The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - Troy Bond - HoneyBond

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

My HoneyDew this week is comedian Troy Bond! Troy Highlights the Lowlights of a ten-year crack addiction that began at age 15. 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 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: The Farmer’s Dog -Get 50% off your first box of fresh, healthy food at https://www.TheFarmersDog.com/HONEYDEW PLUS free shipping! Liquid I.V. -Get 20% off when you go to https://www.LiquidIV.com and use code HONEYDEW

Guys, we got the dates for 2023 locked. Maybe a couple more added. Batavia, Illinois, November 10th and 11th. And closing out the year at Cobbs in San Francisco, California, December 8th and 9th. Get all tickets at ryansickler.com. I'm excited to announce that my special Lefty Sun is now available as an audio album.

Go check it out everywhere you get music. I'm very excited to announce that the Honeydew video is now available on Spotify. It doesn't change anything for you at all. It's just an additional place to watch The Honeydew. Go check out The Honeydew audio and video now available on Spotify. The Honeydew with Ryan Sickler. welcome back to the honeydew y'all we're over here doing it in the night pan studios i'm ryan sickler ryan sickler.com ryan sickler and all your social media i want to thank you as i do every week thank you for being here thank you for watching supporting subscribing if you're new

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demonetized just by me saying that so go support the patreon it's five bucks a month all right you get the honey do a day early you get it ad free at no additional cost there's hundreds of episodes over there it costs less than a penny for an episode all right if you don't like it you it, unsubscribe. All right. If you do love it, you subscribe for a year. You get over a month free. If you're looking for a new podcast to listen to, go listen to my old podcast, The Crab Feast, The Crab Feast podcast. I used to do with Jay Larson back in the day. I'm telling you, that library is going to do over a million downloads this year. That's fucking insane. All right. There's a hardcore audience for it. And everyone you love in podcasting is on there. Everybody, Segura, Christina, Bert,

Burr, they're all there. Great stories, different stories than you've heard anywhere else. And then if I'm in your town, when you're around, come see me on the road. I will be in Salt Lake City, October 27th and 28th. I'll be in Batavia, Illinois, November 10th and 11th. And I'll be closing out the year in San Francisco. I can't wait. Cobbs, December 8th and 9th. I'll be in Batavia, Illinois, November 10th and 11th. And I'll be closing out the year in San Francisco. I can't wait. Cobbs, December 8th and 9th. And that's it. That's the biz. You guys know what we're doing over here.

We highlight the lowlights. I always say these are the stories behind the storytellers. Very excited to have this guest on. First time here on The Honeydew. Ladies and gentlemen, Troy Vaughn. Welcome to The Honeydew, Troy Vaughn. It was so hard for me to stay quiet when you were talking. Your voice is like Honeydew. As soon as you're Welcome to the Honeydew, Troy Bob. It was so hard for me to stay quiet when you were talking. Your voice is like Honeydew.

As soon as you're listening to the Honeydew podcast, I got a little wet. Thank you, man. And one of my multiple pussies. That's one of the nicest things. That stays dry. So that's how you know that wasn't effective. I got that one wet. I call that one sandpaper.

No, it's great to be here. Your business pussy? I got it wet. That's my business pussy, yeah. Hell yeah. That's the hardest one to get wet. The hardest one. They call it the hillary clinton yeah

it's uh i love getting to be a guest on someone else's it's a pantsuit it's disgusting you put it down there and it's yeah they call it south of bosnia oh shit it's i have a podcast and it's great going to be on someone else's yeah thank you so and it's amazing thank you for having me thank you for reaching out uh you described me in a way that's become my legacy the last year or so where you're like i don't know what the guy's name is but i want to have him on the podcast he's no i knew you were troy troy something which is farther than i usually get with people because i'll be walking around new york and people be like hey you're that guy told the woman to shut the fuck up and it just both looks like we're like, yeah, fuck women. We gave them the right to vote in 1920, man.

And then I'm like, well, that's it. That's your Bill Burr Philly brand. That's your Bill Burr Philly brand. So it meant a lot that you knew the first name. Yeah, I said to Brandy, I'm like, now his name's Troy. I was like, he's the guy that told that lady to fuck off, that crazy lady. And I said, you see him? He's wearing the dark shades. And I said, he looks like he's the guy that told that lady to fuck off that crazy lady and i said you see him he's wearing the dark shades and i said he looks like he's got that richard belzer vibe he's got that old school 70s boom and and then then you told me that people told you that

all the time you stopped i get those yeah like i can't wear i wore the glasses yesterday and like i'm wearing a hat today um but i wore the glasses and my after the show i was i was wet and like i'm wearing a hat today um but i wore the glasses and my after the show i was i was wet and like i'm looking at the meet and greet pictures on my stories and i'm doing like the kubrick stare i look like jack nicholson in the shining i'm just like i have two girls in my arm i'm like get into the picture with the goblin uh so it's uh it's it's great to just be on the other side of the pod because i gotta interview people all the time you guys you know like it's great to be able to well plug promote everything all my road dates i'm on the road a lot um i don't know when this is gonna come out but uh i you doing wise guys in salt lake i am so

good i was out there i love salt last month i almost quit smoking when i was out there because the air was so thin cigarettes or weed uh i've never stopped smoking weed okay god guess i got how am i gonna go to sleep and yeah exactly that's what i'm saying how am i gonna deal yeah do i want food to not taste as delicious great i'll stop smoking weed yesterday um all my road dates troybonlive.com vaping that's what it was i jewel that's my problem i go i switch back and forth between acoustic and electric cigarettes um and uh when i was in electric cigarettes that's great oh i know it's in salt It's in Salt Lake. I felt it in my lungs. I was like, why? It feels like I'm swallowing pine cones.

And with my opener, and she's like, the air's a lot thinner up here, and you've been chain smoking. And I'm like, nah, that can't be it. I'm going to keep smoking and not work on a control group. So if you want to support my lung cancer research, come see me on the road. TroyBondLive.com. All my social media. You've probably seen me on the road troy bond live.com uh all my social media you've probably seen me on the toilet on tiktok or instagram uh troy bond 69 uh because troy bond 1 through 68

was taken that's the only reason i chose 69 is that for real that's uh no it was um it was troy has ebola for like 10 years that was my that's my twitter it's troy has ebola still but then as i started to gain more traction people thought my last name was Hasbulla. So they were like, TroyHasbulla. So I was like, well, I got to change. I'm booking Middle East dates like a motherfucker, bro. I was trying to. They were like, man, you got to pick a side.

And I'm like, yeah, I know. I'll get booked in Israel and Palestine. I don't care. Call that a two-state booking solution. I'm coming to Netanyahu. Bring hummus for everybody. Well, I want to say this because we're talking about smoking so i ask you outside i'm like you know what do you want to talk about and you drop right away something that blew blew me away uh i want you

to say what you said but then i want to rewind and we're going to lead up to it so say what you told me out there i started smoking crack when I was 15. With? My uncle. Your uncle. A family member. A family member. Not Somali in the neighborhood.

With a hell of a man. That's how I did it. With a hero. With a guy who knew. Was he your dad's brother or mom's brother? My dad's brother. All right. Yeah.

Let's go back to the beginning. Where are you from originally? I was born in a town called Waterbury, Connecticut. Okay. And I grew up in Naugatuck, which is right next to Waterbury. And are you an only child? Do you have siblings? I have two younger siblings.

Okay. One is an ultimate fighter. Is that real? He really is. Is he doing well? He just had his second knockout. He knocked out somebody for the second time last week. He was covered.

He posted an Instagram story covered in blood. And I was like, are you okay? And he was like, it's not my blood. And I was like, that's the coolest shit ever, man. He actually came to a show with me a couple of weeks ago. And there was a guy in the front row. Listen, at our job, if we're ever covered in blood, and we say it ain't my blood, it's not cool about that.

A woman threw ashes at me a couple of weeks ago she threw her dead mother's ashes at me it's on my instagram she was and she was drunk and heckling during 11 o'clock show and then i was like what is your problem and then she was like my mother died a couple weeks ago and uh i'm here uh because i told her i was going to sprinkle her ashes everywhere everywhere i had fun and then she walks up to the state, pulls out a Ziploc bag of her mother, a gram of mom. No, at this point, no security's done anything. I literally look into the camera, go, why is nobody stopping this?

And I get off, and I'm like, that's gonna be a great clip. I'm like, I'm covered in dead bitch right now. I'm just like, it was like, Dusty dead bitch. It was like the salt tower just collapsed. But instead, it was just the love of your mother. I'm covered in from head to toe. I farted earlier and i like felt like learning how to drive um and it was that that's uh once you once you have something like that and that's a good day at work uh uh

compared to like what my brother does uh where he gets in the ring and fights everybody which i look at exhausting but he came to a comedy show one night where I did like five shows on a Saturday. You know, that's what we do. And he was like, I can't do what you do, man. And I only do what I do once a month. And so he does that. He's a fighter.

And then I got one who's in college right now. Brother, two younger brothers for now. One who's in college. I think he's studying to be a therapist or okay something I should probably find that out I talked just sentiment yeah I he's like coming to my show next month and because I'm going to Connecticut and I was like I don't know if I want you sitting there cross-analyze me when you're 19 you're just starting to learn psychology you're gonna yeah just be like all right I do remember dad doing that but i remember the story

very differently my brother um so i grew up in connecticut parents together parents are uh i mean when you grew up when i grew up they were together yeah um uh and what did your dad do for a living he uh for a living i don't know what did your dad do to make money and uh he did a lot but he never made any um my dad uh owned a karate school he uh um was a wrestler and uh he was also a dj yeah i was saying this sounds so much and it was and i asked you to personal trainer as well personal trainer motivational speaker i think his job on facebook i might know your dad you know yeah it might i think yeah we we have the same bill and i grew up around that and my dad because he was a dj didn't listen to um I might know your dad. You know, yeah, I think, yeah, we have the same bill. I might know your dad. I think it is.

And I grew up around that. And my dad, because he was a DJ, didn't listen to music in the car when we were driving to wrestling gigs. He would listen to comedy albums. Okay, so he was sick of music from work. Sick of music. And we would listen to like, you know, full length Robin Williams or Cosby or Pryor or Delirious or Raw. Like, you know, the stuff

that he grew up on that I'm four or five years old, probably younger than that, absorbing it as a kid. And then I start looking at the world through the lens of a comic. Cause that's how I understand. That's how I started. I was seeing a lot of shit four or five years old, going from the karate schools to the wrestling gigs, to, uh, all the, all this eclectic stuff that my life has sort of accumulated and now i'm listening to comedy all the time who are that's how i'm understanding the world you know what i mean like yeah they're painting those pictures for you now and you're like oh these things are all making sense now yeah oh that was illegal oh that was oh yeah all kinds of shit you start learning okay and it really expedited, like, the chip in your brain that processes information for me.

Like, I feel like I gained consciousness at a younger age just because, like, I was immediately looking at things and observing them and trying to make my own conclusions or drawing my own conclusions from them. And then I started seeing the world through my lens. conclusions from him um and then i started seeing the world through my lens and my dad also wanted to be a comic and actor when i was when uh before he had me um and then he didn't pull out so he couldn't uh and um that's why i became the wrestler because he's like fuck it probably would have ran the light anyway you know yeah yeah i would have ran the light anyway that's great i was yeah i was in line at some point whether you shot this load in 94 or 98 i'm coming out like a men in black sequel baby this is the 90s party in the city till the heat is on um and uh yeah so i uh i always had a oh i had a weird upbringing and um

when i was like 11 years old, I got into Michael Jackson. We were coming back from a karate tournament and Fat by Weird Al came on. And I didn't understand what the parody was. Yeah, yeah. Big man, big man. No, guys, that's all right. Thanks. I don't want anything.

Ding dong, man. Ding dong. Ding dong. Yo! Like, I didn't understand understand i haven't thought of that god i haven't either it just hit me as soon as you said it it was burger world and then he just does the move and then he gets and like my dad was like if you want to know why this is so funny because okay so wait that's what i wanted to say yeah you didn't get introduced to michael jackson you went no you went reverse yeah like i listened to weird out first and my dad was like if you want to know why this is funny go home and watch michael

jackson's bad and then i did and then my life got separated into two chapters like i was as equally obsessed with weird al as i was with michael jackson okay like and i would go into talent shows performing as michael jackson like wig shirts you could do the dance i did the dances did it all like i started when i was 13 okay i did it till i was like 16 did you really uh i did it for about three years money at it and stuff uh winning contest or i would do uh a lot of talent shows and i put on a lot of my own concerts um can you moonwalk and shit i used to be able to now that rest is knocked off it wasn't i don't know who let me do it for as long as i did like it's such a i was good in socks yeah really like and i'm wearing like whole ass my grandmother

would take me to calvin klein to get penny loafers and like lord and taylor that's gotta be where i'm like lord and taylor penny loafers with like the ankle high socks. And I would not only dress like that in performance, I would go to school dressed like that. Like that was my whole- That was your everyday? That was my everyday. That was my sense of style. And my uncle-

You dressed like Michael Jackson? I dressed like Michael Jackson. So wait, you're 10, 11, whatever. 10, 11. What year is that? This is 2000. Because I grew up in the Michael Jackson shit. And that's the 80s.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is 20-some years later. It's affected you like that, that you're dressing like him at school. I was, yeah. And this is before he died, too. And this was maybe 2005 is when I would say it started for me. Like right when his second trial was over, somehow the universe had just given it to me. I was pre-trial.

You were pre-trial. you were pre-trials i had the zipper jacket and the glove you motherfucker on top of the car dancing you know what i never wore i never wore i had parachute pants and michael jackson jacket yeah and i my grandmother my mom's mom got them for me i'll never forget this and i never fucking i hated them i never put them on. They're not practical. But also in my neighborhood, if I put a Michael Jackson jacket on and I walk outside before I walk outside, my brother's going to beat the shit out of me.

And then the rest of the neighborhood, I'm not even getting out of the house with that video. That was going to happen to me too. And I lived in a retirement community. They're just going to beat your ass. Did you wait? You lived in a retirement? No, no, going to beat your ass either way. Wait, you lived in a retirement community? No, no, no.

God damn. That's another level of a story. Where do you think the crack was coming from? Where did the crack take you? It was coming from Hunter Biden, baby. Thank you. He was coming to visit Pop Pop once a week. Did you wear the long curly wig?

I had the wig in my latter years. I had the glove. I had costume changes. I had all of it. Costume changes? In school? Oh, yeah. I mean, like I would put on like- If I see you in first period, would I see you after years. I had the glove. I had costume changes. I had all of it. Costume changes? In school? Oh, yeah. I mean, like, I would put on, like...

If I see you in first period, would I see you after lunch? I will. Period three. I have no shirt on. I'm just going to be, like, rocking this shit. I might even have it on this pod. I might, like, have... I don't know. See how it works out. I might do this, like, halfway through. We'll just see what's going on. This is for my heiress tour. I'm sweating so much that by the end of this pod, it's going to be, like, strip poker. I'm just going to be sitting here and being and be like yeah and this is where my dad stuck his other fingers

it's the it's the clotheslines that he didn't hit that stuck with you the most I had costume changes through school I couldn't remember my fucking lunch I would bring up backup blazers I had shit in my locker oh man I had

okay so here's my question. Yeah. Why do you stop? What makes you go, all right, I got to stop this. When you're going to prom and you're like with your date and you're like, where'd you get that eyeliner? Is that Maybelline? I might have to start using that on stage because mine runs and yours looks great.

And that's, I'm also smoking crack at this point too when I retire. There's a few layers. It's layered. You got to be doing one to do the other so hold on i gotta say this i'm gonna be honest if smoking crack got you out of your michael jackson face there's a silver lining i think it kept me in it for as long as i did i don't know what i don't know if it got me in or it got me out it did get me it did help me through the whitney houston phase i will say that because when she died i had a whitney houston phase and when she died I was like nearing the retirement of my Michael Jackson career and I was processing her death and then like two months later my uncle died and then I'm hanging up the glove oh there's

all these moving parts and I'm on crack I'm 16 I'm like why won't anybody help me it sounds like a crack nightmare I was on crack and like I'd be up I don't know how my parents didn't know I'm like, why won't anybody help me? It sounds like a crack nightmare. I was on crack. I don't know how my parents didn't know. I would be coming downstairs at like 3 in the morning and cleaning shit that didn't need to be cleaned. I'm already manic as is. And on crack. You are literally on crack.

And it started because my uncle moved in with us. And he's a huge Michael Jackson fan. My dad doesn't like, he hates that he unleashed the Kraken on me, right? Like literally the Kraken, bro. Dude, it was, I'm sweating. Here's his sales pitch. He comes up to me and he goes, do you want to try cocaine? And I said, I don't want to, I'm on, I got allergies. This is your uncle.

My uncle. And you're 15. I'm 15. The first thing he offers me was Oxycontin. Why though? What made him come up to you and be like, mm. Because he was fucking cool. No, it was, I think they call it grooming.

I think that's what was going on. Yeah. And I had a tumultuous relationship with my dad that drove me into the arms of the cool uncle that you don't realize until years later like oh that was a lot of really bad shit that actually isn't normal but um so he comes in he moves in with us because he lost his house because he was a crackhead i was gonna say um and he moves into my room, which reminds me of the line from the Boondocks,

where he's like, all the goddamn beds in this house, why'd you have to put the possessed dude in mine? God damn it. Why you got to be in my bed? He's in your room? We're sharing a bedroom together. How old is he?

50. I thought you were going to say you're 20s or 30s. No, he's 50. He's 12 years older than my dad. It's me right now. Yeah, he's you right now. It's me right now. This is some real Neverland shit happening.

I was Macaulay Culkin in this case. There's another Michael Jackson kid. There's another one. That's what I'm saying. And Macaulay came out and was like, Michael never fucked me. But in this case, so he comes out in my room and he's like, here, Jake, take some of these pills it'll be cool

just get high and then he's like do you want to try coke and I was like I don't want to snort it I don't want it to go up my nose and he's like we could smoke it

and it's better than cocaine there's no side effects and it feels better than sex and I hadn't had sex at that point but I heard a lot of great things so I was like let's try it and it was April 15th 2011 wow

it was the first day of my i remember my i was we were on spring break and i was supposed to be doing some report about mesopotamia and i remember he came home with a bag of crack uh and then we went on a car ride um and he he was he was hitting the pipe and i was just like trying to get in there it was like double dutch i was like when are you gonna this was like the big day i had it like smoking it in the car and driving like we're going to drive and drive he went to go pick up his oxycontin pills so he could sell them and flip them for crack we were going to do shit oh that's not even the that's the beginning of it. About a year later, so that night I come home and like I kneel down. I had like a desk that was about this height in my room and he's sitting at the desk and I kneel down in front of him and he like puts the pipe up to my lips.

And then I just, I inhale, I take it and then I'm immediately hooked. What did it feel like? Is there a way to describe it? You're also 15, getting a hit of crack. I'm getting a hit of crack at 15. I have an addictive personality. Had you smoked weed or anything prior to that? No, this was just nothing.

Were you drinking? So the first substance you ever put in your system was crack? Jesus Christ. And a lot of Advil PM. I started doing that when I was like 12. Get a crack. I'll keep you up. Yeah, I was balanced.

It just kept me normal. It was weird. I was just keeled. that crack. I'll keep you up. I was balanced. It just kept me normal. It was weird. I was just keeled. I was even. Before a beer or anything. I smoked crack in April. I didn't smoke weed until that July out of a Bud Light lime can

that I did the thumbtacks with. I didn't even have a lighter. I had a birthday candle and a gas stove. So I took the birthday candle and I brought it downstairs and I was like holding my hand with it and i'm like hitting it with the butt like yeah and fresh prince is on in our basement tv in the background with no sound and i'm just like watching will smith do this as i'm smoking weed

and i'm addicted to crack um and and about six months later my uncle gets kicked out because he comes home and he's like i need you to take a piss test for me comes and picks me up from the doctor and takes me to the doctor's office they're like where have you been for the last hour you're supposed to go in that room and take a piss test now you got to go in that room and do a blood test my uncle's 50 and he tries to convince me to comb my hair back put on glasses so i'll look like him and go in there and take the blood test for him do you look anything like each other at all i have way more teeth he's black and uh he is my dad is black uh and this is on my dad's side but my uncle is my complexion and so we kind

of looked alike but i don't look 50 like i'm a six i'm 15 you're a child i'm 15 16 years old yeah um and uh so like i call my mom in the bathroom and i'm like mommy gotta come pick me up like this is going i don't know what to do. And like my parents didn't know. They didn't know I was on drugs. So I told them maybe when I was 24, cause I didn't get off Coke, Coke until I was three years ago. Three years ago last month was when I stopped doing,

I stopped smoking crack at 18, but I still snorted a lot of blow until about 24. Holy shit. So you smoked crack for three years i mean three years fucking yeah through high school sorry you're high you're influential high school years yeah every day um as often as i could get it and and are you like sneaking out of school to do it or anything are you able to maintain like around school hours you're good yeah i was able to keep business and and uh and and no one knows

no you don't want to end up smoking with friends you don't bring anyone in no so three years secret of just you and your uncle well he died a year into me smoking what yeah he when i was 16 he died and then he was living with you uh he got kicked out after my mom found out that he tried to get me to do the blood testing. And then about six months after that, he died. And I remember calling his dealers. What did he die from? Was it an overdose? Yeah, he was diabetic and crack takes away your appetite. And he didn't, he would get high for several days and then not eat. And there was a few times where I walked into him in my room, like in a diabetic coma, essentially, just like still frozen because you're high and you're not eating and your blood sugar's low. And when he died, I blamed myself for a lot of years

because I felt like, A, I got him kicked out and B, I wasn't there to save him. And that's what I think kept me on drugs for as long as I was. And it wasn't until I was 18, I was working this restaurant job as a busboy and I came home on my 18th birthday watching Drake host SNL and he was doing a Cat Williams impression and somewhere the chemical connection of Cat Williams, Drake and crack just made me be like, I'm never gonna make it

if I keep smoking this shit. Cause I was doing comedy for like maybe six months at that point, I started when I was 17. And then, yeah, I stopped smoking it at 18 i snorted it till i was 24 but i didn't really pick it up again till i was like 21 um and then covid really expedited it because then we're all just home you know for where i lived with three irish bartenders who and so now we're all nightlife guys who are home and Joe Biden's giving us all this cocaine money.

So we're going to do some cocaine. Or we were getting the Trump stimulus checks where he would sign them. Yeah, the stim. So great, the stimmy. I got that low stimmy. And I got off coke through Buddhism. That's how I found out about it

because I started meditating. Buddhism right downstairs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was just mindfulness. I never really learned mindfulness and meditation and learning why I'm doing something. Because my life just had moved so fast that I never stopped to think why something was happening. And if your life is a complete roller coaster, maybe you're the common denominator and start to think why you're the common denominator. And there's good days and there's bad days and there's, you know, I'm a life long addict, essentially.

A lot of the time it feels like I got corrupted like Anakin Skywalker and the Chancellor Palpatine. Man, but you really did crack to a kid. I did crack till I was a kid, man. Yeah, costume change i'm sorry yeah i did it for uh oh there goes my crack light right here i still carry the blowtorches with me this is the only one that i could get out there yeah man i came around this pocket

this is kind of like what the first pipe looked like i'm not even kidding like the the the thing would be out it's a great advertisement and then it'd be a thing on top it's like a tinfoil cover and it was like plugged and then okay so and then you go downstairs you're not even smoking out of glass pipes or anything your uncle's got once he died i did he had his own custom i was gonna say he had a rig or something yeah you get 15 can get 15% off using promo code ROCK. Just smash somebody's car window and take it from them. He had his own custom crack pipe rig. That was insane.

Now that I'm thinking about that, that is an insane thing to have. He was a professional. It had its own little back. It was a custom little back. It looked like an asthma inhaler, but made of marble. And then I discovered the glass stems the rose pipes and that's when you're really a crackhead so he dies and you said you reached out to his dealer because that's what i want to know where's the kids continue to get cracked dealers they came in they i was going out to make the drops for him when he was living for

us so i had a relationship with a lot of them okay so i want to talk about that in a second till you were going on runs with him all the time i want to talk about some shit you saw because i know it's crack stories so it's not normal shit and he was john yeah it was but wait real quick there they have they know you're a kid and they're still giving it to you they don't care well after he dies yeah one of them i i they came up to uh do a delivery and the guy was like you gotta stop smoking this shit man this will kill joe uncle man anyway 60 and i just did the handoff i'm like 16 i go right back inside put on dirty diana and i'm getting high um the one you were listening to

and then i ended with blame it on the boogie and then i'm just being like i'm cold um and so he said that you remember the guy saying that i remember him his name was sean uh and he was scary i had a scar like up my kidney for a while because like he he like tried to jab me with a screwdriver because my uncle shorted him like 23 he's trying to stab you and he like went to go stab me with the screwdriver i don't think he meant to but then like it just like went up my and like i was wearing a white shirt like this and my dad was on the front porch and i came inside and he's just sitting there like, it sounds like bleeding out the side.

And he's like, did you take the trash out? I'm like, I will. So let me go patch myself up with a gorilla glue. My uncle was also bisexual and would go to truck stops a lot. And there would be- Can I ask you this? Yes. Was he bisexual before the crack happened?

There was crack either way, it just depends on he needed that crack he's gonna go to truck stops and get that job hey he was yeah it's gonna happen um my grandfather his dad was very religious and kicked him out for being bi i honestly think he was gay gay, but he kicked him out for that. And he, he went into the arms of drugs and inevitably died because he wasn't allowed to be who he was. That's why I, I mean,

like it feels very sanctimonious. We talk about stuff like homophobia on stage, but I, I come from it thinking, but what would have happened in my life? What would have happened in my life? What would have happened in his life if he got to be the person that he was and didn't have to feel ashamed of? Because that's got to suck. You probably wouldn't have smoked crack at 15.

I wouldn't have smoked crack. I don't think that there's a reason. I don't know. Just a hug would have set that ship on the right course. Did you get one hug or 10 years of crack? Yeah. You're either going to, yeah, man. I'm going to take yeah man it's i'm gonna take the 10 i'm gonna take the 10 because you don't have as many nearly hug stories as you do crack stories how many hugs landed you in a truck stop how many fun funny hug stories you got i've had a lot of

funny hugs but not in the haha way it's more like oh this is very catholic truck stops and like i would be in the car that's also a surefire way to be murdered too you know and i was just alone in the car while he's like doing shit with dudes in the back of their trucks i'm just sitting there you're wait yeah you're with them for that in the truck i know but you're on the you're just like yeah i'm like i'll stay here with the crack no every time happened about five or six times there was just a lot of stuff like that or like you're sweating like a crack i am i know i mean i can't imagine how much of a slut i look like right now this is probably so bad you've never opened up like i'm gonna need a second shower i know oh my god this is so bad this is what i look like in the michael jackson day yeah you look good dude god you look good dirty black so i wouldn't sweat and by the end of this podcast

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Most comics have had horrible things that most human beings suffering to a level could not deal with. Would ruin them. Would ruin them. And that's why they're successful. Would do what happened to your uncle right yeah exactly plenty of people who have been unaccepted and taken their own lives in a way whether it's immediately or slowly over time right and there's that's what i love about this show i fell in love with comics all over again because it's there's no one that can come and sit in these seats and tell you shit like this

right 15 year old smoking crack like i know what happened to me at 15 and i'm still they they say i don't know exactly saying but they say if there was a circle of people and we all threw our problems in the middle we'd all take our own shit right back and i'm telling you even though i know what happened to me i ain't fucking smoking crack at 15 yeah you know so it's it's you also you're mentally tough and to be able to laugh at that shit like because it's it's you either cry all the fucking time yeah or you figure out a way to be like what i mean what the fuck yeah and i definitely and you've turned it into a career that gives back and helps people you know what i'm saying like i do that patreon and when i hear

some of that shit i'm like what the fuck am i bitching about and also like you develop a community with those people um because they don't it takes one person to share that story right and then the rest of the people like people come up to me uh people came at the improv show i did last night and they brought me like i'm a huge comic book nerd they brought me like this giant batman poster they brought me some wolverine pez and they brought me like a couple of lego clone troopers check that pez don't cut that out no no yeah it's great hey i got more than pez candy i'll take a cough drop if you got it something i'm gonna feed it jerry got some uh i Jerry got some anybody got a raiola or something

yeah come on we used to do smarties back in the day smarties that's you crush them up right yeah

I smoked them yeah right in there with the big pen not smarties yeah it was PCP actually the whole time did you have PCP too

no so was it just crack and weed and weed crack didn't really smoke a lot of weed until. No cigarettes? I did smoke.

Because then that gets expensive. I did. I still do cigarettes, but I started smoking cigarettes when I was like 16. Okay. I tried when I was like 13, but it just made me horny. Every time I smoked, I would just get like so horny. Yeah, so phallic. And I would just be like, boy, are you going?

And like, I remember I would steal my mom's cigarettes and like go upstairs and watch Planet of the Apes. And I'm like, I shouldn't be horny watching this with a cigarette hanging out of my lips. And yeah, it's the result. There's nothing this business can do to you that life hasn't done. And that's why you look at the people who are successful in this and why they are successful. There ain't nobody online that can say shit worse to me than my own mother has. There ain't nobody online that can say shit worse to me than my own mother has. There ain't nobody. And there's nobody online that says more racial slurs on Call of Duty

than you do, dog. That's it. Ryan Slickler with a hard R. Both times. And not where you think it is. Alright, so you go on runs. You sit and wait with the crack while your uncle's making earning his money he's earning his money i watched him make you ever ask him about it do you like what did

you just do in there would he ever tell you yeah in great detail um yeah he wouldn't lie and say no no no no i remember when he told me he was bisexual uh we were at a place called al's hot dogs i'm not even kidding i'm not even kidding. I'm not even kidding. It's Al's Hot Dogs in Naugatuck, Connecticut. It's still open every time I go home, which isn't often. I have to just avert my eyes because I just... It used to be like Vietnam. Every time I closed my eyes, I would see that hot dog. I got a footlong that day.

I don't know why I had to this day. He's wearing overalls. And one of the straps are off. You just see nipple, and I'm about to take a bite out of a hot dog. And he's like, you knew your uncle was bisexual, right? And I'm like, horrible timing, my brother. Horrible timing. Wait for the mustard to touch my lip.

And then I don't think I've touched a hot dog since. And if I have, it's been feet away. It's been the little tiny ones. And yeah, I was doing the drops i was doing i did it all and like it what do you mean are you driving at that point now i still don't have my license okay so you're just rolling with him i'm just i'm going down the street robbed you ever get attacked you ever get threatened i never physically i got attacked at one time with the screwdriver i don't think he meant to jab me um and then there was that time there was a time where like i was supposed to give a guy uh like four or five pills and i think i gave him 10 instead and of course he didn't turn back

around be like hey sorry there was a misunderstanding fellas i think he gave me six more than i need what a genuine fella and then my uncle was so pissed at me that he was like, Oh, God. He held that over my head. Oh, man. Oh, my. And then so he made me go to. Until he died.

He's like, you killed me. You killed me. That's $120. And he made me go to school. And I had to start looking for people who were going to buy them. Kids. Other kids. Who were like, I was a freshman freshman so i was like going to target like and i grew up in the part of

connecticut that started the opioid crisis i probably had something to do with it i'm looking back at it i'm up there with the sacklers yeah um and uh yeah i remember leaving one day one one time i rode my bike across town to go make a deal uh as i was leaving that deal i saw my other uncle my mom's brother who was a addict at the time he no longer is and he's alive shout out to my uncle neil way to go uncle neil and uh he was like hey you know where i can get some uh some more of those pills and like it's the tale of two uncles they're both drug addicts and i get back on do they know each other they do know each other um and they know that they know what they're both up to. Like when I was like 12, my uncle on the other side stole my brother's Nintendo DS that my mom got him for Christmas.

It was like hidden downstairs in the basement and traded it to a drug dealer for heroin. And my dad found out about it. And it was one of those other situations. Like my dad came home covered in someone else's blood because he just walked up to my uncle and just punched him right in the face and just blood spurts everywhere. And he's like, where is it, Neil? And Neil's like, something, boom, does it again. Where is it? And to Neil's credit and took two hits. And he's like, all right, there's the exact address. Here is where it is. Go get it. And then Neil got his shit together and he's like alright this is the exact address here is where it is go get it and then Neil got his shit together and it's been clean since then

but it's weird like because if you think about it I've replaced one drug for another but the one that I do now is a lot more productive and it helps people and it helps me comedy is a lot like is that weed for you now? Cocaine no comedy and cocaine I think are very similar

just in the sense that the release is very short lived. Immediate hits, it's short lived. If it's good, you know. You're already on your way home. You're already on your way home. And it's fleeting. And then as soon as you get home and you're alone, you just wanna go out and do it again.

And except this time, you're doing it in a way where you're developing a community. It's two-sided. I get something from my audience, they get something from me. And when you're- It community it's it's two-sided i get something from my audience they get something from me and uh when it's a way better heroin it's way better heroin let me tell you it is way less uh i mean you would know you would probably have you ever had heroin i snorted it you did i would snort it a bunch okay so let's let's talk real here for a minute what's a better high crack or heroin they're different highs one's going up and one's taking

you down yeah one heroin is bad because your body gets dependent on it and you get really sick um not the same way you do with crack you go through crack withdrawals i would liken them to like caffeine withdrawals like you uh have three cups of coffee every morning and then one day you don't all of a sudden you start to feel those headaches you feel everything heroin you just feel sick and you know you don't need it but your body needs it because that once that goes in your your blood chemistry that's over it's it like and you don't even enjoy the act of being high you just don't enjoy uh throwing up and and and shaking and sweating all the time uh you enjoy that a lot less than you do. But the crack withdrawals would be so heavy that I would just try a little bit of H just to come down.

And that was maybe for about, that was on and off. When I was 23, I definitely snorted more than I did when I was in high school but uh it's um do you switch from crack to heroin are you always using crack at that time always crack and then if i could get if the dealer had any like a little bit of heroin like not a lot i mean it's also cheap too and uh you're lucky you're clean now this fentanyl shit is you would be dead you'd be dead i remember during covid when the fentanyl shit was really starting

to spike up especially in the city and i got i stopped doing blow august 22nd 2020 and that was everything and like i'm seeing my friends that are out partying now and i'm like dude you're gonna die you're gonna die we're going to die this is because like your drug dealers don't give a shit about you you're on their time yeah you tested it yeah yeah yeah no i'm cool i went to go meet up with this weed guy once and i was like what are you doing man and he was like i was like what are you doing down in chinatown and he was like oh i'm going to i'm going to pick up some fentanyl strips and i was like oh i guess i can i thought he was joking but then i was like oh yeah i know you're a drug dealer and i can never buy weed from you ever again um so i it uh so what makes you finally tell your parents you hit rock

bottom i was drunk when i was like 23 home you didn't even want to um like you didn't have an intention to sit down and say mom and dad this is what's going on no because i didn't want them to feel guilty about it but i also um have been doing some stand-up bits about it and i knew that i think in the back of my head, I would rather they hear it from me first rather than watch a bit and then be like, this was way too specific to be a joke. Like this actually happened. And I,

a part of me wishes I never told them because that can't be easy for a parent to hear. And they do blame themselves. And we are guilty people. How do you say it? Cause you got to tell your mom who you're also doing it with. Yeah, I told my mom. I think she knew to some degree.

I think my dad knew that something – he just didn't like the relationship that him and my uncle had, the one that got me on crack. And I just sort of – we were driving back from my brother's eighth grade graduation. It was like maybe 2018. And my mom said something, her and my dad were fighting. And then, you know, like when you get older and your parents start revealing family secrets to you,

our family does, you're like, holy shit, where did that come from? And I was like, I don't know why dad's like that all the time. And my mom went, probably because his parents were cousins. And I cousins and i was like what what how old are you when you find that out uh this was like maybe five years ago um there yeah i think they were like maybe i don't know what the level of cousins that's okay for to be but they were they weren't first cousins they were not first they might have been second or third right um gatesville county north carolina there's a lot of mattress hopping a lot of family reunions a lot of fucking happening at those family reunions um and uh why go across town when you can go across the hall that's my family gene pool you know what i mean

that's underneath your family arms like where all the family members are buried in the backyard just so they can 69 each other in the afterlife. We bury our relatives face down. And I think after she said that, I was just kind of like, yeah, you know, I smoked crack with vent when I was 15. Right. And then my dad and I, because he kicked me out when I was in high school. Did she get pissed? Did she say she knew? I remember her being very quiet.

You think it was more like. I think she knew and I just confirmed it. Yeah. Because she definitely covered my ass once. My dad found my journal and it was talking about the drugs. And like, because I would journal a lot when I was coming down. And I would be very specific. And he found the journal and called me downstairs, made my mom do a drug test next to me.

And- Did they pee or they take blood? It was the spit test. Oh, spit. Yeah. And I like did blow like two nights ago. It's the same as coke. It shows up in your system as cocaine.

So like someone was on TikTok the other day and they were like, that's the cool thing about crack, man. It's like shows up on the drug test and you don't know if it's cocaine or crack so if it comes up as cocaine you should be like oh sorry i smoked a little crack the other night i didn't know it was in the blood i smoked a little crack um and it came she was like yeah there's nothing in his system he's not doing any drugs and i that might have been true i don't know how long it stays in your system for um i do think that if she really did think i was an addict that either one of them would have stepped in at that age and been like hey come on let's come help you um but your brothers aren't fucking with it or are they way too young no no

no no we don't have that much of a difference i have a brother who's two years younger than me and one who's eight years younger than me so the one who's eight years younger than me was way too one two years younger than me he never had any intention with it no he was on the spectrum and he was really into the beatles so that's he was like uh that was his thing and i was a crack smoker michael jackson impersonator god damn and now he's the ultimate fighter and i'm yeah i'm in the interrogation sauna room it feels great i'm no i'm sweating from parts of my tits i love it yeah um but no i i it's easy to look back and then go, wow, how did you, you know, this poor kid. I look back at it and I'm glad that it happened when it did because I would have experimented

with drugs at some point in my life at any stage. It's on both sides of my family. It's in my genes and I would have experimented with it. And I'm so glad. While it may have messed up my life trajectory and brain chemistry, I'm glad I got out of the way at an age that seems inconsequential in comparison to if I started getting into drugs now

when everything is going well for me in my career. You know, like, because now I know the consequences of it and I've lost friends, I've lost family members. So do you feel like that has really set you up for life where you're like been there done that i don't even need to fuck with that again yeah or do you miss it no i don't miss it i think i did the first few times i tried to get clean and that's why you end up going back but like i know i don't miss it weed smoking weed doesn't make you want to smoke you know know what I mean, the habit of smoking again

and taking it back to that. It makes me want to eat gummy bears. Okay. I love weed, and I have a lot of chronic fatigue, and thank God that chronic be helping that fatigue. So the weed is just sort of like a blanket that's there for me. But I know I don't miss it because I'll get done with shows,

and I do a meet and greet after the show every time you know it's like you take pictures with everybody they came to see you you're gonna show up for them then by the time that's over the last thing i'm thinking is all right i want to go party i'm like no i want to go lay in bed eat a pint of ice cream and then just wake up and have diarrhea tomorrow yeah give me some pizza yeah i'm gonna lay in bed i'll flip through some bullshit channels look at the internet that's that's exactly what i want to do where i'm at i don't always been on the road yeah i've never i've never been like the rick flair guy go i got a party with someone i got it i'm going to the bar have fun most of america is the same like all of america pretty much looks exactly the same there's like three cities that are kind of your home depot looks

like this yeah yeah right like even when i was checking in my hotel tuesday in uh koreatown in la the guy was like i asked the guy what a good place to eat around here and he was like 7-eleven and then i went on google maps and i was like goddamn he was not lying it is that's a good place to eat around here koreatown's got great places man go get korean barbecue i couldn't read them all any of them i smoked crack instead of taking that korean class i wonder how things would have gone differently for me if i picked up a korean instead of the crack pipe so what when you finally get clean what happens um when i get clean when i stop doing coke completely it's's August 2020.

I start meditating every single day. You're mid-pandemic, heavy pandemic. Heavy pandemic. I read this book by Robert Wright called Why Buddhism is the True Religion or something like that. One of those aggressive titles. If you ain't Buddhist, you ain't shit. I've read that one. Larry the Camel Guy wrote that one yeah and then he also wrote metaphysics for dummies and then you got the porn parody of that Christopher Nolan movie called slop and Heimer's gross it's just like instead of an atomic bomb, he invents AIDS.

Once I get, I felt clarity. Once I finally stopped doing everything because it was a time in my life where I was, I was cognizant of why I had the temptation to do what I wanted to do. And I downloaded a dating app. I started going on dates most of them sucked but i was clean so i had to deal with that and that was a level of of uh film that i would put on top of it and then about three months into being clean i got into a relationship uh and that was with someone who was also clean or at least not smoking crack she was not smoking crack that's what i was looking for in a woman yeah that's clean enough for me and she has as many teeth as she does hands yeah

that is a winner right there i need somewhere to put this ring yeah um i don't even care she has all 10 fingers you can have six just have this one yeah just you can have 10 on one hand i don't give a shit yeah right there and use that for me uh because i got two of them um but uh yeah no it it was really just about like changing who I was surrounding myself with all the time and also not hanging around with so many co-kids. And because it's more or less the recovery process that kills you than the drugs itself, right?

Because like you stay up doing blow till like seven in the morning and you're going to sleep till like 5 p.m. the next day. And then you have an eating for two days, you're going to eat McDonald's, then you're going to feel like shit, then you are going to shit, then you're going to want to do 5 p.m. the next day. And then you have an eating for two days, you're going to eat McDonald's. Then you're going to feel like shit. Then you are going to shit. Then you're going to want to do blow.

And it's just that cycle that's just repeating over and over again because those are the people that I had to hang out with during a pandemic when I couldn't go outside. And I was always worried that I was going to go back. But luckily I've had this great yin and yang in my life where things when they're going really well i'll get kicked in the balls and it makes it just reminds you that like humble nothing is permanent right back the pleasures we seek evaporate and um having this that's the what's life oh it's gonna go for you boom right there i'm having a great time right

here i can't wait to get fucked in the ass by a gorilla when I leave. Or whatever insane shit is going to happen. I'm going to have like a safe hit me in the head and just drop me right down. But like, yeah, I feel I just hit three years, which I don't like look at it like, oh. I look at it like, wow, that's the longest I've ever gone in my life without doing. Every day I don't do coke is the longest I've ever gone in my life consecutively okay you know that's great and um how do i feel i feel better knowing i'm probably not gonna die that way you know like i would have hated to like go out like a pulp fiction style thing right you know like the adrenaline thing and they gotta stab you in the heart and then everybody being like well you not that you've seen that,

but you've seen people die from this. Yeah. People I loved, best friends. How were you again when your uncle died? 16. 16. Yeah.

And that doesn't scare you right then and there enough. It should have. Right? But you're addicted, so. I think it did scare me, and I didn't know how else to deal with that fear. So I just went back to drugs.

I mean, it's masking, and it wasn't until I was going into my senior year of high school where I discovered comedy again. And I got really into late night TV. And I went back to watching Letterman and Conan. And I was working that bus boy job. And I started doing comedy. And the more series I got about comedy, the less series I got about getting high. And you have to face the same trials in life at different points in your life sometimes, right?

Like getting off cocaine at 18 was the same getting off of it when I was 23. It's just, what did I do in those five years in between? I moved out to the city. I built a career. I just lived through a pandemic. Still am living through a pandemic. And I'm not the same kid in high school I was. Now I'm a kid who's been out on his own own for five years and I have to face this trial again.

But because you've already faced it, I feel like a lot of the time you run away from it because you're like, I already did. I'm not ready to do this work again, man. Like, come on. And now I just, my biggest hindsight looking back on all of it is when I start to feel that thing of uncomfortableness and i don't want to face it i just open myself up to it completely because that's the only way to really deal with it it's like okay this is happening right now let's deal with this problem like head on square on what's going on why do i feel this way how do i not make this happen

how do i make myself uncomfortable again so i can continue to that's the only way you develop yourself as a stronger person i went on the dating apps when i got sober because i knew i didn't want to go on the apps and they were going to make me social um and it worked out and um uh i feel lucky to have gotten out um but also if i didn't do this for a living I would probably feel undeserving to have gotten clean. Explain that. Like if you just had a job as a plumber. Right. If I didn't have a, yeah.

You wouldn't feel what? You wouldn't feel like your purpose was big enough to overcome that to share or help? Inside of me, that's still, yeah, I still have that. Like I've got to do something bigger. Grand. I can't just stop doing crap. Yeah, I can't just stop doing crap. Bigger. Grand.

I can't just stop doing crack. Yeah, I can't just stop doing crack. That's not enough. I have to be doing something else, too, and also just to justify the shitty decisions and life choices I made. I get that. If you're going from crack addict to regular job, it's maybe two jumps. You want to go fucking leaps and bounds. Yeah, that's what I did. And I luckily had the career while i was getting clean

and while i was on drugs what were you doing for money at that time were you doing odd jobs are you just selling or what are you doing when i was in high school or just to get to get your fix and how are you getting this shit that's a good question because the guy's like this shit's gonna kill you sixty dollars yeah yeah no i like where are you getting that 60 stealing pawning um yeah a lot of stealing mostly stealing from who stores people stores what was your parents what was your move in stores how would you get out of there i would just take some shit and and walk the fuck right out yeah i wouldn't even run out i would just walk right out i because i don't look like the kid was gonna steal like i i would be this sweaty um i hate get a mop on aisle six that's why the kid's back there looking at the peanut butter cups

it just keeps getting worse i feel like i'm being we're almost done i promise no i love it no because now after this you look like you showered in here dude i did this morning like you said i'm like i'm going to like hang out with the with like a ceo after this and like my childhood idol you're like hey thanks for joining me on make a wish oh man please take a shower oh um yeah no but uh this is it's better to it's better to be sweating and sober than to be sweating and on crack because i get me on coke doing stand-up shows and i don't know how like prior and robin williams those guys did it because like i'd be like six minutes through a set being like i'm booked for an hour holy shit this needs to move a lot faster really i just want to like that yeah because like you would do a hit and then seven minutes later you want another hit and i can't be like excuse me one

second guys so anyway um and uh i like being in an uncomfortable situation where like maybe you're sweating too much or you have to meet someone who is a lot higher than you on the corporate ladder like i remember like meeting a head of a talent division of some network and I was high. Being sober and uncomfortable, not that I'm a sober person, you know, I still drink, I still smoke weed. But when you're on a stimulant like that and when you're dependent on it, everything in life is way more amplified and your level of discomfort is, and then you're not thinking rationally. And that's why you become an addict. You're just stuck and you're just like, the only thing I know how to do is get high. So I'm going to keep doing that and not do anything else.

I'm not going to learn a trade. I'm not going to sign up for ITT tech. Fuck all that. I'm going to just get high. That's what my thought process was. I was like, I'm just going to sit here and get high until I die. And luckily, sometimes you just got to go for a walk. Sometimes you just have to go out of your little box.

I live in New York. So i live in a shoebox apartment i pay way too much money for um where i live but i'm paying for the address and it's because what if i'm if i'm going stir crazy i can just go walk outside lower east side of manhattan and then i can go walk for 20 minutes by the time i get home i forgot what i was even mad about but it's something that you really have to force yourself to do and put yourself in an environment where you could. And I'm very grateful to be able to do that. A lot of people are stuck in life circumstances where they can't get out. I just try to put myself in circumstances where I'm not backed into a corner.

It's also just wild because it's not like life led you to this path of seeking drugs for comfort or anything. This person came in and just gave them. That's really what it was, yeah. It's crazy to me. It's crazy to think. I'm not comparing this in any way, but it's the same way you could put religion in someone or anything at that age. You're such a blank template to do whatever you want with for someone to introduce you to not even weed he didn't even say hey you want a sip of beer

he went crack bro yeah crack i do i i compare it to the religion thing too it's interesting you say that because i always richard dawkins had a line um in this book i read where he's like there's no such thing as a christian child there's no such thing as a muslim child there's a child raised by christian parents there's a child raised by muslim parents and there's a child raised by crackhead uncles you know and um a lot of the the stuff that we have is due to the circumstance that we have surrounding us and also hindsight too like i didn't realize it was wrong right of course until years later where you're just like when did that hit you when did it when you really sit down when i stopped feeling guilty for

him dying uh because for about 10 years i definitely blamed myself for that why uh like you felt like you could have saved him if you were there i felt like i could have saved him i felt like it was my fault he got kicked out i felt like uh because he got kicked out he ended up getting high alone and that's what led him to die. And I'm talking like a year ago, I stopped feeling guilty for this shit. Wow. Just because I was like, no, that wasn't right. Because I have a brother.

It's about to ask if you have nieces or nephews or anything you're starting to see. I have nieces and nephews who are around the age I was, and I got to think even would i even want to drink a beer around right the answer is no yeah because they they're gonna see that and and they're gonna and and i know what's in the blood i know what's in our family one one drop one little anything and then you're gonna be screwed so like i wouldn't i would never do that and then once i realized that i didn't kill him uh everything just sort of went out of my system and it was gone. You know, you miss them. I listen to some music sometimes and I'm like, man, I wish you were,

you're supposed to be here. But then I'm like, most of the time, I'm like, I'm glad you're cold in the ground because you can't get any other people addicted to crack. Yeah, that's right, dude. Really though, like sometimes like people are too far gone for a change to happen. There's only two ways you end up when you're on drugs, and it's dead or in jail. That's right.

Or the third one is you get off them, and then you end up in a pile of your own sweat. There's a quarter cup of water in my taint right now. We're going to replace that chair. It looks like a super slide. I know, yeah. You're not going to want this at all. There is a... I have my second pussy.

The water... The second pussy is is the second plane to hit the pussy the personal pussy second plane is it the pussy all right we're we're gonna this has been look this has been a fucking this was so great i feel like this was a therapy session i really got it looks like it was for you more than sweat out of my system i got a lot i'm gonna ask you this very last question yes and we're gonna plug whatever you want again and we're gonna get out of here but i told you at the beginning before we recorded advice you give to your 16 year old self and i'm interested to hear what you have to say because this shit starts for you at 15 so it's wild to be a year into this you said something and i've been thinking about you like, what would you tell your 16 year old self? Probably to put down the pipe.

That's all I've been thinking about. But I think it was Quinta Brunson who said, somebody asked her that question. She was like, what would you tell her? Listen, you're the most quotey former crackhead I think I've ever met in my life. It's like, I know. Yeah. And me and the scarecrow from The Wiz. Yeah.

That's Michael Jackson reference. Who was Michael Jackson? Just realizing. Yeah. He didn't do Wizard of Oz. He did The Wiz, dude. He did Michael Jackson. me and the scarecrow from the whiz yeah um that's my reference just realizing yeah really yeah i wasn't even trying to then damn i really am black um i she said i wouldn't tell that kid anything because that kid got here um i wish i could have just told that kid that it was going to be okay yeah because that kid was here um i wish i could have just told that kid that it was going to be okay yeah because that kid was you remember what it's like being 16 you know the trauma you go through that i just remember being very lonely and wanting to ask for help but was too scared to and um i i wanted someone just to be there to tell me it was going to be okay. And if anybody I would have listened to at 16 tell me it was going to be okay,

it would be the person I am today. That is the one person I know who I would listen to. And trust. Because he would see. Like I have the job I have now because of a dream I had when I was 17. That is insane. That doesn't happen. Like I got to see my dreams come true,

which never happens for anyone in my family. And I have to remind myself of that constantly and remind myself that that 16-year-old kid made a lot of stupid decisions, but that 16-year-old kid still is inside of me somewhere. I think I sweat out a good chunk of him. But he's still inside me. You're like Frosty in the greenhouse

over here right now, bro. Just your hat left on. I know, yeah, that's really all it is. This podcast is gonna be in the mic. Happy birthday! How do you do fellow kids? Don't smoke crack, drink water water listen to the honeydew podcast subscribe on patreon we blow up gotham city hospital time at midnight batman cut that promo

dude thank you thank you for having me man uh thank you so much plug everything one more time troybonlive.com for all my road dates. I'm going to Toronto. I'm going to so many places. I don't even know how, I'm on the road a lot. I don't know when this is coming out. So check out my website, Troybondlive.

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It exists if you believe in it. Is that right? It's right here. You just got to aim for the heart. Aim for the heart, bro. Yeah, baby. As always, RyanSickler.com, Ryan Sickler on all your social media. Come see me on tour.

All tickets are available on my website at RyanSickler.com. We'll talk to you you next time.