but Mary Kate and Ashley Oson.

Oh, we just fucking roll, dude.

Rolling?

Ooh, we.

Yeah.

Well, now I'm freezing in the moment.

Mary Kate and Ashley has my favorite joke of all time, which is Mary Kate or Ashley, hard to tell around the holidays, especially around the holidays.

But one of them is riding a horse and the other one is on the ground and she can't hear her and she says, Mary, are you asking me equestrian?

Are you asking me equestrian?

You know how, I mean, if you got that as a young kid,

you were a smart kid.

Well, my mom's a horse trainer, so I was fully equestrian.

Are you good at riding a horse?

As much as the next guy.

That is a weird way to put it, I guess.

That is a weird way to, because if I'm the next guy, I can't ride a horse.

Sure.

Yeah, so maybe better than the next guy.

Like, if you, hypothetically, if there was an apocalypse situation, could you jump on a horse and be like,

I can go to town and tell them.

Do the Paul Revere thing?

Yeah.

Could you do that?

I could lead the charge.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, we would ride him like

bareback.

Yeah, so you without the saddle.

On a condom?

Yeah, you would just jump on him and go.

Oh, it feels so warm.

Yeah, but I think that's like, you can get on a horse and go like, yeah.

And make him go.

It's a trust thing.

Yeah, is it

Well, you know, why do dogs like some people and not like other people?

Yeah, it's the same thing.

Horses are just like real big smart dogs.

That's what I've said for years.

They're like real big smart dogs.

And so yeah, for sure, I could probably jump on a horse and depending on the horse, some of them aren't as is.

Have you ever had a horse be like, fuck you, get the fuck off me?

Uh-huh.

Really?

Yeah, they call them green, green horses.

The ones who aren't.

They're not born ready for you to ride them.

You have to train them to be ready.

When your mom would give you life lessons, would she do it through horse analogies?

Does she really want to?

Yes.

She'd be like, Casey, just like I told you, a Bronco ain't busted until you.

It's like stuff like that.

Yeah.

That's fucking awesome.

Uh-huh.

You can't go through life trotting if you're not ready to do a little canter every once in a while.

Yeah.

So yeah,

stop dressaging all over the place if you're just walking sideways.

But horses, they do something called cribbing, which is where they chew on wood because it releases endorphins.

Okay.

And it's bad for their teeth and it's bad for the horse.

So you put bits in their mouth to prevent them from cribbing.

And I remember I used to get in trouble as a teenager for being drunk or whatever, drinking robotessin or whatever.

And she would take me to the barn and she would say, watch Stetson.

And Stetson was one of the horses.

And see him cribbing?

It's because I took his bit out.

Do we need to put a bit in you?

Are you going to learn how to not...

I don't know if she was threatening to.

That's fucking wild.

that's so wild you notice him now you notice what i did to him and you're like what does this have

meanwhile you're a robotus and so it's like

i don't even know what you're talking about mom it's so funny you robo tripping and she's like

she's like now you notice that i fed him a carrot do i need to feed you a carrot

i love a carrot thanks did you have to do the uh like uh did you have to do the varsity blues thing where you were like i want to be a comic i don't want to train no horse

she she never wanted that life for me.

It was one of those things where she knew life on the farm was tough and she was always very supportive of my

championship.

When did you move from Georgia?

I left Georgia when I was 23 when I graduated from Georgia Southern.

And then I moved to Idaho for a couple years.

What'd you do in Idaho?

Just kind of chasing, trying to find myself.

Yeah, fuck yeah.

What a good place to do it.

Yeah.

Where'd you live?

Like Port d'Alene?

Boise.

I lived in Boise.

Yeah, I go to Nampa all the time.

Yeah, I had some buddies move out there, and I never knew anybody who had ever been anywhere near there.

And yeah, I just kind of got stuck there.

COVID happened.

So I was out there for like three years.

Oh, so you went up there, then COVID hits.

So many people got fucking locked into places because they were like, I'm going to try this.

And they were like, worldwide pandemic.

You're fucking stuck here.

Stuck in Boise, Idaho.

Yeah.

I mean, Idaho is fucking beautiful.

Oh, it's gorgeous.

But it is a place that you go to escape because you've killed someone.

Yeah, there's a lot of woods.

It has also the largest per capita.

They think there's a large population of Bigfoot up there in northern Idaho.

That's where it all is.

Yes.

Yeah.

If you're a

cryptozoologist, you can go up there and find, if Bigfoot is real, this guy's undefeated at not getting caught.

Because you would think now, Nate Bargettsi used to have a joke about that where he's like, it'd be on the news.

And you're like, yeah, it would be.

If they found Bigfoot.

Yeah.

But man, I want it.

Now more than ever, fucking show yourself.

If we knew there was a bunch of Harry and the Hendersons living in the fucking woods.

Well, yeah, I think it could bring, it could be the solution we're looking for.

Because if you have an alpha predator like that,

it would make humans be nicer to each other.

The new enemy.

Yes, exactly.

The new enemy.

If you had something to worry about, it would make humans want to be like, hey, maybe I won't.

Maybe I don't care who my neighbor voted for.

I got a Bigfoot coming down on me right now.

Do you believe in all that shit?

Sure.

That's what Reagan said during one of his speeches, which is commonly quoted in a lot of UFO documentaries, that he hopes that someday there will be an intergalactic threat that will bring all of humanity together.

That same general idea, that if we had a common enemy, suddenly these borders wouldn't matter.

Yeah, now?

Yeah.

What Reagan?

Early Reagan or old Reagan?

I think it was old Reagan.

Because old Reagan.

That's not him talking.

That's another guy.

And they just got jelly beans in his mouth.

The way they used to put peanut butter in horses' mouths to make them talk, yeah, Mr.

Ed style.

Well, I, uh, where am I?

Dude, that kind of like an old president, you don't realize, just absolutely out of his tits.

And he's like, tear down that wall.

Where the fuck?

I love that.

I love the thought of just putting someone completely incapable to sweat them right now.

Just let it roll, dude.

Give them the missile code.

The scariest day of the year is Christmas Eve.

What do you mean by that?

Yeah, why?

He's anywhere.

It's the happiest day.

Do you know something something about Santa we don't know?

What if here's the real story of Santa Claus?

James Claus grew up.

Yeah, dude, I like aliens and all that shit.

Idaho is a big place for aliens.

Yeah, it is.

Well, it's, you know, it's the last place people are looking.

Montana is huge.

That whole tri-state area, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana.

I'm real big into aliens.

It's funny because Big Jay and I always talk about this.

He's like, if they were real,

people would already know.

And I'm like, I think people choose not to

believe.

Oh, yeah.

And there's been 50 years, 70 years of disinformation since World War II, where it's convincing people that it's only loony people believe that.

And nobody wants to be loony.

So, I mean, I think genuinely, it could land on the White House lawn and people would forget about it.

Yeah, they'd be like, it's a Hollywood movie.

And you're like, no, it's for real.

100% that is what would happen.

Yeah.

100%.

Because the denial is easier.

Yeah.

Than just going like, oh, there's grays and there's like different kinds.

I watched this interview with this lady from the 70s.

I'm really into the subreddit aliens.

They put up all these like cool old videos.

But this lady from the 70s was saying about how

the little ones we see on Earth, and this is from like...

1978 this interview.

She said the tiny grays are actually like little robots.

They're like little androids because the the gravity of earth can't aliens can't come down here okay because it'll with them like it's it's too strong of a pressure the vibrations are too strong yeah so they say when they abduct humans they can only do it quickly because they have to change the vibrations so the humans can go on their ship and they said that's why when they put humans back on earth they're bruised or they have injuries is because that like going from the heavy vibration yeah it's almost like having the bends yeah exactly that's exactly it and i was like yeah that makes sense And then no one else wants to talk to me about it.

I bring it up to all my friends and they're like, shut the fuck up about this.

Well, I've read almost all the books by the guy who wrote the Mothman prophecies, John Keel, who is a wonderful ufologist.

And he's my favorite one, except maybe Jacques Valley.

So, yeah, I love all I read.

So you're like super into it.

For sure.

Yeah.

I love stuff like that.

Do you believe that they are interdimensional?

I think that is more than likely what is happening.

Yeah, they just like show up.

They flip in and out.

Yeah.

And

nothing would bring them faster than a fucking nuke.

Sure.

And that is exactly when the modern UFO age began is when we dropped those fucking bottoms.

Yeah, because it was like an ant had a handgun.

Yeah.

And they're like, whoa, what the fuck?

They see some alert in the cosmos and they're like, we got to go see what's going on.

And then it's us being like, we did it for freedom.

And they're going like, you guys don't even know what you're fucking doing.

That's got to be like

how stupid we think people are,

how dumb aliens must think think we are, where they're like, you fucking idiots.

Trick-or-treat.

Yeah.

I'm like, boys.

Blew up a city.

So you actually grew up in a barn.

Yeah, at various parts of my life.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

A couple different parts of my childhood, we lived in a barn.

Like in the actual barn.

Did you like sleep above?

There was like a little apartment.

Okay.

I didn't know if you had like beds and hay.

No, not like that.

Like cartoon mouses how they go up there.

then they and then my dinner table is a matchbox

so cool to think about

are you

are you jerry from tom and jerry

yeah that uh i mean growing up when you when you grow up in a place like that like that rural in georgia

coming to a city like new york you must just be like this why would i ever want to live in a place like this well it was you know so my parents were divorced and my dad had a home so we would spend some time there and then my mom yeah we would have we would move around a lot to a lot of different places so yeah like a little camper or or live in the barn a couple different times and stuff like that so yeah it was uh more of moral of the story yeah new new york is a little it's a little mud how many brothers and sisters do you have i have an older sister and then later in my life uh my father remarried i have two half brothers okay little brothers are they uh are they stoked about what you do uh yeah one of them is 16 i think as much as a 16 year old can show emotion yeah he thinks it's kind of cool he's like yeah whatever you're fine you're fine you need tons of followers yeah you know he you know he brags about you to like all of his friends yeah he talks to you he's like yeah it's cool or whatever that's fine

yeah dude being an older brother like that's got to be cool it is cool do you have siblings no no no i had one but she got killed but we don't we don't got to talk about that aliens took her so that's why i'm into you find out so that's why i brought you here we're hunting them

hunting them down that's a so casey uh you've had experience with them i got to get my sister back that's a tall burden yeah to lay on somebody like dude i thought i was gonna fucking talk about comedy instead i gotta go find this guy's sister great yeah i gotta skip my shows tonight to go look on what made you jersey devil yeah dude i just watched uh the channel five thing about the new jersey devil oh yeah uh yeah andrew callahan went hunting for him he was supposed to be on our podcast and he got sick oh no but I'm like, oh, this is a new thing that I was unaware of.

Yeah.

I didn't know about the New Jersey Devil.

There's there's lots of cryptids I don't do people actually see it I thought that's more of like a folklore type thing they have a guy he interviewed a guy that said he saw it when he was a kid oh no but

not always to me if there's only just one guy you're like sure

I don't really know if that's there needs to be a community with the Bigfoot there's people who see him all the time and then he's gone so I think it's all you know it's all under the umbrella Keel, John Keel, talks about the phenomena.

It's all a symptom of the phenomena.

Yeah.

UFOs, poltergeists, Bigfoot, even lake monsters.

These things tend to bleed in and then bleed out.

It's like we're seeing something that is there, but not really.

It's like an interdimensional thing.

Yeah.

Do you think it's almost like a thing where our eyes can't see it because we don't know it?

Like

there's the story of when Cortez, when he went and took over the Mayans, like when he landed in Mexico, the Dankens and Mayans, when all the Spaniards came and they had these ships and they were like covered in armor

Montezuma they had never seen any of this shit yeah so they didn't see the ships coming they like didn't see them could not comprehend couldn't comprehend yeah an armada of ships coming to the thing and then they just landed and they were like what the fuck are these people and then got slaughtered but like i wonder if that's if that's what like the phenomena yeah like we can't grip the fact that there are sasquatches or yeah it's being shown to us in a way that our brains can comprehend but it's not what's actually there.

Yeah.

And I like that better than people who just go, it's not real.

And you go, well, that's not even fun.

No.

Fucking play along a little bit.

Well, we have so much more extrasensory,

so many more senses than we're aware of.

You know,

why when you're walking, sometimes you get real scared and you don't understand why.

Yeah.

These things, like, there's more to us, our eye, that we can...

Yeah, we can't quite comprehend what we're looking for.

Which would make sense if aliens were so much smarter than us.

They'd be like, oh, you're just not going to see me, motherfucker.

Yeah.

Like, because there, the new Netflix one came out, the Manhattan abduction,

which I didn't even know about, but apparently a woman on the Lower East Side claims that she was pulled out of her apartment window and up into a ship in the middle of Manhattan.

Yeah.

And there are witnesses.

Oh, wow.

And now there's people saying they're like, nah, she's crazy or whatever.

But there are people that are like, no, I saw it.

It like happened.

So now it's like, I mean, to be an alien and abduct someone out of fucking Manhattan is wild behavior.

Yeah.

You're going to get, because, you know, speaking of Georgia, there's the, the story of Jimmy Carter, who,

and like before he was like, like when he was a boy, him and eight other guys saw a UFO in Georgia.

Yeah, I think they were at like a Lions Club meeting or something.

Yeah.

One of those people with the red hats or whatever this is.

Shriners.

Like a Shriners meeting.

Yeah, the one with the tassels on.

Yes, yeah.

Everyone's asking for money and you don't know what it is for.

What do you fuckers do?

What do you guys do?

What are you using it?

Are you hurting children?

Why are you all all old yeah

songs and handshakes

but um he saw you know him at the like uh him and eight of his buddies i think like saw a ufo and then he part of the thing he ran on in 1976 was like if i get elected i'm gonna let everybody know about the aliens yeah and the story is is that he got elected and then they had the talk with him Yeah, where they like sat him down and told him, they briefed him.

They shut it down.

They said

they left the room and he was weeping in his hands whoa and he was like i i can't i can't tell people about what what it really is because they said it them up because they basically were kind of like yeah we're like an ant farm to them they just like come and watch us and he was like uh

and that's why he looks now at a hundred have you seen him now he's like take me he looks like an alien now yeah that like old when they try to brag about celebrities when they get too old you're like don't do that sure i don't even see jimmy carter like that right now.

No, yeah, Jimmy Carter celebrates 98th birthday with intimate ceremony with family and friends.

And yeah, he's like,

That's exactly.

He said, He wanted to hold on to vote one last time, and he was like,

If you're that old, it's got to be fun to fuck with people if they come close, like grab them, just grab their arm and go, Don't.

And don't get on the bus.

Don't get on the bus.

I've seen what happens.

Oh, an incoming storm.

I'm gonna, dude, I get that old.

All I'm doing is fucking with people.

100%.

I'm touching any young person around me.

Yeah, it'll be a lot of shipwreck stories.

Yeah.

Weren't you born in 1981?

Yeah, you're like, dude, what are you talking about?

You were never on a boat.

I watched them all die.

It's just the speech from Jaws, but so much time has passed.

They don't remember.

They don't remember.

What do you mean?

I go,

72 men go in the water.

11 come out.

Eyes like black eyes.

Doll's eyes.

Yeah, that's like the kind of thing about getting old is I was always worried with my grandma that she was going to slip up and say something where I'm like, I don't want to hear this.

I watched a boy drowned.

And you're like, oh,

fuck.

No, she could have helped.

Yeah, and we're like watching Jeopardy, you know, and I'm like, what?

Like, you annoyed with old people shit?

What are you talking about?

You come to peace with it at the end.

Oh, God, she's done it before.

He's waiting for me.

yeah he's waiting for me out at the light

when you uh when you moved boise to texas

was it for comedy yeah i um the pandemic had kind of slowed so i moved right after kind of lockdown ended no not really i left in 2021 so yes i did move for comedy but i was i was talking about my timeline yeah i went down there and i i lived in my car for a while and oh yeah chasing it man living the dream you really how long did you live in your car for uh seven months holy shit dude yeah i lived on a futon for seven months i thought it was tough but a fucking car how would you sleep i mean that's your sleeping process back seat okay back seat and it was just enough my head would have to be bent a little bit it was a ford escape so it was an suv so that was fine but it was just enough for my feet my body was fit pretty much perfectly in the back now you didn't yeah you didn't want to do the you didn't want to do the back seats down it'd be bad for my back i think Oh, God.

Seven months in the back seat?

Yeah.

Where would you park?

Walmart.

Really?

They don't mess with you at most Walmarts.

You could just park there.

Good tip.

If you're living in your car.

If you're traveling.

And then, yeah, I would shower at Planet Fitness.

And then,

yeah, the last month or month or month and a half, I slept on a guy's couch, but I was out of my car.

Was that like luxury?

Yes, that was incredible.

When you got to the couch where you're like, oh, baby.

Man.

This is like a fucking California king.

Kicking my little toes up.

Yeah, because I remember when I moved from a futon to a bed, it wasn't even that good of a bed.

Yeah.

It was just like the cheapest bed I could buy.

And I was like, this is fucking great.

Big city living.

So damn, kill Tony.

Did that change your life?

Is that what pulled you out of the car?

Yeah, I met William Montgomery.

Hilarious.

So funny.

And we did a show together and then he put me on his show at Vulcan Gas Company, which was the big venue in Austin at the time.

Yeah, that was before Mothership was open.

Yeah.

Yeah, about like two years before.

And then Red Band heard about my set there and walked across the street to see me at Creek and then put me on his Instagram saying, like, this guy's so great.

And then that, yeah, that changed my whole life.

That's fucking awesome.

I was just living in my car and then Red Band saw me.

Yeah.

And that's pretty fucking great.

Yeah, pretty cool.

Do you have an apartment now in Austin?

Yeah.

Fucking.

Pretty sweet.

I always try to tell, like, you know,

I've been in it about 20 years now, and I see people my age, like, start to bitch about stuff where you're like, yeah, you forget about this part of comedy.

You forget about the sleeping in your car, not giving a fuck just to do stand-up.

Yeah.

I loved it.

I, I, and I thought that I was close to being able to make a living.

So if I didn't think that, I wouldn't have done that.

But you would have gone

absolutely blind and been like, fuck it.

Let's just see what happens.

And I'd been doing comedy for seven years already.

So I had a good 20 or 30, like a real good 20 that I knew worked.

And I figured if just some people saw it, I think I could make a living doing it.

Was that your thought moving to Austin?

Yeah, if people can see it, because I had been in Boise, I did comedy for three years in Georgia, three years in Boise.

So I figured I was at a point where I at least had it, could be a good feature, you know?

Like I figured I had taken that next step.

And

just from what people were saying and how people were reacting in Idaho, and I was like, well, you know, if you extrapolate that,

if 100 people like it in Idaho, maybe 1,000 people would like it in Austin.

I mean, there's something to be said about that, about going and making sure you can do it.

Because that's what I started in Tucson.

And

when I started, I was just like, I just want to see if I can do this.

And I just want to see if I can do stand-up.

Me too.

And that's how I felt when I moved here.

I was like, if I can just fucking work there, like just do comedy in New York, I'll be fine with it.

Yeah.

Because you see people that come in, and I'm sure you see this in Austin all the time.

You see guys that come in and they go like, in one year, I'm going to be a fucking kill Tony regular in it the mothership on Rogan.

You're like, that ain't going to happen.

No.

Well, even that mindset, I think, is self-regulating.

People like that don't tend to find success.

Only altruistic people, I feel like people who are in it for the right reasons, which is kind of a crazy theory, but I think the universe kind of rewards that.

Absolutely.

If you're just trying to be funny and grow and shit like that, there was a guy that I knew that worked the road a lot and he was from Texas, but I knew him in Tucson.

And when I, we both moved to New York at the same time, and we were out in front of this old place Rafifi smoking a cigarette.

And he was like, if I don't get SNL, if I don't get a writing job on SNL in six months, I'm out of here.

And literally, I went, you should probably go, dude.

You should probably fucking go.

Cut out the middleman.

Yeah.

Take off.

Because that's such a wild thing.

I know.

It's like you learn how to throw a baseball and you're like, if I'm not in the majors by the end of the year, I'm giving up on this shit.

It takes a while.

Oh, yeah, it takes forever.

But sleeping in your car is a great,

it's that like, how much do you want it?

It's a good motivator too of like I gotta get out of this fucking car.

It's hot.

Yeah, I gotta get

like I gotta get out of this car,

but it was also like not having a home not even quote unquote a literal home

It was like if I'm not doing comedy, what am I doing?

So I was doing comedy all day because I had nothing else that was the whole reason I went there.

So yeah.

Well, the thing I love about your style when I watch it is it's so fucking fun that you have no, I was watching you riff at the punchline in Sacramento and you were talking about the guy behind the wall like watching you and I was laughing so fucking hard because it just seems like, oh, this is nuts, but it's funny.

Because some people are nuts and it doesn't go anywhere, but you're like, you've got this like chaos to you,

but there's jokes the whole way through.

Yeah, I try to keep it.

Generally, my mindset is that anyone can be crazy.

Anyone can be like, go up there and be like, and that's also, I'm sober, too.

So that's also part of anyone can get fucked up and go up there and go, oh, I'm fucking Mr.

Cuckoo.

Yeah.

But to have, I try to have some structure there to fall back on because I would hate to be something without substance.

Yeah.

There are jokes.

Yeah.

No, you have a ton of jokes.

Yeah, they're all little jokes.

I think probably there's some people that don't even realize that.

Like, that's punchline, that's punchline.

Who are your, who was your, who are your guys growing up?

Who did you, like.

Because you have such a weird style.

It's like, I kind of want to know who like led you to to that.

Brody Stevens was a huge one for me.

I would watch his stuff.

Dude, he was unbelievable.

So good.

And that kind of gave me the mentality of

sticking to it even when it's going poorly.

Because a lot of his videos online, his just for laugh sets are so funny.

And I used to watch him all the time because it's going so bad.

He's doing so bad.

And he's so confident.

And that is what makes it so fucking funny.

He fucking warmed up.

The year I taped Comedy Central Presents,

he did one, but he also did the warm-up okay but he would do the warm-up in a way where you would like it'd be he would bomb yeah and then

just out of nowhere just start fucking like killing like bam bam bam and they'd be like all right now we're gonna tape like they were like waiting for him to break through but he'd be like yes and he'd be like doing the drumming thing on the thing and he'd be like let's get it out here energy big energy and it would be fucking awesome and he was also such a sweetheart that it was uh i love that kind of crazy shit that's That's awesome.

I didn't like, that's cool that Brody was your guy.

He really was.

Did you find him just on YouTube?

Yeah, just on YouTube.

Yeah, I think maybe somebody had mentioned him on Comedy Bang Bang or something.

Yeah, I started kind of getting into comedy.

When I was younger, Galifinakis and Pablo Francisco were on Comedy Central, and I would see those, and I liked them when I was real young.

Yeah.

But then coming into college, Comedy Bang Bang was real big.

And I think I heard his name on there.

Yeah.

Comedy Bang Bang had a lot of great shit, too.

And by the way, they were like the show at Rafifi.

Oh, yeah.

That was like when you would go see Comedy Bang Bang with Scott and all them.

But you would see other like Louis C.K.

or Chris Rock drop in and like do a set.

That's what was cool about Rafifi.

It mixed all those worlds together.

Yeah.

Yeah, I always wanted to be like

a Zaney kind of like them with the characters.

And that's kind of just who I am, like real silly.

So I love that show.

Yeah, silly is my favorite.

Yeah, most people don't do it.

I know, but like a real silly goose gets me going because I feel like there's so many people that try to hide them just giving opinions

instead of jokes.

Sure.

But when you're silly, you ain't doing nothing but being silly.

Well, it's I think most comics have a real, there's a turning point in their life.

And most comics will go through a phase where they will do an act out on a bit, their first act out, and it'll bomb and they never, ever want to do something like that ever, ever again because it's so embarrassing.

To be silly and have it go poorly is so humiliating.

But I would always think about Brody when I was trying to figure out what I was wanting to do.

And because I just thought he was the funniest fucking, that was so funny to me.

Yeah.

To be, and even in Boise, I hadn't figured out how to make it funny.

So it was just crazy with no funny.

So I thought of myself as almost like an Andy Kaufman type guy.

And I got really used to bombing.

And I almost, I liked it.

You get used to it after a while of like, they just don't get me.

They don't get, you know.

Of course, the jokes are awful.

I was like, that's what they're not getting.

It's not funny.

But I've always admired stuff like that of like stuff that uh like a person like brody or yourself or a rory scoville that's like being really silly and it doesn't work and they go like stick with me yeah and then it does pay off and you're like i would never have the confidence in myself to do that i i still to this day if i'm like if something's going i'm like ah this like i'll bail so fast and be like i'm an idiot i shut the up that's the inclination though is to go i was just kidding that'd be crazy 100 my brain how you just described it going like fuck this.

What do you mean?

Fuck it.

Ah, fuck.

This is stupid.

But then, yeah, the thought being, what if it was that the whole time?

And that's what Brody did.

But that's who he was.

And I think what I do is who I am as well.

And now you're headlining, and so you get to do an hour.

Do you feel like that's just like a ton of space to fuck around and just

for sure?

And then now I think more as the sets get longer, I think more of Rory as an as an

inspiration.

I saw him do his improvised special when I lived in Atlanta at the Relapse Theater.

Oh, yeah.

And I saw a couple nights, maybe three nights of him do it.

And yeah, so that's so great.

So yeah, it's just more time to kind of explore the space literally and figuratively.

Yeah.

I saw Rory.

He did this bit on his last special, but I saw him before he taped do it.

We were both at this festival in Tulsa.

And you talk about like committing to the silly.

He does this joke about, he talks about gangbangs and he does about how they start.

And he's like, how do gangbangs like, he like talks about getting the people.

He like does a whole bit about how you get people over to the house but then he's like but how do they start and then he like did this entire act out where he walked around like opening curtains and doors and being like hey they're kissing guys they're kissing and i was like amazed the next night i was on the same stage and i was like i'm not here half as free as this guy i was standing there being like joke joke joke joke joke joke joke instead of like watching roar he like grabbed a balloon whale and like rode it and it was like this thing where i was like that kind of freedom to me is so fucking

i think you you nailed it you have to learn how to bomb first yes and be comfortable with it well that's what i've heard this secondhand that someone told rory that rory said this to someone rather and he said don't be afraid of the silence and it's that idea of if you can really sit in that silence and get used to it i guess for years and years and years then only truly then can you really kill yeah if you are not afraid of the alternative yeah i've watched uh i've watched like um you know like legendary comics at the seller work stuff out, and they have that.

They're like, they'll try something and they don't buck or ever.

They just go like, all right.

Just sit in that.

Yeah.

Just sit.

But man, it's so easier said than done.

Especially me because I'm a people pleaser.

Like

I absolutely want people to be like, that was great.

That was like, you know.

So you're like, start bombing.

You're like,

I'll do a voice.

What voice do you want to hear?

I'm so sorry.

She's messing around.

Oh, fuck.

Why are you guys mad at me?

Have your parents seen you do stand-up?

Yeah, they have i was just in atlanta so i got to headline my first shows back home this weekend a couple days ago

how was it really cool it was wonderful my whole family came and a lot of my friends from high school and it went really good did three shows so yeah just your friends yeah pretty fun were your friends from high school kind of like yeah what the fuck have they seen you do stand-up no no because that's the only this is the thing that like

Especially with comedy,

other jobs you go and you do and you just become.

like you go to medical school and then you become a doctor and then you're like friends that you grow up with they're like hey he's a doctor or whatever but when you're a comedian they're kind of like well are you good at it uh-huh they don't know but you've gone and gotten good and came back yeah i went i left denver started in tucson came here and went back and they kind of saw me do like okay

i hadn't really figured it out yet which is almost worse sure because if they watch you bomb they go like i'm over it i've seen him bomb yeah he does stand up or whatever or if you're really good, they go, like, he's amazing.

But if you're okay, they're like, it was all right.

Yeah.

And that hurts probably the most.

That is the worst one when they go, like, that was, man, you are, wow, that was, you were so brave, you know, so brave, man.

So cool.

And you were, you were up there the whole time.

You know what?

I got a lot.

The first time I headlined Denver in like 2013, I got a lot of like, um,

hey, you're doing it.

You're chasing your dream.

And you're like,

the second you hear that, you're like, fuck me.

Do I suck that bad?

And then they're like, you know who I really like?

Someone else they like.

And you're like, fuck.

This fucking sucks.

They saw me a couple of years ago, and I thought I was over the hump.

Of course, the tendency, you're all comedians were kind of delusional anyways, and you always kind of think you're over the hump in a sense.

But they saw me do the laughing skull in Atlanta maybe two years ago.

And I followed Mandel, who's this wonderful Atlanta comedian.

And he just burned the room down and I bombed.

So I was totally silent.

And afterwards, it was all that where they probably thought, because I talked to my parents and I'm like, oh,

I was hanging out with these great comics and they all think I'm great.

And then they see me and they're like, did he make that?

Is he like a pathological liar?

Like, that was what I was always worried about is that they would go, oh my God, he's a pathological liar.

These guys flat out lie.

It's literally insane.

Yeah, like that is the feeling I got when I was in Denver and they're like, and you're surviving in New York off this.

And you're like, dude, it goes way better.

Yeah.

It just goes way fucking.

Because the first show I headlined there, I fucking bombed.

Sure, yeah.

And then the second one was better.

It was my mom's, I think it was my mom's 60th birthday.

Yeah.

It would have been, she was 60.

And my cousins got her blackout drunk and like put her in a limo.

So my family was all blackout drunk while, and, and the crowd sucked.

Dude, I remember.

a joke bombing and my friend's mom was just sitting there like this

And I was like, oh,

oh my god, I slept over at your house when I was a kid, and now you're watching me just eat shit.

So I'm glad you went back and had it.

So they saw you at,

they saw you have a bad set and then come back and have yes.

They saw, like, they would see me every couple years.

So they saw really bad, a little less bad, and then suddenly really, really bad.

And like, God, is he

just going the wrong direction?

He was like, do I say something?

Do I find last time?

Do I pull him out of this?

Yeah,

that's a fun thing to...

You want to get honesty from your family, but at the same time, you got to protect your ego.

Sure.

You're like, if you tell me I suck right now,

I might do some serious damage.

I'm close.

Yeah.

But yeah, that felt like a really proper homecoming.

Like, I've been running the hour a ton this year, so they got to see like...

The accumulation of a lot of hard work.

Are you going to tape it soon?

I think so.

I taped it last year,

again,

not being ready for it, thinking I was over the hump.

Sure.

And I watched the tape and I was like, this isn't, it's just not there yet.

How many people don't do that?

Yeah.

They just put it out.

Yeah, I mean, ask, you know, they take specials for everybody.

I would imagine.

People put out stuff and like, you'd be like, don't put that out.

You're like, I'm putting that out.

Well, you want to be there.

You think I have sacrificed so much and we all have and are all in our own different ways.

And everyone wants to be there.

And to admit you're not is really hard.

Yeah, but I also think like any job, it's not just comedy, but if you start to learn how to enjoy the work,

then that becomes less important.

Because you're kind of like, well, that's like, I think everybody has this idea of,

I'm going to take a special.

It's going to blow me up.

Yeah.

I'm going to have no problems.

I'm never going to have a stomachache again.

Everything's going to be great.

And you're like, no, no, no, it's life.

Yeah.

Like other problems will come up.

You'll have other things.

But if you enjoy just doing stand-up, it's kind of like what you talk about.

Like you have fun.

You're sleeping in your car

just to do stand-up because that's the fun part yeah it's a self-rewarding process that is the act is what is rewarding it's not any of the success of course making a living is wonderful yeah but brother you like what you're doing it's okay not a lot of people think that i know i know and that's that's like that's what sucks is when you're in a business where you're like guys it's so fun we get to do stand-up and you're like you're looking around everyone's like looking at numbers yeah and all this shit and you're like oh fucking gross dude but i would like to think if they got it if they got success then it would change they would would be like, oh, maybe this isn't, you know,

then they use that.

You're probably right.

No, they just chase more of it.

It's a drug.

I think there's like, you know, I think like CEOs and like powerful businessmen are addicted to getting like

power and money.

That's why there's so many billionaires now because these motherfuckers get addicted to making money.

And it's not about like my corporation runs smoothly and everyone's taken care of.

They're like, I have an insane amount of money and I want more.

That always is like, I've always felt bad for sex addicts and food addicts the most.

Because you can truly never

enough.

And sex, like, I think as far as addictions go, you said you're sober.

How long have you been sober for?

Three years.

Okay.

And I was sober for a long time.

I stopped when I was 21, and then I got back to it for about a year during COVID when everything was shut down.

And so I've been sober again for three years.

Did you know, did you get fucked up a lot when you were a kid?

Oh, a little robotusing and shit.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, I had a, from a pretty young age, yeah, I was like a pretty,

pretty severe alcoholic and yeah, had a real bad drug problem, all kinds of drugs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And

well, this is always interesting to me because the fact that you pulled the shoot at 21

is like, dude, do you know how fucking hard that is?

Sure.

No one realizes it.

Was it because of comedy you got sober?

That was part of it.

Yeah, I think it was there was like a two-year overlap where I was still drinking and partying and doing stand-up when I first started.

And then watching some of those clips, I got really embarrassed and I was like, I don't want to be that guy anymore.

It had just been about you were like drunk on stage?

Yeah, and I just didn't want to be that guy.

I didn't want to be a joke, you know, and I felt like a joke.

That's what I, when I was 21 years old, like I had no friends and I had alienated all these people and I and I felt like I wasn't a real person.

And I wanted to be someone that

not only other people respected but I could like respect myself.

Yeah, yeah.

Because when you watch a clip of yourself fucked up,

it's bad.

Oh man.

It's a wake-up call.

It is.

When you see that, you go like, who the fuck is this guy?

Yeah.

And then you feel weird where you're like, ah, shit.

But stopping it, what was it like getting back into it?

Oh, it was, I felt like I was born again.

I had never been happier and I don't regret it.

Yeah.

We are, we are,

you're in a safe space, but I quit drinking 11 and a a half years ago, and I can't tell you how often I think about coming back to drinking and smoking cigarettes.

I think about it a lot.

But I know

after a month, I would want to get sober again.

But I think about that month.

Oh, yeah.

You're just riding high and you're like, why did I ever stop doing that?

Yeah, especially with COVID, you don't have to wake up and do anything.

So I would just get lit and watch Martin Scorsese movies all fucking day.

That's pretty cool.

I would just watch Casino

over and over and over again.

The Irishman even, it just came out i mean get to get a full day in with that full day in so four-hour affair was that what what brought you back was there like a moment where you're like have a beer i was in a pretty bad relationship and and i felt really isolated and uh

yeah that was that was a big part of it was i felt very hurt and very alone and and i also thought that The same thing happened.

I suppose to, well, this is a bad reference, but I guess that's what happened to Philip Seymour Hoffman, too, is I had been sober, not as long as he had been, but five years.

And I was like, you know, I was so young, like I was 21 when I got sober.

Maybe I can handle it now.

So that was part of it, too.

I've seen, you know, and I've had that thought too of like, well, if I just drink a couple beers.

Because I've had like a couple non-alcoholics and been like, well, if these were real beers, but I know.

Yeah.

I know the sound.

And maybe you'd be fine for a week.

And I kind of was for a week.

And I was like, I think that's what I'm doing.

It comes back.

Yeah, that's what I'd be waiting for.

I'd be waiting for the knock at the door.

Sure.

I might have a couple beers, but it'd be that first time where I'd go, do you want to do a shot of Jameson?

And then I'd just know.

Wait.

So how long did you drink for again?

Just about two months, pretty heavily.

And then I get the shakes.

I get DT.

So that was part of the thing why I stopped when I was 21, too, because I was having alcoholic seizures.

I had a very bad drinking problem.

And then it came right back when I started again.

It's something in your...

Your body was kind of like, I remember this.

Yes, it clicks.

You're right back where you started.

Your tolerance built right back up.

No shit.

Oh, yeah.

Really?

I always wondered that.

So your tolerance went back to what it was.

Yeah.

Brother, I know a lot of alcoholics.

You're quit at 21.

You could put them back.

Yeah.

You could probably drink a fucking gallon of grain alcohol and be fine.

Yeah, it was getting to the point.

Yeah, by the end of that two months, it was like a gallon of vodka.

Yeah.

So, yeah, the handles.

Your body, your body just gets used to it.

Well, that's, you know, that was like the crazy thing for me was when I stopped drinking, it was I, Joe List, who was my drinking buddy, he quit like six months before me.

And he kept saying, he goes, it's 90 days.

Eat whatever you want, drink whatever you want, as long as it's not alcohol, soda, pizza, eat what.

And I was losing weight while I was eating.

Yeah.

Like shit.

It's like, cause you're not

eating 5,000 grams of sugar a day.

That's exactly it.

And then I did the math and I was talking to a doctor and they were like, well, what did you drink?

And I was like, well, I had to have my tolerance by the end was about eight beers and eight shots a night.

I would do a shot and a beer and I'd do eight rounds.

That's like 16 drinks.

But that was, that was like a normal night for me.

That wasn't even me getting like blackout.

That was just me being like, oh, fucking having some drinks.

So it's crazy.

I always wondered if I went back

if that

was still a habit.

For about a week, I could drink a six-pack and I would get shit faced.

And then it was like half a gallon of vodka and then three-fourths of a gallon of vodka and then the whole gallon.

It happens so quickly.

Yeah.

And then when you quit again, now when you, when you got sober again, were you kind of like, all right, like, did you miss the sobriety at all?

Um,

it took a while to click again.

I think once you let put put it's hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

Yeah.

So it, I would be sober for a couple months, relapse, and that went on for like a year.

But I would just do one-night relapses where I would get shit faced, be hungover for three days.

And I was like, I'm never doing it.

Yeah.

A couple months go by, same thing, one night.

And I did that up until I moved moved to Austin.

And I got super drunk one night.

And it was kind of a simple thing that I lost my phone and I lost my wallet.

And I woke up in a green room of some podcast studio and I didn't have my car keys.

And I was living in my car.

And I was like, dude, I'm too old for this shit.

I've lost my home.

My home has gotten the car.

Yeah.

Your ID.

My ID.

Your way of contacting anyone.

So I do not exist right now.

I'm like

a hobo.

So, yeah, without the car, you're just a homeless person.

Yeah.

So So it takes kind of the romance away from

living in the car, you're Bob Dylan.

Without the car, you're a vagrant.

So

that was a good thing.

So Austin, you've been sober the whole time.

Yeah.

Yeah, I moved there and I got sober maybe a month later.

Oh, nice.

Yeah.

That's, yeah.

Comedy's a thing where try it drunk,

but quit.

For sure.

Unless you have control over yourself, which most people don't.

No, 90% of comics I've met do not.

And there's always addictions in different ways.

What's crazy is when you see people get sober and get addicted to other stuff, like they don't realize, like they just kind of push that energy into something else.

And you're like,

I've seen people get sober and get addicted to exercise, which you think would be.

Incredible.

Yeah.

But instead you're like, oh, no, they're more unbearable than they were when they were blackout drunk.

Oh, yeah.

Because they're talking to me about proteins and like exercises and what they could do for me.

And you're like, shut the fuck up.

You're not doing anything for me.

Yeah.

The only thing worse than someone on Coke trying to start a business or drunk telling you the same story three times is a sober person telling you about their routine that they work out and their sets.

And you're like, shut the fuck up.

Oh, it's a nightmare.

And they're watching every single thing they eat.

That's my least favorite type of person is people go, oh, I shouldn't.

I hate that.

I hate that.

Just eat it.

Are you

now that when you were sober, did you get super into candy?

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Soda.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Soda and candy.

Soda and candy.

Well, your body craves the sugars.

Yeah, and I still have like.

Oh, yeah, I have a big sweet tooth.

Dude, I was just in Canada and they have real chocolate up there.

Whoa.

And so you go to the airport and you're like, oh, I just like stuffed all these things in there.

And then I was sick and I forgot I bought all this chocolate.

And yesterday I'm packing for Florida tomorrow and I'm like, oh, I just was like pulling out bags of chocolate.

I'm like, oh,

and you're like, yeah, that addict's still in me.

I'm just like,

Katie comes in the bedroom.

I'm like, get out of here, slut.

I'm eating my fucking chocolate.

I ate a piece of carrot cake from a bodega last night at like 3 a.m.

Hey, welcome to New York.

Pretty cool.

That is the thing.

I think each city has its own advantages.

Sometimes people try to do this thing where they're like, like Austin right now, the big thing is people that live there try to sell you on it.

Where they're like, it's where you have to move.

It's where everything's going on.

You're like, it's got great stuff about it.

But there's stuff I don't like about it.

New York, a ton of stuff not to like.

One of the stuff that is great is everything is open.

Yeah.

Oh, I love that.

You can get a piece of carrot cake at three in the morning.

Yeah, and it was pretty good carrot cake.

Yeah.

It probably gave me, yeah, Lou Gehrig's disease or something.

If you get ALS for carrot cake, I'm fucking tracking down that bodega.

We're suing the fuck out of him.

Tonight, I died, I died.

And you got three shows at Gotham, right?

Yeah, just two shows.

Two shows tonight at Gotham.

That'll be fucking awesome.

Yeah, it's pretty cool, man.

So, yeah, this whole tour has been amazing.

I was telling him outside, last year I I would headline stuff even two years ago, but I could never move tickets.

And last year, I did Chickashaw, Oklahoma, and Bisbee, Arizona, and I sold probably 10 tickets combined between the two cities.

We also picking fucking

hard markets, Chickashaw.

I lived in Tucson.

Bisbee is, I fuck, I can't sell tickets to Bisbee.

And I started in Tucson.

That's where Stanhope lives.

Yes.

Yeah.

Did you go buy his house?

We made Gumbo.

You did?

He was really nice.

We made Gumbo.

That's fucking awesome.

He was super nice to me.

Yeah, Stanhope is the man.

Yo, he's so cool.

And then Christine Levine.

Yeah.

I love Christine Levine.

She was so, she's such an angel.

She was so, so nice to me.

Oh, my God.

She's great.

She was doing a morning show in Tucson.

Oh, cool.

Well, I met her in Austin.

She's old school Austin, people.

Like, old, old school Austin.

That makes sense.

When it was like Velveeta Room and all those, like, kind of, and I met her down there for my South by Southwest, but she's incredible.

Yeah.

Stanhope has these people that are just, he's always got hilarious, unique individuals around him.

Yeah.

That's what I've always loved.

I mean, Doug is the man.

Yeah.

Like, he's the guy that I grew up listening to his albums, and you're like, oh, there's no one better than this guy.

Oh, me too.

And I love that Unbookables documentary with Sean Rouse and Christine's in that as well.

Isn't Junior in that?

I think so.

I don't know if Junior was a little bit later or not, but yeah.

But Sean Rouse was so, you know, rest in peace, so fucking fun.

Oh, so funny.

I give his, when we all became door door guys at mothership i i gave everyone a comedy album that i thought that they would like for christmas and i gave us a bunch of people sean rouse's spilled milk i think it's a great album spilled milk is fucking great yeah it is a phenomenal album yeah he's he's so so unique his voice is i think about him often i wish i could have got to meet him yeah yeah that's uh for me that guy is greg giraldo like

I got to meet him briefly, but didn't get to know him.

And he's a guy where I love to put people onto him yeah and be like listen to good day to cross a river because it's just like you hear him at comedy works in denver and he's just like so sharp yeah he's a guy that i wish was around you know similar to like a patrice

these guys that die that you're like i want to know what he would say about this

you know because they i think i'm envious of people that are really good at like i love people like I'm jealous of people that can be silly kind of without any nets, but I'm also jealous of people that stand by their opinion.

Yeah.

When they have an opinion and they're like, I'm going to drive it, like a Bill Burr or something, because I'm always like, is this wrong?

I know.

I feel like this is wrong.

I have no spine.

And that's so foreign to me that...

Yeah, I am a unique person in my own ways, but that is so foreign to me, having any sort of opinion about anything.

And driving at home.

Yeah.

Except movies.

Except movies and music.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Professional wrestling is the only thing I have stern opinions on.

But I can't go up there and be like, I'm going to tell you why I saw Bloodline versus Bloodline coming from a fucking mile out.

But yeah,

I think it's awesome to watch a guy like you.

I think Kiltony's done a lot for some unique comics.

I've seen him help out people like Kim Congdon and that kind of stuff.

But with you, you were a clip that I saw where I was like, this guy's funny.

And then Shane was like, oh, dude, that Casey Rocket guy.

He's like, he's fucking funny.

And then I saw a couple clips and I was like, oh, hell yeah.

And it's been great watching you kind of like keep leveling up.

Yeah.

Well, I'm just trying to show people different sides of me.

Kill Tony's been a great platform for me.

And then also people getting to see what it's actually like, the longer sets.

That is what you want.

Yeah, the minute is so limiting.

Yeah.

Because that's kind of like a Costco sample.

Yeah.

It's not representative of what I really do.

And most of it doesn't make any fucking sense, which is the point.

But it doesn't make any sense the one minute.

It shouldn't be.

When you go up for a minute, like you did the Madison Square Garden shows,

when you go up there and do a minute in front of madison square garden

that's got to be terrifying because all you have is a minute yeah uh-huh and it's an arena an arena takes a fucking you got to get them going yeah yeah it takes a second did you feel like you had to change your set a ton for that um well a lot of my jokes are really short they're like most of them aren't even traditional setup punchline jokes so i just made sure i had something good in the beginning that would get a laugh and then um that was just my thought process is to fit as many little jokes jokes into the minute.

So, you know, economy of words style.

Yeah.

I mean, because I, dude, if you told me to do a minute, I'd be like, I don't even know if I could get to my punchline.

Yeah.

I think I'd just be stuck in a setup.

And that's what most people are like.

My stuff is mostly one sentence throwaway stuff.

So I can fit a ton of stuff in there.

Yeah.

Which is great.

Having a style that benefits you in certain positions.

Bargetti always used to say this about late night shows.

Well, when late nights were still really big, and they'd do auditions for like Conan or like the tonight show in New York.

York, everyone would be stressing about taking out the cuss words or whatever.

And Nate would be like, all I got to do is just take fuck five minutes of my stuff and go do it.

He's like, cause I'm clean, so I don't have to worry about it.

And you're like, ah, fuck.

That kind of made me think about what you were saying where you're just like, oh, I've got a bunch of tiny jokes.

So it fills a minute more than you think.

Yeah, it's longer than you think.

Most people do.

Yeah, a minute is super hard.

So I get it.

Yeah.

It was funny.

They were filming a documentary about Kill Tony and the producer was like, what's it like?

How hard is it to do a new minute every week?

And I was kind of like, fuck you.

Like a new minute?

But then when you think about it, you go, that is kind of challenging because you have to make it fit in a minute.

And there's no way, I mean, I couldn't even set up a voice in a minute.

I'd be like, oh, it'd be crazy if it would just be so 80s.

I'd be like, what if a macho man

turned around and shit

and then do it again?

And you're like, fuck, I suck.

I fucking hate myself.

Yeah, it is

hard to set it up without being hacky.

Do you think you're going to stay in Austin the rest of the time?

Or do you see yourself

like if once you start working the road, you don't really have to be anchored anywhere?

Yeah, I like that's where most of my friends are.

We're really close.

So I like being in Austin.

If I get real wealthy, I'd like to have another apartment in Chicago.

I love Chicago.

Hell yeah.

I would love to have an apartment in Wrigleyville.

Yeah.

Go see all the Cubs game.

They're huge Cubs guys.

Oh, really?

Oh, yeah.

Die Hard Cubs guy.

How'd you become a Cubs fan?

My family is from Illinois.

Okay.

My mom currently lives in Illinois and trains horses.

But

yeah, man, they're all from Illinois, so I grew up a Cubs fan.

Wrigleyville fucking rules.

Oh, it's so cool.

So cool.

Such good energy.

Yeah,

I love the Chicago scene, too.

They've got a bunch of funny young comics in Chicago.

That's what it seems like.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I...

Jeffrey Asmus, who I love.

Yeah.

I first saw in New York, but he had came up in like Madison, then Chicago, then New York.

And it just just seems like Chicago's like kind of like the cold version of Austin.

Yeah.

It's kind of like you can go and get good at comedy and then go somewhere else if you need to.

Definitely.

Yeah,

it's an A-level scene.

Yeah, there's so many funny people.

Peyton Ruddy's another great Chicago guy.

Matthew Mitchell.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I have a lot of good friends from there.

That's awesome.

Yeah, Chicago's, I like that.

I like when I hear people say like cities that I'm like, yeah, go to Chicago.

I'm not working against Austin, but I'm just saying like, I like that

because sometimes comedy feels so like clickish that they're like, if you're not in Austin, you're not anywhere.

But there's other cities that are doing it.

Fucking great.

Denver's a great city.

I was just going to say Denver's.

Denver's a wonderful scene.

And I watched Denver, you know, I grew up there, but I didn't start there.

So that was a weird thing for me to go back and be like,

can I fuck around?

But it was guys like Ben Roy, Adam Caiton Holland, Andrew Overdahl who did like Los Comicos and Grolliks.

But then those guys, the guys below him were Sam Talent, Chris Sharpie, David Borey, and you would see like the Fine Gentleman's Club.

And so it was kind of awesome.

When you see a scene get built up, you're like, this is awesome.

Like its own little ecosystem.

I like that shit.

It's a

self-breeding thing.

Yeah, when there's like Sam is such an inspiration to so many people.

Sam Talent?

Yeah, and it makes all the people around him so much better.

Yeah, I think he's our generation Stan Hope.

I think so.

He was a huge inspiration on me.

I saw him in Boise and it changed my whole shit.

Oh, just the way that he he riffs.

I mean, dude, that guy will go off for an hour on something.

Like a light will go out.

I know.

And he'll have an hour on it.

He's so fucking smart.

Him and Scoville are in the same school.

Yeah.

Scovel.

I call him in.

Scovel and Sam are the guys that I watch, and I go, I'm a fraud.

You just watch and you go, like, I fucking suck.

These guys are so good.

Rory and I were texting about something, and I was just like,

I think I gushed too much because I was like, dude, you're the fucking funniest.

And then he's like, didn't answer.

I was like, I suck.

I suck so bad.

Sorry, somebody stole my phone.

Sorry, dude.

I'm not that big of a freak.

Whatever.

You're like kind of funny.

Fuck.

Well, dude, I appreciate you coming by and hanging out while you're doing the New York Comedy Festival.

Yeah, so exciting.

And I'm a huge wrestling fan, too, so all this stuff's super cool.

Oh, yeah, man.

People gave me, I have like a whole Macho Man shelf

that people were giving me.

And then they just give me like small random tchotchkis and shit.

I have this in my house, but it's Grimis.

It's all Grimace.

Really?

You're the Grimace guy?

Well, I did it on Kill Tony and a couple different things.

I used to do a Grimace podcast.

So I have, oh, I have hundreds of Grimace artifacts.

How did you feel about the Mets adopting them this year?

I cut ties with the whole Grimace thing.

I've come to peace with it.

He's for the people, and he was never mine to begin with.

I got a little bitter about it, and I was like, I was the first one.

He who thought that stuff was funny.

Yeah.

But I love that.

Just give it.

You hipstered it.

Yeah.

I'm in a grimace in 2007.

Yeah.

Someone please make a,

if you're an artist, please someone do a drawing of Casey Rocket with his hand outstretched to a walking away grimace saying, I need to let you go.

I just can't quit.

Or do the picture of God touching?

The creation of Adam.

The creation of Adam with Grimace and Casey Rocket.

That's what's so funny is there's so many talented people now

on the internet that listen to podcasts because they're bored and they just want to listen to something while they draw that sometimes you toss stuff out there and they'll come back and be like, hey, I did it.

And you're like, holy shit.

I was just joking around.

What a world.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's fucking nuts.

But yeah, Casey RocketComedy.com.

Check him out.

Trust me.

Go see him live.

The guy's a fucking ball of dynamite.

He's hilarious.

You're going to enjoy the hell out of it.

CaseyRocket.com.

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