Fat Chance Podcast - Ep.65 - Ben Hofman

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

Hey Siri, Play Im a Survivor!

Testing, testing, one, two, three. Oh, that's great. You speak that loud the whole time? Testing. Yeah. I can speak louder if you want. The difference, though, in talking into the top of the microphone versus talking like this is...

Sideways? Yeah. Sideways? Sideways? It's not an ice cream. I want you to be the guy that bites his ice cream, not licks his ice cream. Yeah, okay. All right.

We're biters here. We're biters here. We're biters here. Okay. I don't know if this is – I've had presses before. If you had to pick a flavor, are you going pomegranate, ginger, or lime lemongrass? Lime lemongrass. Okay. I'm a big – I'm a pomegranate fan, but I don't know if I'm a lemongrass fan.

You know, I'm a lime fan. Anything with limes in it. Really? I'm a lemongrass fan. You know, I'm a lime fan. Anything with limes in it, I'm down for. And you're not a drinker, so what do you have with limes in it? I don't know. I sometimes get water with a lemon and a lime just to make people think that I'm drinking. But secretly, I'm just hydrating it's interesting jake have you had these lemongrass ones yet what's going on jake have you jake this is ben ben jake jake nice to meet you. Jake is my wonderful roommate.

Jake was part of the process with Selena Gomez, so he's famous. Ooh, nice, nice. Kudos, Jake. I said you were part of the Selena Gomez thing. You're famous. Oh, yeah, apparently. Yeah. But you're in there.

What was the part of the video that Selena Gomez clipped? She it she didn't clip anything it was just the only thing i clipped it was like it's the clip was what part of my face says talk to me none absolutely none it's just something people are going to use a voice use it as a voiceover okay all right it surprised me too but we too. I showed my girlfriend the clip and she was wondering why girlfriend. Why am I saying girlfriend? Wife. Oh boy, we are. Do we have a girlfriend? We do not. We do not.

I still, this is secret time in going out to, you know, 80,000 people. I still like sometimes like, oh, I have a girlfriend. No, Ben, you have a wife. That's, I'm not wearing my ring. Yeah, it's still relatively new. Yeah. And I think until you have kids, maybe you're going to think like oh this is this is my girlfriend because i don't know maybe it's just as guys but i never expected to be married it's like oh maybe

it'll happen one day but you don't actually think that day is gonna come yeah and then when it's come and gone for you now and yeah you've had a wife for months since june it's uh it's been it's been incredible like i met her just before the pandemic and it was you know pretty instant like i i i knew that know, she was fun and down to do a lot of stuff. And so, you know. Sexual stuff or just like? Just stuff. Not sexual. I'm just messing with you.

No, you were saying you showed her one of the videos. Yeah, I showed her one of the videos. And she said, why is this why is there parental advisory on it and i was like i don't know where does a hamster come from oh so if you look uh closely at my costume i'm wearing a giant penis costume. I thought you were just wearing it like a, like a, a skin suit. No,

like a, like a buff guy. Like a onesie. No. So that was Halloween last year. And my buddy was a convict and I was Frank the flasher, but I just didn't have the trench coat on. Cause it would,

it was going to get in the way sitting down. So my underneath the trench coat, it's just it was going to get in the way sitting down so my underneath the trench coat is just a skin suit like i'm naked and then a penis that was about 16 inches long and four inches in girth or like more than that in girth it was it was thick it was just a long schlong just that the parental advisory was the whole thing is covering the penis oh wow yeah that's why it's angled. That's why it's angled, yeah. That's very interesting. So I figured, because I like the clip a lot.

Like, I was a little high. I thought I was laughing my ass off editing it. I usually don't. And I was like, well, TikTok will probably take it down if I just have a cock floating around. Yeah. I was just covering all my bases floating around yeah it's i was just covering all my bases nice you're you're a professional you i'm not a professional but you know i've i've been taken down a few times so what does taken down on tiktok mean does they have

guidelines i think there's like just i think they got like a hamster cage of karens um in the back they're just constantly cycling through videos and let's just see how many times we can say hamster hamster this episode down um so they're just running on a wheel of just shitty videos and they're like oh we don't like this one let's take it down yep uh jake and i were at our buddy's um engagement party who they're now mary's a while ago but we're at the engagement party and i'm holding their son and dancing back and forth and jake has a beer in his hand and i have a beer in my hand but i let the kid grip the top of it can't do that he had the cheers that we did in college

so we made the baby do the cheers um and then i just shoved the beer down his throat and they no and that's all i did was the cheers and then we were singing a taylor swift song in it and i posted it because i was like oh i'm gonna get cute points for this one yep no it was we took the audio off and we took the video down i'm like okay and then i posted one of a white guy trying to rap and he kept saying fuck all the time and they took that down um i think i've been taking down one or two other times okay nothing insane it's just like hey these are guidelines you crossed them i've learned though that if you refute it because you can be like hey do you think we made a mistake ever since i found that out they've

they've just put it back up so i. So I think they have, like, a few, like, keywords that flag. Yeah. They'll take it down. Or if, like, oh, we said fuck, like, nine times. Like, the last, I've said fuck probably six times now in the last minute. Right. This would get taken down. Okay.

And because I'm talking bad about TikTok. Yeah. This, like, I've recently got a TikTok. Yeah. As you know. Have you posted anything yet i i haven't posted anything yet just because i'm just so enthralled by the fitness stretching videos oh really wow they know you well enough they can your phone hears you well enough because that's what we talked about when we were at laughing tap yeah yeah was the band exercises the band exercises guys if you don't know uh jack uh not jack mike

i always girlfriend and i'm not even here i i always think of you as jack sarasoli i get you and jack mixed up in my mind that's fair you know jack's not a bad person to be mixed up with he was here last yeah we know jack's not a bad person to be mixed up with he was here last yeah we had a great time his videos did very well do you do you base your friendships on videos 100 100 like if you get six we will no longer talk well you know so far i think we'll get six we're getting at six. We're getting at least six. We're getting at least six. Let's try and get taken down.

Let's not. Let's steer away from that. Well, you're not going to get taken down. What is your handle again? That stroke guy? That stroke guy, yep. That is a good dovetail. Yep.

I've survived brain cancer and a stroke. Pretty fun stuff. Is it really? You know, when you think about it logically, like I'm only 30 and it's not that fun to think about. But like when you, when you think about just the absurdity of it, like I've spread brain cancer and a stroke and I'm only 30, like most people won't go through that in a lifetime.

Yeah. Funny, funny things do come out of it like whenever i'm walking like towards a door and i have something in my hand i'm just thinking like oh man this is this is gonna either like i'm gonna spill my coffee or i'm gonna make it what is your biggest worry day-to-day day-to-day I don't know. Like when I think about breaking a bone. Are your bones more fragile now? I don't know.

I think if I broke something on my left side, it would be really bad. Because that's the one side I have to keep. That's your good side. That's my good side. It's the right side's out of stroke. And, like, I have to protect that with, like, everything. So if someone's going to run into you, you're just throwing your right side of your body and i'm like just fucking break it just fucking break it if i'm i'm up and i'm ever in a fight i'm gonna like stipulate you can stipulate things in fights you know um i'm gonna stipulate you know what uh go for the right side it's pretty

weak it's gonna be over fast um but i don't know like the thing i fear most is like breaking something either on my left side which would put me out for like a significantly longer time yeah um and then if i broke something on my right side like can it grow back like what do you mean can it grow back what are you like a lizard do you think your arm's gonna come off no i'm, I'm a hamster. You're a hamster. You're a hamster. Yeah, I forgot. I think that it probably won't grow back right. Do bones grow when you break them?

Have you broken a bone? No, knock on wood. But no, it breaks and then it just fuses back together It doesn't break and then disappear Then you gotta grow it back No, but it's like Setting the bones a thing What if you broke and then your hand was fixed?

Ooh Would you want to go get hit by a car? Would you like to punch the pole behind you and find out? Okay, those punching machines, like the numbers rack up? Yep, yep, yep. What do you think you could do with your right hand versus your left hand? I actually have done this with my right hand in a bar full of people at my buddy's bachelor party. And I got a solid 100.

That's not bad. I got a solid. And you hit it like this, like a backhand? Just a whip backhand. You didn't do like an actual punch? No. No. Because when I do like an actual punch.

I feel like a terrible person. When I do an actual punch, like, my right side, like, gets all the way there and then just, like, chooses love, not war. So it's just like a, hey, bud. Hey, bud. Is that what you think is as fast as you can punch right there? You don't want to throw your shoulder out, do you? Hmm. Is that what you think is as fast as you can punch right there? I You don't want to throw your shoulder out, do you?

Hmm You ever seen those like one inch punches? That could be like secretly powerful I don't know We're going to test your limitations Let's test it at the gym next time Yeah Did you do the workout I gave you?

Oh, yeah It was it was hard it was really hard really did you do all of it um not to know i didn't i i i didn't because the gym i was working at or working out at was the they were doing classes and they were doing classes with the um dumbbells and stuff plyo boxes oh okay so i didn't do the step up step ups to press just go to the west alice one yeah i i should a little bit of a drive yeah i should be good to go to the west alice one Yeah, I should be good to go to the West Dallas one pretty soon because it's like a month waiting period. Oh, yeah, I forgot.

It's my gym, and I don't even know the rules. Find out you're not a serial killer. If you can make it one month at one gym, you're good to go. You can go to all of them. It's kind of cool. It's a nice little membership perk yeah like a franchise gym i don't know if all franchise gyms like that maybe planet and stuff is like that but planet sucks i have you ever been to a planet fitness i have not

and i pride myself on that like i've never gotten that like down where like i can only afford ten dollars a month to go work out. Yeah, I Have I was in college I went twice and it was 25 minutes away from my house. I didn't want to pay More than ten bucks. I was like, I'm gonna pay for it in gas And I went twice and then just they took my money for a year and a half Which is how I think they get most their money is people forgetting That they have a membership or too lazy to go in and actually cancel because you gotta cancel in person yeah don't you yeah that's that's so insane like you can't cancel

cancel unless you physically talk to a person and say like hey sign some documents usually like a cancellation notice which we have i don't like i had that first time i had it was a gym in miami it's like hey if you want to cancel you have to do it a month in advance i was like well what if i don't know i want to cancel in a month in advance it's like well you just kind of have to prep yeah cancel because once someone comes in it's like hey i'd like to cancel my membership today basically like i want to stop paying today i'm like no you will have one more payment in this 30 days and then your membership will be canceled yeah so they tell you usually if you're going to cancel a gym like that cancel the day before your payment so you get the 30 days that you would have for that payment rather than canceling

right after your payment because then you're paying for a month you're not going to get you leaving jacob have fun buddy jacob drive fast take chances see you bud nice guy has the pod started yet yeah okay did you not think it started you know you know i don't like telling people to start. Okay. Nice. It's not as organic. It's not as organic. It's not as organic.

I just say, hey, we're going to test your. You think. I've said it every time. Some news on here. They're like, has it started? I'm like, no. I usually do the, has the mic started yet? And we just start talking into it.

You'd think if people listened, they'd be like, all right, I know it's coming. When he goes, let's test the microphone yeah so who knows i like it yeah what else i don't know do you like my background light i do a little cheap it's uh for those of you who can't see this, he put up a YouTube video of white for 24 hours. Yeah. The color white for 24 hours. It makes a huge difference. I did it with Jack, and the edits look way better. It'll get darker.

It'll basically be dark out by the time we're done with this. Oh, yeah. And you'd barely be able to see you. Like we could – obviously, like we could see well. Right. But through the camera, it does not look as good. Right. So, no.

I think like because like the YouTube algorithm sees like you're watching white for 24 hours. Like – I'm going to get – do you want to watch red for 24 hours or just like the youtube algorithm thinks you're like a psychopath oh yeah 100 i mean i think this is why people actually someone this has tons of views we looked it up last time but i think this is why people use it as like i just need to brighten the room real quick. But other than that, like I'd like to know, I always think about it.

Like who are the people that up there's a YouTube video for everything. Oh yeah. Literally everything. Who thinks, you know what? I'm going to record this and I'm going to put it out there. Like, Oh,

I want to know how to fix the left or the, the passenger side front seat of my 2011 Toyota Camry. Um, The passenger side front seat of my 2011 Toyota Camry because there's a carrot stuck in there and I can't move the seat. And they're like, oh, we have the exact video for you. Like who's like, you know what, someone's going to want it. And it's got like 3,000 views. Use a tweezer or a hamster. If you didn't know, carrots are quite fibrous. If you just go back and forth a little bit um no there

really is a video for everything pops right out and it's amazing how some of those pop up like i noticed um the titles mattered a lot i'm still learning all this i know what i average in viewership per thing for the most part and it'll depend on the success of other media outlets but i just put one up and the title was sore throat versus congestion and i was talking to my girlfriend like it has five times the amount of views as it normally does yeah and she's like it's probably because the title it's flu season flu season sore throat versus congestion like those are the two probably most searched terms yeah on the internet right now in terms of people being sick right oh i'm just gonna put like the titles aren't even gonna make sense anymore yeah i you know i can't wait it's just gonna be halloween haunts and then

or how to pick a pumpkin for this one i can't wait for you to post this and be like brain cancer for stroke. Which one do you want? Which one do you want? Well, I don't know if I would feel good putting that as the title. If this gets six views, then you will. What if we just a battle for the ages? A battle for the ages. Yeah. So you said you didn't drink we talked about this is it just it said it's part personal choice part like when you

don't drink what's going on is better so like i don't know the science behind it but like uh like beer or alcohol is what's called a coagulant and dude you're looking at the wrong person to correct you or like an anti-icoagulant. And what it means is like when you drink, your blood is thinner. Okay. And so that's why when bar fights happen, so much blood. I've been around a lot of bar fights in my life. And I have not been around a lot. I really want to get into one. I really want to get into one. You really want to get into one?

Okay, I did. I really, I'm going to finish this and then we'll go to bar fights. So the blood gets thinner and the way my stroke works is I, you know, have blood in the brain. And so if, you know, the blood's thinner, it expands more and could expand to different parts of the brain. So it's still in there. There's still a little blood product in there. um and you know that's like 60 percent of the reason why i don't drink i probably could be fine if i had one or two but at this point i'd be the same way better safe than sorry and like the

the 40 reason is i love donuts and carbs and I can eat as many donuts as I want and not get fat and work it off in, you know, physical fitness. That's nice. Yeah. I, yeah, carbs is my biggest weakness. My big, one of my biggest fears is someone telling me one day you're gluten intolerant. And I'm like, no, like, it's it's just i'm like i'll die then just do you do you like not eat carbs because carbs why okay are you are you like one of those people that eats like whatever i want too many carbs and says like you know you gotta work out now no i mean i have i do days where i'm like higher or lower because i have noticed if i eat a bunch i'm a little more sluggish

yeah and but i do know there are days like i need them because it's it's good energy i've just more conscious of like good carbs and like just not so much processed stuff so i'll have rice or pasta or like a piece of toast here there but like i'll eat it i have a bagel for lunch every day um but i'm not like in the morning i'm not having like a hostess cinnamon cake and a few donut holes. And then lunch I got two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a donut for a honey bun for dessert. And then dinner is just only pasta. Like I just,

just pasta, pasta, pasta. And then for dessert is just sugar, which is not great carbs. So it's like, no, I've like, it's's i try and eat healthy during

the week now during the weekend i don't give a flying fuck right what goes into my sunday if i'm if i barely if i go out i used to eat so clean monday through friday lunch friday dinner i get like jake and i used to do fish fries in st paul's in milwaukee um at the market and then we go drink and then saturday if we went out again we did like a day thing if i drink if i'm throughout the day i actually don't eat a lot it's when i get home and i'm like oh it all hits me and i eat anything but if i just like kind of passed out Saturday, Sunday. I'm like, my body needs food. I would put the entire, like if there was a hostess food truck, I would put the entire truck down my throat. It would, I eat so much just shit food.

And then I would on Monday be like, oh. Yeah. I ate the same thing for lunch every day. Yeah, you're pretty, I do too, but mine's out of convenience. I think yours is out of sanity. Mine's, there's another thing you got to know about me because I've had so many health things come up so young. I don't like surprises like shocker

like i like a routine i like i like the same things just i don't like i don't like to be surprised don't like to be surprised but would you try new things like if you know you could go let's say like hey i made two dinners you have your one you're you'll like would you be willing to try this one that's usually not something yeah yeah yeah because you have a backup yeah okay but like at restaurants you're not picky you're just particular right all right at restaurants like this drives my wife insane uh like i got it right this time there you go um like i'll order the same thing because i know i like it and i don't want to be you know at every restaurant at every then she's like why the hell are we going trying different restaurants we're gonna same thing yeah that's fair i would

that would bother me too if i'm being honest with you it would bother the show because i like trying new foods no i've go-to's but for me if i'm going to i have the mentality like i why did i come here if i'm not going to get like what are they known for or like what are like what are the best things on their menu what's unique if I'm like I couldn't never I would again if I was a picky eater I would hate it because or if I just suddenly became one because if I went to every one of these nice restaurants and I was like can I have chicken tenders and french fries with ketchup well it's not that I know that's what I'm saying yeah but like you get this basically the same thing over so like if you go to a new restaurant do you have anxiety and you've never seen anything that you've really had before on the menu do you have anxiety trying to pick something I do but I I go like okay this is you know a cream like barbecue place like i'm not gonna order the salad yeah

like you'll get what they're known for them yeah yeah what they're probably they're gonna make the best correct and what they probably make the most okay see i'm uh i want every you'll get like one thing like we're gonna start with this i'm i would like this and like nine of these appetizers let's look good let's try them all yeah i uh i love food have you ever been to dan dan in the third ward i have not okay dan dan you gotta go dan dan makes this dish called you know dan dan noodles and i just thought it was like their noodles yeah dan dan noodles are like everywhere but like i specifically i specifically ordered them just because like oh like this this is a staple for them because it's the name of the it's the name of their restaurant yeah and so do you like them oh i love them they're so

spicy and good i'm hit or miss on i like spice i don't necessarily love spicy i love spice i know like i there's a difference though like spicy if you're like and you're sitting there i'm like I don't necessarily love spicy. I love spice. There's a difference, though. Spicy, if you're like, and you're sitting there, I'm like, oh, I got to cool my mouth off. Versus like, oh, that has good spice to it. It has a little kick, but it's a punch rather than a heat. Right. I hope that makes sense.

I love it when I can't feel my mouth. I hate that. I'm like, I can't feel my mouth. I hate that. I'm like, I can't even taste my food then. We went there once with my parents, and my dad thought he was having a heart attack because the noodles were so hot. Yeah, I would hate that. I'm sure there are different levels of spiciness you can get, but I would hate that.

Have you seen the people that you've been on tiktok for a day and a half but some come up oh i i've you've gone through it i've gone through it a lot you're like some guys like i saw one today he's like i'm the spice king and it was like 2.2 million scoville units of cheese balls yeah and he had 10 of them and then didn't move yeah i'm like your taste buds have to be gone yeah one there's you have to be numb in the mouth at all times i had a raw onion once and i couldn't taste my food for a day i hate onions they i've learned the dip like trying like learning teaching myself how to cook you know like when to use certain onions when not to and when they're good right i'm not a big like give me

just a chunk of onion all the time but if cook right onions are delicious what's your least give me three my girl or my wife if she ever oh sorry yeah my wife if she ever sees this uh got it right again yeah um she'll she'll be screaming at the screen going like i can name 10 right off the bat um gotta be broccoli um love broccoli one of the best vegetables what i like it's so good for you i just don't like it is it a texture thing it's a texture eater or a taste eater a texture thing and like i don't like the taste of like so you just don't like it straight up well are you eating it raw or is it cooked um probably wants to just cook you a bunch of foods you don't like and see if i can get you to like them you i i there's a caveat to broccoli if you like put sriracha on it yeah and fry it up a little

bit so crispy like deep fried broccoli with hot sauce right sriracha i think is my least favorite hot sauce all right this podcast over but it's it's a good like asian flavor so if i need anything spicy for like an asian dish i'll make like a sauce sriracha will be the hot sauce base but i have some i think i'm something with sriracha that i think it's like way spicier than it actually is. I sound like a bitch saying that, but like, cause like I love Cholula. I don't think Cholula has any spice to it whatsoever. I think that's my favorite hot sauce. And I've had plenty other ones.

I'm like, oh, this just tastes good. But something about, uh, sriracha, I'm like, I don't know what it does to me. I feel it in my face. Let's, let's get off the subject of food. Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Did you have something in mind? I didn't. Oh.

But I wanted to say I have the same thing for lunch. And where I work, they have a cafeteria. And I order the same sandwich. I ordered the same sandwich for the first 10 months. I started the job like three weeks before COVID hit. And 10 months in, the chef comes to me one day and she's like look uh look at the menu and right there my sandwich is the big ben and i like i'm like oh like i have job security now for like because i have this for as long as the chef works there yeah at least work there yeah so that's everyone i think dreams of having some food dish named after them yeah and it's to the point where

it drives my co-workers crazy because they know what i'm ordering and they'll come up to me in the hallways and they're like what you having for lunch what you having for lunch well what is it what is this okay all right all right glad to ask this is a question so it was like ham turkey potato chips no so it's a panini first so panini uh with then sriracha mayo delicious very good spinach and then um this uh the spicy gouda that's it that's it it's basic but i like it i like it it's totally basic people call it it's a it's a spiced up turkey and cheese sandwich people people call it the big tasteless because really and that that's really offensive that's i would be upset i mean sriracha mayo's this is when i like take back the

sriracha comment though because sriracha mayo is fantastic yeah you dumb it down a little bit it has a great flavor i think it's just i'm allergic to sriracha all right we gotta get our food let's fix golf let's fix golf let's fix golf what's wrong with golf it's You know, where do you stand on live golf PGA? Versus PGA. Oh, live golf PGA. I thought that was like a slogan. Live golf. Okay.

Yeah. I don't give two shits. Wow. I get both sides. um i get both sides um if someone offered you a hundred million dollars to jump ship and go do okay think of it like comedy you're doing comedy here okay you make x amount of dollars right if someone told you hey you can live here but we want you to go play golf or go do comedy over here for 10 times that amount of money well i'm sort of doing that with don't talk comedy yes so i get it now i also i saw an interview with zalatorrez where he's like this is a money thing he goes and at the time like he

hadn't won yet right he's like i i've made over 10 million dollars and i've never won on this tournament so if you think i'm being underpaid at all like you're crazy i get right i'm i get i've been close and whatnot but like i'm very thankful for this league or whatever association um whatever it is um so i get like you have like this sense of home and pride and community with the initial one right um pga yeah but most of those guys are still playing in some of these events like the big ones right why is it to be mad at people for leaving almost seems like you're mad they're leaving and it's going to decrease viewership for where you were already which really just decreases pay so it then does seem like a money thing like who cares

that someone's playing golf somewhere else right i i really don't like you don't get a i'm upset that i don't get to see them as much seeing ph Phil or DJ. And I'm not watching golf every day. Right. But, eh, like it doesn't affect anyone. Most of the golf now is on YouTube that people watch. Right. Or people watching content creators golfing. Again, Brian Rose or the Good Good Golf or DeChambeau is on YouTube

or so many other people that's i think how most people are watching golf now anyways yeah i uh you bring up some excellent points bob does sports and that's my favorite one yeah bob does sports bob does sports does does it really well that that would be if this were to ever get traction where i could like start feel like i could reach out to people i'd be like hey man let's go play around right i i think i'm i think at their skill level right i think i think i'm at their skill level too i got i i golf i know here's our challenge you and i I versus Bobby Fairways and Joey Coldcuts. I think that'd be fun.

Yeah. They have four hands. We have three. Three. Do we get a handicap? We get a one-stroke lead. There we go. Got to work it in.

Hamster. Hamster. gotta work it in um hamster hamster um i think i think the format's wrong for live golf i don't even know anything about live golf like so so pga like four days and there's cuts there there's serious cuts for money yes and live golf no cuts and everyone gets paid it's like the participation right golf that i don't like i like the cuts i think we need to in general life needs to have cuts correct um he just it makes it more interesting if you know like he's gonna be there no matter what like it makes people play harder i think yeah and like cool you make more money but at the end of the day i don't care that you won two million dollars i'd like to see the sports center top 10 and right you holding out from 180 yards.

I've watched some of the live stuff, and it just doesn't have the bite that PGA does with, you know, the things that, like, there's no stakes. There's got to be stakes i agree i we're soft i think in general as a whole everyone we're getting soft everyone's getting soft and the fact that like oh no you won't get cut yeah bothers me i didn't know that no one got cut there no one gets cut like it's in fun style like how many cuts did you make like tiger had like an absurd one or something like that right or whatever it's i don't know it bothers me that we are it's gonna sound so bad but like too inclusive i think wow we are though like i think stuff like if done properly and with the right intent hazing bullying all that stuff has benefits i really do because if you if you grow up and you're just like, nope, what you want is what you get.

No hardships, nothing. As soon as those people in life leave you who have been making your life easy, your life is now infinitely harder than if they challenged you growing up. Right. You're talking to a guy who survived brain cancer and a stroke. Yeah. Nothing's handed. Nothing's handed to you in life. you growing up right you're talking to a guy who survived brain cancer and a stroke yeah i i get nothing nothing's handed nothing's handed to you in life but if someone was like no you get everything that was ever given you wanted ever given to you like and then those people who

provided to you are gone and you're like oh how do i get i knew people who didn't know how to do laundry in college i know people who didn't know how to do laundry in college i know people who didn't know how hot to put the water to boil it i call my dad that guy makes 10 times more money than me now but like just simple things like you need to learn you don't learn with life being easy all the time you i call my i call my dad for the same cooking advice, at least. Cooking's a bad example, but you get where I'm going with it. If you don't face any adversity, you're not going to learn. The whole you learn from your mistakes is so cliche, but it's so goddamn true.

Right. It's true. I got nothing else. You're done. Hamster. You're done. I got nothing else. You're done. Hamster. Done. Done. Hamster.

No, I don't even know how long we've been doing this. How long do you think we've been doing this? We've been doing this for about 25 minutes. 25 minutes. 42. 42. Okay. All right. That's impressive.

I cut it off at an hour. Okay. All right. I usually ask a question at the end i already forgot what oh i remember it i remember i'm not gonna ask it now though okay all right what are you doing the rest of the night um um going home and hanging out with a wife maybe girlfriend girlfriend you going to get me in trouble. Um, she's not watching this far into it. Um, yeah,

I think, uh, I think I may write some, I, I just, um, been the funk recently with writing. I feel like I have been too.

And, you know, I got it. I got to get better. We, we all got to get better at writing new shit and testing it out. Like, I went up on Monday night at Bremen and did a character, and it bombed hard.

It bombed really hard. But I had so much fun thinking about it. You got to try it. You got to try it. thinking about it you gotta try it you gotta try it in that this is what what what comedy comes down to is trying trying shit at when it doesn't matter and if it goes well building off of it and then when it does matter knocking it out of the park yes all right so i like and i can't wait for these next two weeks like actually like having the shows and the stuff that i have built that i know is good i'm like right like it feels like everything's coming it's such a basic like

show but i'm like oh this one matters to me. Right. Or like the mics, you have like a different mentality. Which I shouldn't. I feel like you should go into every one of them. Like, this is it. Right. But it gets old performing to the same 20 people. It does. Five times a week. It does.

And, you know, I had a terrible show in Rockford, Illinois this past weekend. And, you know what? It wasn't my fault. You're blaming the audience on this one? I'm blaming the audience. And, well, what comes down to it, I think I'm blaming the booker mostly because this was marketed as a free show. Free is tough.

Free is tough. Free show. It was like, oh, fuck it, let's stop it. Yeah. But it was at a restaurant. And so when we showed up, the people at the restaurant didn't realize that a comedy show was happening right now that is the worst when no one's

expected to be talked to and it's gonna go downhill real fast and they have to stop their conversation like they're told like no table talk it's just like oh man like we came here to table talk and you're like don't do it someone else is gonna talk for you and you may not like it yeah and you're like don't do it someone else is gonna talk for you and you may not like it yeah and you probably won't because you know i went up there with my brain cancer and stroke stuff and to some woke people it's gonna be depressing but you're trying to like make light of it and some are like thanks man right they weren't the woke crowd that were doing that they were just like when is this over so we could talk yeah that's tough i had that once i did a weirdly it was a show to promote the show yeah like we just went and was like oh we're gonna start bringing comedy here and they just shut off like it was a restaurant music venue cafe combined but we talked about

this right and it was just right up front they shut everything off and they're like all right guys we're gonna have four comedians come and talk to you now by the way if someone starts with they're gonna come talk they're gonna come talk to you not great um yeah and not one of them was like oh we're here they came here for comedy one person's like yeah i knew this was it i'm like no you didn't one guy was so oblivious the whole time like we all ate shit every one of us i'm like i don't know if i want to come back yeah and then the lack of promotion doesn't help and not having people not know is the worst yeah we should we should have done a segment about fixing promotion we can do it right now all right let's fix promotion i think or the week you have a show just bombard it just you know we have the platforms yeah we should just be

bombarding it and i say this knowing that i run a show that's in 40 cities nationwide and they have the bandwidth to promote it yeah and they have mailing lists but you know that that rockford show if i if i would have thought like oh like if there were an e is if there was an email list for this like this could have been a better show oh absolutely i think and some people and the minute you start not promoting which i need to be better promoting in general although i think i do a decent job promoting like yeah with this yeah but just like actual shows because there are shows you get put on that and i'm i'm still brand new so you've been on infinitely more than i have but there have probably been shows you've been put on there like i'm doing this because it's an opportunity it's

probably 50 bucks right i have nothing better to do it's probably not the greatest show but you know what i get to practice a 10 minute set instead of doing four minutes at this bum of a bar kind of thing right to the same 20 people so you're like i don't want you're almost like i don't want anyone to go there and so no one promotes it and so everyone gets in their head oh no one goes to this why would i promote it if no one's gonna go there and it just gets worse you're just digging yourself a hole right and i mean the way i think you can do that with out of town shows because no one's, no one's going to know me in Bradford, Illinois.

Yeah. But, uh, when you're in town, I think, I think at least a few posts would, would help. I agree.

I, there's sometimes I'm just like, it's nice, but do you want the same people to come to your show every time i don't but i think filling the seats is great filling the seats is great laughter is contagious it is so like having and i'm having someone next to something instead of having spaces in between where you feel like you have a gap to like just kind of look away and not laugh right versus someone's laughing you're gonna laugh you get like they oh it's to like just kind of look away and not laugh right versus someone's laughing

you're gonna laugh you get like they oh it's okay to laugh kind of thing right and i'm saying this full well i've had some of the best shows in front of 10 people when you get when you get the right 10 people who are in it like it can be a fun show oh. I performed to the other. I did a show in Green Bay. Me, Brandon Wine, two others. The host, opener, me, Brandon Wine. We performed to each other. The owners of the bar, the bartender, my girlfriend who came, and then two drunks who had been there since Tuesday.

That was it. That was a whole audience and it was some of the most fun i had like the show in itself sucked right but brandon and i sat up front and i like i had my notebook out and people started doing jokes and i would write like an eight and i'd show it up like they did a trick on like america's got down or something like that and we're just fucking around and the whole time it was like a roast thing. We're just going back and forth to each other. We're talking with the drunks in the back.

Finally, like three people came in, left immediately, started roasting Brandon. We're like, we'll get you shots. We're like, oh, fuck. I looked at my girlfriend. I'm like, we're getting drunk. You got to drive us home. Right. But like as long as you if you go with the right attitude, everyone's got to come in with the right attitude.

That's why I think sometimes free shows suck because when they're like, fuck it, let's go in. And I think that's when people have the biggest expectations. Right. Is when it's free, which sounds ass backwards. But if it's free, they're like, let's go in. These have to be unbelievable comics for us to like just stay right versus we paid let's just we're going to laugh let's go enjoy some humor yeah you're like we're here let's have some fun versus i could leave this better be fucking good right i think like the more and more you advance in the stand-up comedy arena like crowds have an expectation

but you know where me and you are at right now they're they're just going to have a have a fun night yeah and that to me is like a goal to achieve yeah i almost think i i used to think when i started this i was like thank god not thank god i was like all right when i started like i don't want a ton of people here right i just want to like i don't want anyone to see this like i wanted people to see it i was like i like performing and the more i've done i'm'm like, I want 9,000 people in this room. Right. I want so many people in the room. Because it makes it easier. It's no longer like I'm afraid of people seeing. I'm like, no, I want – if you get one to laugh, it's a domino effect.

Right. And then everyone's having a good time. You feel good. Your performance goes through the roof. Then you're not like so robotic with it. Right. at least me learning it's like i like it when people like oh we have a group let's interact with everyone i love talking to people right the first the first six months of comedy were just just the worst for

me and then i found out that you know brain cancer and stroke jokes work and so you know stay with that really playing off that card aren't you playing playing heavy on that card um no but it's it's fun figuring it out and i'm in i would say my first nine ten months okay all right i started last may my first one okay i thought about this in bed the other night i was like i wanted to say i started before i was 25 so i started the friday before i turned 25 on a sunday cutting it close yeah i started out of Friday and at the high note I sat down on a stool they had condoms on the microphones I had my hat all the way down and a mask on and I was decently drunk and I was like let's do it let's do a huge dopamine rush afterwards but then I it was like I didn't do it for like two months after that so i was like i did it i

was gonna say i did it i wanted to say i tried i was like no you like this like keep doing it and i was like once a week every other week right a week and then december hit i was like buckle down but now it's like multiple times a week starting the beginning of this year basically right my goal on new year's was to my new year's resolution was to get booked and it took me two weeks which is sounds so cocky which is like yeah it took me months but i got my first show showcase at the high note. What was your first show? Like first show, uh,

shout out Chris Schmidt, uh, for putting me on first show. Um, and like I showed up and I was like, this is the big time people are gonna, so many people are going to be here. And about five people showed up and you know it was a show yeah and you know i had sunday afternoon show wasn't wasn't the best show it was it was by all definitions a show yeah i got paid 20 bucks for it and you know i since then i've been pounding away yeah mine was almost the op not the opposite it wasn't a ton of people high note showcase snowstorm my friends

drove down from madison to see me wow um my brother came and surprised they all like surprised me and then there's probably like 16 people in the room right i get there and they're like hey the feature dropped i wasn't even supposed to host my first show was open right can you do 10 to 12 minutes i had never tried more than five in my life right but i was like i've tried enough and this time i got it the feature drops and evan the owner of the bar it's like i brought two people in to fill your open spot can you feature and then louisa is hosting she goes can you do 16 to 18 as i literally was like yeah yeah yeah got it and i actually nice stuff out and i like well the first three minutes was me just like crowd work right

which felt so it was nice because i knew people and i heard to everyone you know the closest and to like the evan and the other comics is like but it was my first really go at it right and i filled it i got the light i was like shit i did probably at like 16 right i was like and i cut out like a whole chunk i didn't think i was gonna i thought i was gonna be able to do i was like this i cut out like a whole chunk i didn't think i was gonna i thought i was gonna be able to do i was like this is what's gonna fail most of the time right man didn't even do it i was that felt good it was crazy way different after that i got off stage and someone was like all right i guess would you like to have a four minute guest spot on my show i was like go fuck yourself i don't think that's how it was supposed to work for yeah my first show ever

yeah it's like hey you shouldn't be opening but you also shouldn't be hosting yeah it's more like guest spots i've learned yeah and then now you're gonna basically feature for, I featured for Charlie Koji's. No, nice guy. Charlie. Good dude. All right. Ready for your last question. All right.

Hit me with it. Usually they're deep. All right. Um, last seasons was, what is your meaning of life in five words of less, five words or less? That's not your question but that's just kind of like the direction kind of this one is two-parter would you like to know

to know the answers to everything that's a start would you like to know the answers to everything okay um why or why not okay um actually you know what probably yeah probably because because i because you know you know my story yeah i i've had had health issues and, you know, at some point you just got to. Be like, why? Why? Yeah. So, yeah, I would. I mean, everything as in like universe, whatever.

My answer is no, because I think that would take the point out of living. I think a lot of living is figuring stuff out. If I knew everything, it's like – That is true. Second part, if you could only have the answer to one thing from any point in time, whatever, any kind of question you have like who killed JFK, who built the pyramids? Yeah. Why am I white? Pick a question. If you could have the answer to it, what would it be?

What would that question be? Also, do you want to do five minutes at the high note tonight? Yeah, I'll do five minutes at know all right um who's on it i'll answer the question okay all right um i would want to know like is it gonna all work out? Okay. Like, for you, for people, for... For me. For you.

I think I have a good theory on it. I think it will. Okay. good theory on it i think it will okay just because my you know my motto to life is just keep going i think that's a good one so something good's gonna happen or it's not but i would rather do it yeah you'd rather do it than do nothing and be there like i wish i would have just kept trying yes so you then that's when you know like oh this wasn't maybe my you would have you realize oh my purpose was to be a father instead of whatever but this kept me busy kind of thing right now exactly yeah so firmly agree i yeah i think I think that's a good ending. That's a great ending.

I like the serious endings. Thank you very much. We ended at a minute and 35 seconds. You mean an hour and 35 seconds? Alright. Hamster. Hamster. Cheers.

Brain cancer stroke. Thank you, buddy.