The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - Drew Lynch - HoneyLynch
Episode Date: January 9, 2023My HoneyDew this week is comedian, Drew Lynch! (Drew Lynch: Did I Stutter, America's Got Talent) Drew Highlights the Lowlights of a softball injury that resulted in a traumatic brain injury, and cause...d him to stutter. SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE and watch full episodes of The Dew every toozdee! https://youtube.com/@rsickler SUBSCRIBE TO MY PATREON, The HoneyDew with Y’all, where I Highlight the Lowlights with Y’all! You now get audio and video of The HoneyDew a day early, ad-free at no additional cost! It’s only $5/month! Sign up for a year and get a month free! https://www.patreon.com/TheHoneyDew What’s your story?? Submit at honeydewpodcast@gmail.com SUBSCRIBE to The HoneyDew Clips Channel http://bit.ly/ryansicklerclips SUBSCRIBE TO THE CRABFEAST PODCAST https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-crabfeast-with-ryan-sickler-and-jay-larson/id1452403187 SPONSORS: Liquid I.V. -Get 20% off when you go to https://www.LiquidIV.com and use code HONEYDEW
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the honeydew with ryan sickler
welcome back to the honeydew, y'all.
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Hopefully, we get to do an episode together.
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And if you are a big fan of the honeydew, then you're going to love my old podcast, The Crab Feast.
All the same guests that you love out there on the podcast world with different stories. So if you're all caught up on the do and you're like,
I'm looking for a new podcast, Feasters will tell you. They got fan pages all on social media.
They'll let you know. They'll let you in. They'll love you. All right. Fuck The Crab Feast, five
stars. All right. That is the business. You know what we do over here. We highlight the lowlights.
These are the stories behind the storytellers. right very excited to have this guest on uh first
time here on the honeydew been wanting to get him here for a while ladies and gentlemen please
welcome drew lynch welcome to the honeydew drew thank you ryan i could hear i could listen to you
give the business for so much longer than that i appreciate appreciate you saying that, dude. It was so, like, not one, like, sputter or nothing.
Nothing even, like, just so, like, I thought that,
I looked over a few times.
I was like, is there a script?
There's not.
You're just knowing it.
That was good.
Can I tell you something?
First of all, thank you very much.
Yeah.
I don't often do that.
Really?
I'm not even going to lie.
As I was hitting it, I was like, man, this feels good.
I haven't fucked up yet. I haven't fucked up yet.
I haven't fucked up yet.
I haven't fucked up a lot.
I'll say something dumb.
I'm like, ah.
I felt good.
Thank you.
It was good.
I appreciate it.
You made me feel comfortable here.
Good.
Good.
Well, before we begin getting into your story, will you please plug, promote everything and
anything you like?
Ah, thank you, Ryan.
First of all, I love that you just make it all about the comics up front and at the end that's such a nice thing man um i am doing i'm taping in san jose the 20th and
the 21st at san jose improv and then i've got austin texas um the the the week after that and
those uh that's all i'm gonna plug but the taping that's your special your upcoming special taping
hell yeah all right yeah Yeah. Social media?
It's just The Drew Lynch everywhere.
Drew Lynch was taken when I wanted to get it.
I know it sounds – I don't want that to sound more pretentious than it is.
It was just like I'll just do The Drew Lynch.
Some people might think it's – I don't need anybody pronouncing it The.
It is just do The Drew Lynch.
I know sometimes people could say The.
I've never had a The vibe, so let's keep it the Drew Lynch everywhere.
Well, let's get to know the Drew Lynch.
I really don't know you that well.
You're a person I've been wanting to get on the show.
We get a lot of requests for you, and I DM'd you.
I mean, look, I don't even see my DMs.
People that DM'd you, I'm like, sorry, I don't see them either. But I figured out what the hell I'd try.
I don't want to creep on you.
And then we were on a show the other night together. I'm like, this is where don't see him either. But I figured out what the hell I'd try. I don't want to creep on you. And then we were on a show the other night together.
I'm like, this is where I'm going to get his ass.
Yeah, I'm so glad.
I'm so glad, too, because I don't check a lot of my socials because, I don't know, it's like a whole mental thing.
If you spend too much time, you get trapped and your day's gone.
And then sometimes, I don't know, sometimes you get negative DMs.
So that's my bad for not being able to follow up.
Please.
Yeah.
So tell me a little bit about yourself.
Where are you from originally?
You know what?
Will you do me a favor and set up a little bit?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Pull that mic up to you.
I'm sorry.
No, pull the mic up to you because I don't want people to yawn at you because they can't hear you.
I'm sorry.
These are the best mics in the world if you're right on this fucking spot right here.
Yeah, that's my dad.
You really are a dad.
You're like, wouldn't you sit up?
Oh, yeah.
No, he's right. He's right. That's on me. I said it gently. Yeah, that's my dad. You really are a dad. You're like, once you sit up. Oh yeah, no, he's right.
He's right.
That's on me.
I said it gently.
I tried to say it gently.
I'm from-
Yeah, where are you from?
I'm from Indianapolis
in Indiana originally.
We were talking about your poster
in the studio over there.
Helium's such a good club.
It was.
It's a great club.
And so I lived there
until I was about eight or nine.
And then my family moved out to Vegas.
We all moved out to – my parents wanted to – they were starting an air conditioning company with my mom's dad.
And so he needed help.
And so I moved out to Vegas and lived there for about ten years.
So I guess I kind of split my time.
Now, outside of the strip and everything?
Yeah.
Or really close and?
No, outside of the strip.
Most everybody's pretty much outside the strip.
The strip's, you know, it's chaos and it's not necessarily a good area.
So, but yeah, I lived kind of like,
just before Summerlin,
just before all the rich houses,
like right there.
Like I could see all the nice houses, but yeah.
Yeah, that's where we lived too.
I'm looking at all the nice shit. Yeah. you where are you from maryland maryland oh
okay that's right that's right okay that's why the whole all the ravens and stuff yeah that's
cool man all right so um your parents were still married and moved out there are they still together
yeah they are wow all right i'm finding that that's just becoming rarer and rarer um anytime
is it any i, your parents?
No, God.
I mean, they were divorced.
My dad's dead, and they were divorced before that.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
No.
Yeah.
Tell me, do you have siblings?
Yeah, so I have a brother and a sister, and I have two sisters.
One is adopted, but I don't know why I always say it that way.
I have a brother and two sisters.
So, yeah, and I'm the oldest.
And how old are you now 31 all
right you're still a baby i mean you you still get carded set up uh no not not not not recently
yeah if you shave that beard bro i'm not letting you in my it's yeah i don't give a fuck what your
id says i'm like nah we're not getting shut down we're fresh out of a pandemic yeah this is a pandemic baby yeah no i did a i did i did headshots like recently because you
have to do them like once every however long and i did them recently and i hate shaving for it
because i just look so so so young i mean i look it truly it looks like photoshopped and
and everything and i just look uh i hate it i hate it i prefer the the the beard
whatever yeah you look good bro thank you um so can we talk about your injury yeah absolutely
here's the thing i didn't know this was an injury so i just i mean no offense i didn't dive into
your past that's okay i mean before this of course i mean just you know seeing you and your clips and
stuff and i thought that you were born or developed early on a speech impediment yeah stutter and that you had this
thing your whole life and i come to find out that this is an injury and then i'm starting to think
like whoa holy shit so at some point it dawns on you this is never going away at some point you
have to learn the a new pattern i'm assuming you
probably learn no letters that maybe you're better at and where so i have a million fucking questions
first of all walk us through that day what happened uh sure yeah so um oh man it always
is hard to like i feel like i've you know you know you sometimes you do press on the road and
stuff and they'll ask you about it and you give like some abridged version.
But what I really can appreciate about like the tone of the tone of your vibe and the tone of this show is like that you get to like, you know, re-remember and relive a lot of those details, you know, like things that, you know, I don't ever really go through the emotional sort of remembering
or the emotional sort of impact that that time had on me.
Because I just, I've been so familiar with it for however long and told it for so long.
But it was 11 years ago and I was working at a comedy club.
I was working at Flappers in Burbank.
I was the door guy there.
Never to do stand-up.
I never wanted to do it.
But did you think you could even then?
I tried, I tried, but I bombed real, real good.
Enough to be like never fucking mine for me.
Yeah, yeah.
Here's the thing.
It was the perfect night job for me because I could have my days free to do acting stuff.
So I moved out here to be an actor.
I went to a performing arts middle school, performing arts high school.
And I just I, you know, I really kind of loved that whole world.
So public speaking was never a thing.
Being in front of crowds was never a thing for me.
So we they had a pickup softball game there, and every week I went.
And then this was like a year after I lived here.
I already had representation acting-wise with a pretty reputable agency and a good manager,
and I had some appointments lined up, some callbacks for those appointments.
I look young now. I mean, 11 years ago, 12 years ago, I looked even younger, obviously. So I was booking like a lot of stuff for like, for Disney, and I had some stuff
lined up for like, like, like, like Mad Men and some did like Nickelodeon stuff and like,
how I met your mother, like some guests and, you know, some,
so some stuff for me that like, I was so excited about the momentum of, of that. And then just being around standup, being such a fan of like what it is that standups
do.
And like, it just kind of felt, um, it just felt like next to it, you know, just being
like, oh, I'm in it and stand up and is still in the in the in the same
arena as like uh uh acting and performing and so um i played baseball growing up and i played uh
so i elected to play shortstop um and uh and um that one of the days I remember it was like a Sunday and that following
week I had a, a bunch of, uh, like I had like casting director meetings and just a bunch of,
I just remember that week I was like on cloud nine because I just felt so, um, like I just,
I don't know. It never happens that quick in people's, in, in, in this industry. And for me, it might not have,
but at the same time, it still felt like I was really making a lot of momentum and building it.
So, uh, that Sunday, um, they, it was just a grounder. It was just a ground ball that
got hit my way. And sometimes you play these, you play softball and sometimes these guys,
like they come up and smack the shit out of it. You know what I mean? Like we played,
we played like the, the Burbank, that game i think was the burbank fire department
and so every and it's co-ed so that we got the burbank fire department okay so then directly
before yeah and those guys i watched one of them they ran over a lady at the plate i'm not kidding
i know exactly and they told us too we played basketball against. And they told us, too. We played basketball against them, too.
They told us, they're going to foul the fuck out of you.
And they said, I swear on God, okay?
I'm playing a direct basketball week, too.
Swear on God.
Yeah.
They said it.
If you call fouls on them, they'll fucking ticket you on the way home and shit.
They'll follow you and ticket you.
And these refs were letting them slaughter us. And you can't do anything back. You can't punch a cop on the court. and shit don't follow you and tickle you and these refs were letting them slaughter us and you can't do anything back you can't punch a cop on the court yeah they're the
regular dude oh yeah they're brutal man so we played so yeah we so and they i mean and we're
like you know it's like a carol and the flappers team i'm on the flappers team none of us we none
of us know what the fuck i mean none of us know what the fuck we're doing and um and it uh
so it popped up i it just took a weird hop like i've got good hand-eye coordination or maybe i
maybe i used to or maybe i thought i did but i thought like it it popped up it hit me and um
i fell back and went on the ground so i literally and i later found out only recently found out that because of due to cte
brain scan and all that shit my brain my brain in my head went back and then forward it physically
so i had like bruising like a traumatic brain injury on on on my brain from that and this whole
time you know the diagnosis that they gave me was a minor
vocal contusion with a major concussion. People a million times said that to me, you have a minor
vocal contusion with a major concussion because the, the, the, that day I, that day I was scheduled
to go to work after the game. And after that play, I only remember the, I don't remember any of the
events that day. I only remember what people have told me about that the events that night and then the following morning so that night apparently i had gone to uh back to the club to do my shift and
then they were yeah i'd gone back to the club to do this but but they you do own flappers now yeah
yeah i have it yeah i've made no money from it oh come on no no i yeah it's uh yeah so i um so you don't even remember
this but you went back to work they released you to work yeah so well yeah they released me
not from there not from there so i went to i went back to work they were like hey you're kind of out
of it went back home someone had told you they noticed that you were that enough yeah they were like you i just think you just need to like sleep it off and then i uh yeah and then so i went home went to
sleep and i woke up and i just remember my roommate was like crying i remember he was like crying at
the sink and i couldn't i couldn't really remember much else from that day but i remember later that
day i was in the hospital. My parents,
they were still in Vegas at the time. They're back in Indiana now, but they were in Vegas at the time
they flew, um, and, and saw me that night in the, in the hospital. And, um, I remember,
I don't even remember the, the amount of doctors that came through to see me, but it was like,
all right, we're flying somebody else in from Vegas where, uh, uh, Vegas has a, uh, Vegas has a good, um, like, uh, they have a
good unit. Uh, uh, I can't remember what the college is that's in Vegas, but it's like UNLV.
Yes. Yeah. UNLV. That's right. Uh, UNLV had somebody that they flew in and then they had
like a, like a, like a ear, nose and throat. And then they had like a pathologist come see me and a neurologist, neurologist come
see me.
And, uh, basically when they ran all this, the scans and did all the tests, they were
like, listen, this is, this is what it is.
Uh, but it's something that I, it's something that should your, my speech used to be much
worse.
And they were like, it should come back, um, in a short time. They were like, it should come back
in about a month
which is such a weird number.
So in that time
I remember writing
down a lot of the feelings
that I was having. Never to really
talk about it on stage but just like, hey, this is crazy
stuff that's happening to me.
I remember writing down a lot of the stuff
in the few days that I was in the hospital on a napkin. And just to kind of try to process
what was happening because you really like I was like, this is that I remember when when I was
starting to feel like myself again, I was like, this is crazy. I don't think this will ever
manifest. It's I don't think it'll manifest itself or manufacture itself into something worse.
And of course, famous last thoughts, I guess.
So, yeah, it was just kind of like-
At that point, you're still speaking normally and stuff?
No, no, no, no.
The next morning I woke up, everything was-
That day, the rest of that day, yes.
But the next morning, it all changed.
The rest of the day, my speech is fine, but apparently my thoughts are just not.
But the next day is when my speech, I can't even recreate it, but it used to be like,
I had a vocal issue and just the connectivity from my thoughts to my mouth was not working.
And I wasn't even able to do this.
Really?
My motor skills were all fucked.
Did it hurt?
Was it painful?
No.
No.
No.
Nothing was painful.
Nothing was painful.
I just remember getting so tired.
Like even the weeks after, I mean for years, I was just so tired.
So the stutter then is not from the ball striking the chords. It's from the violent brain
shake. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. So this really was just a contusion. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought
it was for, I thought it was for a really long time, but it was like, no, your voice, just your
voice, the, you need to learn how to speak properly with your vocal cords moving together again.
Because once you have this idea that once you
are hurt and you have this idea that you're hurt, uh, and your, and your vocal cords are,
if not, you, you have this in your brain, that's like, oh, this just, this just doesn't work.
And it's like, speech therapy is so good at like being like, no, you have to constantly
remind yourself this can work. This can come back. You have to just relearn the mechanics of that.
Listen, I'm over here.
I boohoo about it all the time, but this, I've had no smell.
Well, not no smell.
For two years, I've lost my smell because of COVID, December 2020.
And I maybe have 10% of it back, but the things don't like a cigarette i know what a cigarette smells like now
it does not the tons of weed that i smoke that you saw me smoking that goes right under my nose
can't smell it wow can't smell for bathroom stinks trash like things like that and then i think about
things like this like you know they say um you know you think about your own problems and if we all were to throw them in a circle,
we take our own shit back.
Yeah.
Right?
So you immediately start.
I would trade you though.
You would trade me?
Would you?
Just kidding.
Yeah, you would.
Would you though?
Think about that.
Listen, what you've been able to do with this, like how you've been able to overcome, would
you?
Well, there's a thing. Hang on. So I feel like i can get into this with you please because well first of all is this too
heavy already no hell no okay because i don't know i don't know i i i i mean no offense but
you shouldn't we've had people come on this show and talk about rape talk about uh physical abuse from their parents. Well, I'll get into all that too.
Well, then maybe it is.
Damn, you couldn't pick up on that, Ryan?
You couldn't smell my rape story coming?
All right.
Sorry.
No jokes about rape. But so I have a, I would say, I have a, I would say tumultuous relationship with my, with my speech
because of the amount of ridicule and social sort of dissonance that I felt and how I was distanced and sort of felt kind of isolated because of it.
And early on, not at all really thinking this was going to be my trajectory, feeling very much like, woe is me and embellishing.
Like this actually just ruined everything for you.
Yeah, like exactly.
A victim mindset not and you
know it's everything happens to every something everything happens to everyone so feeling like
you can only be sad about it can only get you so far and you can only do it for so long which by
the way i think it is healthy to be like listen this sucks and i'm in a shitty spot right now
address it and then you got to do what you can to get out of it or embrace it.
And, you know, you can try to get out of your situation for so long before you're like,
all right, I have a lot to learn from this. I'm going to use it to what I can to still
let my light shine or let me express myself despite my circumstances. And, you know,
when I first started,
I revisited all those notes that I wrote down on the napkin,
you know, trying to go on stage with,
I had gotten a lot of encouragement from comics
who were over at Flappers who were like,
listen, you got to use what happened to you,
talk about it, talk about it.
And so the first time I went on stage,
I, you know, it wasn't like good jokes.
I wouldn't say it wasn't like, you know, like it's never like whatever.
And that's the first time I went on stage post injury.
Prior to injury, I went on stage two times.
I bombed so hard and just I was like, all right, well, it's not for me.
And that's fine.
I can still admire other comics and doing it.
And I, you know, I'll still be within my acting pursuits.
you know, I'll still be within my acting pursuits. And so, um, when that happened, um, uh, I got so much overwhelming support from comics at the mic. Like, yes, there were, yes, there's some audience,
but mostly it was just comics. And it just, it really felt good to feel like okay these are a group of misfits that have their own um eclectic i would say
uh that they they have a it's a group of people who have their own uh failures or loss or pain
or whatever that they're using some maybe not but a lot of them that's what they're doing it for
and so it did kind of feel good to feel accepted by comics even though every single person that
continued to walk through the door when i was working at flappers because i still work there
afterwards um uh you know you don't you don't i had to check people in i had to take their i had
to take their information people would look at me like is this a bit people look at me like
you know like i'm not giving like this is taking too i just want to go to the fucking show
and i yeah but but but but but but i remember my boss at the time you know at the time she was so
like you got to get everybody's information you got to do this and like so i just i and sometimes
feeling like that line starting to line up i actually think i helped flapper's business to
be honest when people see a line people are like what's going on tonight? And I think- Did you sue them for all it's worth? Then you definitely helped their business.
Okay.
If you didn't sue those motherfuckers, you helped their business immensely.
No, they were, you know, I always did wonder if they ever didn't let me go because, you know, because I don't know.
Did they pay your medical bills?
No, no, but it wasn't on company property.
And here's the thing, it was a bill, man.
And I didn't-
I'm sure it was a bill.
I didn't make money doing standup
for until like four years after that.
And so I was just doing a night job working there
and I was happy to have stage time,
but all those bills, I was just like,
I'll worry about that later.
But anyway, so I did the mic, I did the mic
and I just, I felt like, oh man,
like I felt just like I could express my,
like my light's not out.
You know what I mean?
Like I'm not sunk yet.
I haven't drowned.
So it felt, you know, and being and performing in any avenue in any way I think is like a really, really cool thing at least for me.
And I think a necessary thing for a lot of comics.
And that happened.
And so in a way it really taught me that me that I taught me a few things.
One, that I could have support from people who I didn't know that I could get support from.
And two, it taught me that being vulnerable is a good thing.
And then three, it taught me word economy and brevity.
word economy and brevity and when your speech is so slow uh you really have to save the very last few words to change the whole context of the joke and so i just i wrote every single day
so much and just trying to cut and edit and editing is my favorite part of stand-up probably
because of that and you, even we're talking
about your special where we're just, you know, you're like, Oh, I want to pull this and I want
to use this part. I know that this, I know that this, this bit has a place in my hour, but I know
I'm going to move it somewhere in the center. And I know, and even doing that on a more micro scale
where you can do that with jokes, like truly if I don't advocate for myself well, but I think I am
a good editor and that's my skillset. Like, I just think when it myself well, but I think I am a good editor, and that's my skill set.
I just think when it comes to, yeah, writing, fine, performing, okay.
But when it comes to editing, that's when I think I really, really shine.
And I think that's because I attribute that to my injury.
All right.
I have three questions I'm dying to ask, and I'm going to say them so I don't forget them.
Okay, okay, okay.
One I want to talk about when you had to mentally accept okay this shit's not
going away and this is not only my profession but how i need to communicate on a day-to-day
yeah i want to ask you about writing specifically in stand-up if you i know that speaking um just
casually whatever off the cuff is you, it is what it is.
But if you're writing stand-up and you can rehearse it in your mind,
can you do a set without stuttering?
Yeah.
I mean, if I rehearse, I've gotten so much better at it now.
I've just gotten so much more confident.
It's like I care less.
So if you know what you're going to say again and again and again.
And sometimes I feel like sometimes, like, you know,
you're talking about those things where you say, you know, little words and letters that I know that I have these triggers.
People who stutter, we all do this and that.
We're always thinking ahead to things that we get stuck on.
So like that's where a lot of the social.
That's what I don't want to say.
Right?
Exactly.
Wow.
You're circumventing all the time.
And that's hard.
I think that that contributes a lot to this vicious cycle because you get so much anxiety,
not from just the stutter, but it's also because I can't sometimes be fully in this
conversation with you.
I hear you on that.
You can't.
You miss human connection.
You miss human connection because you're literally directing your life all the time.
And sorry, I know I'm getting like emotional,
but it's just, it's something that like,
I have so much anxiety all the time
because I'm thinking all the time
about the way that I say things
and not necessarily just what I want to say.
And I envy people who like,
sometimes you can just see people,
they're all exterior.
Their heart is just everywhere.
And they say something and it's imperfect
and somehow it's still so awesome
because that's just who they are.
For me, I'm constant. I think that is also why it's such a strength of mine is because i'm constantly doing it i'm constantly in my head about the way something goes or how it goes a
different way and and and what i was gonna what i was gonna say because i want to answer your
questions but okay yeah what i was gonna say is that's why my relationship with my speech has
been so tumultuous because i i used it initially to make self-deprecating jokes to really heal. And then because I've gotten so much progress over my speech and then I had success with my did I did America's Got Talent almost 8 years ago
and my speech was
way different then
than it is now
and
consistently
because you've worked on it
you've worked on it
no one sees my medical bills
no one sees
the amount of
medical professionals
you and I talking
before the
before the thing
also nobody knows
that that whole season
for flappers
that was the only error
you made man
you were a fucking gold glove out there shortstop Everybody knows that that whole season for flappers, that was the only error you made, man.
You were a fucking gold glove out there at shortstop.
That was the lone error, man.
A gold glove.
Burbank Police Department and Fire Department would have loved to have you out there in short, bro.
Was it against the Burbank Police Department, too? It was Fire Department.
Man, everybody owes you money, bro.
The Burbank Fire Department.
I own Burbank.
Flappers, that park's a wreck.
I own Burbank, man.
Holy shit, man.
You should own Burbank.
I know.
I want a Glendale, but Burbank will be fine.
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Now, let's get back to the do.
So anyway, what are your – so yes, tell me.
Okay, so another question I do have before I ask you about stand-up again. We keep just bringing more questions from each other.
I can't help it.
I want to fucking write these down.
Do you have a stutter when you talk to yourself, when you dream?
No.
No.
Usually when I'm around people that I get really, really comfortable with and I'm comfortable with myself, I don't.
And it's getting, like I said, like –
Your inner monologue is not –
No.
No.
I hear it.
It is truly – when it starts to happen,
you're like, don't do that.
And then, but that break has gotten,
I think of it as like a break, like an actual pedal.
It's gotten like softer.
You almost have to go against that instinct to do that
and not be hard on yourself for when it happens.
And the less that I've cared, the less that I stutter.
Is your voice same bass, same octave, or did any of that change?
I think it gets higher because I get more stressed.
No, I mean from before the injury.
Yeah, it was higher.
It was higher.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
My voice was lower, but after my injury, it was higher.
My voice now is more close to how I was speaking then.
But if I really think about it, I use a lot of breath support.
It gets into this register,
which is my usual register.
But when I get excited or I get nervous or anything,
it goes up into a higher thing.
And then that's when it's, you know, whatever.
But that's almost anybody.
So do you mean then that
when you're actually doing standup,
because standup is a very,
just by definition,
it's a selfish fucking thing.
It's us talking at a crowd,
to a crowd,
not with.
Does that more freeing for you then?
Do you feel more comfortable in that hour there?
I love it.
Because you don't have to worry about
when anybody else is going to fucking say,
you're in 100% control.
This, this.
That for me is something that I only realize later.
It's like I have all this.
And you have this weird dynamic with an audience where it's like I need you, but I have so much resentment for you because outside of the here, you would treat me this way.
The meet and greet ain't going to be like this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, 100%.
100%.
And you have to have – I've gotten this through just a lot of exploring and just
meditating on it. But, you know, I've gotten a healthier relationship in my relationship with
people now where it's like, I feel like I want to be a service to them where it's not where I've
almost moved, removed myself more from the selfish component and seeing and now seeing myself as like,
how is it? Can I give? How is it that I can give something to you? And even people who have like had been critical or
my stand up might not be for them, or they might question if my speech is my impediment is real.
I still try to give the grace of that and be like, how is it that I can still offer a service? And
that to me shows that to me, it feels like that's what grace is supposed to be.
And so there's been almost a free or feeling in that in that I feel more levity in my stand up
lately, even around comics, I used to get so like, if I would be in the room with like,
with Bill or with Eliza or anybody, if I was in the room with them, I couldn't I almost couldn't
even talk like I, I remember when I first met Bill,
he came to do flappers
and the manager had me sell his CDs with him
and he's like leaning on the counter.
I'm stuttering so bad and I'm trying to sell his CDs
and Bill, he goes, like I can tell he's laughing
because of the situation he's in.
He's like, he's not saying anything.
He's not saying anything.
He's just going, yeah.
And he goes, you don't have to do that.
He just goes.
I'll never forget it.
I'm impressed.
I mean, I'm impressed I mean I'm impressed
for how long
he didn't say something
because his body language
was saying
I'm saying so many things
in my head
despite leaning on the counter
that
that classic Bill
leaning on the counter
kind of thing
but I just
I was so
I was so
that was humiliating
dude
Ryan I cannot tell you
I was
I'm meeting
this is the first time I'm meeting Bill.
Yeah, it's fucking Bill Burr.
And I'm selling his CD.
I'm trying to sell his CDs and he just goes in such a gracious way.
He's like, you don't have to.
He didn't even finish.
You don't have to.
You don't have to.
You know, just. you know just oh it's too good that was too good uh all right so say that that as a performer that completely makes sense to me i felt that when you were saying that like yeah this is real freedom
in this this all right so can we talk talk about just in life, when you realized,
shit, this thing's not going away, when you actually have to mentally accept that,
and then start learning a new pattern of speech and a new way of talking? Because that's,
like I said, that's a whole new ballgame, which I'm sure it's – there's some depression in there and also acceptance.
And then, like you said, there's gratitude later.
But that doesn't come unless you go through the shit.
Absolutely.
All the stages of grief.
Absolutely.
And it sounds, you know, it sounds whatever, lame or meta or, I don't know, selfish.
But it truly is – it truly is – it was the stages of grief.
And when you're going through it, sometimes you're not aware that that's what's happening.
I would say almost most times you're not aware that that's what's happening.
And I was 20 when that happened.
So, you know, I was 20 years old when the injury happened.
And, you know, it took me, I would say, I would say for a few years it was taking me some time to really cope with the fact
that this was probably probably my reality for the rest of my life that was my new set of
circumstances couple years yeah yeah yeah I mean yeah because you have you you when you get off
stage from a set when you get done when you do a set and it goes well, you're like, I don't even care.
I don't even whatever.
If all this had to happen so I can feel this great feeling of being like, I'm expressing myself.
People are commiserating with me about my circumstance.
But then an hour later when you're at home and you're by yourself and you're whatever you're single or you go to a
restaurant and ordering stuff or you're back in the shit of being a a person in this situation
you're that superpower is late is where it is it's late it's not as it's not as much now. You're like, you are, uh, you just feel, oh, I'm so, so human now. I'm so,
um, flawed. And I would say, you know, I talked about this when I did America's Got Talent,
compassion wasn't something that I was like, I wasn't like the most compassionate person with
other people. I wasn't by any means like the worst person. I just, uh, compassion was something that
it took a backseat to a lot of my situations
because I was just selfish
and I think I'm still selfish.
But this speech issue
really forced me to take a look
at a lot of my other issues
and realize that I'm human
because I'm imperfect and whatever.
So yeah, I forget what question
I was answering there.
You were answering just the
the acknowledgement to yourself that hey this is the way it's going to be yes yeah and so
yeah and so sorry i lost track there but i just mean i just mean like um yeah for a few years it
was me realizing that this was how this was how it was going to be and when i lost america's got
talent i you know i it was me and the last guy. And when I lost, I didn't realize until I lost, I was using that experience as a coping mechanism for what had happened to me.
I was like, if I win this show, then it all will have made sense and I'll be fine.
And we're always saying that to ourselves anyway in this business.
If I get this, I'll be happy.
If I get this.
But that really was,
I just didn't even realize it until afterwards. And I kept telling myself, it's fine. I'm just
happy that I get to be doing this and I'm glad that I get to keep advancing. But only way after
the fact did I realize that I was using that as an experience to try and validate my injury.
Why do you think you did that?
Were you not getting enough? Was it also something that you thought could help your career too oh sure yeah sure yeah absolutely i knew i yeah i i knew that it could but but if i
knew that i if i could if everything and all the shit that had happened and all the work that i
put in not just uh personally but also professionally in professionally in embarking on now a stand-up
pivot, it would at least make sense. It would at least be able to validate, okay, maybe in the
ethers of the universe or the plan or the blueprint of my life makes sense now.
This had to happen so this could happen.
Yeah. Yeah. And it didn't.
And it's one something that, again, only hindsight can give you the appreciation for.
Can I ask you this, though?
Yeah.
Do you really think winning would have?
No, it was a blessing.
Yeah, it absolutely was a blessing.
That would have delayed or belabored me addressing maybe some issues, but they would have came up again at a different time. And also something that I think it taught me was, okay, everything's going
to have to be up to me afterwards. And most people think that I built my audience from that show.
Like, yeah, I was on it and it did well for me. And maybe people might know me from that, but I
had to sustain and build, uh, I built most of everything that I built after that show.
It wasn't, you know, from a number standpoint, from a sales standpoint, from anything.
I built it all afterwards, which, you know, you can attribute to, you can attribute to,
I think, me also just feeling like, ah, all right, that's that lesson is like, you sure
you put all your eggs in the
basket of just this experience, hoping that it's going to pay off for you. And then realizing that
it'll be up to you to, it's going to just be up to you to put things in your hands, you know?
But also, even if you win that, it's the same. It really is in the end. It's all in your hands
after that. Absolutely. This whole thing is. Absolutely.
So what do you, can I ask you about speech patterns and things like that?
Yeah, ask me whatever.
What do you struggle with the most?
Words that start with the same letter back to back.
And H's are pretty tough.
So alliteration, isn't that alliteration?
Yeah, yeah. And H's you said?
H's, yeah.
Isn't that alliteration?
Yeah. And H's you said?
H's, yeah.
And incidentally, that's the thing that they have you work on the most in speech is truly like tongue twisters and like, you know, really figuring out.
That Sally Selsey shell shit.
Yeah.
sounds that I'm always aware of in every word because you're supposed to gravitate towards those words that, or at least the sounds within those words that are helpful for your speech that
most people aren't even aware. In fact, I've done so much speech therapy. I can tell when someone
else is not speaking correctly, you know, and so, um, but I think I've gotten, it's like I said,
like, you know, the second time I meet you
and the third time I meet you.
And when I see you around the scene, it's going to be, you know, it's just, it's going
to, I know it's going to be better because I will have felt comfortable, not just in,
not just in our meeting, but in how vulnerable you let me be with you.
I never talked this way with pretty much any comic or anybody.
I'm, I would say I'm pretty introverted, but you
know, it's, it's one of those things that like, you know, around my wife, like I'm, it's, it's so
easy and it's just, you know, I've, I've easily said words like, like edited, edited before when
I'm around her. Sometimes I can just nail that. I can't fucking say that. I throw in an extra ED
and I'm like, edited it. I can't. Okay. That's what I'm saying. And so there's a clip out there
that a few years ago went like stupid viral for whatever reason where someone had me try to
someone asked why i tried to say i tried to say the word banana and that one's always so tough
for me because of the the tongue and then yeah and so that went like really really viral and so
then a lot of people started showing up at my shows and they would bring me like they would bring me little stuff you know and like just it became like a thing and so uh
that's one of those things that like i said like the maturity not and not that i'm referring to
myself as mature but the process of maturing past being like okay i am basically a clown for
for the purposes of you giggling we are yes, yes, we are. For you laughing at how much this is actually painful for me during the day.
But at the same time,
you can appreciate that you can find
and meet people who do have humor in that
and are lighthearted enough to, you know.
And so then it became a thing
that like a lot of people will shout that out
or they'll ask me to say it or whatever.
Do they come up to you after?
Yeah, they'll ask me.
People who stutter or anything like that?
Many, many, many.
Tell them you're helping them out. Yeah, or I get a lot of parents who are like my son
stutters and you're this. When I, when I was after, after my injury, actually after I, after
I did America's Got Talent is when I started to really go to a lot of support groups where it's
a lot of younger kids. And I go to Camp Say, that's a, that's a. Are any of them from an
injury like yourself? Some, a lot of yourself some a lot of adults a lot of adults
okay yeah a lot of adults car car accidents adult onset yeah adult onset stuttering is something that
that happens sometimes people have it from stroke sometimes people have it um inexplicably they just
wake up and then that that's that's just what happens so but i would say a lot of it is in
adolescence mostly boys like five to seven, sometimes it's
girls, mostly boys. And I just, you know, I look at my situation and comparing it to theirs, like
they have to like, find out who they are while they're growing up. And like, there's these
parents who they just, they, they're, they're like, they're crying and they're telling me,
they're just like, I just don't know what to do. Or just, you know, he comes home and he's crying every day. And it's just like, you know, I don't consider myself to be like whatever the stuttering ambassador, but I feel like it is somehow you're armed with this level of responsibility that goes beyond, I guess, just what it is that you do. And it's interesting because I've gotten so much,
I built so much resentment for my speech
because so many people will message me and be like,
I miss when you did stutter.
I miss, you know, and it's like, it's crazy
because how could you say like,
you want to put a ceiling over my personal growth
for your enjoyment, you know what I mean?
I miss when you have
both your legs yeah exactly yeah exactly so it's like you know so it's just it's it's one of those
things that i think um you know you just you just try to take with a grain of salt i guess
can you go on like a laced curse tirade and not cuss or stutter excuse me yeah like where do you cursing is easy
without stuttering yeah that's that that like if you what how many curse you ever tried to do a
curse back to back to back to see how many stupid shit bitch ass tits fuck shit i'm a lot of i'm
out of that's all i know damn it um what are your strengths when it comes to the speech pattern
um curse words obviously
yeah curse words are good
I think like
you know
there's a melodic intonation
technique
which is basically singing
you hear about that
people who stutter
they don't when they sing
is that right
you don't
so if you sang your instructions
to your wife
you wouldn't
yeah
I mean that would be
annoying as fuck
having a musical in the house
every day
exactly
yeah exactly exactly so it's like no I'll just stick with stuttering I mean, that would be annoying as fuck having a musical in the house. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
So it's like, no, I'll just stick with stuttering.
It's better than the alternative.
That's interesting.
I didn't know about the singing.
Yeah, so that's a technique.
That's actually a very researched and I would say effective technique is learning.
Do you ever fuck with it at home and try it?
Yeah.
I mean, I've watched.
I also started doing this when Steve Harvey had that interview where he was like, every single day I stand in the mirror.
I give myself affirmations.
I walk across the room while talking to myself out loud.
And that has been something like you would never know.
Steve Harvey, Ed Sheeran, Paul Rudd, all these people, you have no idea that they did.
They did what?
Suttered.
Oh, really?
They all did?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
And they were able to work around it?
Rehabilitate it in some way or another.
And, you know, I just think there is, I think, an inherent vicious cycle, which is the more you try to focus on uh not doing something then
you do i mean but that that that principle applies to almost anything you know you you say like when
i get home i'm not going to eat like shit and then you do that immediately so anyway um but i feel
like you know and it's like even around comics like I
sometimes
I sometimes like when I watch
you perform for the first time at the store
I thought I could
and this is not just for you this is almost
for anybody but I watch you perform
in the belly room for the first time I was like oh man he's
so funny
I was like oh man he's so funny
I would love to be able to walk over
and say like good set and introduce myself,
talk easily, just, you know.
And even though my stutter is like so much better,
it's like, it's night and day from what it was.
I feel just that social part,
that social where you just,
you're stressing about what shouldn't, what you hope not
to happen. And, you know, I'm just, I'm thinking a million things. I'm thinking, will I, I'm
thinking, will he, will it matter if I don't stutter? That's a thing now, like where I'm like,
oh, I didn't stutter at all. And when people, or if I get through a full thing and people will go,
hey man, you sound great right now and
then it's like oh shit now i'm thinking about you know i'm now i'm thinking about it even though i
sounded great but i would say like i keep going back to this um template which is you know i just
care less and less and i i'm hoping that other people will also care uh less and less well let
me know if i'm boring the shit out of you with any of this
because are you kidding me i've got a million questions i'm filling up okay i um well i i met
you at the improv the other night and like i said your name has been on our board back there for a
while because i've wanted to have you on um but there was no way i wasn't going to come up to you
the other night but listen i'm the same way i'm the – I'll sit and talk to you if you come up and talk to me,
but I'm probably not going to go over to you and have a heart-to-heart
outside of a, hey, how you doing, or whatever.
I'm just not that person.
I've never been that person.
Yeah.
Like once you sort of crack the nut, I'll sit there and tell you everything.
Yeah.
You know, that kind of shit.
Is that the way you are?
Are you someone who you would identify yourself as an extrovert or an introvert?
It's funny you ask that.
During the pandemic, I realized how extroverted I was because of what we do, and I missed being around.
But I don't need to be.
So I'm an introverted extrovert.
Does that make any fucking sense?
Yes, it does.
That's what I realize I am.
Like I can go sit by myself and have dinner, but I like to be around the people.
I'm comfortable going to a movie by myself, a concert, a sporting event.
I'm comfortable being on stage in front of 300 fucking people and not really outside of a meet and greet, like hanging out with them for hours on end or talking to them about, yeah, shit, I don't enjoy it.
Well, that's what I would say is I've noticed about you
is that you're so even keeled.
Like you're the same right when you go on stage,
right when you come off stage.
It's the same.
And that's to me also where I'm in my head about like,
oh man, like he's got like a cool vibe.
I probably don't want to bother him or whatever.
And so you just, you know, you make assumptions about people and none of it's negative, but sometimes it can be wrong.
And, you know, learning so much about you today, like just talking before the podcast and now and like, you know, it's just I get a fuller picture of your vibe and the essence of the way that you are.
You like my essence?
I do.
What's up?
I do.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
I think it's sincere.
It is sincere.
And the other thing, too, we talk about with comedians all the time is it's like unless
we're on a show together, like the improv or the comedy store or at a festival, we don't
see each other.
It's a solo sport.
We're out there traveling.
My producer, K kirsten goes with
me a lot and i was like you'll see we're gonna see all we've seen mark maron mazda brani eddie
brab and we see them all in the airport crossing paths with each other i'm like there's another
where you go annie letterman i'm like she's coming back from here we're going there you know
um so yeah it's also these podcasts are a nice way to sit down and you know not shitting on any
other ones but we're not movie
reviewing or whatever i'm getting to know who the fuck you are i'm not asking you to come on here
and be jokey and funny yeah i'm asking you to fucking tell me what's really going on there and
there and that's what i like that's why i was so like i was excited to to to learn about this
podcast uh and the way you and the way it's ran there's no pressure to feel like it's
that and i don't think that that that's me to be honest i think that you know when i first met when
i first met my wife she told me um she told me she expected like because she had seen me perform
before did you meet her before or after you had this daughter uh after after yeah so that my
daughter was over a decade ago and then uh uh, I've been dating her for about five years.
Okay.
So she was just like you, she said to me, you're so much, you're so much, you're so much deeper than I thought.
Like, I just thought it would be, you know, jokey all the time when it's, it's actually, you know, I would say I'm 80% this all the time and then maybe 20% is and that's that time.
You know, that's that time.
I'm a 75-25.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I like to find humor in as many moments as I can.
Yeah.
But I've never hung out with or could take the person that was on 24-7.
Yeah.
Like, there's also what you're not getting to do is know that real fucking person.
All we're doing is meeting this representative of you 24 7 can we sit down have a real fucking
moment here about some shit yeah absolutely absolutely i mean a lot of comedians i again
this show you would ask me why before we recorded it we call it the honeydew and i'll tell you but
this show has made me re-appreciate comedians in such a different way to listen to people like yourself
and these people that come on and share these horrific fucking stories and yet still find
light yeah you know laughter levity in these moments like that's what this show is and i
the comedians are unlike most fucking people most people are like how the fuck are you laughing at
that that's crazy and i'm like that's another way of dealing with shit but the honeydew um and i say it a lot but the um i'm having dinner
at this diner one night they they bring my food and they bring that fucking fruit cup and um i
eat everything in it but the honeydew right i even ate those the ugly red grapes i like green grapes
but i ate the red one and and and i don't have don't have this. I didn't go into it with like honeydew is not something.
I just don't fuck with it.
It's like iceberg lettuce.
You know what I mean?
It's the fruit equivalent.
And I get up and I leave and I see honeydew on the fucking tabletops everywhere.
And I just thought to myself, you know what?
That sucks.
That's a perfectly good fruit that just gets tossed aside.
And then I realized that that's who I am in life.
I've been this perfectly fine person.
I might be iceberg lettuce to you, but somebody wants this on their sandwich.
That's brilliant.
And then I just wanted to start talking about, you know, and the other thing too is, Drew, everybody, we see these fucking, it's everybody's social media is their highlight reel it's their espn it's very you know here's
the best moments of my life but it's 30 fucking seconds at a time yeah there's 24 hours in a day
you know what i mean so i also wanted to talk about what's really going on behind all that
shit on social media and what's really going on in your life between that minute clip of you in you know being ecstatic at the top of this mountain peak or whatever the fuck it is
yeah um and thankfully people really enjoy it and like it and this is you're gonna get a lot of love
this is not in any way boring or too depressing or dark believe me yeah well that's i mean that's
super interesting because again i thought you were born with this and you learned how to be a performer and everything which also
is like you've had to overcome two things just being a comedian in itself and learning how to
be a public speaker i know i'm i go back and listen to old shit of mine sometimes i'm like
you sound like a fucking caveman you know know what I mean? Like, God.
And I thought I was okay.
And then I hear myself in 10 years, I'll listen.
I'm like, God, your podcast sucks, bro.
So how is it with your wife?
She's great.
We got married this summer, and she is a world champion in cross-country skiing.
Get the fuck out of here. A world champ? For the U.S.?
No, for Bulgaria.
No shit.
But she's been for Bulgaria and for U.S., yeah. And she's training right now to qualify for the next cross-country skiing Olympics.
What kind of training is that? Do you feel like shit next to her?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, she's got to be in the best shape.
Yeah, she's crazy
cross country skiing where does she burn calories
how many a day
I have no idea
she eats and it doesn't even matter
her dad was like number 2
or number 3 in the world for skiing
in Bulgaria
at one point so yeah
it's cross country you don't have to get out a gun
and shoot and all that stuff yeah but she's out she's out there in vermont right now and all
and a lot of her friends are biathletes and like world champion like uh and and olympic medalists
and in in that and um it's pretty it's pretty insane but she's just genetically she just has
like and also she works incredibly hard but i just mean genetically she's just genetically she just has like and also she works incredibly
hard but i just mean genetically she's just one of those metabolisms that like she you know pasta
three times a day like it doesn't matter you know what i mean how old is she she's 26 i mean that
helps too yeah well yeah but i mean even still like how did you guys meet how do you meet a
world-class skier yeah we uh i did a i did a show in Vermont, and then after the show, I went to the bar,
and she ordered an IPA, and I was drinking IPAs at the time,
and I thought that was really, really cool.
And then we hung out, and we chatted for, I don't know, five hours, six hours that night.
So kind of like a classic sort of met at a bar kind of a thing.
Can I ask you a question?
Did you write your own vows?
We actually agreed to not do vows.
But I did end up doing like not a speech, but it's just, you know, when we got married two days before we technically got married um two days before our
reception or ceremony where everyone came to we legally got married um we we climbed the tallest
mountain in vermont and then we were lost we got lost on the mountain for uh probably an hour hour
and a half or so and uh i was so mad at her i was so like we're lost like on your wedding on our
wedding day she she's got the She's got the gown thing.
She's got the fucking veil thing.
You guys are in the woods.
I've got a shirt that looks like a tuxedo.
And I was like, I just kept seeing it.
I was like, we are going to be in the paper.
We're going, and it's going to be like this.
They're going to find our bodies
and it's going to be like this.
We have no reception wherever we are.
We had to repel at one point.
We had to go through a little cave.
On your wedding day?
How many people have rappelled on their wedding day?
It's crazy, man.
I was so mad at her.
I was so, so mad at her.
And then we did the ceremony at the top.
I was so mad.
I still said, I do.
I still said it, dude.
Was it just the two of you?
No, it was the two of us. We had our parents, my parents, her parents, my grandparents, her best friend and her boyfriend, and then the guy who married us.
The Donner party out there.
Yeah, yeah.
It was crazy.
But they drove up.
They drove up to where I was.
They drove up.
But it was just the two of us and the camera guy.
There was like, we had a camera guy.
And I just, I couldn't not see the headline in my head.
I was so mad at her.
And she just kept saying like,
no, we're seven minutes away.
We're seven minutes away.
And that went on for a good 50 minutes, an hour or so.
And then we finally made it to the top.
And then two days later,
when we were at the ceremony, I just kind of revisited that and was just talking about just that kind of experience.
And yeah, it was a cool thing.
Our wedding, anything that you would normally do traditionally in a wedding, we put it on its ears.
I like that.
We had a flower wall, but there were dildos in it and stuff like that.
Okay, that's lovely.
Yeah, we did a scavenger hunt.
We hired a choreographer
so we could rehearse a really cool dance
with a medley of songs, hip-hop stuff.
We hired a choreographer for a few months
and did that before that nobody knew about.
We had a dunk tank at our wedding.
A dunk tank? Yeah. I just taught my daughter about dunk tanks yeah we were in ocean city maryland i'm like back in the day there used to be a guy dressed like a clown and he would say
the most offensive horrific shit and you would try to dunk him and if you didn't it got worse
and then that motherfucker had to run for his life when his shift was over i've showed her a one line i'm like they got that oh god that gravelly boy he's like you got a pussy
arm son you know that shit i'm like here's these guys here they are yeah man that's that is so good
oh god you have to make that a joke right Ryan. That's so funny. You remember those people? Yeah. That was a job for a while.
Yeah.
You could up and be racist and shit, sexist.
They would just yell anything out there.
I guess he's okay because he's sitting on a board over water.
Yeah, and he's in paint.
Yeah.
He's in paint.
Yeah.
He's in a board over water.
I guess it's okay that he's racist. Because I can dunk them.
I can get them wet.
You can't cancel someone if they're wet.
That's it.
You can say whatever you want to, motherfucker, but you better get wet after that.
That's the news.
Somebody throw a bucket on me.
Hurry up.
I just said the N-word.
Oh, that's so funny somebody throw a bucket on me hurry up i just said the n-word oh that's so funny oh that's so good okay we're about that time um okay okay but before we wrap up i i gave you a heads up before i want
to ask you now all right because it's interesting because the age that this happens and everything i'm curious what advice you would give to 16 year old drew uh it doesn't it doesn't go to it doesn't go
according to plan i know that that's a cliche probably for a reason no one has said that oh
really i don't think one person yeah it doesn't go according to plan so someone's gonna fucking
edit that nine people saying that together yeah like ryan you're an asshole yeah but no yeah it doesn't go according to plan i know that's right
on the nose for me but i am a i'm a perfectionist someone who also i deeply struggle with imposter
syndrome as well so uh it just being okay with it not you know like kind of like we talked about
during this podcast just like you know there, there is beauty in something that is imperfect and there is perfection in something that's not.
So that's kind of what I would say.
Yeah.
That's great.
This is a great episode.
Thank you.
I really do appreciate you coming on and talking about it.
I'm sure it's not easy.
And I didn't know people doubted shit like it's not if it's not enough already.
And you got to deal with that bullshit, whispers and all that nonsense.
Well, you know what?
Just fucking stutter your ass all the way to the motherfucking bank.
Fuck them.
For real.
Give them the finger with, well, you can say fuck without any problem.
Yeah, that's true.
That's what you should be doing.
That's what I'm saying.
It's been getting so much better that I also, and my relationship with it has also been like,
I want to make sure that I am funny despite it or,
or,
or like that it has nothing to do with it.
You know what I'm saying?
Let's do this before we go.
Yeah.
If it changed,
if you wake up one day and you don't have the stutter anymore,
how will you feel about that?
I'm,
I'm,
I'm,
it's,
I think it's becoming more and more my reality every day.
It's becoming more and more like,
I just don't care.
I don't, I don't, I, I, I, the, the more separation I get from it, the more it just, I let it
go.
And it's, it's just less and less.
And I, and I, I'm, I'm okay with it.
If there's, if the challenge then becomes, oh no, people might've known me because of
this, or will he, will he be able to still make jokes, whatever?
I don't care.
Like, and, and I've just suffered too much personally with it
and my relationship with it that I can't be doing it.
I can't have that relationship.
It's unhealthy to constantly obsess about how people,
if, if, if, and how will I, how?
If there was a surgery right now that was like,
hey, it's guaranteed 100%, would you do it?
No.
No.
No.
No.
It's all about what's happening right now.
And honestly, there's more – I hate the word honor, but I feel like the word value, there's more value in being able to be like, no, you know what?
I did this.
Deal with your shit.
This is my journey, and you can mark it.
You can document it.
Good for you, dude.
Yeah. That's great. Thank you for
coming on for real. Yeah, thanks for letting me talk
this, man. It's therapeutic to be able to like
share stuff like that.
Oh, that's nice of you to say.
Please plug everything again. All of it.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, yeah, I'm doing
San Jose Improv.
That's where I'm taping. It's January 20th, 21st, and 22nd.
And then I'm doing Austin, Texas the week after that.
You can just go to my website, drewlynch.com, to look at any of my tour dates.
But it's mostly just the taping, and I appreciate that.
And the Drew Lynch on all social media.
Brother, thank you so much for coming on.
Thanks, man.
For real, this was a pleasure.
And as always, Ryan Sickler on all social media, Brother, thank you so much for coming on. For real, this was a pleasure.
And as always, Ryan Sickler on all social media,
ryansickler.com. We'll talk to you all next week. Bye.