The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - Moses Storm - MosesDew

Episode Date: September 4, 2023

My HoneyDew this week is comedian, Moses Storm! (Trash White) Moses Highlights the Lowlights of growing up in a cult. 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 [e-mail] CATCH ME ON TOUR https://www.ryansickler.com/tour September 15th & 16th: Tulsa, OK September 29th & 30th: Pheonix, AZ October 20th - 22nd: La Jolla, CA October 27th & 28th: Salt Lake City, UT November 10th & 11th: Batavia, IL December 8th & 9th: San Francisco, CA 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: Betterhelp -The HoneyDew is sponsored by BetterHelp, get 10% off your first month at https://www.Betterhelp.com/HONEYDEW Athletic Greens |-Go to https://www.athleticgreens.com/HONEYDEW to get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free travel packs with your first purchase

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honeydew ladies and gentlemen please welcome m first time here on the honeydew ladies and gentlemen please welcome moses storm welcome to the honeydew heads thank you the doobies dude it's been a year literally yeah we're shooting this in july now i i talked to you at montreal last year and was like dude i would love to have you and i've been big-timing you for an entire year saying no i can't i've been completely free but i've've been big-timing you for an entire year, saying, no, I can't. I've been completely free, but I've just been big-timing you. Yeah. Yeah, as a power move.

Well, I'm very excited to get into your story, but before we do, please plug, promote everything and anything you would like. Oh, yeah. So the best introduction to me is the special I have on HBO, or HBO Max, or Max, whatever it's called, called Trash White, And it's something I put everything into. It came out in 2022. It's called Trash White. And I built the set.

I edited the entire special. I directed it. Color correct, put everything into it, made my own costume. And then obviously, yeah, the whole set. That's the main thing. So that's a great introductory. If you like that, then come out and see me at the Elysian Theater on July 30th. I'm doing my part two to that show, which normally comedy specials don't have a cliffhanger, but this is the part two to that one. It's called Perfect Cult, where I start the Perfect Cult with the audience there that night.

gets a robe it's interactive immersive theater meets stand-up comedy i have no idea if it's going to work or not that's why i need people to come out and uh let me fail in front of them and then i'm going to edinburgh scotland for the fringe festival for the entire month of august at the pleasance theater um and i'm running perfect call every single night sometimes two times a night there at the special and then i come back to los angeles and sometimes two times a night there at the special. And then I come back to Los Angeles and the September 30th back at the Elysian doing another run of Perfect Cult and then off to New York to do it there. But it's an interactive show that I,

it's like irresponsible the amount that I need the audience to participate and to come out. If it's less than six people, I physically cannot do the show. Is that right? It has to be a minimum six? Half a dozen, y'all.

That ain't a lot. Come on, Scott. Let's show up. Well, I want to talk. I feel like a lot of people throw the word cult around these days. And I know that you're not throwing it around. So I'm going to let you drive this bus, bro.

Please tell us your story. We can take it from wherever you'd like. Okay, because usually you are right. People throw it around, and cult usually means like, oh, you were in an acting class where the guy got pervy, right? It's a scam acting class, and then he wanted you to come over and do some tantric acting. But I was raised in essentially an unsuccessful doomsday cult

that my parents helped start. Oh, whoa, they're founders? They are founders, but they're not the top, which is a little hard to swallow. I wish they were the top. There's only three families in the cult. Early 90s is when it started. Explain.

Where are you from? Where are we starting so it starts in kalamazoo michigan okay kalamazoo and it starts with my great uncle do you know about the kalamazoo kangaroos by any chance no they were like a really talented jump rope team that sounds like a like a like a radio morning radio the kangaroos the k-zoo kangaroos there were some kids that moved to our neighborhood when we were little and they had uh kalamazoo kangaroos the k-zoo kangaroos there were some kids that moved to our neighborhood when we were little and they had uh kalamazoo kangaroos and the girl was like a she could kick ass on the jump rope like what are you like we're what year is this so jump rope is like i'm in the 80s so

80s that's you're the shit yeah in the 80s if you can jump rope because there's not really video if you're on a team for it you're on a team team. Get out of here. All right, I'm sorry. Okay. So, yeah, so in the late 80s is when they first joined. My mom's the one that really wears the pants in the relationship, so she's the one

that got my dad on board with this call. It started by my great uncle, and he has, like, big come-to-Jesus moment. This is why he's the enlightened one. He's the chosen one.

That's why I have some pamphlets for you tonight. Great. To share with you. So what happens is he's like a star running back at Michigan State. Your uncle. Yeah.

At the time. And he's just like short, fat, stocky guy. So it's kind of impressive that he doesn't look like an athlete. He's this guy, this short guy can move and he's always scoring for the team. He's partying. He's got this whole identity

as this like college football always scoring for the team. He's partying. He's got this whole identity as a college football star, maybe the NFL. And then he gets hit incredibly hard on the football field and he wakes up. He's already in a stretcher. Everyone in the stands. He got knocked out. Knocked out completely. So he wakes up and everyone's on their feet in the stands.

That's what you do. And he's being carted off the field and he's still a little dizzy. And then he sees the heavens roll back like a scroll. And then God himself comes down onto the football field and says, name redacted, you are the chosen one. Every other religion is wrong. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Catholicism,lam catholicism all wrong government's wrong public school system is all wrong this is what he's hearing as he's being rolled off the field yes after a major head injury major head injury we now know what he's experiencing is not a miracle it's cte it is a massive concussion yeah which in hindsight, it is impressive that he was able to start even a failed call with a concussion.

As far as people with CTE, impressive. The embarrassing part is that my parents heard that same story, and they were like, yeah, this guy with the brain injury is on to something. Have you ever spoke – do you talk to your uncle? Have you ever talked to him about this moment? Not since everything fell apart in 2000. Did he say God looked like something? Because I feel like also this way cult is used, people say God, and in their mind, it's Jesus. Yeah.

And I know we could say Jesus is his son, all that, but I mean, did God look like anything? In his story, because he's a pretty compelling speaker, it's not old man with a long white beard and long hair, or really looks like man. It's just almost a pure light that comes down and speaks with a very commanding voice and says, it's your mission. English, it speaks English. He speaks English of all the places you would think he would be Arabic. But no, Jesus is white and he's from the Middle East and he speaks Southern drawl. Southern drawl, man. Blonde hair and baby blue eyes. So God tells him that he's the only chosen one. He's essentially the next prophet

and that God's going to end the world and it's going to be horrible. It's going to be the book of Revelation, which is like the four horsemen come down. There's flaming, there's locusts. There's bugs. Just this horrible Armageddon. And that was like really what our religion or our cult was focused on is this impending thing that will happen and believe this was absolutely going to happen in the most horrific ways. So are you – I'm going to keep asking questions.

I apologize. In this cult, does the cult have a religion that's already established, or are you also creating your own religion as well? They are using the King James Bible. And if you had to map it something close to what it is, it's a mixture of Judaism and Catholicism. Okay. And just like the unfun parts of that.

Great. Where it gets really culty is like what most cults do is they isolate people. So we are not allowed to interact with anyone that is not in this exact religion. And that's what makes it a cult. That's what makes it a cult is extreme control. And then it's all dedicated to one leader at the top. And what he says goes. He's the enlightened one.

So it doesn't matter if you have an objection. It doesn't matter if he's wrong. So your uncle's your David Koresh. He's our David Koresh. My parents will let him spank us, let him hit us, do anything that he wants because he is the in-line. He shows why. Okay, so he's wheeling off. He hears this.

And he's got a say in our life. So he said that you guys should – we were renting this one-bedroom house. I have four siblings. I have four siblings and my mom, dad, so five kids. And we stopped renting that house and we buy an old Greyhound bus for $7,000. We had $2,000, but then I asked my mom, how were we able to afford it? She says, oh, well, we just traded a bunch of junk from our backyard. It was the 90s.

Everyone was trading then. Like that was an answer. But she traded a bunch of trash in her backyard for this bus. My dad doesn't know anything about construction, rips the seats out, and tries to build it into an RV. And the whole purpose of this, and this is like 1992, is that we're going to travel around state to state in the U.S. and spread the word. This wasn't just to live in. This was to travel. This was to travel and the U.S. and spread the word. This wasn't just to live in. This was to travel. This was to travel and get the word out. All right.

Before we get to that, how, when your uncle comes to and everything, he's still convinced this happened, he's going with it. How's he able to convince your mom and dad? So, yeah. So, he gets carted up the field. His ACL is torn in addition to the concussion. So, he knows it's over. And before he had this whole identity

as this football star, this jock, he's hooking up with chicks. He's got the life. And if I had to speculate, it would be like, oh, finding a religion, being the Messiah is a new way to be that star running back. It's a new way that makes you special. It's a new way to get attention. You have something that other people don't so i think that was very enticing he already

grew up very catholic so and he's performing it in sundays all saturdays college in an arena in an arena in front of people so how do you create that that feeling of the star linebacker again if you know your nfl career is, the last two years of college, it's not going to work out. That's why Shaq DJs. Do you know that? That's why Shaq DJs? That's why he DJs.

Why was he a cop? I think his, that's a good question. I don't know if his stepfather or who he considers his dad was, and he was always in the law enforcement, but he,

I saw this, I love Shaq, and I watched this doc on him, and he said the reason he DJs is because he misses that like where else in life am i gonna go now and get 20 000 people cheering for me and he's like edm festivals bro right he goes and djs and they all go nuts and you don't need that rush of the that that can get broken right uh side note if anyone could that listens to your podcast

could find this for me it would make me so happy but Shaq had a short lived prank show where he would dress up in just like a wig hey I'm Shaq I'll be Uber and people immediately recognized that it's Shaq I was gonna say how could you not there's a giant man in the front

seat it's like oh that's Shaq in an afro wig and he did no effort to change his voice at all. Shaq, we're going to cold stone creamery. And the whole show was just people going, oh, my God, it's Shaq. Oh, my God, you totally got us. We didn't know that Shaq was going to be shooting a prank show here. There's no, he never fools anyone.

The whole show is people just getting excited to meet Shaq. I don't know where this was at or we'd short-lived but wherever that is I would make me so happy to see that again so then he comes to and my mom was very popular in her high school terrible student homecoming queen she's very very attractive so you really pay attention a lot. And then now high school's over. So I think that if he was starting this, this cult, this religion, here's something that's special, especially in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where people live pretty normal suburban lives. This is pretty enticing. Like, oh, you could be special. You don't have to just clip coupons

and pop out a bunch of kids. So she was already very religious. My parents weren't in love. They were just pregnant with my oldest sister. According to my mom, my dad was gay when they met. And he was so guilty that he was gay and the religion didn't accept that the religion that he grew up, he was like prettyian um so then he's like oh you know we'll fix it even though it's fornicating if i have sex with a woman then that will turn me straight the first time he did that with my mom they get pregnant hold on the thought process is i'm gay but if i have sex with a woman then that will make me straight even though we all know that's not gonna yeah my dad says he he's bi and then he experimented.

And a lot of the stuff about him being gay is from my mom being very vindictive and trying to spread stories about him. And saying like, your father's gay, he's awful. So I don't know fully what it is, but what she would tell us is that, yeah, he was gay so that they had to fornicate so he could stop being gay. And the first time. First time. He is a punk. They do that yeah he was gay so that they they had to fornicate so he could stop being gay

and the first time he gets and he's got five kids with her which means every time he's blowing a load he's blowing a baby successful loads he's not like wanting sex he's like yeah i'm gross so then every time that he comes, a baby comes out. A fully formed baby. It's not even in my mom. Just on her stomach, a baby grows. Shoots out of his dick. So. No way.

That's what happens to him. And he's kind of a pushover. He's very polite. But are they married? Are they married? They were married the second they found out they were pregnant. They were like, we have to rush. They had a very rushed wedding.

It was never like, should we keep the baby? Should we do this? It was just, how do we find a wedding dress that's going to cover the baby bump without being obvious that we're covering? So they have a very quick, quick wedding. And for some reason, my mom likes to tell the story of like, he was late for our wedding because he was taking a bath with a man. She's like, how do you know that? right is that what he's saying he's like i picture her at the altar where are you and he's soaking um so then she's able to essentially convince him to sign up with

this because she really wears the pants in the family and at this point they already have uh three kids then i'm born so then they're all in. But they're just staying in Michigan, and then now we're in Ohio, basically the same thing, even though they have dumb rivalries. And as they're doing that, are they slowly also building this cult together? They're slowly building the bus in the driveway

of this rental house, and we're renting it so the owners hate that we're doing this. It's very loud. My dad's horrible at construction. Nothing nothing works he made bunk beds three high but he forgot to measure for the height of a mattress on top of the platform so your dad can make babies but not bunk beds there's about a two inch clearance i grew up in a coffin i slept in a coffin you'd have to like scoot the blanket. No, fuck that.

That's how you breathe. Yeah. Oh, God. And then the bus is moving. And then the style of GMC Greyhound bus, the engine is the hot diesel engine is in the back of the bus, which is where our bunk beds were. Three on each side. So that would just heat up. The air would get all wavy.

And it just always is rattling. Sucking exhaust and everything. Sucking exhaust. It's the best melatonin. Just knock you out while we're on the road. And then, so then we would do a little bit of street preaching in Ohio. What's street preaching? Street preaching is you go out to any crowded area.

If we were here, we'd go to the Grove. If you were in New York, you'd go to Times Square. Oh, so you're going to populate areas. Populate things. Outside of Coachella or Lollapalooza at the time, we would, yeah, anywhere that's, even a farmer's market. And you'd go out with these large neon signs with essentially clickbait on the signs

because you only have so much time to get people's attention. So you use the same tactics that people that write clickbait on the signs because you only have so much time to get people's attention. So use the same tactics that people that write clickbait articles do. So it was all like, you're headed for hell. Christians will burn. Just the most eye-catching, hateful stuff. You are headed for hell. Your children are going to burn in hell. That's the most insane thing so that you get people's interest. That's the hardest thing is to get people to stop and not like, you know, just pass you out. Two questions. I'm assuming, maybe I'm wrong,

the majority of the interaction you're getting, is it not confrontational? Are people coming over like, how could you put this about my children on the sign? Or is it genuine curiosity? Like what percentage? It is a lot of hate. I think there definitely

was indifference but what stands out in my mind and what your memory records is the immense amount of negative reaction people not just why are you saying that about my kids why are you saying that about my faith you're saying i'm who the hell are you to say i'm gonna burn but because we were out there as early as two years old, people are yelling at my parents, how could you put your children through this? Because they would make us go up and it's called witnessing for God, where as soon as you can talk, and I could talk pretty early, is you would go up to a stranger as a two year old, or I think I went up at four, maybe. And I would go up to an adult and just the tracks in hand,

they don't know what I'm there for. And a child never comes up to you. So if a kid comes up to you, that's like, oh my God. Hi, hi little buddy. And I bet your head for hell. Is that what you're dropping on? You're gonna burn bitch. Just an adorable hellfire preacher.

And people are like, what did you just say to me? Look at this cute little evil bastard right here. You're full of sin. Your kids are going to burn. Holy shit. Just adorable amount of hate. And then they're coming over and being like, what are you, you're abusing your kids or whatever.

Yeah, then it passed them a track. And then they would see the large neon signs. It's like maybe 14 feet in the air, six-foot-high signs with black block letters over just neon was all those clickbait articles. And then my dad would have a big fanny pack with all the tracks in it. Another problem is the cult didn't have a name. What are tracks? Is that your paperwork? Tracks is like the pamphlet that you pass out with our beliefs on it. Okay.

And who's wrong? Sorry, you said the cult didn't have you pass out with our beliefs on it. Okay. And who's wrong. Sorry, you said the cult didn't have a name? Didn't have a name. That's a little tough. So that's even if you were interested. Yeah, right. Hey, come on Ryan Sickler's podcast. What's it called?

It's no name. Oh, so it's called No Name. Cool. No, it has no name. It doesn't have a name to it, yeah. Yeah, you've got to check out the show. It's got no name. What is the, the other question I want to ask is, what is the conversion rate?

Do you actually get people? If you're out of a Lollapalooza, you'll get a couple people that will come over, talk to you, and then be like, hey, I think this is for me. So I guess the impressive thing is when it started in the late 80s, early 90s, there was only three families in the cult. By the time it disbanded in 99, 2000, there were three families in the cult. A zero percent conversion rate. Sometimes we would hang out with us, and then the way they figured out that we didn't have weed, that no one was made in the womb of an already believer. That is hilarious.

Zero members. Nobody wanted to be a part of it. And we never had. You never got one. Do you ever watch like any of the Netflix cult documentaries? So, you know, like the episode two where they play the song like spirit in the sky and everything is going well. And everyone's doing yoga in the sun and they're building a compound and celebrities are getting involved. And then they take the dark turn.

We never had that buildup moment. We never had episode two. We never had episode two. There was no yoga. There was no period where this was going well. There was no positive press. There was no like, oh my God, we're expanding. It was just a miserable slog of a failure with poverty.

People, like we've gone on the spring break to street preach, peeing in bottles and then throwing it at our signs our heads people screaming at us or mooning us um people obviously yelling at my parents people trying to rip down the signs or spinning on a physical spinning yeah see i watched um it was right here i was with my daughter we were in santa monica and someone was preaching um it was against gays the man had a sign as you know gays burn in hell or whatever and i get why this gay gentleman was so angry but he went over and he spit right in that man's face and that man smiled and just basically was like see see, you know what I mean? And it made, and I was like, I'm so glad you brought that up because that's the whole point is the Bible and this religion

taught that people will scoff at you and people will get angry. So if anything, it just re-informed their sense of righteousness that, oh, we are doing the right thing because people hated Jesus, they crucified him. So we're basically doing the right thing because the people hated jesus they crucified him so we're basically doing the right thing so there was no cause for them to reflect and be like wait what are we doing if anything it just reaffirmed these these hateful intolerant beliefs because they go yeah people are bad they got said there's an example everyone this is what i'm saying and here it is it lived out and i get why that guy was like fuck you you piece of shit but yeah it did end up making him look like the the aggressor and the you know right guy so right especially in america which is the only way you can get away with this is with the freedom of religion so then people are yelling at us to say hey why aren't your kids in school that's my next question just on the road

where's the education come from so i would say we were homeschooled, but that would be too generous. There was no school. Nothing. If you ask the government and when we go get welfare from the government, we're homeschooled. But there is no school. There was like a little bit of an attempt to do homeschool with my two oldest siblings. But then by the time we got to my older brother, myself, and then my younger sister, really no school was ever enforced. If anything, it's like study the Bible.

I taught myself how to read, which is like guessing how to read. Off of what? What were you looking at? What would you have done? So I would try to sound out words, pretend. I would memorize things really fast in the Bible if I heard something, so then I would pretend to read because I'd know that I would get spanked if I didn't like say a Bible verse correctly you would yeah so I'd memorize it but I didn't find out till I was 22 that I was dyslexic and dysgraphic because there's no testing for that dysgraphic dysgraphic is the order of things

if you told me a phone number my my brain couldn't make a picture of the order of that thing. It's the best way I could describe it. I just thought that was all dyslexia. It's not, though. Dyslexia is more complicated. You're reading with every part of your brain, which is why people that are dyslexic get exhausted when they read. Most people just read with their frontal cortex, and it's just relegated to this one part. That's why you can focus.

Dyslexic, you're reading with every part. they have CAT scans where every part of the brain lights up. So you're exhausting yourself. And it's mixed in with like the thing you have to do later, your childhood trauma, that one song that you heard in 1991, all of that is going into your reading, which is why you can't focus. And when people read words, like if we read the honeydew, I wouldn't see it right to left. You see it as a logo. So if that was misspelled,

I couldn't even tell you. I see. It just looks like the logo. You see the circle logo. Yeah. I couldn't spell check, which made it really hard when I jumped on Twitter and was trying to roast people. And it was all misspellings. You lose immediately. When did you? you at 16 i got hooked on phonics from ebay you really did i got the book hooked on phonics was a children's i remember here yeah we all used to joke about hooked on phonics all the time and when i was 18 i started going to open mics i would put the hooked on phonics in between my notepad and pretend that i was like writing jokes but i was really just like learning like what syllables were and sounding out words.

Cause it was so embarrassed. I knew it was a children's book. There's like a turtle with glasses in the cover. So if any comic found that, what the fuck, you can't read? What the fuck are you doing? Yeah. So you couldn't really fully read until how old, 18 then?

Until now. How old are you now? 32 now. So here's the thing is like, i'll go to table reads and most of it is dyslexia because i've done as much as i can on my end to read but for the sitcoms that i've been on you have to do the table reads where you get this script for the first time writers just finished it and it's these blocks where you have to read and you have to hit the joke you have to hit the timing it's spaced a certain way. And I had just built up a confidence to like ask people,

can I get the script before? I know it's not a thing, but I will eat shit at a table read because I can't read. And then you have all these eyes on you. So you start to panic and you know that you're gonna mess it up. And some writer,

like they're really proud of that one joke. That's the, maybe they're the new writer and that's the one joke that they got into the episode. And then you just blew it because you couldn't time it out. Now they cut the joke. So now as much as I can, I'll ask for it. Or if I just got enough confidence and know how to be like, oh, if I mess something up, I can explain that it's a disorder. But before then, before I was tested, there was just so much shame around not being able to read as an adult. It's something that's so practical. It doesn't matter how many fights Floyd rather wins, you could always decimate him with you can't read.

Right. Right? You can't read. That doesn't matter. He's the greatest fighter of all time. You can't read. So it still does affect my adult life more than I would like to acknowledge or admit to myself. How? What ways is it? Just the security of knowing how to read, feeling like you're smart, feeling like you're just an equal to someone. Something in psychology, it's called learned helplessness. If you learn some certain behavior that you're not good at singing or you're not good at reading or you're awkward at a young age

it's called learned helplessness and then you carry that behavior around for the rest of your life so even if i did read something correctly i would still be second guessing it even if you were singing in a group you were the best you would feel like oh i'm no good i'm i'm bad at this and then that makes you not even try at that thing. So you wouldn't even get hooked on fun. So you wouldn't even try to do these things because you're like, I'm no good at that. You sell yourself short before you've even started.

But your mom and dad could read. Yes, they could because they went to public school. They're just not teaching you. My dad's incredibly intelligent. But not teaching you how to read. No. So how do you pick up writing then especially as a comedian at what what came first for you um you're making your sign you spell on

your little uh god hates gays and christians my mom's also dyslexic so she would misspell signs on the time dude if we would go out without my said, one time I said, you're headed for heel. I shit you not. Like it's a shoe sale. That's great. You're headed for heel to a new pay list. Oh, God. And if she was ever out alone, she'd have to do a double check. Because, yeah.

So good. You're headed for heel. Yeah, that's great. But he's very intelligent. My mom is the most charismatic person you've ever met. So outgoing. You think that, oh my God, that lady's so cool. She's your best friend.

So I picked up a lot of those skills because she would get caught shoplifting all the time and then talk her way out of it. We'd be at a Walmart and she was like, horrible at stealing, but great at talking yourself out of that. And then my dad is just naturally very intelligent. So everything I have that I'm able to adapt is from him. It's just his

natural brain ability that he passed down. But still, there's these debits and knowledge that I don't have. And I think we were talking about this earlier. It's never been easier, though, to be uneducated in the modern era of technology. Now, if I'm like telling you, Oh, Hey, I'm going to come today.

I can do that. Speak to text. Not to worry about spelling it out. And if stuff's misspelled these days, we just assume it's voiced to text. Yeah. It didn't pick it up. Not that you don't know how to spell there or there.

Yeah. Yeah. So that part is getting easier. The part that is hard now, like let's say the low part, is in personal relationships. Now, if I'm with a girl, and I've had multiple girlfriends, and it kind of falls apart for the same reason, where there's all these social skills that I don't have and coping mechanisms that you would learn if you're around kids your age. If you went to a school and you had a girl that you liked, didn't like you back, a girl that liked you that you didn't like back, a bully. That's the only thing that's ever talked about in isolation and homeschool is like, kids need friends. They need friends. You also need bullies. Man, I'm glad you say that. I've been, people have taking shots at me for saying that but i know for damn certain yeah that the kid in our neighborhood who fucked with us made me a better person i eventually stood

up to him because here's the thing there's always bullies always in life yes you protect your kid from the bullies everywhere how many comedians do we know that are that are bullies so many so many pieces of shit audience members drunk bullies it's a constant part of life people like to say oh my god my job is just like high school everything is like high school those same social structures those same 100 even if the bully doesn't bother you to see that bully behave in a way and someone else you know to know how you may react it's it's i completely agree whether you empathize with them you're like oh i hope he doesn't fuck with me or you feel guilty for not doing anything or you're

like i kind of agree with that but yes yeah there's these very complex things the most valuable thing that you learned in your shitty public school with your teachers that didn't give a shit was those social structures around you of how to cope with people your age around you that are doing the same thing. It was the most valuable skill. You can show me any testing scores for homeschool kids, and then they get to go to school. They can go to graduate college at 16. It's like, yeah, you save a lot of time when you're not building precious memories. You can finish school pretty fast. When I first heard about Athletic Greens and decided to give them a try, I really wanted a boost in energy. And it's now become part of my morning routine, which means I'm starting every day feeling like

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It's like these things aren't weird or me being a little bitch or lashing out. But when I'm intimate with a girl, really with someone, and your guard's down, and blood sugar's low, you're tired, or you just woke up, you're in a bad mood, those coping skills to express what I'm going through and what I'm feeling and not feel like I'm bad for having those feelings, these human feelings, like I'm bad for having those feelings, these human feelings, and being comfortable around someone is a part that I'm feeling today. Today as in like yesterday at 4 p.m. Yeah.

Feeling that. So the most harmful thing about the cult is the present day, is leaving. So what age do you finally – are you out, by the way? Yeah, I am out. Yeah, I am out. And what does that mean? That's the embarrassing part is when you feel like you're not out. So as a kid, it was this thing, it's like, oh, it's so embarrassing to go up to adults and scream at them in a Walmart. But it was just that thing that your parents do.

I had no other reality. There was nothing to compare it to. Oh, I wish I was doing this thing instead of this. We were so isolated we didn't talk to anyone else that was not one of the three families in the call so when i got out at 16 i was so psyched so they ran out of money the whole thing falls apart okay wait so you didn't leave while it was actively happening it fell apart so you were able to get out yeah do you think your family would have supported you leaving if it was still going absolutely not no no you would have been exiled

which is why a lot of people stay in jehovah's witnesses because they really exile you and even worse they let you come to all the meetings but then you have to sit in a separate section and they shun you no really really my oldest sister is jehovah's witness now everyone kind of found their own religion to latch on to, and I still have nothing. But it's embarrassing to admit I want something. Something what? To believe in?

Yeah. Or, okay. Yeah, some sort of structure to make this all make sense. Because that's how I grew up, and it was a very sure thing. Is love not enough? No. Because that can go away. You can lose that you

can mess that up or you don't trust it when it is real love and it's i mean i gotta say your mom and dad must have loved each other to do this together like that as fucked up as it may be to call yeah it seems like at least they truly loved one another and bought in on this thing together. We know it wasn't sex. We know it wasn't sex. It wasn't with her for her body. I like how it makes its own water. So many flaps. It makes its own water. Slap that wet pussy.

Yum. Oh, man. But yeah, I think there has to be some love there. I think that I never saw them like hug or kiss or anything. They were not very affectionate. And of course, as a kid. More business, like very business partners. Very business like.

Okay. Here's how business they were. This is a, I just found this out. So I thought growing up that people on the news, like the news anchors, I thought that every male and female news anchor was married. That's the chemistry that my parents had. Where it's like, huh, looks like it's going to be a hot one out there. Yeah. Well, bring an umbrella.

Sure is, Jim. That's the chemistry that they had. That I presumed that all news anchors were married. So yeah, there has to be some love there. Sure. So at 16 there has to be some love there. Sure. So at 16, it falls apart. They go through a divorce when I'm 11. Okay.

10 or 11. But stay in the cult. We are in Florida now. My dad would insist on riding out hurricanes, even though we lived in that bus. Florida's constantly hit with hurricanes. Most people leave. The people that don't leave

that you see getting rescued on the news are people that cannot afford a ride out of there. They don't have a car or they have nowhere to go. There's no relatives they have out of state. We were in a bus. So- Literally, you had a ride out of there. The place that we have to go to is also our ride. It's all wheels. We have everything right there. But he would insist, like, God's going to protect us.

We're going to ride it out. Most of them, they got away with that. One time, God didn't protect us. I'm sorry! I think it was Hurricane Earl, and everyone had cleared out of this Seagrove campground that was so close to the beach. The bus gets blown back into a tree.

Tree falls in the back. And it damages the entire roof in the back. Everyone's safe. But then we move into a double-wide trailer, park the bus in the front. And then my dad stays in the bus for, quote, repairs. So he never moves back in. He stays in the bus to focus on repairs and then he starts according to my mom starts seeing um another man from his construction site that he met they go out uh

they go to like mardi gras together he comes back with pierced ears he's really finding himself and then my mom gets breast implants she dyes her hair blonde and then dyes all of us blonde. So no one knows that she's not a natural blonde. No. Yup. Come on, dude. This is me. Went all the way that far to make sure.

You can show that on the podcast. That's me at 11. That's not you. That's me at 11. Hot little girl. I was getting hit on. I would go to the skate park and I would do a trick and people would be like yeah girl skater

score one for the lady just so your mom can pull off so she would do the bottle herself and then she would finish us off and then put a grocery bag on our head so it heats up so it takes even longer so it's just like hot bag on our head so it heats up. So it takes even longer. So it's just like hot bleach on our head.

And then she goes out clubbing all night. She goes to Club La Vila in Panama City, Florida. It's a big spring break spot. Yeah, yeah, Panama City. She gets a job as a dancer there. She starts living her wild 20s that she never got to live when she was repressed in this cult. My dad goes off with Dennis,

and I think now his new wife is where he met. And then we're just kind of left to our own devices. So wait, he has a wife now? Now he has a wife, yeah. Why? I think he might be bi, or my mom might be, because we had no contact with him. She really isolated us from him.

Oh, so once they divorced, you got isolated from your own dad? Yeah, like he would come over and try to do his visitation. But wasn't he right out front in the bus? He was, and then he moved into a campground. I didn't clear that up. And then the divorce paperwork in Florida,

my mom gets full custody of all five children provided, and I guess my dad agreed to this, provided he gets custody of the bus. Shit, you're not. He of the bus and my mom was so petty she couldn't wait to tell us that like that motherfucker he just wants the bus he doesn't love you your father doesn't love you no so he gets custody of the bus which again you know it's something it's something you made so you're going to have probably a piece of himself is in that bus. So then he's able to move that out and do whatever he wants with it. But then we break into the bus

when he's out partying with Dennis to steal the cult tapes that the cult leader would record. So my mom would take me in the middle of the night, wake me up and have me slide through the window of this bus window that never closed it was broken and i would slip in and i would steal all the uh the

tapes from him and then you know you see remnants of uh uh someone having sex maybe there's condoms out maybe there's some handcuffs out in the bus and i didn't know what it meant i was like oh dad's playing cops and robbers yeah um so then so then my mom just moves us to california in the middle of the night shows up like we didn't even know this was happening shows up with a large u-haul truck and just shovel stuff in the back nothing's even in boxes it's loose looks like a pile of junk get we get on the road and we put the bar, we had like four bunny rabbits in the, we're towing the 16 passenger van.

And we call my dad from Texas. And then she lets him know that, hey, we left. We're going to stay with my uncle in California and we're not there anymore. And he was like missing for two days because he was out partying or whatever. So that was really the last we saw of him for maybe 15 years.

Holy shit. Yeah. And because he didn't have his visitation, because he couldn't see us, he stopped paying child support. So things get really brutal because we moved to California, which is so expensive.

And my mom's doing like odd jobs. Single mom with five kids. Five kids. That's like 50 kids. No child support. Eventually we get government assistance. So then the cult stuff is really falling apart. There's no money.

There's no bus to go on. You said it's falling apart. It is falling apart. I think, yeah, I'm not accepting it. It's over. It's a wrap. It's over. It's a wrap. It's a wrap. It's fallen apart. I think, yeah, I'm not accepting it. It's over. It's over. It's a wrap. It's a wrap.

I think I'm still standing up for her. I didn't even realize. I was like, no, it's still going. We're still doing it. We're still getting in there. We just got to get back on our feet. It's over. Wait, did it ever get a name?

Did it ever get a name? Never got a name. No, it never even named it. It very briefly had the name The Way, but then there's a way more successful cult that called The Way that started in the early 90s. Oh, The Way. So my parents just dropped the name.

The Way More Way. They had like six families. They crushed us. So then the cult leader comes back into the picture. Your uncle. Yeah. Is this dad's brother, by the way? No, this is mom's uncle mom's uncle

because we're really not doing well my oldest sister runs away she's now living on the streets um she's addicted to meth uh she's maybe doing some other things to that to pay for that meth that's that's pretty tragic and awful to see is that here in la is that where you came to downtown la i think my mom was was trying to control her so she ran away the first time my mom convinced her to come back and then she said oh yeah well i could leave then if you're gonna leave and then didn't give her any money didn't give her her id no money just a backpack of food so she had to start her life on her own. No education, no money, no ID.

So it's like, where is she going to end up? She was 18. Jesus. Yeah. So then immediately falls into the wrong crowd. Never been around people. So, so easily taken advantage of. Yeah.

So naive, so wide. Oh, what's that? I'll get in that van. I grew up in a van. Oh, what's that? I'll get in that van. I grew up in a van. So then the cult leader comes back in and is like, completely gaslights us.

Like, why are you guys not prepping for the future? And it's like, well, cause you said this was all gonna be over in the year 2000. Like this is over. So he's like, well, you guys need to get jobs. You need to sustain your lives and you can't keep living like this. You're just always on the verge of homelessness.

We were living in a garage with no running water. No running water, there's no toilet. And how old are you at this time now? Now I'm probably 15. Damn. So then at 16, I get a job at a grocery store. All the siblings get their job, whether it's like babysitting for my younger sister

or my brother gets a job at Lowe's and then the brother works at a grocery store. I go to a grocery store. It's like a shittier grocery store, but they had a trash compactor, which is so important to me because I didn't want my mom, I didn't want people at the store

knowing that my mom goes through people's trash for food. Every grocery store, they knew her because like, oh, that's the lady with the five kids that's always in the dumpster. And I'm just like, I want to do my own thing. It's so humiliating. I can't have you there. So, then I got a job at this store and I really fought for it because they had a trash compactor. That's her greatest enemy enemy that and hair dye photos but i get a job there and that's the first time that i'm around people my age and so you get the first bully there you get the first trying to interface with people is the first girl i like there and there's someone there that she's very kind to me. She's very smart. I think now she's a double PhD.

She's an engineer. But it was the first person that I was in love with, was kind to me. I told her my beliefs. And then just those things that I believed about the world, how God was going to end it, how she was going to burn in hell and everyone else, just hearing that back from someone that was kind and caring and was willing to hear me out and of course you're horny and you're want to be with that person was enough to just light switch i've really programmed like that of course there was always doubts it never went well so he's doubting but there was no huge uh deprogramming moment of the wizard of oz behind the. It was just like talking to someone that was kind to me and wasn't forcing me out of this. It was just someone that listened to

me and like, oh, and they would ask me questions. Well, why would God make, why would God only save eight people? And why are you street preaching to other people? If God's only going to save eight people, like in the days of Noah, why would you be street preaching and spreading the word to the competition? And it was all these contradictions. And just the way I felt about her felt like love. That felt real. And everything before that with the religion felt like, oh, that's bullshit.

Because that hurts. That feels bad. This feels like life. I had no skills to make her, my girlfriend, or even tell her that I liked her. But did try anyways, even though she was with someone else. I think I told her we eventually got together. It was a short lived thing. It wasn't like your soulmate.

It was just someone that was so kind to me. And changed your life. And changed my life. Yeah. Do you feel for the better? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Absolutely. I mean, the only regrets I have, I wish that happened earlier. Do you ever, have you ever reached out to her just to say thank you? No, I don't know. I almost feel bad. I always feel like it's creepy

how much this person means to me and how I could maybe even just be a blip on her radar. And also she doesn't owe me anything. Sure. There's nothing else. She's already given me so much. It's like, yeah, if she ever came to me in need, of course. Of course, she could have anything.

But, you know, I wouldn't want to interfere with her life and just like, I just want to re-unpack my pain with you. Let's trauma dump on you. I don't see any benefit for her. If there was anything I could do, of course. But that's my first experience getting out. And then as soon as I turned 18, got out of the house as soon as I could. Moved to Los Angeles.

Still paying rent on my mom's house. Which was where at the time? In the desert of California, like two hours north of LA. And she changed my name. So I was born Sturm, S-T-U-R-M, which is the German word for store sturm s-t-u-r-m which is the german word for store moses s-t-u-r-m okay and then so first my dad starts making and back in florida when they're still going through their messy divorce my dad starts making i guess protest art against her where he would draw her in her like club getup when she would go out to Club Lovila,

which is like jean shorts, black halter top, high like black socks and like teased up blonde hair. Damn, mom. Yup. Big old tibbies out, just like a travel neck pillow of titties. And then he drew her with like a split snake tongue in hell, standing on a pile of burning potties,

grabbing men's dicks and tongues in her hands like they're whips, almost. And then he had an art show, and then everyone in the town saw this. Oh, no. He also drew, this one he got in trouble. He drew Jesus on the cross, but with the dong out. Just hanging? Just hanging dong. So technically Jesus was naked.

Was he a grower or a shower? He was a shower. He was a shower. He was a shower. I guess it makes sense now. Okay. God. Yeah. Get up on that cross.

Why is your dad mad that she's out doing her thing? If he's not, I think cause she's like keeping the kids from him. I see. And, and telling a very one-sided story of like your, she would say like, your dad's a pedophile.

He likes to hook up with men. I'm like, you don't know what that word means. Those are two different things. Quietly different things. So I think he was just mad at that and the double standard of her calling him out for trying to live his 20s out and then her doing the same thing.

And on top of that, keeping the kids from him, moving the kids away, not telling him. So I think, yeah, that was his way of lashing out. Didn't try to reach out to us, though, or didn't send child support anyways, which is its own thing. So you reconnect with him 15 years later. 15 years later. Which is, what, almost just a few years ago for you? Yeah.

So then I, yeah, so I just talked to him by point blank. How could we never? Sure, yeah. What made you connect? Facebook. He hit you up or you hit him? His new wife, which was like hard to swallow. It's like, do you even want to do this?

Because he's got a wife that's just like my mom, someone that wears the pants in the family, someone that's very bold and outgoing. So it was always hard to trust. Does he really want this or is it you're just trying to get your wife off your back? But, yeah, I was very kind and cordial to him. He's like, trust me, my wife's not on my back. Yeah.

It ain't my wife I want to get off my back. She makes her own water. That's one of the funniest things. The sonny. she makes her own water yeah so then we reconnect and yeah it's just like very awkward now and how was the reconnection it's just very awkward you know it's a long time going from a kid to a man now and now you're talking to the man that put you in that position. I just always wanted more from him. Like, reach out. Like, show me that you care. And where was he the whole time?

You're in California? He stayed in Florida? Stayed in Florida. I don't know. I didn't want some dramatic thing, but you would expect that they'd be a little more enthused about it. But it always felt like his wife was making him do it. And there was no acknowledgement when it was like well did you

ever why didn't you try to come reach out like go i if my kids if my dog was in in new york i would go to new york and try to find my dog yes my dog right and i wouldn't give up he's like well i did go there for like a uh like a weekend and i was on the sunset Boulevard. It's like, yeah, that's where we were. We were living it up at sunset Boulevard doing Coke with Johnny Depp and the Phoenix brothers. So, yeah. So it was just like awkward,

but there's no hard feelings. The complicated part. Now, again, everything about the cult is just complicated. Now, were you the only sibling he reached out to? Like,

have you the only one that's reconnected? No, he tried everyone. I don't know what the order is of who got in touch because every kid is spread out. Everyone's in their own state. Are you close with your siblings? So close. Oh, good. I just saw my sister yesterday.

She still lives up in the desert and has a new baby. But we just talk and it's, you can not talk for a couple months and it just feels like you picked up because we grew up literally on top of each other. Literally, yes. Mattress on top. My older brother slept above me with his mildew stain

because he would pee the bed every night. No. And it would drip through the wood. Why are we putting him up top? Why? Why are we putting the wet one up top? Why are we putting him up top? I remember Why are we putting the wet one up top? Why are we putting him up top? I remember just like as a kid poking the mildewy.

It's in the bus, too. That smells like my video game. It's like peeling that. I wonder if I can get him to fall through like a cartoon. Oh, man. I want to ask you a question. You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but we can cut it out if you'd like as well.

My producer, Kirsten, told me a story about Jared Leto and your mom. Yes. And we want to know. I don't know anything other than that. Is it okay to talk about this? Yes. Oh, my God. What is this all about?

So we moved to California. We're doing odd jobs. She gets a job as a PA through my uncle. She's immediately fired because she keeps leaving to go work out or just fuck around or like overstepping the boundaries with with like mariah carey whatever but through that she gets the idea in her head that like a great way for the kids to make money is uh she already changed my name to storm which is the art name that my dad was going under.

He was going under the English translation. Storm makes me technically emancipated. So when she later gets a- Is that right? Yeah. So I'm separate from her and her last name. So then I can co-sign with her on a house. When the mortgage crisis was going on, guess who got a house?

Guess who? That was the biggest red flag is that we, guess who got a house? Guess who? That was the biggest red flag is that we were able to get a house on our no money. But my job is a stunt double on sets as a child stunt actor. No, are you for real? Yes, but she had forged all the paperwork. I did not go through any of the safety training.

I don't know anything about wire work or anything. And I get a job on, on Lemony Snicket, a series of unfortunate events, the Jim Carrey remake. And I'm doing so much dangerous shit. I've never done wire work where there's a part where the house breaks apart and have to jump from one side of the house to the other.

No idea what I'm doing. One time I just, I, I'm so exhausted from that, that I throw up all over the set. And I'm doing. One time I just, I'm so exhausted from that that I throw up all over the set and like it passed out because I wasn't used to

any of this stuff. Through that, that leads to like half quasi audition work. So we audition for, from the Lemus Nickit thing, Jared Love's putting on his first album,

Capricorn, whatever. And they're going to audition kids that are going to be like the kid versions of this band, meaning we're going to be on the album cover, which I think you can look up on the album jacket. If you look up the Capricorn one. And everyone's going to be a young version of anyone in that band. So we go to the audition and then Jared's like, well, not just the album cover. We want these kids in the music video. We're going to bring you guys out a concert, come out with us through that.

Um, I think this is when he's with Cameron Diaz or just broke up with Cameron Diaz. Cause we're filming the album cover at her house. Uh, my mom is, is super into fitness. She's always lifting weights. She brings dumbbells on an airplane. So like she'll have a carry on bag and the guy was like, let me help you with that miss and then throw his back out. She's got

Oh, let me get that for you. She's got 50 pound dumbbells. Jerry was in that. So then Jared Leto and her start flirting because she's like a hot mom. I don't say that. People say that. And she's always working out. She's working out on set the whole time. So he's trying to get in shape or that's what his story was. And he said, you should be my personal trainer. So then I don't know what happened, but there's a few times that she went to visit him.

We weren't there. And then we get on a music video shoot. We're doing, I don't know what the song was, but the music video, it's like, if you want to see it, I'm in the video, but it's like we're in a dirt pit. We're in a dirt pit and there's like a big party with people taking their tops off

and standing on the hoods. And then, so we're out in the desert, Stevenson Ranch, I think, in California. And Jared's there and he's like, standing on the hoods and then so we're out in the desert stevenson ranch i think in california and jared's there and he he's like let me let me take you on a walk and i don't know if he was like trying to suck up to my mom and get closer there or he's like gonna give me like i'm your new dad now which i would have totally taken um but one the whole day he's like saying everyone's got to stay hydrated you guys should be peeing every five seconds and then he'll come out five minutes later and say the same thing

again because we're in the desert so he's like let's go to the bathroom everyone should be peeing if you're hydrated right so then he's like come on come take a walk with me and so then him and i are walking dirt field there's like fake Western sets all over. There's no crew around the trailer. And then he just starts to sing to me. Just acapella. His own song. No. From the music video.

Yeah. You're just walking. I'm just walking. And then he gets to a point where it's like a little more effort that he stopped. Then I stopped too. And you just, it's so quiet.

Like you could hear like the tires in the distance going over gravel of like production trucks and i don't know what to say i mean it's like one of the first adults i've ever interacted with in my life that i didn't say you're going to hell um so yeah i don't know if that's the story she was talking about but then yeah he just sings to me acapella and i'm like that was that was good cool do you need approval from a child then you just go back and that's it yeah let me just go back and i i try to avoid him at any moment if i see him walking ahead but we're gonna be alone i just i i don't have the knowledge to i just know i don't want to be around that so then i would avoid him ever since.

Alright, so let's wrap up with this here. Now you're free of, at least for now, an organized religion or beliefs, but you're looking for something. Yeah. How are you feeling right now? I'm not actively looking. There's no self-help.

There's no power of now, but there's no Tony Robbins. What is it that you miss? Even though we've talked about what about we've talked about and buses and three families what is it you miss about the structure and the sureness is why most people will believe in immaculate conception and are talking snake the things in life the older you get the more you make mistakes the more this gets scary you're confronted with your own mortality, painful things happen. Last year, I lost a really close friend. So there's all these things you have to deal with. And if there was something that made sense, even if it was a genie in a bottle, and you know, Abraham lived for 900 years, yeah, sure he did. That would be so comforting to have some reason for this, that this happened for a reason,

and that this is all for the better, and to know that, to know that this isn't it, to know that this is over. So I'm hyper aware that that's why, that's a good point of life, is that we're supposed to go through these things and not know. But at times, I just feel very weak and some stuff is so painful that I wish I had it, even if it meant being in a bus and going through all that pain. Listen, thank you very much for coming on here and opening up about this. It's such a, such a different upbringing. So thank you. Now I ask all people, I told you before your first time here, I'm curious now, after everything we've talked about, advice you would give to your 16-year-old self. Oh, man.

One, you're right about how you feel, doubting this. That's great. Also, you're okay in enough. I don't know. We were always told that you're weird, you're special, you're chosen by God. So then even if that's a positive, you're another chosen, you always feel like this other. And I think I just wanted to blend in, just wanted to be like someone to say, like, you're okay exactly as you are with your thoughts that you have. The way you interact with people, that's enough.

You don't have to dance around and do skits. You don't even have to do stand-up. I just couldn't read or write at 18 when everyone's asking you what you're going to do. So I wanted to be a lawyer, but I couldn't. I would have to get a GED, I'd have to go to school, I'd have to battle all those feelings of stupidity. So I don't even know if I would be a performer

if all that stuff didn't happen. It was just the one thing I was kind of good at. And then I had all my stunt training throwing up and taste of that. So it was the one, the career I thought I could dig myself out of generational poverty. But yeah, I would just be like, yeah,

you're going to be okay. And you could take time to do what you want. That's great. Please plug and promote anything you'd like again. Trash White on HBO Max, HBO. That's my hour special. And then the part two of that, I'm touring around and trying to work on that. That's called Perfect Cult, about the stuff you heard today,

about how we didn't grow up in a cult, and then trying to create that perfect version of that cult with the audience. New cult every night, Elysian Theater july 30th at 9 00 pm and then going to the edinburgh fringe festival in scotland the pleasance theater 10 pm every single night running perfect cult in scotland and then coming back to los angeles uh september 30th i think that's at nine uh to do perfect cult again in los angeles everything's at mososesstorm.com and then mainly on Instagram. Everything's Moses Storm from TikTok, Twitter, threads, all Moses Storm. Awesome.

Go support Moses. As always, Ryan Sickler on all social media, ryansickler.com. Go get your tickets for the tour at ryansickler.com. We'll talk to you all next week.