135: #135 Reality Shows featuring Jon Reep
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Hello, folks, and hey, bear. Welcome to the Nate Land Podcast. Sitting here with me, Brian Bates, Aaron Weber, and a younger Dusty Slate. That's right. John Reap. Ginger Dusty. Yes. Today's episode of the Nate Land Podcast is brought to you by ZocDoc, BetterHelp, Athletic Greens, and DraftKings.com.

Athletic rings and draft kings. Sounds good. Welcome, everybody. Yeah, if you're listening to this, we've pre-recorded it. I believe this is the first episode you've been back since your special came out. And it did not go as planned. No, that one joke. Do you want to address the controversy? Yeah. To the Muslim community. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fill me in. Yeah.

I know. It'll be interesting to see because, yeah, so my special comes out. It came out. By then, it's January 31st. All right, because we're retroactively. Yes. Gotcha. Yes. We had to do this one because I don't know where I'm at. You missed last week's episode. I missed last – yes. Yes. Missed last week's episode. Yeah.

And then, yeah, I'm just on it. I'm somewhere. You know, I'm not here. If only you had a website where people could look. Yeah. I'll be in Vegas this weekend. There you go. It's probably a Super Bowl weekend this weekend. Ooh, let's make a prediction, see if you're right. Yeah, let's see. I say...

Titans. Titans come back. Titans, Panthers. Right? Yeah. Let's go crazy and let's see. Bills, Giants, but the Bills win. Who did the Bills play when they lost?

They lost four in a row. They lose to the Giants and the Cowboys. Oh, they lost to the Giants in the first one. Yeah. Cowboys twice. I know that much. I think three times, right? Probably. I know at least two, maybe three. But I think the Giants was one of them. Yeah. So I'm going to say Bills. I would love to see a Bills-Cowboys. You're going to see their reunion of something. Yeah. And so I want to say the Giants or the Cowboys.

I'm going to say Bill's Cowboys, actually, and the Bills win. I like it. Yeah. That would be – the NFL would love for that to happen. Oh, yeah. Think of that story, the rivalry, the history of all that. Well, they probably already rigged it to end up there. Yeah. Probably already got the script written. I'm reading off paper. Oh, it's the Bill's Cowboys. Look at that. Bill's lose again. Yeah. Wow. Bummer. Wow. Off the – yeah, still field goal problems.

Oh, my gosh. Did you see that Cowboys game? Yeah. He missed five field goals. Yeah. Yeah. Has that ever happened? Extra points. Yeah, I'm sorry. Not even field goals. Extra points. Did they even attempt to kick a field goal in that game? No, but he made the last one. He did. Okay. It's funny they didn't show it.

Yes, they were talking. It went right through the uprights right when it switched to the... There's a bunch of that when you watch football. It's like, I mean, they just come back so late and they're already started. You're like, what are y'all doing? Yeah. Is it not...

Is that the game report? Yeah. And it's just like, oh, forgot everybody. Oh, yeah. You're watching this sport thing that we're talking about. And usually you don't care about extra point, but when you've missed four in a row, whatever, you kind of want to see it. I mean, it became the only thing that you wanted to see. The story of the night. Yeah. It became the best part of that game. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to see it. So...

So, yeah, so here we are. So we might as well just start with some comments, right? Sure. Yeah. Since we've been, you know, who knows what's going on by the time this happens. Nick Alexander, happiest part of my Wednesday. Hello, folks. Saddest part of my Wednesday. That's probably a good place to stop. Yeah. That is. And that's a good place to stop right there. Yeah. We're done. That's it. Sean, thanks for coming on. Yeah. Yeah. Should have ended with Nick. Nick Alexander, two firsts.

Two first names. Last name. Alexander's, I guess, is last. He spells Nick without the K. N-I-C. Sounds like a weird basketball conference. Yeah. Oh, the Nick. Yeah, he's in the N-I-C. Yeah, he's in the N-I-C. It does sound like it. He didn't make it to the ACC. That's when you don't make the N-I-T. You got to play in the N-I-C. Kate the Great.

Tired mom of three, soon to be four here. I love checking early on Wednesday mornings to watch the newest episode. It gives me the right amount of laughter and conspiracy theories to start out my day before homeschooling my children. If my kids grow up doubting the curvature of the earth, I'll just blame you guys. Give it up, folks. I like that. Probably get some more if you're homeschooled.

You know, you get a little bit of your mom's opinion. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And that's probably, do you think her kids have to call her Kate the Great? Maybe. Yeah. Maybe. That's part of the curriculum, isn't it? Yeah. I like that there's a lot of, it's, you know, probably a lot of lessons like, well, you know, they did it just the same way. You know, your dad doesn't answer the phone. And you're like, here we go. And the teacher's gone off the rails.

Michael Tonelli. Tonelli. Tonelli. Oh, yeah. Michael Tonelli. My great uncle Mario Tonelli was an All-American Notre Dame fullback. He was also a POW in Japan for five years. Japanese soldiers stole his Notre Dame National Championship ring, but a Japanese officer got the ring back from him because he went to USC and saw my uncle play.

That ring is still in my family today. This is why I feel the Notre Dame-USC rivalry is one of the best. It transcended a world war. Wow. That's amazing. That's pretty cool. Wow. I'd like to see this ring. Michael Toninelli sent a picture of it into the podcast. Yeah. What a resume, huh? All-American Notre Dame fullback and then a war hero. Yeah. It's kind of like that scene from Pulp Fiction. This watch.

Well, I had my grandfather for five years. Remember that scene? No, I don't know. I haven't seen it. You ever seen Pulp Fiction? No. Oh, no, Nate. Well, he didn't do that, but he did say he buried the ring in a metal soap dish beneath his prison barracks. Yeah. Oh, that's better than your butt. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. He took it off. That's not when he gets... Well, when you get captured, I'm sure you probably...

Wow. That's pretty cool. The first thing he did was just go, I'm going to give it up to this jewelry. The fact that he wore it is... Yeah, that's true. I mean... Some people would swallow it. Back in the day, they say a lot of the Jews that were captured or whatever would swallow their jewelry. Oh, wow. Yeah. And then just hopefully one day when it comes out, this world will be over with. I'll be free. Yeah. Man. Yeah.

I mean, just the stuff these guys had to go through. It's crazy. Just to be your – you win a championship. It goes and plays it professional.

The Chicago Cardinals. Yeah. Wow. Was that your favorite team growing up? Hey, John, I was saying, hey, so, hey, I got somebody on my side. They were good. Yeah, they were good. Were they one year? Oh, yeah. That was crazy. 108, scored 108 points that one. Yeah. This one had five quarters. Yeah, and I just let them keep it going. But, like, having to go to war, man, I mean, that's just such a –

It puts stuff in perspective, which I talk about when you see athletes today, if there's any complaining, you're like, yeah, they went to war, man. And the main ones. Yeah, we talked about Ted Williams going to war. That's like Steph Curry going to Iraq. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy. Well, speaking of Cardinals, there was the, what's the guy's name that played for the Cardinals that, oh, God, he went to war.

Like right after 9-11. Pat Tillman. Tillman. Yeah. Yeah. And then they got killed in friendly fire. I know. That's crazy. That's tough. But that's a Cardinal. Yeah. Full.

Full circle. There we go. Full circle. I connect the dots. Yeah. That's why we brought you in. It's a dot collector. It's a dot connector. Collector? Collector. I collect them, and then I connect them. Back in our day, we had to, right? Yeah, we didn't have these dots just lying around. You had to go out and find the dots. Then you got to figure out, well, how do we put these together? That's right. You guys are born with dots now. Yeah, I'm full of them. Cam. Cam.

This is by Cam. Nate, I feel your pain with the refilled Fiji water bottle. My wife would also not change a thing if we won a billion dollars. In 15 years, she has never given me a whole paper towel.

She takes one off the roll, tears it in half or smaller, and gives me that. If she uses one just to dry a clean dish, she hangs it to dry. Oh, that's insane. I love that she's not into material things, and I get it. Neither of us grew up with money, but for the love of God, can I get more than a Post-it note when I'm eating hot wings? I agree. Wow. That's a pretty good... He wrote that out as a... That's a bit. That's a bit. Yeah. Even the way the rhythm...

Yeah. Can I get more than a post-it note when I'm eating hot wings? Yeah, yeah, yeah. My wife's, that's insane. I guess the counter to that is get your own paper towel. Well, I don't know what the point of a wife is then. I love paper towels. I use paper towels all the time. Do you? For everything. I should probably not use as much as I do. Are you... I should probably just grab a wash rag for stuff. But that's for everything. Is yours like a...

Your house is like a Hooters. Yeah. We have that. Yeah. Next to the sink, the one that goes on the stick. It just sets up that way. Back in the day, you had the one that would go horizontal, but we get the stick. We've got one out in the sunroom also on a stick. Yeah. Yeah, I'm addicted to those things, but I don't like the ones that –

When you pull it off, I expect it to be about this big, like a piece of paper. Yeah. Then they've got the ones that have the half tear. He's saying she takes the half tear, tears that? It would have been a giant day for her when she found out they started doing half tears. I mean, it was – Yeah, they changed the perforation. Yeah. She was like, oh, man, what a day this is. Yeah, I use a towel, but that's me.

As for like when I eat and stuff. But that's because I'm weird. Oh, you use like a bath towel? No, I use like a...

I could use a dish rag or like a, I'm not into like, cause it's like napkins. A lot of them have a weird thing where like, I talked about it. If the napkin's not thick enough and it sticks to you, that's, that's trash. Right. So a lot of that, if you're staying in a hotel and you, you know, the coffee area and they have little packs of the Splenda, that napkin in there is the worst napkin that exists on the planet. So I can't trust those napkins. And if I got food, I'm eating it in my room.

I use the bath mat. That's my napkin. The bath mat? The one that goes to put your feet on. I'm sorry. Yeah, what do you call it? Yeah, the one that you lay in front of the shower and stuff like that. Yeah, for your feet. Or a towel or a wash rag. Yeah. Or, you know, a lot of times it's like the hand towel. And I put that on. I mean, I just take my clothes off and I sit there and I eat like rotisserie chicken naked. Like Kramer. With this towel on me. Kenny Rogers Roach. Yeah.

And then I wipe it off and it's nasty and I put that in the shower. I'm thinking if someone just visits, comes in here and sees all these dark brown orange stains on a washcloth in the shower. Like, what's wrong with that guy? Yeah. But yeah, you can't trust those hotel napkins. Yeah, yeah. I use a hand towel. Yeah. That works. It's efficient. Then you got to wash it though.

But I feel like if I'm in a hotel and it's not mine, I don't have to worry about it. Oh, okay. Yeah. The maid will get that. Yeah. You asked to watch it. You know? Yeah. You throw it in her face when you're leaving. Take care of this for me. Take that with you, please. Katie Fuller. We have the ultimate. Is that? What's Sarah Fuller? Yeah. I thought that too for a second. Yeah.

Katie Fuller, we have the ultimate running dead joke in my family. My entire family, when eating our meals, waits for the first person to say I'm full. Then it is a mad rush to be the first person to say I'm fuller. It has been so ingrained that it's like a reflex now when you hear I'm full to shout I'm fuller.

I've said it when meeting my boyfriend's family for the first time. Work dinners, it's every meal. My friends all say I'm stuffed to avoid the inevitable. It's funny. That's fun. If that's your last name, I guess over time, it probably comes and goes. It's funny the first time you hear it, but then if that's your whole life. We had a previous...

commenter named Fuller and we commented about how you can't, you gotta be a certain weight if that's your name. Yeah. You know, or you're just gonna be hearing all the time. Oh, are you Fuller? You, you know. Yeah. And she's just saying, yep, that's, that's accurate. Yeah. You're probably doing it that they don't even realize that they're doing it. They just say, I'm Fuller. I'm Fuller. And it just, yeah, it's just like, that's what she said. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm getting tired of that, too, by the way. A lot of that's happening. What? That's what she said. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's happening a lot. More so than when it did the first time. The Office took it back. Office took it back. And then now that they redid The Office on Netflix, it's coming back in a third or fourth wave. Well, it's the kids that are watching The Office for the first time. Right. And they think it's hilarious. Yeah, and they think it's hilarious. I mean, The Office is hilarious, but that's what she said. Yeah. It's only funny when you're doing it.

If Steve Carell's doing it. Yes. You know. And if you said that's what she said. Yeah. For the fourth time in the same day, the same person. It's like, it's enough. You got to open her. You're thinking about right now. Somebody has to go, she sells a lot, doesn't she? Yeah. Tell her to shut up. Sandra, uh,

Nijin. Do you know how to say it? I don't. Win. Win. Oh, wow. Win. Do you know? I was the highest person. I was the guy with that same spelling. Yeah. Oh, so you knew how to say it too. I did. I was waiting to see how you guys would do it. I believe it's Vietnamese. Oh. You better hope so. Yeah. Yeah.

She's like, I'm from Arizona. I'm sorry. When the internet was born back in my preteen days, my parents paid for an AOL dial-up plan. Last year, I found out that my parents were still paying $30 a month for AOL. They are both highly intelligent people who are convinced that they would lose access to their email services if they cancel. I can see me thinking that. Right. Do they still use that email? No.

She did. There was more. She said, yeah, they all still have it. Yeah. So what is it they're wasting their money on if they're still using that email and if they're still using not the dial-up service, but maybe a Wi-Fi plan? I don't know what plans AOL. Do they even exist? Yeah. A surprising amount of people still use AOL. Okay. Because there's some cities where that's the only way you can get internet still. Dial-up?

Oh, like they don't have Wi-Fi? Mm-hmm. Or cable. Yeah, but that's like on AOL, too, to be like, how are you taking, you're just taking money from these people? Like you don't just go, we're not doing that. Like everything's free. Right. But you're saying these cities, they have to have it. As of 2019, so it's a few years ago, but 2 million people, 2.1 million people still use AOL dial-up to connect to the internet.

Wow. I forgot who the comedian does this, but here's a quick impression. He takes his hand, cuffs the microphone, and goes, You've got mail. That was the AOL. You would get...

Yeah. Oh, yeah. You've got mail. It sounded like a weird echoey type. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I remember that. I know a guy that works for me. I thought you were just trying new jokes out. I started with not me, some other comedian. You did it pretty well. Yeah. I don't know who did it, but if you guys think it's funny, maybe I'll do it tonight. I do that to a joke that I think might not work. I didn't.

I didn't mind. It's not me. This other guy. This other guy did it. I know a guy that works for me. He has a net zero email account. Oh, wow. Remember net zero? Yeah. Vaguely. I don't remember. Vaguely. Yeah, net zero.

Yeah. Just how you get free internet, I guess, back in the day. I don't even remember too much about it, but I'm like, wow, I haven't seen a net zero email address in a long time. My first email address was Hotmail. Hotmail. Yep, I had a Hotmail. Mine might have been AOL. I had a Hotmail. I think I still do. Paying $30 a month. He's sitting right here. You got three Hotmails sitting here.

I'm sorry, guys. Now he brings some jokes into this. It's nice. Jennifer Johnson. I especially love your state shows, so I wanted to bring a little gem to detention from North Carolina. Oh, boy. The Fort Fisher Hermit. Robert Harrell was my granddaddy's uncle. I love granddaddy. I love St. Grant. That's super southern.

Robert Harrell was my granddaddy's uncle, and although he had a traumatic beginning and an ending, spoiler, he was murdered. Oh, boy. Wow.

The middle is pretty interesting. Although he was a little odd, it's pretty cool that one of my local celebrities is related to me and made such an impact on the lives of the folks on the eastern end of my state. John, are you familiar with this guy? No, we have to look him up, right? I looked him up last night. It said at one time he was the second biggest tourist attraction in North Carolina. Shelby, that's not far from me.

Shelby's kind of famous for it. So what was it? Oh, he was a hermit. I don't understand what the... I mean, I lived alone until I was 48 and nobody came to my house. But people would flock to this guy just to see him. Fort Fisher Hermit. So his name is Fort Fisher. What's the Fort Fisher part of this? I don't know. So he died. He hung out in Fort Fisher State Recreation Area. That's where he ended up dying. So Fort Fisher is a place. Yeah. Okay.

It says the official cause of death given is a heart attack, but I guess he died under a mysterious... I mean, he was 79. Yeah, that's pretty good as hermit lives go. The coroner pronounced the cause of death as a heart attack, yet local rumors suggested Harold may have been killed after a violent attack by a group of three men, a fisherman alleging that he saw them speeding away in a car. However, there was no autopsy and the case was closed as a natural death.

But she's family. I mean, that's, yeah, she believes. I mean, that's the stuff, though, that's like they just go, they don't want to do it. I love the word. I mean, how do you, you know, like it's like, well, I saw three guys and they go. He was a hermit, dude. Yeah. Hermit. When's the last time you've heard hermit as like instead of homeless or, you know, like a. Well, hermit feels like a choice.

I don't know. I haven't heard that word in a long time. Well, a hermit, you have a home. You just don't hang out with anybody. I mean, he didn't, I guess. But I think of a hermit as a guy who lives in his house and doesn't see anybody. I mean, basically me until I was 48. Well, I've heard of a hermit crab. I know what that is. Yes, yes. And that's just your own shell, I guess, is maybe where the term comes from. But I haven't heard that term used on a human being in forever. Yeah, I mean, the guy's a Wikipedia. Yeah.

Who else was a hermit? It's just a person who lives in seclusion. That's the technical definition. So you can have a house and be a hermit. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. What's a hoarder? Would a hoarder be considered? I guess a hoarder is hoard stuff. But if you're a hoarder, you're probably by yourself. Right. They often go hand in hand. Yeah. Throw some cats in there. Cats. Yeah. Some dead cats.

Yeah. Yeah. They just forget about him. They get buried alive. I mean, they said there was a movie or documentary about him voiced by- Oh, that sounds awesome. I'm going to look this up. Barry Cross right there, or Barry Corbin. And that's, I know him. I mean, he's been in a lot of stuff. I don't know him, but- You know who he is. But he was in No Country for Old Men, and he was a hermit who had a bunch of cats. Fort Fisher. Oh, he was the dad? Yeah.

He was... He was What's-His-Face's dad? Tommy Lee Jones? Yeah. I don't think that was his dad, was it? Yeah, I think so. I think Tommy Lee Jones' dad died. I think it was his uncle because he was telling him some stories about his dad or something like that. Yeah, yeah. Oh, and he played a hermit. Huh. That's interesting.

Ethan Griggs. I'm 27 years old and just learned that library is pronounced library. I've pronounced it library literally my entire life. This makes me wonder if Nate is the same way. Library. Library. I think it depends on how you catch me. Believe it or not, it probably doesn't come up too often. Yeah. Yeah.

It's usually tell me to, they go, so drive past, past the library. Yeah. I think I say it depends on, I think I could say library if you're, but it looks like I'm trying. Boom. I think I was raised with, I didn't know either library. You just said library. Library. When I found out it was pronounced that way, it's almost like, oh, now I have to go out of my way.

To prove that I know how it's spelled by changing the way I talk. So library. Library. Sounds weird. Library. This should just change to library. What did you, y'all had a room in your house? The study? The study. Or the library. Well, mom, I'm going to go to the library.

Adam J. Rogers, as a Presbyterian pastor, my mind is always on the hunt for new sermon material, and it's difficult to switch it off. Do you and the rest of the Nathanael crew ever feel that way, like you're constantly hunting for the next bit of material for the next show? Yeah. You've got mail. There it is. There it is. Rick Rogers, I believe is his name. Yeah. I'm trying to write new stuff now. Mm-hmm.

I might have thought of two things this morning, which was nice. It's a nice start to the day where you're like, all right. That's something there. Do y'all know right away when something's going to be a good bit? Or how many of your bits are like, this could go either way. This could be 50-50. This might be bad. This might be good. I think if I know, I think what I thought of this morning, I thought both were going to be good. Then I thought of it a little longer. And I was like, one I know will work.

The other one, I think I can make it work. But they all fit. Yeah. But they both fit into... I already... I mean, I wrote them down. Were you waking up when you thought of them? One... Like, I mean, I don't want to say it, but it's... Now, one's very funny and will work. And the other one is...

One of them is its own joke, and one is a thing that will go in with another joke. Gotcha. Okay. Does it hit you like, is it just as a topic or as a whole thing that played out in your brain? One's a topic. Mm-hmm.

And then the other is just an add-on. I talk about my wife being cheap because she filled that Fiji water and the thing that he talked about. And so it's just like a little add. Like I had something this morning that I was like, oh, I bet I can say this. And that one's not going to be its own kind of thing. That's going to be just kind of a little add. So it's not like it's that much, but it makes the story or the thing I'm talking about more colorful. Yeah.

But I think I know more now. I can tell, like, yeah, yeah. That's going to... That will be good. And that just comes with time, probably, as you understand your voice and everything. I mean, you know, Louis C.K. said it where he said, you know, it's like, you just know. Like, yeah, that's funny. And you can tell. I mean...

I've never been one to go just any thought, just be like, let me go try it and see. Like, I mean, I think you do kind of know. Like everything that you're going to take up there, you're like, yeah, I think that's funny. I think that's going to work. I mean, there's now, because I've had to build, I'm trying to build this hour and it's under such a time restraint to have to build it. I've tried a couple things and, you know, and they were like, okay, you know,

And then it was like, it's like, I just don't feel I can get behind it. You just trust yourself and you go like, I know I can't, I'm not selling this thing. So I don't really believe in it as much as I do think it's funny, but I'm not, I can tell that I'm not going to, if I say, if I have any hesitation with it.

So if I feel like if I think of something and then I feel like some hesitation, then I'm like, I'm never going to be able to like really force it. I would be forcing it. And so like either I got to find the way to take, I got to find the way to get rid of the hesitation. Sometimes the hesitation comes from just how you're going to present it. I don't know how to present this. So that's where the hesitation comes from. Like you could be like, it's funny, but I don't know how to present.

How to get into it. Right. And so if I can't get into it, then I'm not going to do it. And so I'll either sometimes be like, yeah, it's funny. I'll just have to sit on it and know it's there. And then if I can find some way to get into it, you know, I have a story that I cut out of the special that I was touring with that I stood about owning an alligator, which I have.

and I took it out of the special. It did fit, but it always felt like out of nowhere. And I had enough time that I was able to cut all this stuff from this special that I'm now doing in the new hour because that's how a lot of this works is you can just – you really look at retired material as –

special material. That's the material that needs to be retired. And the other stuff kind of, it can be there and then it kind of goes and changes. And so the alligator thing just always felt very forced to me and I don't know how to get it in. I think about that a lot. Like how I think about how do I get this joke in? How do I get

I was thinking about that this morning, too. It's like I just kind of – and I am. I wake up and I'm just thinking about it all day. And I go pee in the middle of the night. If I'm up, my brain is just like – I'm thinking of every moment I'm doing, just trying to find something. I mean, I'm on a panic of search. But it's the alligator thing. It's just I got to – it's like how do I get into it that doesn't feel like I'm trying to force –

this story. Cause it's like, and I, and I would maybe still do the story the same way. It's just doesn't feel like it fits. Right. And it just, so I have to find a way to like, you know, and I try, I still try, I tried it this past weekend or like, or I tried it, you know, I do it every show and I just try to be like,

I had one show where I was like, that might be the way to get into it. But it's a matter of that's how. What about just going, oh, I just thought of this, and then start. Yeah. No, I mean, you can do... You can fake a crowd word. What'd you say? Alligator. Was that an alligator on your shirt? Yeah. Where'd you get that? That reminds me. Check this out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can definitely do that. I think it takes away from...

conversational of your act sure yeah if you got like a theme going right if you're like okay I want this theme to be all about this yes and for some reason you got the alligator thing and you know it's good

How do you make it work? That's the hard part sometimes. It's like, well, how do I get into this? You got to blend it in. And you almost got to mix it up enough in your own mind that you don't feel like you're telling the same alligator story or whatever the story is. So it's like, if I could think of a new alligator kind of thing that's not about me owning one, then I could get into it. And it feels like... So it's like, I'm not trying to...

I'm basically not trying to fit this story into the act, but I got to find something that blends what I'm doing into the... Then I can go. I also...

I also now, like a way to... But then sometimes it might end up feeling like you always feel like that and you feel like you're forcing it. You have a lot of jokes that are really funny and you'll stop telling them and I'll say, why'd you stop telling it? And you say, I just didn't really enjoy telling it. Yeah. That's how it ends up in my act. Yeah. Google it. It's out there forever. You can find it. I put it like the...

So you're not going to tell that. You're probably not going to tell that. Okay. The luggage that you go by that's in Alabama. Yeah. Unclaimed baggage. Unclaimed baggage. Oh, yeah. Okay. What airport is that? No, it's just a store. Scottsboro, Alabama has a store for unclaimed baggage. Okay. Yeah. All right. I'm trying to think of one airport. That's where I put my jokes. Bates walks around and just. Yeah. Right. It's that one at the very top. Yeah. Yeah. You just got to go off like what you, you know, you can tell in your act where you're

What part are you not looking forward to get to? And the goal is to be like, well, I want to be excited about all of it. And I want to be excited to get to all of it. And that's hard to find an hour straight that you're excited. Do you feel that over time, though, you've been doing this a long time now, when an idea or topic or a thought comes to you,

you'll know like pretty quick quicker now than you when you started oh yeah like oh yeah that's gonna be the thing i thought of this morning i was like yeah that's down it's down and then i need to say it and then once i say it i'll say it once and then i'll and once it i once it i'm confirmed that it gets the laugh that you know and and as long as i have an out

So that's the other, like, if you have an out to it, you're, I'm pretty good. And that's the part where I'm at now where like, I don't feel like I have a new closer. And, uh, if I have a closer, then I'm okay. And like in, for the whole set, I can, uh,

I'll be okay. Because then you're like, there's a way, there's a place to go. And it's just a matter of your time then. Because it's like, all right, am I going to get to that closer at 40 minutes? Or can I get to that closer at an hour, 10 minutes? So it's just a matter of like, then you're just kind of filling in and you feel, oh, I got a good run I can close on. And I know the last 20 minutes is going to be like, bang, bang, bang. And then you're just...

Just placing it. But I think you do know. Well, this guy, he's looking for a new sermon. He's a pastor. So that's like, what, every week? It's every week. He's looking for something. Yeah. It's got to be. I couldn't do that every week. I'll think of something and be like, I'll give that a couple months. How long is a Presbyterian sermon, you think?

I would say 30 tops. Catholic homily is like 10 minutes tops. They just got to write a new 10 every week. New 10 every week. And it doesn't have to be funny. No. But it's got to be interesting. No, I'd prefer you not be interesting or funny. Just like, let's get through it. Just say it. Jesus was good. Be Jesus. Read some scripture. Yeah.

Yeah, you go read. But you got to find. For them, that's the hard part is they would have to find what are you getting into. I mean, his email was longer. He said that every week he panics, but then he'll get out there in the world and stuff happens, and he'll find it. Just life. It's kind of like comics. Yeah, that's the thing. That's so interesting. It's so open-ended. You can just talk about whatever you want every Sunday? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it depends. I mean, I guess what faith you are. Catholic Church, the readings are predetermined.

every week so they're like given source material oh yeah so they don't even have to come up with their own ideas baptist not like that at all it's like we're just this sunday you don't know it's gonna be something related to the bible yeah yeah and uh i'll he'll spin it into his world and then your world and then that's it oh that's not like a predetermined thing yeah well yeah i'm sure that yeah it's like it's got to be like you know today i had a delivery come and uh

And the guy needed my help, you know, or something. And then he's like, and it reminded me of, and then your mind, you're basically finding a way to get in. Yeah. You're just talking. Doing exactly what you're trying to do for your act. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's exactly that. And so it's, uh, yeah, it's like going out and being in the world, going out and doing stuff. Uh,

Can't be a hermit. You got to get out there. Can't be a hermit. You got to go out and feel inspired. Connecting the dots. Or collecting them. Collecting. Collecting, connecting. You got to collect them to connect them. And so, yeah, you do. John 3.16. You got to do exactly what that guy is saying do. Yeah. Is you got to walk around. Look for inspiration. Something that makes you just, you know.

Because you can sit and wait, just hope for the random to pop up. Yeah. But it's just like- I am that way. Things need to happen in my life for me to want to go talk about it. I'm not like the kind of guy, like, here's what happened in the news, and then I weigh in on that. I can't. I mean, I'll do some of that on the podcast, but I won't do that stand-up.

For me, to make it funny in the real world, it's almost like it has to be real to me in my life. Yes. You know, that's... Yeah, you have to be able to believe it. Like, there has to be... Lived it, experienced it on a, you know, firsthand level kind of a thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's the...

That's like when someone gives you a comic, gives you a tag, or they'd say, what about this? And it's usually pretty hard because you're like, I'm not going to say that. I don't know how to get behind it. But then some stuff you can. Yeah. It's like you got to just, yeah, you got to find it. Sam Galanos. Hello from sunny Melbourne, Australia.

Just wanted to write and say how much I love your podcast. I found you all a few months back, and ever since I've started saying hay bear every time I enter a meeting at work or get home after a long day. It's weird to say this in Australia, as we don't have bears in the bush. I know you Americans call koalas a bear, which is bizarre, as they are actually marsupials. I've never understood this. Hmm.

Have you been to Australia? No, me either. I would love to go. Oh, yeah. World traveler. You've been. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, Lee. Can you read that in an Australian accent? Can you do an accent? Hello. Can you do accents, Brian? No. I'm the worst at accents. You can't do like a generic British, like chimney sweeper? Nope. Yeah. I've tried. Australia. Australia. I bet you could. Yeah.

Kind of. Are you serious? No, no, no. But I want to hear the bad one. I've never even tried, but I know I couldn't do it. Australia, mate. Down under. Golly. Hello from sunny Melbourne, Australia. Just wanted to write you and say how much I love your... No, it's English. English. That's pretty good. I was doing English, though. Well, they're pretty similar. It was a British penal colony. That's right.

Australia was? What does penal mean? It's where they dump people. Prisoners. It was like a giant prison. Oh, really? Yeah. They just dump them out there and go to jail.

They have their own island. Y'all deal with yourselves. Like that space trash, just take it there. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's crazy. And so they just were like, you got to go live down there? That's a pretty far way to shovel. Right. How do they find? England's a small island, you know? There's not a lot of room over there. I know, but there's a bunch of room near them. They should have switched it. They should have just, because Australia's bigger and more sunny and nicer. We'll move there. Yeah, you stay here in England.

That's funny. Smaller island where it rains all the time. Yeah. It will go to Australia. Paradise. Yeah. That would make more sense. Yeah. They should have flipped that. Yeah. Flipped the script. They probably got so much going on over in England already. They're like- A lot of people back and forth. Yeah. Ships. They're like, yeah, it's just too much to pack. Yeah.

Yeah. Between 1788 and 1868, about 162,000 convicts were transported from Britain and Ireland to various penal colonies in Australia. Also, I believe Georgia, the state of Georgia, was a penal colony in America, so they'd dump them over here, too. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, that's pretty crazy. So Australia, were people already, I guess, at Australia? Aborigines. Aborigines, yeah. They were indigenous people here for sure. And then, yeah. I feel like we don't talk about, no one talks about the indigenous people.

It's all us talking about how everything got started. I mean, I know people talk about the land over here, but even everywhere. Yeah. We don't ever dive in to go, well, what about them? What was the actual main one? First indigenous where? Yeah. Africa? Australia? How'd they get over there? Yeah. It was like Pangea. Yeah. I feel like it's just a lot. Everybody goes, that's just...

It's a bigger conversation. And then we just go, okay. We don't have the facts. Why are we going down this road? You don't know, and I don't know. I mean, I think scientists say Africa is where it started, and then it just spread from there. But yeah, you get to Australia. Well, they said it was Pangaea, right? Pangaea was like one gigantic continent. But I think that was before even any type of a human. Right. Again, I don't know. I don't have the facts on this. Yeah, you start floating away.

I'll show you. Hey, you look further away. He goes a little bit farther away. Just waving. Yeah. Just moving. Is it just me or are we just a little bit further apart? You go to bed that night and you're like, wait a second. Yeah. Yeah. Well, look at where you're at.

He goes, what are you doing all the way over there? What are you doing with those little koala thingies? Yeah. What is that, a koala bear? He goes, what? It's a rat. What are you doing with that sloth thingy? Yeah. It's a marsupial. No, it's a bear. I do think Australia has the best animals and stuff like that. Sloth is cool. Koala bears. Kangaroo. Kangaroo's a lot. It's freaking amazing. Yeah. Thing just bounces around. And they're just like deer. Like they're everywhere. They're like deer. Yeah.

A fun deer. Yeah. But also could kill you. I know. That's what's fun about it. Our deer is just deer, and there you got it. It's a little fun. It's a little hop. You're like, oh. Their deer has hands. They fight them. Yeah. I mean, there's videos of them. There's a lot of videos, yeah. I would like to meet a kangaroo one day.

They also have... Nashville Zoo, you can go up there and see them. Australia also has really deadly spiders and snakes. That's true. The most deadly spiders. That's the trade-off. They got the coolest animals and then the ones that'll really... I've seen those. Yeah, and the snakes, the brown snake...

which is either the most deadliest or top. I mean, that one likes to hide in your house and garage and stuff like that. So it's crazy to be like, you know, and here it's like, you know, the gardener snakes or the stuff like that. But I mean, that's the most deadliest snake likes its favorite places, your house. And you just got to be like,

you know, you squat there and like jump back and you're like, Oh, that's the thing that will kill you. You're not just on edge all day. I don't know. I would just be thinking about that all the time. Yeah. I think, you know, I'm sure they do. But here's the thing with Australia. Look at the population density map. We got pulled up. People live on the West coast, live on the East coast, just nobody in the middle.

That's just nothing out there. Why? Desert. Yeah, it's just desert out there, man. And it's a huge state, right? Like if you look, well, that's what you could do with Canada, I guess. I don't know. I think the United States and Australia are similar in size. The entire state of Australia is almost the entire state of the country. What's a continent?

I'm sorry. I'm just trying to... United States and Australia, I think, are very similar. How big do you think Australia is in your brain before that? Rhode Island. See, I would have thought the size of North Carolina and South Carolina together. But you're saying... Well, there it is. It's as big. It's similar. Look how huge it is. Wow. That is gigantic. And they gave that to prisoners. Yeah. Idiots. Well, I mean...

I know, but no one, you can only live on it. Yeah, no, they go, well, the prisoners are like, jokes on you, suckers. And then they go, and like, we can only live at like this one corner. And you're like, damn it. Look at all this lava rock we got. Yeah, if you're listening, I mean, if you drop Australia on top of the United States, it stretches from like Vegas all the way to almost DC. Yeah. But Texas is still bigger than that.

All of it. All of Europe. Yeah, all of Europe. Yeah, that's crazy. I had no idea it was that big. Yeah. Well, it's like if you're from Australia, then you're just like, you could be like, someone was in prison. Yeah, at some point in your family's history. Yeah. Probably so. Did something and it got shipped out there. A lot of little stuff going on over in Australia. A lot of...

A lot of shady stuff. A lot of shady stuff. Once you land in Australia, you go, I don't trust anybody. But there's a lot of hot people. You know there's people that when they land, they go, this whole place got started. I think they do claim that, though. They have a more rebellious attitude there because of their ancestors. Yeah.

What do they call rednecks over there in Australia? They always have their own terms for the rednecks in that area. I feel like Australia is that anyway. We call it a bogan. Bogan. Oh, I like that. Bogan sounds cool. Or a westie. What's a westie? Westie is used in cities and towns across Australia. Okay. That doesn't be a bogan.

A bogan sounds fun. It sounds like a bad golf swing. Yeah. It's a bogan. Bogan. Date with the bogan today. Market with the bogan. A bogan is Australian slang for a person whose speech, clothing, attitude, and behavior are considered unrefined or unsophisticated. Ah, yes. It can be pejorative or self-deprecating. Yeah. Sounds like it.

I had heard the mullet is like, you know, how it comes and goes lately a lot. Yeah. But over there, it's like it has more meaning and they are really into the mullets more so than we are here in America. Yeah, Cam Smith, a golfer. Make sure his name's Cam Smith. There's two Cams. He is a mullet. Yeah, Cam Smith. Yeah. Yeah, he is a big mullet.

Did you ever have one, Nate? Australia? No. Never? Not once? I had a rat tail once when I was little. Okay. How little? I like that. Huh? A couple years ago. No, it was, you know, I don't know, 12 or something. Uh-huh.

Like a little, yeah, that's about it. How long did you keep it? One year? Yeah, yeah. High school or whatever it was. I don't think it was high school. I might have been 10 or 9 or something. Yeah, I've seen kids with rat tails. Don't see many adults with a rat tail. If you see one at all, it's on a kid, right? Yeah. Not a full-grown 82-year-old lady with a rat tail. No. Very rare. Very rare.

I've been seeing a lot more older people with tattoos. Yeah, that's bound to happen. Because I feel like you never, but now the first group of tattoos are those people are coming. That are like really tatted up. Yeah. Yeah. Not like Hawaii or something. Like a military one on his arm. Yeah, but not even that. But I'm talking about like just where it's the...

you know, not that. Where it's like... Like, you've seen that. Entire tribal thing. Where it's like a military... Yeah. Tribal or military or, like, not that kind of tattooing. Marve wire around the... Yeah, but now, like, the tattoos that are, like, more your...

What is it that more, not like a sleeve necessarily. Well, I think the barbed wire around the arm was the first one that a lot of people got the same one of. Yeah. You want to show us yours? I do have two. I got one right here and one right here. You want to see this? What is that one? Yeah, what does that say?

All right, you guys love this. Looks like Grim Reaper doing stand-up comedy. It's the Grim Reaper. The Grim Reaper. He's smiling. The Grim Reaper. It's actually a Banksy. You know who Banksy is? Yeah, we just talked about him. So there's a Banksy of something similar to this, and I just put a mic in his hand, call him the Grim Reaper. Yeah, so it's not exactly...

I like that right there. Just like that one right there. Banksy. See, look at that. Oh, that is cool. Yeah. Bing, bang, boom. Grin reaper. Yeah. Let people know what's up. Yeah. Have that forever, man. You'll die laughing. Yeah. That's what I mean. Perfect timing for talking about old people having tattoos. My brother's got one he's embarrassed of. It's when he went to college for the first time.

He went to Western Carolina and he joined a fraternity because he didn't know anybody. Yeah. I didn't know anybody. I just had to make friends. I joined a fraternity. And he got the Delta Sigma Phi certificate.

Right next to his crotch, right next to his junk. I'm like, oh, is that every time you look at that, you can think of your boys? That's nice. I get it all the time. Why would you put it there? He's trying to hide it from mom and dad. My friend in college had the Jumpman logo. He got it tattooed on his rear end. Jumpman? The Jumpman, like the Jordan. Michael Jordan? Yeah. I think he regretted it pretty quickly.

Because it was funny. It was really funny. And then you're like, oh, I'm going to like now it's there. Yeah.

Forever. Yeah, it used to be a thing. People would get drunk and get a tattoo. Now it's thought out. People have their whole body mapped out. A guy I went to high school with went to Myrtle Beach when he turned 18, got drunk, and got a Tasmanian devil drinking a beer. Party animal, huh? That's you. Now he's like 52. He's got like eight daughters. Still got the Tasmanian reminding, hey, your dad was a party animal one time. Yeah.

Well, they won't. Any reputable tattoo artist will not let you get one if you're drunk now. Right. I think that time is kind of coming. I think you're right. Because they'll know they can be sued. They can be in a lot of trouble if they do that.

They should, I bet you're going to have like the fake tattoos are going to become more and more, you know, like are the ones that can. Hannah makeup tattoos? Yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, where it's like, it's going to go away. Like you can do it and then it goes away because you're just like. Oh, like disappearing ink. Yeah. Yeah. Because then you could be like, I'll just try it and then I don't need to.

You don't have this forever. Yeah. Something embarrassing. Yeah. Uh, you could do one, you know, like be like, do they have like eventually just be like, I got one where it's like going to last a year. And then you're like, that's it. I think it's a good idea. Yeah. So when I got divorced, uh,

I went to Hawaii with a friend of mine. I don't think I knew you. When were you married? I was married, let's see here, season five, 2007. That's how I do it. Everything revolves around Last Comic Send. Yeah. I got married in 2007. What does anything do with the divorce? 2007, got divorced, 2013. So right when I got divorced-

I was like, because we got married in Hawaii. I'm like, I'm going to go back to Hawaii and claim the island is mine again. Yeah. You know? And I was like, I'm going to get a tattoo. I had a middle-aged crisis type deal. I was like, I want to get a tattoo, but I don't know what I want. So I thought, well, a good way to find out what looks good on you, get a henna tattoo.

So I went to a place that got like three and a tattoo. A gigantic one, too. Like the rock. That was an eagle. Yeah, like an eagle. It was like holding a gun in one hand and a beard in the other. Something's dumb and American. A big, gigantic eagle on my chest. And I'm like, one here and one here. Just because I wanted to walk around with it and see what it looked like. To see if I'm that guy. And of course it went away. I'm like, I'm just only that guy on this side. Not the chest. I'm not that guy. Yeah.

So you just walked around shirtless just seeing how that felt? I did. I have pictures I could probably dig up. And then how long does it last? A month or so. And it looks – Yeah. Well, in the beginning it does, and then over time it fades and fades. But, yeah, it looks pretty good. And now it's just in your bloodstream? Yeah. Yeah. In your heart? Yeah, it's in my heart. Yeah, a little Tasmanian devil running around. Yeah, like that's a good idea. Yeah.

If you want to know would it look good on you before you commit to a life of it, why not design the henna first, walk around with it, see what people...

take your time with it. Yeah. I think it's a good idea. What you were saying, disappearing, you know, over time you'll have temporary ones. It's like an engagement. Just make sure this works before you commit. Something I can take off if I have to. What you did with your marriage. Yeah. Exactly. Just try it out. You gave it to good old college. Seven years, not bad. Not bad. Seven years tattoo. Yeah. It was a henna marriage. I had to scrub it off there at the end. It was tough, but it came off. Yeah. Uh,

We were going to talk about the last comment. I'll read this last one. Rye bread. To all my fellow giant-headed folks, you can actually stretch snapback hats by steaming them on the stovetop. Found a video on YouTube, and it's changed my life. I don't know if this is the guy, but somebody did DM me this video because I talked about I have a large head, and it's tough to find hats that fit. And I watch it, and I haven't tried it yet, but it's a pretty –

elaborate process. You have to put a boil water and then stretch a hat out over a pan. And then the steam will cause the fabric to widen. You can actually gain a few sizes on that. It's a lot of work. Does that lose a little elasticity? No, it, it, it, the video I saw it, it, they said it was exactly the same. Just, just stretched it out a little bit. So I might try that. I have a couple of hats that I cannot fit into that. I'd like to.

So we were talking about Last Come to Stand earlier before we- And we're talking about reality shows. Oh, okay. So this works out.

So this week we're talking about, well, there we go. Reality shows. Yeah. Biggest upset in reality show when Lavelle Crawford lost on season five of Last Comic Standing. Biggest. People were outraged. Yes, they were pissed off. I was surprised I won. Yeah. I mean, I didn't know to the extent. Lavelle's funny, dude. I mean. No, Lavelle's great. He looks funny.

He sounds funny. Yeah. And he's funny. Like, he's in shock right here. I'm about to kiss him. He's in shock, and I'm trying to tell him, like, I don't know what happened, man. I thought you were going to win, too. But I got the money, and you didn't. Was he upset? I think he was a little. Well, if you can find a clip of Bill Bellamy reading the results. Because even Bill didn't know. Oh.

So Bill's like, and the last comic standing winner is... They got to pause for a long time. He goes, John Reap. Just like that. Not like, John Reap! Yeah. John Reap. Confetti goes off, and I'm like, what?

And yeah, I won. So the difference is, if you're a – in the room, Lavelle Crawford was killing all the time, as he does. By the way, we filmed and taped that in Los Angeles. Yeah.

Probably more of his crowd than my crowd in the audience. And he's killing. He's doing great. I'm doing fine. I'm doing fine. I'm not killing as much as he is, but I'm doing fine. But at home, when you watch it and you're not in the room, it's a different experience. And you're like, what did he say? I can't understand the words he's using. Like, it was hard to understand. Because at the bookstore.

You know, you're like, well, I heard him say bookstore. And so people, I just had a hard time understanding him. And I think that helped me. And we found out later. Funny that you're the one that they understand. Well, I would take my time. Yeah. I would try purposely to enunciate all the words I used. Yeah.

But I do remember that. And I remember Kathleen Madigan was a judge on that season. Uh-oh. And at the after party, I was like, how close was it? I mean, I think everybody was kind of surprised that the whale didn't win. How close was it? And that season was the only year that Last Comic Standing was not just in America. It was Canada voted, Australia voted, the UK voted. Yeah.

And she said it wasn't even close. By the time America got done voting, it did not matter what Australia, the UK, or Canada did. She said, I wanted a landslide. I'm like, really? And I have, you know, I guess that's part of it. I don't understand because in the room it was like, it looked like him. But outside of it, different story. Yeah, yeah. It's the difference of being in a live show versus watching on TV. But you're extremely funny and it's not,

It's not a surprise. Right, right, right. Some people had picked me to win. But it was a good season. You had Ralph Harris. There's Doug Benson. Doug Benson. Amy Schumer. Amy Schumer. LaVell. John Caparulo was on that one somewhere. I mean, didn't make it to that level. But there was a lot of good comedians that year.

The show itself, I think, has always had an identity crisis. Yeah. Are we a show that's looking for new comedians? Or are we a show that's just a reality show and you have to live in a house? Are we a show that's just highlighting the best ones out there today? Yeah. And it's always mixed it up. Were y'all in a house? Nope. Thank God. So it's... Yeah. This is when I think it was...

This show could still work because it could probably work more now than ever. Because comedy is in a different place. Yep. And back then it was good because it was like every comic on there is like a pretty seasoned comic. I mean, Amy's probably the youngest. Yeah, she was the youngest and most inexperienced at that time. Yes. But Amy was in New York and doing shows in New York. So she was a...

a great comic that was like finding her voice in the moment. But it was like, it was like a good balance of like, you got seasoned and then you got some, and you got some new. Yeah. How long had you been doing comedy up to now, up to this point? Let's see here. I quit my job in 1998 to do comedy full time. So 98 till this was 2007. Yeah.

It takes a year or so to do all of it. So about 10 years in. By the time I got on here, I had already done all those Dodge commercials. I already had a Comedy Central's half hour presents. I had already been on Rodney Carrington's sitcom. It wasn't like I was a brand new face. But a lot of people didn't know the name John Reed. They just knew, oh, I've seen that guy in something. He looks familiar. Yeah.

But this helped the name part be more recognized. Yeah, this stuff was getting watched. I mean, that's the thing. They were using comics that were great comics that had the material. This is a show you have to have a lot of material. Yeah. You have to be able to... Because you got to do a bunch of short sets. So you have to open and close...

you know, what, seven times maybe or something like that? Yeah, it's so tough. Like, that's not easy to do. And that's what happens with newer comics is you don't realize how hard it is to open and close. How many sets can you do that, you know? And you will burn. You'll think, okay, the philosophy, my philosophy was...

Do my best thing first because if it's funny, I get to advance. I can't save anything because if I try and save it, I get kicked off the show and now I have no chance to ever show my best. So I felt like I'm going to start with the best. So you do that and then like, okay, so it's your best bit, right? And then it's part of a heckle challenge.

You're like, I'm doing my best material while Jerry D is waiting to go, it sucks, and talk over it. And then they're going to end it. So you had challenges. We had challenges. The showcases were themed like that. Did you do a laundromat? No. I know that one, but we didn't have to do that. The worst one that we did, I hated the heckle challenge. To me, that was the worst one because-

What you're saying to people at home is, oh, no, this is a part of comedy. You're allowed to do this. And it's really not. It's not. You get kicked out. Do not do that. Some of us almost protested that whole challenge. But I did it. And I hate that I burned through some of my best comedy right there while Jerry D was yelling over it. But we had to perform at Medieval Times. That was one of the worst ones, too. We dress up like court jesters.

We come out at a medieval times, and they tell you to do something related to medieval times if you got some medieval jokes, which I don't. I had a bit about a fair, so I changed sausage to blood sausage. That's all I did. Yeah.

And I tried to talk like that for a minute. I love that. Tough. Well, I love that. I know the mindset of like, do this, and you're just going through your act. Every joke you've ever written, you go, you know what? I could just make this be a dragon. I'll change these three words to that. Here we go. Here we go. And you're like, God, you're a medieval chunk. You go, yeah, yeah, I've been bouncing around. I mean. New people are writing bits like, are you writing something? Yeah, yeah.

Well, you're... And then if you were lucky enough to go like, you're like, dude, I got a 30-minute medieval joke. Psych him out. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that was... The saving material, too. So that's like...

I don't want that little bit. I know about that is just from Caroline's on Broadway, which I didn't ever post. Some of Caroline's, uh, Broadway has went away. And that club was, uh, a big, big deal to me. That club is a giant part of my career. And, uh,

the festival and everything they did. I mean, I would go to Caroline's. It was, you know, Caroline's, they show on comedian, like being able to work there was, uh, just one of the best. And yeah, it's iconic, legendary club. And it's a, every comedian. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's being able to sell out that club was the,

That was almost my time in New York was to go to see that club, to eventually be able to sell it out and see it packed. That would be one of the memories that I would have in comedy. I remember going to... That's the saving to it. They would do a March Madness, Josh Filipowski. Yeah.

He might still do something, but they used to run this show. They'd do the March Madness Tournament, and you would go up, and then the crowd would vote, and then you'd be who would get to the end of it. I won it one year. Julian McCollum won it twice.

Wilson Vince, I can't remember. Was it over the course of a week? Yeah. It was maybe a few weeks. Okay. And then like a month or something. It was actually pretty fun. Like it was kind of, you know, you'd see who you get paired up against. And then you go up there and you do your act, they do their act, and then the crowd would vote. And you'd be brackets. And so just like March Madness. Uh-huh.

But you would have to plan to be like, all right, you got to plan. It's not a bad thing for a comic to learn how to do this because you got to break up, let's say, how many rounds are there in the bracket? Eight, I don't know. Yeah. It goes from 64 to 32 to... Yeah. 16 to 8 to 4 to 2. Yeah, it's five, six rounds. Okay. So you're like, all right, five to six rounds.

eight minute sets or something and maybe five minutes phase starts at five minutes then it ends up being 10-15 minutes so you you gotta think that's all the openers all the closers you gotta come up with when do you put the material in you need to you gotta get past these rounds because you can't

There's part of you that wants to save something, but then you're like, you're going to mess around and not put something out good. And then you're not going to be like, why didn't I do these jokes? So that's a whole different mindset of setting up material to go like, all right, I got a plan. What do I do? And when you auditioned for Last Comic Standing, it was the same kind of thing. You're like, all right, when they first see me, I got to have...

this, you know, like, what am I going to do? I think too, like come out swinging your best material. Then if you keep advancing and by the time you get to the last round, even though in your brain, you're thinking I'm out of my good stuff. I have to have this chunk. It's all I got left by then people have already seen you kill. And they're kind of like, I like this guy. Now they like you. Yes. And they're rooting for you. So even if you have a bad set,

Maybe they just vote for you because, well, I like you more. Well, they're going to get your material even more. So it's like usually your bad material might be the material that's on a long set. People are knowing you. Right. Did you ever repeat material? Not on that show. You're not allowed to. In auditions or anything? Oh, wait. I'm sorry.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because you could. So I don't know how you're. I never made it. But you would. I auditioned a bunch. So in the very first audition, right? It's just you at a comedy club and there's the three celebrity judges sitting there. No audience. Yeah. Right. So I went up and did a chunk there. And then luckily it was Alonzo Bowden and Kathleen Madigan and Ant was one of them. Yeah.

At about 20 seconds into it, they already knew they were going to advance me. They just, all right, John, stop, stop, save it, save it, save it. Yeah. They said, save it. That's nice. I'm like, okay, good. Now I know I'm going to come back that night and I can do that again and not burn that material. And then they would cut some stuff out. And you have time, there's a hiatus and things would air and you could watch it and be like, oh, they never aired that.

Oh, nice. They never aired that one bit. I can do that again. Yeah. Yeah, and I did. Yeah. So, yeah, there was that, you know, sort of paying attention to what's actually making it to air and then editing as you go. But once you got to the top five, and I got, also I got kind of lucky because, all right, this is a little devious.

Do you know Dante? You know who that is? Yeah. Okay, so Dante was on my season. And for whatever reason, people were shunning Dante. They were just, comedians didn't want to hang out with him. They were kind of shunning him for being kind of a hack or whatever. And I'm just nice. If you're nice to me, I'm nice to your right back. Whatever you do on stage, I might have an opinion about it, but I'm not going to be it to you. So I was nice to Dante. Now we're in the top 10 or whatever.

And Dante's talking about, oh, so we have to say in a confessional at some point on the show, I know I'm funnier than, and name another comedian, right? And then whoever you got paired up against, you have to go against each other that night, which is the worst thing to have to sit there and say, I know I'm funnier than somebody, right? I hated that part. Yeah.

And so Dante was asking me, who are you going to say? Who are you going to say? I was like, I don't know, but I feel bad if somebody says me. He said, what are you talking about? I was like, I mean, I've done all these commercials. I was running a sitcom with Rodney Carrington. They love me in the South. If someone says I know I'm funnier than John Reap,

They're not going to get any votes ever from the South. I got that on lockdown. I'm doing theaters now. Yeah. And he's like, oh, that's a good point. And I think he went off and started telling other people, I wouldn't vote for John. I wouldn't say that. Not if you want to get votes. I wouldn't say that against John. And then no one, no one.

ever said, I know I'm funnier than John Reed. Not once did I have to defend myself or challenge anybody. I coasted to the top five. I didn't have to perform until I got to the top five. Wow. From 10 to 5, I just sat back and waited for someone to say, I know I'm funnier. I just sat around and go, oh, okay, it's your turn, I guess. Wow. That's pretty great. But I think I got into Dante's head and he leaked it to everybody else. Yeah.

That's like survival. I didn't know there was so much else involved in the show. I thought it was just sets, but they know there's a lot going on there. Yeah. All kinds of stuff. They really wanted to make it a reality show. Yeah. And then there were times where it was more about the sets. Yeah. Like I said, the, the shows had identity crisis. It's,

Changed its format many times. And, you know, it would be canceled for a year and it would come back a year. Yeah. You know, the first year was when Dat Fan won the whole thing, which I really think put a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. Yeah. When Dat Fan, right out the gate, was the first one beating a lot of great comedians. Yeah. No, again, nothing against Dat Fan, but the celebrity judges back then, I believe, was...

And Tim Allen was one of them. And Brett Butler even wanted one guy to go forward. And the producers didn't like the guy that they wanted. And there was this big argument. Well, you're talking about season two. Is it season two? Yeah. I only know because I just read about it. It was Drew Carey and Brett Butler. And they were celebrity judges. And they got furious and called it a big sham because they wanted Dan Natterman to pass.

And not that fan or something like that. No, not that fan, but someone else. Ant, I believe it's Ant. Who's who. And they wanted... I'm sorry, I can't... Dan Natterman. Natterman. And they wanted him and they were furious that he didn't advance. And then the producers were like, well, you don't really get a say in it. And Drew Carey was like, well, this is... Walking off the show. Yeah. So it was a big controversy, which right there...

In terms of street cred, a lot of comedians are like, why would I go on this show? They're just going to do what they want. You have these judges for a reason. So that put a bad taste in a lot of people's mouth. Then season three was a competition between season one and season two. Not even for new people. It was just that. And then they took a year off or something. But I remember...

you know, my agent asking me, do you want to go audition? And I was doing fine. Like I, like I said, I already had the, I was on, I already had the half hour special. I was, had already done,

you know, a bunch of commercials. I had already done this thing with Rodney Carrington. So I was like, I don't know. I don't know if I want to go down there and be, let someone edit me and look a certain way. You know, I was kind of like, I don't need it. No, thanks. I said no for a long time until season five. And he said, well, this year they're going to do it different. They're actually looking for road tested comics who, if you win can actually headline and do 45 minutes to an hour. You know, some of these people they would pass and didn't have over 20 minutes. Yeah. And then they get to a club and people were like, what was that?

Yeah. So they want to get established-ish comedians.

You don't have to live in a house. First year, I think, they didn't have to live in a house. Everybody just got their own hotel rooms. Yeah. And the prize money went up. My year, the prize money went up from $50,000 to $250,000. Yeah. And I thought, okay, I'll go down there. Yeah. I'll go down there. I didn't think I'd win. I knew they were going to paint me as the redneck. Yeah. But I sort of amped it up a little bit. I just didn't know. So that was nice. So when you see me hugging Lavelle Crawford, one guy –

First place, $250,000. Second place, $0. Wow. So I'm like, I'm sorry, Lavelle. Yeah. How much of that do you actually get? Well, after taxes, it's probably like a little more than half.

Because from my research, America's Got Talent, I think you're supposed to win a million dollars. I think that's over the terms of their lives or something crazy. 40 years. $25,000 a year. Yeah. Or you can do a one-time payout, which is $300,000. They do it like the lottery. Kind of like the lottery. That sucks. And they lock them down to like a – they get the worst contract. I've heard that too. The worst thing about this one was the actual tour that you had to do.

Because right when you win, that's when you're hot. Let's go. I'll make my money. Nope. You're locking you down to a six-month tour, and this is the rate you're doing it at. Yeah. And so you had to do it. So that was the worst part. Did you feel a lot on the road even after that? Would you close those shows? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That was tough, too. Because everyone wanted to show me up. So I got married right after Last Comic Standing. We had been engaged for a while. I'd been together for three or four years. It just so happened that our wedding day, we had planned it.

Right when the tour starts. So I told them, like, hey, I'm not going to be on the tour the first two weeks. We've already planned this. I'm getting a tattoo. I said, if I will, that I can wash off later. I'm going to be in Hawaii getting married. And they're like, oh, if you win, we'll see. And so they let me out of it. Which means Lavelle Crawford is now closing for those two weeks.

So I got to come back on the tour after Lavelle's been crushing and closing. And then I go, I'm here now. And when they say it, they would be like, John's got to go last. I mean, you'd have to. That's just the order. Yeah, yeah. That they thought the audience would want it. Yeah. The worst part about the tour, though-

Do you guys know Jerry D at all? Yeah. I know who he is. I think I have met him. Yeah. Jerry D is great. Yeah. Jerry D is one of the funniest dudes. Where's he from? Canada. Okay. So he's crushing it in Canada right now. I think he's the host of the Family Feud up there in Canada. He's had his own sitcom up there in Canada for a long time. Doing absolutely great. So me and Jerry got along. We almost look identical.

Of course we're going to get along, right? And then you got Amy Schumer. Cool, fun. Then you've got Ralph Harris and Lavelle Crawford, who are always late to the tour bus. Like it wasn't even one time when they were on time. I'm talking 30 minutes, 20, a long time.

And so finally, Jerry D is like, I'm going to say something to Ralph. This is enough, dude. He's the MC. Yeah. And he came in fifth, and he's the last one on this tour. I was like, Jerry, I mean, don't. Just let it go, man. He's like, no, I've had enough. I'm going to say something. You got my back? And I'm like, I don't have my back. What are you talking about? I don't have your back. Anyway, Ralph Harris comes on the bus late. And Jerry's like, oh, cool, man. We can all leave now. Thanks, Ralph. Woo.

You know, he's like really giving it to him. And then they just got this huge tiff. They're like face-to-face yelling each other like this. And I'm pulling Jerry back this way. Lavelle's pulling Ralph back. So it almost got –

A real fight happened on that tour bus almost because of that. Wow. But, I mean, that was tough living on this bus. So when you had his back, you literally just kind of – Literally pulling his back. Like, I have your back to come this way. But, yeah, that was the toughest part was doing the tour. And Amy was funny. She ran out of material pretty much. She'll tell you that. Yeah. She was young and was happy to get as far as she did. But I would say in the challenges –

Off the cuff, the quickest one. Had the quickest wit of anybody. Very fast, very funny, in the room with a random situation that would take place. And it didn't help Lavelle's case one time when Amy won a challenge. They did a speed dating challenge where we had to go. We went somewhere and they showed us all the deal or no deal models holding suitcases.

And so we thought we were going to go do speed dating with all these girls and try and make them laugh, you know? Yeah. And then, so now everyone's like trying to come up with jokes for that. And then he didn't even use them.

When you did Speed Date, it was like, oh, it's a random clown. Oh, it's a random cowboy. So now you've got to do jokes on the fly, not ones that you had 15 minutes to kind of come up with. Now it's like right now in the moment, and Amy crushed it. It was the funniest one. Ben Lavelle thought he was going to win. And when he didn't win, it was the same, like, oh, man.

And that didn't make him look good. So I think over time, people started not liking him for these little small reasons on the show. Meanwhile, I'm like, hey, let's have some fun. So I think that helped me. Matt Kirshen, also a very funny guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Matt's very funny. I love me some Matt Kirshen. Yeah. Yeah, I remember when I – because I auditioned. When I first moved to Chicago, I did it the first year.

three or four or something like that. But I remember I stood, I mean, I was, so I was new. I was, I mean, I haven't been in a company a full year, I don't think. And so we stood in line outside and I remember it being so cold because we were outside Chicago Zanies and there was a, and I, we got out there like six in the morning and it was like, I mean, 15 degrees or something. Something ridiculous. Yeah. And there was a bank with a time and a,

And you were just in your face and that's all you could see. So the whole time you're just like, it's been one minute since I last looked at it. And then we stood out there for hours.

And then they just go, all right, that's it. We're not doing it anymore. And then we didn't get it to go in. And I was like close to going in. Like it was the line. And then you're like about to go in. They're like, that's it. And then you're like, so you just stood out there for hours. And so I remember doing it there. Then I remember doing it in New York, a lot of Carolinas. Cause you get these reality shows, like you're,

At the beginning, you're straight up just a person in line, but then you eventually get to where your manager smits your name and you don't wait in line. You just go down there and go up. But I mean, Caroline's, I mean, we spent the night in front of Caroline's. We stood out on the sidewalk, spent the night at Hannibal's.

was doing it with us. We had, our buddy had a, like a van and this is how long, but you could park in front of Caroline's. So we had a, we had the van parked in front of Caroline's and it was cold. So it would be like one person saved the spot and the rest of us sit in the van and then you would just keep rotating out. Caroline's is Times Square, right? Yeah. You could just park right in front of it. Yeah. Yeah. You can't do that anymore. You can't even,

drive down there. But I mean, when I, when I first, you know, when I first started in New York, you could drive right up to Caroline's. You could, I mean, you drive through Times Square, you could drive. It wasn't, not that it was hard to drive, but I remember at the beginning at night when it was like normal, where it was like after five, after seven o'clock, it's like, you know, you could drive, just park and find parking. And it wasn't that insane. But now obviously it's, they don't want you in the city. Yeah. But yeah,

there, I remember we spent the night and we, yeah, because Hannibal went and did spots. Like he came back one day, we're like, where have you been? And he goes, I went and did a set over there. Really? At an open mic. Oh, that's great. What are you doing? Practice. He's practicing. We were mad at him because we're like, yeah, well, we're standing out here, dude. And so, and so you would just stand out there. Then I got in there. I did it and didn't get good. And then the one that the last one I did was Geraldo was hosting. And, uh,

And I got to do a set. This was the one. I might have talked about it before. This one hurt me the most. Out of my career, this is one of the things that...

I remember I was like sick about – but I remember just because I was clean and I was like, you know, I was like, I'm built for this kind of thing. And so I think I'm like, how am I – I should be able to get on this show. I should be able to win. I'm the only one. I can do all the – all my material is clean. Right, yeah. Everything can be aired on TV. And so I went and did it in front of Geraldo. And the jokes I chose was one about like the homeless joke about like –

homeless people go to sleep and they sleep on the, you see them sleep, sleep on the, they have always have a good night's sleep or something like they, I mean, they sleep for like eight hours. And like, you know, I was like, I wish I could sleep as good as that guy. It's like, I did that joke. And then the joke about evolution where I'm like, if I had monkeys, DNA, something. And, and,

So I was like, those two jokes murdered. So I just chose two jokes that destroyed. So these jokes in the city was like, I was murdering. And I was like, they make me stand different. I'm doing a evolution joke that's like saying I don't believe in evolution. So it's like I'm coming at a completely different angle. So I thought, well, that joke is...

That joke is different, and I'm taking it at a different angle. And then I did the homeless joke. But then Geraldo was like, he goes, your activism, he goes, it doesn't make sense. You're saying this one thing like you're this Christian, but then you're also making fun of homeless people. So he's like, it doesn't, I don't know what you are. Wow. Which I think back on it. Did you know him before? No, I never met him. I ended up opening for him once, and we drove in the car. I opened for him, and we drove to-

somewhere and did a show and it was not too long after he died or about after yeah he still had dates and so he honored some classes and it was weird but he was a good guy quiet uh and dude uh

and it was not too long before he died yeah and uh but the one thing that I always remember about him he was I mean he was unreal I don't and I was not mad about that thing the more I think about it it makes sense like I did choose two different types of jokes uh

But the thing that I remember about him most is I asked him, I was like, me and my wife are thinking about having a kid. And I was like, is it great having a kid? And I remember he looked at me and he said, he goes, it's the best, man. It's the greatest thing ever. And I always remember that. He loved his children. I mean, he had a lot of problems, but that was a very sweet. He just looked at me like, there's nothing better.

And to see that from a person that's a New York comic that's all about jokes and all this, you at least saw the dad. And so that was... I didn't know he had... I guess maybe I knew at one point. But when he... But when I did it pass, I remember going to call Laura. I mean, I was sick to my... I never had a moment where I was going to quit, but a moment of just exhaustion of being like,

You're trying to find the thing that's going to be like, what's the thing going to be that I can finally move on and get that's like, all right, can we get the... Here's the next thing. All right, I'm going to be on this show maybe. And maybe I win this show. And maybe... And I've been being clean. I felt like it was that thing that was like, I'm doing all the things you're supposed to do to get on TV. And I couldn't get on TV. And it was...

You know, and going back, it's like, yeah, I mean, look, it all worked. Obviously, it's all worked out, but it's like all happened in its own. Everything happens in your own time frame. What year was that again? I'm sorry. The year you were on it. No, I'm just trying to, the timeline. I want to say around 2008 or so, but I'm guessing. I think it's a little bit later. When was Geraldo a?

the judge. I remember you called me when that happened in season seven, this 2010 was Craig Robinson, the host. Uh, yes. Okay. So yeah, because that's the one that, uh, yeah. When he goes, uh, I got a movie, new movie called time to, uh, hot tub time machine. And Geraldo goes, what's it about?

This is very funny. So, yes. So you're seeing Greg Gerardo and Tasha Leggero, Andy Killer were the judges. And it's like all my friends are like on this show. I mean, like, or, you know, my peers. Like, I'm friends with, I mean, Jesse Joyce, Adriana Appaloochee, Metzger, and...

You know, I mean- Grant Fox, Nikki Glaser. Brian Hamilton, who was, yeah, who got, and I just remember, man, it was like, it was brutal. Yeah, I remember- It was brutal. It's tough, dude. Doing that comedy for just the judges in the very beginning, is that the level you're- Yeah, that's the level I got to. All right, so that's the hardest part of all of it, in my opinion, because there's no crowd.

You know, you just got these other comedians that are like, maybe they know you, maybe they don't know you, but doing comedy in front of nobody but another comedian? Yeah. It's the worst. It's a nightmare. Mike DiStefano. So I got lucky when they said, save it, save it. I got lucky that they kind of knew who I was and they liked me. Like Alonzo Bowden, I've done comedy shows with, and he was a judge.

So I felt pretty comfortable there, but you know. Yeah, but it's not luck. I mean, you got to, like, it's the, it doesn't, it's not, everybody knows everybody. We're in a small, such a small world. So it's, you should have, you won it. You should have won it. You should, like, it's not a surprise that you won it. It's very much deserving. That Jason Nash, I don't, that guy's like, is he a comic or is he?

The YouTube dude. That name sounds familiar. Maybe is he... Do you know Kurt Fox? Yeah. See, he's hilarious to me. Hilarious, yeah. And he went on stage...

you know, in front of the judges and his set was just starting to fall apart. But he took a step out and he goes like, this is not going well, is it? And then they started rip roasting himself. And then that went well. And I think he went through just based on that. I think, I can't remember, but I remember him like, cause I know he's great, but he just didn't have a good experience. And, but he's so funny. He made fun of that. And that was working. Yeah. I remember thinking, Oh, good for him for being able to do that in that moment. Yeah.

Yeah, so this was 2010. So like, yeah, like this is what I remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that guy. Like, it's hard because it was like, I remember 2010 was like, all right, so I did that point in my career.

I, I did like last comic stand. I've done Conan. Like, it was like, I was starting to like kind of do some stuff. So I was hoping like, it's like, this goes to the next people knew me. I was able to get done. You said last comic stand. I think you mean comedy central. I mean, comedy central, like live at Gotham. Yeah. I did live at Gotham. I did, you know, prior to this, you had already been on Gotham. You had already done Conan. Yes. Gotcha. And so it was like, kind of like, all right, like this is going to be, you know, and it's like, I mean, I got to get past the first thing. Like, uh,

You know, and then when it was like, because it's so, you think like, all right, I'm going to be doing this show. Like, I could pass. We got that show tonight. Not that you're pre, you know, I'm aware that I might not win, but you're also like, all right, well, there's a show tonight. Like, I mean, I got, you just really believe I got a chance. I really believe I'm in, you know, and I'm almost trying to talk myself out of not feeling this confident. Right. And then to go do it and it's during the day and then within, you know,

From walking and walking out was like a 20-minute thing to then be like, it's over. Like there's not even a – it's just done. Back to the grind. Back to the line that you were in. So go figure out your life. And like that was – it was brutal. And I mean, I think that's always the parts for people that – Probably makes you mad too. Not just hurt, but like pissed. I was hurt. I remember being –

You are. I mean, you go through that. You are mad. You are like, I mean, how are these people getting in? You go through all that stuff, all the bitter, jealous, and all that kind of stuff. And I think those are the moments, though, that you've got to –

not spiral out that's that's that's the in you got to get in it's hard not to spiral out because it's hard not to go like I don't know what else to do I'm trying like you just go there's nothing else like so I just do this forever I just am going to be you know like you know you think highly you can be like I think I mean I'm not maybe I'm Terry you know I don't know it's a it's not a good spot but it's a spot that you got to get through I

I wish they would show old episodes of it. I would love to watch other seasons before me now. John Heffern was season two or three. I'd love to go back and watch old sets. Mike DiStefano was New York's. Oh, he's worse. Yeah, yeah. The stand, the comedy called The Stand in New York, their logo was him. Oh, yeah. He died. But DiStefano was hilarious. But DiStefano was someone that was very good –

He was great in the room. Great, like, you know, like a comic that the New York guys, the New York comics, like Amy, too, very, very good in the room. Very, very good in the, you know,

The banter and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. Like something happened because that's what they would do. Yeah. They'd all do Opie and Anthony and all the radio and all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're going up every night in front of a crowd that's like you got to go on stage. Oh, where are you from? Like, you know, and everybody's from somewhere. And so a lot of those comics were very, very, very good at that.

But it was, yeah. Heffron won it. Yeah. I mean, you'd see people's careers. People were just blowing up. I mean, at the beginning. So that was 2004. So 2003 was probably the one I first auditioned for, I guess. Season one? Yeah. Yeah, I guess season one. Yeah, I almost think it was season one because it just came out. Yeah. And then it was, yeah, that was the one everybody thought Ralphie should have won. Right. And then that fan won.

I think that final episode of season one is on YouTube. I watched some of it last night. The entire season? Yeah. Not the entire season. The episode. Yeah, it's like 47 minutes long. And I scanned through it and they showed clips of bad auditions. I mean, you can go to Pluto TV and watch nonstop Love Boat.

I feel like NBC could have. Yeah, if someone bought this, maybe they're scared that they didn't say. Yeah, it seems like people would be into it. They should do it, though, if they did it again. Just do the act. You look at comedy on Instagram. People are taking in that kind of stuff. So you could do it where you just do your act. But that's the thing with the reality shows, you're...

You're at the mercy of their edits. You're at the mercy of their edits. You're at the mercy of how you're presented. You know, mercy of being put in these weird situations that it's already would be hard enough to have to do the sets. Much less you got to, you know, you're in a laundromat or you're in there. People are heckling and then you got to figure out how to deal with that. Doug Benson gave me good advice. He's like, you know,

At this time, Doug Benson's done a lot of random VH1 shows and all that kind of stuff. He said, well, this moment's not live. They're just filming it. And they want the best stuff. Sometimes they're fishing to get you to say something bad about another comedian. But what Doug would do, and they tell you to repeat the question

So the person asking you the question is not in the shot or whatever. So Doug would do that, repeat the question, and then he would sit there and think about it. He wouldn't be in a hurry. He'd think about it and be like, just put his head down. When he thought of something good, he would...

present it that way. Whereas I was like, oh, yeah. So, you know, I'm nervous energy going and I'm doing all this stuff where Doug was just very common, you know, so Doug, Doug did well on the show, but, um,

I think that's a good way. If you're ever in that moment, if you're in an interview like that, just really stop and think about it because they're not going to air that. That's not live. They'll cut that awkward pause out. You do have that. You have that when you're on camera thinking, I've got to rush. Yeah. You can be like, no, you're going to do something now, now, now, now. Yeah. Especially you're not in front of a live audience. Right. It's just you and another guy behind the camera. You guys know what the first reality show was?

Oh, show? It kind of depends. This is kind of true. It kind of depends on what's considered a reality show. MTV, Real World. It was a movie. What about a family? Well, you're kind of both right. Okay. Yes, Real World is kind of considered what we consider...

reality shows. That was the first and that was in the 90s. Now there was some PBS thing you might be talking about about a family. Yeah, it was about a family. Way beyond that. But it wasn't a show. It was a documentary. Yeah, so, you know, and cops. Some people consider cops a reality show and that started in the 80s. I think the only real reality is if it's 100% hidden camera.

And some people say candid camera was the original. Because if you know you're on camera, how real are you being? You're only giving that person the version you want them to see. Well, cops would be pretty, because it's like, I mean, you're catching these people in their worst moments. Yeah. But I could see, yeah. But the reality TV is like, well, we've got to make it a show.

Real world's kind of the groundbreaking one to consider. And then Survivor's the one that made reality shows like, wow, this is like ratings grabbing. Yeah. And that started in 2000. What's the difference between a documentary and a reality show? I mean, really. I think reality is chaos and like documentary is a story. You can make a documentary about anything. It's about one subject matter and you can just get in there and learn all about that one thing. And this one I'm talking about, the documentary is about this family that

deciding to air their lives for everyone to see. So that's what it was about. Kind of the first reality show, also a documentary. Documentary didn't have to be about... A reality show could be about anything. I love documentaries, docu-series. That's all I watch. I mean, now, obviously, reality shows are so scripted. Yeah. Right. Depending on what it is. Like...

I, my wife watches the real housewives. Some of them, there's a direct TV commercial now with Dak Prescott where it's showing how you can watch football and real housewives and flips a table. I've seen that. I didn't know what that is. But during this research, there was a very famous scene in real housewives where one of them flips a table. Yeah. Who flips a table?

Yeah. And then in the commercial, she said, I just want to talk. Yeah. So now I get that joke. Yeah. Real People. Do you remember Real People? Yes. Real People would come on right after That's Incredible. Yeah. They were both. That's back in our day. Yeah. Back in those old timey days. Yeah. What was this? The radio? Go ahead. Yeah. It was the radio. Almost. Byron Allen. Look at Byron Allen. Yeah. Oh, wow. Real People was awesome. He had Skip Stevenson.

This good-looking, blonde-headed guy that was kind of funny, but mostly good-looking. And they said, well, you're perfect for this. Skip Steve. Yeah, they would just highlight weird, random people out in the world doing weird things before the internet. It was kind of like a Ripley's Believe It or Not kind of thing.

I remember one episode. That's a lot of people on a show for just that. By the way, I don't even remember anybody except for Byron Allen and Skip Stevenson. I forgot these other three people. Mark Russell, Peter Billingsley, Fred Willard. Yeah, probably a correspondent. Yeah. They would go out and find these people. So it's almost like a daily show.

It was a weekly show. Come on, once a week. Not every day. I know what you mean. Yeah, like a daily show. No, like the Daily Show. I know what you mean. Oh, okay. Trevor Noah. By the way, who was the first host of the Daily Show?

Oh, uh, it was Craig Kilborn. Yeah. Liz Winstead. Was she involved in that? She was in there. She was in there. Right. Yeah. Yeah. She was. Yeah. He was the first. He did a lot of stuff. Craig Kilborn, I thought did a good job. It was very funny. He had that. He had the CBS show. I saw him. I might've taught. What happened to Craig Kilborn? Uh,

He had a late night talk show for a while. He did. I think he pissed people off. I saw him one. I think he did too, but he was very funny. Yes. And I saw him at an airport and I saw him the night before at something and we talked. And the next day at the airport, I see him and he's just like, he's like winking at you very, very, very quickly. But I'm not putting it together that it's him.

Because it was just we're sitting across from each other, and I think he's got his hat. It was just like he's just doing it very – and you're like, God, what is this guy's problem? And then it was like I finally started talking to him. He's very funny. I always thought he was hilarious. I don't know why he just fell off the – he's in the old school. When Vince Vaughn – There's a chance he was canceled for something. We're saying all this. Yes, I think there's something. He's a great guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have no idea what happened to him.

I don't remember, but it was... If you ever can look up the episode where Vince Vaughn came on The Daily Show or the Craig Kilbourne Show. It was the Craig Kilbourne Show. And they just hit it off. Yeah, it was one of his first guests. It was so funny. And it was one of the funniest interviews ever. And I thought, wow. Yeah. That's before I knew who Vince Vaughn was. It was in 1998. This dude's hilarious.

1998, was that? That episode. Yeah, me and John. Yeah, baby. Just going full-time comedy at that point. That was it. Just quit my job. This real people show launched Richard Simmons into the zeitgeist. Oh, wow. Wow. I believe it. Fitness instructor Richard Simmons had his major break into mass media. Did you watch That's Incredible as well? I did. I did. What was That's Incredible? Can you click? Hosted by?

John Davidson. Yeah, I remember him. Fran Tarkington. Oh, yeah. Quarterback from the Vikings. Yeah. Back in the day, that was one of the first mobile quarterbacks. The guy had to run for his life. But, yeah. Nobody blocked for him. He was like, I'm getting killed. He was a scrambler. He was a scrambler. But that show was, yeah, they would just find almost people.

That were too amazing for real people. Yeah. Like, I don't believe that. That's incredible. Yeah, that's more of like the Ripley's Believe It or Not. It's like guys who could, you know, juggle. I don't know. I can't even think of anything. Stunts and reenactments of allegedly paranormal events. Yeah.

Well, I don't remember that so much. I just remember doing crazy stunts like, can you believe that guy? Ballots fire on his tongue? I don't know. Yeah, yeah. It was great TV. And then they'd say, that's incredible. That's incredible! Yeah, there's a lot of that. You have to say the title of the show like every 15 minutes. Despite accusations of being sadistic, the series was a huge success. It influenced many entertainers. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. That's how they got me.

So I'm trying to figure out where to go. So some of the villains, all-time great villains, John now one, telling Dante to... That's right. For your own good, don't say you're funnier than me. For you. For you. I'm giving you this as a heads up. But it turns out you were right about all that. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. But it's the...

It was the right, like, strategy. I mean, you played... I look at it as like this. You played this the way you should be playing. It's like this idea of, like, comics can have this... Mm-hmm.

They can sometimes have an ego in it. You're like, well, you're on a reality show. So if you've committed to do this show, then some of that has to go away to either play the game. You're entertainment. And so there's a party that doesn't want to do it. You don't want to do it either. But you're like... And you do a little bit of it. You do as much as you're supposed to do, just like everybody did. And then it turned out to be... I mean, at the end of the day, they're not going to vote for someone they don't like. Yeah. So...

luckily my kind of comedy lends itself to likability. Anyway, I'm sort of that kind of guy. And, but if, but I also think there are great comedians who are,

More of a, you know, like an Andrew Dice Clay type where it's like, bust your balls. Dan Matterman's not the most likable guy, but Dan Matterman's super funny. Yeah. But it's, yeah, he's- But I enjoy all types. So it's got to be harder for guys like that to do a show like that where you have to get people to like you to make them call and vote. That's its own- That's a whole nother- It's its own kind of other thing. And so, yes, it's very much-

Very much true that. You never heard of Dan Aderman? I do know. I just didn't know how to pronounce his last name. I've seen him on Louie. I've seen him on other stuff. He's great. He's very funny. Yeah, very funny. Dan Aderman. Dan Aderman. Yeah. So some of the villains, these are both from Survivor. Johnny Fairplay. I didn't watch Survivor, but apparently one of the...

is you get to bring a family member. So I'm on the same list as this Fairplay guy? Well, I put you on this list. Okay, I didn't know if this existed out there. Well, it is. What was it, the villain list? Yeah, this is the villain list, and I've added John to it. Okay, him. That's fine. There's nothing as bad as what John has done, but this guy...

It's called the John Reap list. Everybody just knows it's villains. Yeah, me and him, best friends. This is the greatest lie in Survivor history. Survivor's had like 43 seasons. He's got a wolf's eye on him. Yeah, Dusty! Put a little moon on there because that wolf's something to howl at. Put some glasses on that guy. Put a beard on him. That's a blonde Dusty. It is a blonde Dusty. Dusty's the villain of this show.

So I guess the survivor has a history of bringing a family member on the show sometime during this season. And he hatched a plan with his buddy that when he, when it gets to that point, I'm going to bring you on as a family member. You tell me that my grandmother died. Everyone will feel sorry for me and I'll get to skip this immunity challenge because our

Wow. Because my grandmother died. So he did that, and it was just a big lie. Wow. Yeah, that's a weird where people, you don't know, do you understand it, respect it? Is it bad? Is it... You could go... You could see where the audience... Because you could see a family being like, you can't do that. And someone's like, who cares? You're trying to win a million dollars. Yeah. So you go...

The gloves are off. I'm going to say whatever I have to say. It's also entertaining. It's fair play. It's also entertaining. Yeah. Well, it's fair. Yeah. It's also the...

Danny Bonaduce almost killed that guy at an awards show one time. Oh, really? Do you know about this? Is that what that is? The altercation they're talking about? Yeah. Okay, yeah. Google, look up that video. You can see Johnny Fairplay is giving some speech at some awards show, and everybody's booing him. And this is when Bonaduce was roided up. He comes walking on stage. He's like, they don't like you. Trying to get him to leave. And he body slams. And I think he broke his nose. Like, he really hurt him.

Because Fairplay, as an idiot, jumped on Danny's back. And Danny's like, dude, I could slam. He jumped on his face pretty much. And so Danny goes, bam. He lands on his head. And he literally broke his nose or something really bad happened right there and had to go to the hospital. Wow.

What'd you get for jumping on the douche, man? Yeah. Yeah, that's, yeah. You want fair play? I'll show you fair play. I'll break your... Says they're booing because they hate you. Yeah. Right. Wow. He's like, am I right? I mean, it's got to be, yeah, to play a villain, I don't know how. I mean, I guess you just, you're built to where you love that. Yeah. You love the idea of being a villain. Like, you want to play it. I think it'd be really fun in wrestling.

But not in that world. And not in real life. Not in real life. No, I wouldn't want to walk around in real life, people knowing that you're bad, not pretending you're bad. Not your character, but who you are as a person. Right. Mm-hmm.

That's horrible. I say the equivalent to my generation of this is Mike the Situation from Jersey Shore. Yeah. He did the roast of Donald Trump, and he bombed so horrifically bad. That was this kind of moment. So bad that Jeff Ross had to come up there and get people to take it easy on him. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was bad to see that.

Like the audience was booing and just laughing at him. You could tell he was like, it was awkward. He was like, it's my first night doing comedy. And Jeff Ross goes, it's also your last night, bud. Killing. So what reality shows do you guys watch? You watch Below Deck. We know that. I watch all the ones my wife watches. All the Real Housewives. Real Housewives. All Below Deck. There's like five iterations of that now, too.

I've seen some of those. I mean, for a minute, I was all into the real world, but I was at that age. Yeah. I thought it was interesting. My buddy MJ Garrett, he just won. Or I think he won something. I don't know. He's doing it again. Really? Yeah. What? I think he won something, guys. I have no idea. I think he's the champion of the gauntlet, too, in All-Stars 2.

I just saw MJ. So I've known MJ since I was a kid. Really? Yeah. Does he stand up too? No, no, no. He's from Nashville. Yeah. Okay. I thought he was born in 80. I thought 42. I thought he was younger than like – You were born in the 70s. I was born in 79, but I thought he was two years younger than me. And –

And he – so we grew up playing, you know, but locally here just played basketball and knew him. And then – or baseball, whatever. And then he – we both went to the same high school. He was obviously – he was maybe two grades under me. And then we both played – or went to the same high school. He played at Vandy, went to Vanderbilt. And then he got – after Vanderbilt, he got into the real world Philadelphia. And so he was on that. And it was the, like, the last –

That was one of the last ones I watched. Laura watched it, kept watching it for a lot longer. I don't know if she watches it anymore, but it was when he was on the Philadelphia one. I was towards the end of when I was kind of like...

Done watching it. But we had a, we had, he went there, MJ, and was in real world. And now he's actually going back and is like actually been doing good. And he's doing this and on the show and he's, you know, people are famous. And then another one we had Shauna Frazier was on another, she went to my high school. We graduated together. And she was, she was on like,

I think it's W. Yeah. She was on Real World. She was on one of the other reality shows that was like on Fox. Wow. Yeah. It's, yeah, Frasier with a Z. You know, I forget what it was. It was like one of those beach ones where you go to the beach. A lot of people in bikinis. There's so many. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, there's a lot of that on Netflix now where they just said, oh, you want reality and a little bit of raunchy. Yeah. You can get it on Netflix now. Yeah, she went to that show. It's kind of crazy. We had two people. There's a Venn diagram of all the different – there's so many wars. That thing I sent you with the – there's so many shows with war at the end or boss at the end. I mean, there is a million reality shows that

There it is right there. How they all overlap. Look how big weddings is. Yeah. Holy. Texas has its, of course, Texas. Louisiana. Has its own bubble. Yeah. Alaska too. Okay, Alaska. I'm just not seeing the other ones. There's a big wave of like gold. You know? Monsters. The one that I didn't, like I told you, real world. I stopped watching them for a long time. Then when I moved back home, I started watching with my parents the movies.

Big Brother. Celebrity Big Brother. Yeah. I like that one because I kind of know these people a little bit. And then you get to see maybe how they act in reality. I don't like reality shows because I feel like they bring out the worst in people, generally speaking. Yeah. The competition shows are great. Okay. I had never watched the scene of Susan Boyle singing on Britain's Got Talent. And that's great. I mean, just a...

No one believed in her. Just a frumpy lady come out and then she blows them away. And that gave me goosebumps seeing that. Oh, boy. Here we go. My friend, Josh Wagner, had a bit about this. The whole point of that story is that she was unattractive. Right. So everybody's just blown away that an unattractive person is talented. An ugly person can also have a good voice. That's the whole point of that. So you were doubting her for the same reason. It was more than just her. She walked out and you're like, go.

It was more than her attractiveness. Because people let anybody on. That girl's probably my age. She was about my age. Look at her face. Look at her hair. There's no way she can sing. It was also the way she answered the questions. Okay. She seemed like, and there is something mentally wrong with her. She had to go to a psychiatric hospital right after the show. Oh, really? Yeah, she had some

some issues. I think she was just overwhelmed. She was a little bit on the spectrum maybe. But she, you know, it showed, now they probably edited it this way maybe, but it shows audience members like, who is this? Yeah. And the judges are like, ugh. So maybe she'd want to root for her because everyone else is kind of bullying her until she sings. Well, everybody else is like,

young and attractive and you know and you see that person's a star and like everybody else you can see how they can be a star and then she comes out and it's like the way she was dressed was just very frumpy and you know

Yeah, just, I mean, it would be if Brian walked out. Yeah. Brian is the Susan Bull of comedy. I hope so. Oh, you should come out on stage to whatever song she sang. That should be your walk-on. I dream to dream. That should be your walk-on. That's what he does. He goes out, and Bates goes and does like an all-black show. And the whole crowd's black. And they see him walk out. And they're like, oh, no.

No, what's this going to be? And then he murders. Yeah. Bill Bellamy's like, no, no, give him a chance. Give him a chance. Give him a chance. Sing a limb talk. Yeah. I can't remember who it was now. I feel like she was on Last Comic Stay, a black female comic who has a joke about not being able to sing and how people are just so disappointed. They just assume she's kind of overweight, large black woman. They're like, we're not in church and I can't sing. And people just assume. I'm a great singer. But yeah, that Susan Boyle is great. I mean, but you look at Carrie Underwood. She's a great singer.

who nobody knew that looks like somebody's going to be a star. Yeah. Right. Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson is probably the two biggest celebrities that have come from What about Kelly Pickler?

I thought she would be bigger than all of us. She still makes announcements at the Nashville airport. I hear her. Does she? Okay. I think I hear her voice. She had a show. I don't think it's the Kelly Pickler show. Yeah. I think it's gone. Kelly Clarkson is her. I just assumed she would have shot up. She was just in a Hallmark movie. Okay. Yeah, she's fine. She's become more of a personality. Yeah, yeah. Kelly, yeah. Carrie Underwood's probably the biggest star.

I think so. She's a megastar. Kelly Clarkson's pretty big, though. Kelly Clarkson's very big, too, but Perry Clarkson, she's got her own talk show. It's not the same as Carrie Underwood's just is a singer, stayed this, and is- Monday Night Football theme song or whatever. Yeah, she's Madonna. She's- Sunday Night. She's-

She's that big. Jennifer Hudson, that's actually pretty... She won an Oscar. Adam Lambert, he was pretty big. Still is, I think. What is he in? He's that weird looking dude. Did he join Queen? That's pretty reductive. Did he join Queen? He did something with Queen. Yeah. Jennifer Hudson's actually pretty wild. He did a residency with Las Vegas. Yeah, Jennifer Hudson's huge. Jennifer Hudson's like... Yeah, did she win an Oscar? I don't know.

I think she does have an Oscar. She did, yeah. She didn't go very far. For Dreamgirls, and she has two granders, too. Oh, and her whole family. She had a horrible family thing that happened. Yeah, that's actually pretty wild. Jennifer Hudson's actually up there, too. Jennifer Hudson's so famous now that I don't think people know she even with— none of them you might not know. Kelly Clarkson, I feel like you still know was on it. Carrie Underwood, you might have—people wouldn't know. Jennifer Hudson, though, I mean, is like a straight-up A-list actor, right?

That's going to be one of the greatest actors ever. Yeah, Jordan Sparks, Chris Daughtry. Yeah, he's totally... Daughtry! Pickler's up there. David Cook, I remember him. I've met David Cook.

drops off pretty clay clay claykins he probably still does what is this list he does you're looking at this is the most successful american idol contest american idol this is sorted by net worth which who knows because miranda lambert was on uh there was a nashville star it was a reality show yep and she's got her start there who what's the most successful like reality star person

Ever? No matter what the show? No matter what the... That comes from reality TV. I mean, these housewives now are so famous. And now they're selling out comedy clubs and stuff too. Are they? A lot of them, yeah. I thought they... Some of them have that Bethany. I just know because Laura watched it. Laura cuts it, won't let me watch it with her.

Because you ruin it for her? No, just because I don't think she wants me to know what she's watching. I think it's looked at. You think she's a little embarrassed by it? Yeah. Well, I think it's all kind of trash TV. Is she afraid if you watch it with her, you're going to sit there and just roast it and pick it apart? Ruin her fun? Yeah, yeah. Are you going to? Yeah, you're just like, I walk in, you're just like.

I just look at it as like all these super wealthy women that are like being like, here's my problems. And you just kind of go back to... But I know it's entertainment. But then you always... It's hard not to go back and be like, people have real problems. And then if I hear them talk about a real problem, then that's when I... That's really it. I don't mind...

I guess I don't mind the, you're being entertainment, but then I think I've seen some where it's like, then they give their opinion of something and you're like, yeah, come on. Ruth, she made the argument. So the first one she watched was Real Housewives of Orange County, which is where she's from. She said when it first started, it was more of literally just seeing kind of where they live, their homes, their whatever, kind of. And then they, over time, it's just morphed into the fights and they've emptied up and

and stuff like that. One Direction started from a reality show. Oh, really? Really. Yeah, it was like a British show, X Factor, but not the X Factor here. And I think Simon Cowell maybe put them all together. Is that right? Yeah. Sounds about right. Because they were all individual singers, and this puts you guys together as a band. Who's the biggest one to come out of One Direction?

Was that Harry Styles? Harry Styles. Oh, wow. That's what I was thinking. Harry Styles is like top five famous people in the world right now, I think. Oh, he was in Wonder... Oh, so that's probably it. Yeah. Like to come from a reality show... Harry Styles. To now be Harry Styles. Yeah. Yeah, from starting from nothing, probably him. Carrie Underwood would be up there. Because like the Kardashians are super famous, but they're already... I mean, that took them to a much higher level though. Yeah. Yeah. It might be Kardashians really.

Yeah, but they were already kind of in the world. There was something before the reality, right? Yeah. I read where the OJ trial kind of got reality TV going because so many people from that watched the trial. That was a reality show. And then there was so many of the Kardashians. Watched the chase. Kato Kaling. Kato. I mean, they all kind of did their own thing after that.

Yeah. Well, even like watching the OJ chase when the cops were chasing him. That sort of became a reality thing that we all watched together. Did you watch that live? I did. I happened to be at a buddy's house watching the NBA finals. We had people over there. They cut away from that to watch that, which was way more entertaining at the time because that game was not good. Yeah, there's a 30 for 30 about that. Yeah, I remember that. Oh, my God, OJ running from the cops.

Because there were so many other sporting events. Have you seen that 30 for 30? Which one? The day of the OJ chase, there was the NBA finals. Arnold Palmer, I think, was playing in his last major. No, I had no idea all this other stuff was- I feel like Ken Griffey hit his 500th home run or something like that. I'm getting it. But it was just a lot of major milestones in sports happened that day. It was a big day. Yeah. Man. Very big day. But that was by far the biggest story. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, they cut away from the NBA finals. Yeah. Yeah. And it's crazy. Yeah, that is crazy. And Jordan was in the NBA finals. I don't think it was Jordan. Maybe it wasn't the finals. Maybe it was the year. I think it was the Rockets and the Knicks maybe. Was it the year? Oh, yeah. That's a good trivia to know. The chase was in 94. The chase was in 94, June 17th. Yeah. Just look at what was going on that day. Who was in that day, that game? Who was playing? Look at the team. Yeah.

The 1994 World Cup. Okay. Yeah, wildest day in sports. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. Arnold Palmer playing his final round at the U S open the world cup ended. The Rangers celebrated their win in the Stanley cup. Finally, the parade game five of the NBA finals. That's what it was. Ken Griffey Jr. Tied Babe Ruth's home run record of most home runs before June 30th. It was the Houston Rockets versus the New York Knicks. So that's the game that they cut away from. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah, it was the year Jordan retired. In between. In between, yeah. Oh, wow, that one. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. All that stuff going on. And then you're cut away to a news story to then also be an athlete. Yeah. Like, you know, it's not a random. It's the biggest athlete. Yeah. Yeah, crazy. Crazy, man. People's core probably, is that considered reality? Yeah, I guess that could be. All those, like,

Judge Judy, all those type shows. That's her other. There's 400 of them on her DVR. Yeah. People's Court. Yeah, I guess that would be considered reality. So the Masked Singer, they have to keep the celebrity secret. They have to sign nondisclosure agreements, of course. But anybody, production staff, cannot use their phone to

I guess they're afraid they'll take a picture or something. If they do have to use their phone, they have to wear what they call a shame sash. They have to put on a pageant towel type sash. The reason being is you got to really have to want to use your phone if you're going to put this thing on. I don't watch this show. I don't either. You guys watch this one? No. You do? No. But I think it's fun. I think the idea of it, I think I was going to try to watch it because I thought Harper might think it's fun. But...

I think Nikki Glaser was just on it. Really? She was on Dancing with the Stars too. Yeah. She's been on all of them. Yeah. They do a reality show awards every year and America's Got Talent, I mean, not America's Got Talent, Amazing Race won like every year for like the first seven years. Yeah, we used to watch the Amazing Race a lot. You and Laura were going to do it. Yeah. We weren't going to do it. I'm joking about it. But it was...

We watched that. Yeah, The Amazing Race is great. Yeah. Have you heard Zach Galifianakis' joke about that? No. He goes, The Amazing Race, I thought that was a show about white people. Yeah.

Old joke. Not mine, by the way. Old joke. You've got mail. From 2003 to 2007, American Idol was the number one show on television and the number two show on television because it aired two different nights. So like Tuesday night and Wednesday night. That's right. It was the number one and number two show. And a couple of those years, Dancing with the Stars was the third, fourth, and fifth highest rated show because it aired three nights a week.

Would you do Dancing with the Stars if they asked you? I don't think so. On the back end of your career, maybe. Coming up or coming down, would you? Going down. Whatever happened to Nate Bargatze? He was on Dancing with the Stars last year. Yeah, all right. He was a stand-up, wasn't he? I think so. That's the thing. Now you're so good at it that you go off and tour. Worldwide, you're known as...

Yeah. The dance machine. The dancing start. Yeah. I think I know the work that like it goes. Like even just being on – do you know? Like being on a TV show or something like that, you're like – I just can't imagine having the time. It's a big chunk of your life. Yeah. So maybe if I –

You asked me when I think I could have the time. My answer could be completely different. But now you're like, it just seems like something else. I would do it. I would totally do it. I wouldn't be good now just because I'm older. I would have been good 20 years ago. But now I would still do it just because you know you'd be getting in shape. Yeah.

Yeah. Like they're just basically paying you to work out. Yeah. So there's exposure. Yeah. It's health reasons. You could be like, yeah. Adam Carolla did it. Jeff Ross did it. Yeah. Cardi B was on a reality show. That's really. Oh, wow. We'll have in hip hop. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty big. The Miz, the wrestler. Yeah. Yeah. I remember. So I remember him doing it and wanting to be.

a wrestler and talked about his dream of being the champion. And now he's the main, one of the main guys, right? One of the top guys. One of the champ. Yeah. I don't think I can ever get that out of my head that he was on there. So it doesn't feel, I didn't know that till I read it. Yeah. I've to me, it's like, I never latched onto the Miz. Cause it was like, I thought it was like a joke. You always know people from their first. Yeah. And you're like, Oh, you're like that guy from, and so like, I don't take him as serious as being like one of the other ones. Right.

But, I mean, yeah, he's huge. Yeah. Yeah. It's probably a good place to stop. Yeah. Yeah, probably a good place to stop. All right. Saddest part of the week. Saddest part of the week. Oh, man. All right. Good times, boys. Yeah. So this is coming out the week of the Super Bowl. I'll be in Las Vegas. Super Bowl. Bills, Cowboys. Bills win.

And they make the last second field goal. How about they... That's good. No, that'd be amazing. That's good. It's too good. I say... No, you said Giants, right? No, I said I didn't know either. Okay. But I'm going to... I like this one better. It's more fun. Yeah. Bills, Cowboys. And I say... Actually, I changed it. No field goal. They... It's a...

Third and something, and they score so they don't have to score the field goal. So they take the field goal out of it, and they win. Which we're still predicting the game. So it could be a different thing. I like it better if it's Bills Cowboys, overtime, last-minute kick, the guy who misses all of them, redeems himself, and kicks the longest field goal of all time. How about this? Bills Cowboys, Cowboys miss the field goal.

That's funny. That's hilarious. That guy's already missed a bunch of field goals. That's what I'm saying. It's either great for him or the war. I don't know. He would kill himself. But that would be better if it was the Giants, Dan, because that was the game where he missed was against the Giants. Oh. Yeah, but we're talking about the actual Cowboys kicker who just missed five extra points. I know, but he could miss them against the Giants. I say it happens, but it happens with the Cowboys and not Giants. So there is correlation. It's just not the exact team.

Okay. Bet the Cowboy misses the field goal. I'd actually like to see the Jaguars win all of it. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. It's not as exciting. Well, it's already happened. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah. Let's go play some bets. This weekend, I think I'm off. But next weekend, I'm at Helium in Indianapolis, Friday, Saturday. Nice. Yeah. Come see me there. Nice, dude.

I am in Omaha, Nebraska this weekend at the Omaha Funny Bone. I've never done comedy in Nebraska. It's one of the last few states I've never been to, so I'm excited about that. Charlottesville, Virginia next week. Asheville, North Carolina the week after that. Come out and see me. Thank you. You will love Omaha. Yeah, that's what I've heard. Funny Bone there. February 11th, I'm going to be performing in Cornelius, North Carolina, a brand-new performing arts theater. Nice. November 11th.

Tickets at johnrape.com. There's more tour dates up there. I'm playing Glasgow.

Ooh. Kentucky. Still the same thing. Plaza Theater, Glasgow, Kentucky. Still hard to get to. Yes. Yes. No peace treaties will be signed, but it will be peaceful and fun. JohnReap.com for all my tour dates. Listen to my podcast from time to time, Country-ish. Yeah. Nate's been on it. You've been on it. I'll be able to ask you, didn't you try to run for mayor? Yes. I was going to run for mayor of Hickory.

Until I realized I don't live in Hickory. This just in. All these years, I've been sitting here talking about Hickory, Hickory, Hickory.

I go down to the Register of Deeds. By the way, I already knew the answer. I was just trying to get publicity just for fun. I dressed up in a seersucker suit. I called the radio station. I called the newspaper. I said, you want to come down to watch me throw my hat in the ring to run for mayor? They're like, oh, that'd be cool. Charlotte news vans are showing up. I'm out in the parking lot giving a little interview, and I walk in, and I knew the answer.

And I walked in and I was like, yep, John Reap. I'd like to run for mayor. And they go, okay, what's your address? I give them my address. The guy's like, you're not eligible.

I'm like, what are you talking about? He said, yeah, you actually live right outside the district. He showed me the map. Like, this is the actual downtown city of Hickory Park, and you're just over here. So you cannot run from there. And I looked right at the camera. I went, whoopsie. I got in his van and drove back and out of Charlotte. But I knew that going in. And I'm like, what?

But the weird thing about this whole story, the current mayor, you know, he lives further away from Hickory than me. He just annexed his house. So if you look at the map, you'll see like it's one big weird looking thing. That's a jigsaw. That's one piece. One little piece way over here.

Mayor's house. That's what gerrymandering is? That's gerrymandering, yeah. Yo, that's what that means? Gerrymandering is, yes, to carve up the shape of the districts to benefit yourself. To benefit you. Wow. And that's what he did. And he's not even, it's an island by itself. Crazy. It's not even connected. So I'm like. They're not connecting the dots. They're not connected. The dots are not connected. There you go. Yeah.

Drop the mic, dude. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. All right, folks. Thank you to our sponsors, ZocDoc, BetterHelp, Athletic Dreams, and DraftKings. Don't forget to use our promo code, Nate. Dusty is at Sidesplitters in Tampa this weekend. All right. Oh, yeah. It's a good one, too. I'm sure they're having a good time. Yeah.

All right. We love you. And John, thanks for coming on, buddy. Thank you, Nate, for having me. You guys, thank you. All right. We'll see you next week. Bye. Bye. Nateland is produced by Nateland Productions and by me, Nate Bargetzi, and my wife, Laura, on the Audio Boom platform. Recording and editing for the show is done by Genovations Media. Thanks for tuning in. Be sure to catch us next week on the Nateland Podcast.