Speaker 1: When your old career gives you lemons throwing some ice.
Speaker 2: Mix in some vodka. Call it a podcast from the
Mac of All Trade Studio in Fairport and driven by
Victor Chrysler Dots Jim Ram.
Speaker 1: It's Billified, the Bill Moran Podcast.
Speaker 2: Oil. Hello and welcome. Thanks for getting your pod on,
Thanks for telling a friend. That's how we spread the
word about the BIRS ship. I got an email about
some radio segments we had done and somebody said they
enjoyed listening to it. And oh, by the way, I
represent this guy known as the Dadbod veteran. I had
seen the Dad Bod Veteran on TikTok. His name is
John Wellington, and I I didn't realize he had an
Instagram and a YouTube and a Facebook and all this stuff.
But this is a former Navy guy and he's now
part of a gen X Takeover comedy tour. And just
because of this device right here, this dumb little phone,
he's become a star because he knew how to use
it right. And I love these kind of conversations. And
he is a gen X guy, and I think that
being a gen X guy myself, we probably have a
few things in common.
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe maybe just a few things.
Speaker 2: Well, I think I'm probably older than you are.
Speaker 1: I don't know. The beard gives me a little bit
of grace, but maybe.
Speaker 2: I am fifty four. I was born in Si Yeah,
you just.
Speaker 1: Got me by a couple forty six. I'm a baby
gen X.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my brother is uh then would be around your
age as well. But talk to me about this because
I always think it's it's funny when people have real
job and then they go into entertainment because you were
Do you understand what I'm saying like this.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I am a firm believer in everything
you're saying.
Speaker 2: Right, It's like they you were probably putting shells into
I don't know, artillery somewhere right on a ship, making
sure shit, but the shit could blow up. Who knews
what sticky situation you were going to be in. And oh,
by the way, now you're on a comedy tour and
I go to me, that's the greatest thing in the world.
It's the one of the reasons our country is great
is because you can do, or be or have anything
you really want. And yet at the same time, I
think it makes you appreciate probably where you are now
more than anybody could imagine.
Speaker 1: God, yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, First of all, this
is the dumbest thing in the world. To the fact
that you can take this and turn your life around
because you spend too much time on it and you
have too much free time is insane. I mean, growing
up from our generation that that not possible, right, But
yet here we are, and it's exactly that. You know,
I did my time in the Navy, and I was
in New York Harbor in nine to eleven, and then
I went into the corporate world and I've been in
the corporate world for twenty years now. And then all
of a sudden, because I was at home and board
and I started making videos on my porch, it turned
into this and now I'm doing a stand up comedy career,
which I've been doing stand up comedy for a total
of one year.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: First time that I did it was with these guys.
Speaker 2: Okay, So it's insane, all right. I feel like we're
jumping a little ahead, but that's okay, because I want
to talk about how that kind of came to be.
And for someone who's never done stand up, like I
will say to me, stand up. Comedy is the ultimate
art form. And I say that because when you have
a band and somebody fucks up, I can play. You know,
somebody can cover a note, somebody can cover somebody's pitchiness.
Right when it's stand up, it's you a microphone and
you know what I'm saying, And that's whoom right. And
so I remember being in New York City walking through
Soho and you know, people trying to make it in
the comedy world are just looking for stage time all
the time. Well, they were literally pulling people off the
street and putting them in the audience. And some of
the people were writers for the Chris Rock Show, the
HBO show at the time and all this stuff. So
you had talented people. I gotta tell you, man, no
one was laughing. People were walking out. They weren't there
to see comedy. So right there, that's the toughest. And
I go, if you could get them to laugh, you're
gonna be great. You're gonna be fine. And so I think,
for you, I go, what was that like the first
time you step on stage? And obviously it's an audience
that's already familiar with you, which really does help.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, that definitely helps. We first of all, we
never intended to have this happen. We recited as no,
we didn't. We were four creators who didn't know each
other in person, and we just said, let's go to
Nashville and let's go hang out together. So we thought
we were gonna, you know, run an Airbnb, eat Bond Bonds,
watch rom Comms, paint or toenails, and then you know,
go walk the street and hang out with some of
our people. That was the intent of it all. But
our wives got involved and they were like, no, no, no,
we're not going to pay for this, so we're gonna
pimp you out. So they called the local comedy club.
And one of us, Nick had done comedy before.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, he does a lot of music stuff, music
related stuff on and.
Speaker 1: His lifelong dream has always been to be a stand
up comedian. That's always been his thing, okay, and so
he was experienced in it, and the other three of
us had never done it before. And you know, they
came back and they said, hey, we booked a comedy
club and you're going to do stand up comedy. And
the three of us are like, what the what does
that mean?
Speaker 2: So who's who whose wife do you blame for this?
Was it? I'm thinking it's yours?
Speaker 1: Uh, It's it's mostly Nick and Nick's next wife and
then Sherry's wife are really the head honchos who are
to blame. Luckily, mine's kind of passive in this whole situation.
She comes in later at the in the in the
conversation about the tour, but she was not really involved
in all that. She was a supporting spouse at that point.
And so we booked a comedy club. We go online
and just the four of us, we promote it and
it's a small hundred seater and poof, we sell it
out in an hour. They were like, oh okay. So
we call the comedy club. We say, hey, can we
do another one the same day? And they're like, sure,
we got yours the whole afternoon. So we book another
one and we sold that one out in a day.
So at this point we have two sold out comedy
shows at a small venue in Nashville for a bunch
of people who don't know what the hell are doing
except for one. And then we decide we say, well,
let's have an after party on top of that. So
we rent out this place called Pins mechanical in Nashville.
Cool place. It's like arcades and bowling and all that stuff.
And we sell tickets to that separately, and six hundred
people buy tickets. Wow, and we're like, what the hell?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, but it's how amazing, how what a what
a cool validation of all the stuff that you're doing,
you know what I mean. Yeah, you talk into a camera,
you think you're alone, and nobody gives a flying crap
about you, and then all of a sudden, six hundred
people in a just throw a dart at a map
in a city, right, and we'll say it's Nashville. And yeah,
by the way, Nashville's a lot of shit to do,
you know what I'm saying. There's a lot of stuff
to do. There's a lot of choices for your entertainment dollar.
The fact that they want to spend it with you,
I think, speaks volumes that should make you, all of
you feel so great about what you're doing.
Speaker 1: It validates or invalidates the imposter syndrome because we all
have it. Sure, you know, we all come from different
backgrounds and different histories of life. And you know, me
a veteran and Sharry a business person, and Kelly is
the person that she's been in a radio talent and Nick,
of course, with everything that he's done, it definitely invalidates
that imposter senior. But you know it started there and
that first time that we did it, we were all
going to throw up on each other in the back.
I mean that's for the three of us. We were
just like, oh my god, I can't believe I'm doing this,
had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker 2: Went up.
Speaker 1: I threw a set out that I thought was good,
you know flashbacks. It wasn't good, but they laughed, and
you know, we decided to do another one up in Cleveland.
We sold that out at a dueling piano bar. This
is great. Two hundred and fifty people.
Speaker 2: Where's let me interrupt real quick, Where's home for you?
Speaker 1: Charleston, South Carolina? Which is actually our next show coming
up October twenty sixth. Well, we got a Seattle show
and then we got a Charleston show. But we're doing
twenty three hundred seat venues now in less than a year.
Speaker 2: That's incredible because you know, theaters having done stand up.
I always prefer to watch stand up in like tight rooms. Yeah,
you know what I mean. So if you've ever been
to like the comedy Seller in New York is a
great room to see, right, but those other places are great.
And if you're selling it out, I am blown away.
I think that's amazing and it's got to feel really
good for you. Talk to me about the in the Evolution.
I'll always say, one of the greatest things in life
is reps. Right, the more reps you do at something,
the better you get at it. So you know, for
you with comedy, have you had people writing for you? You're
doing all your own writing. You're doing it all.
Speaker 1: I do all my own writing. It's all life experience.
It's a lot of self deprecation on my side. I mean,
I know I have watched comedians forever, sure, and I
resonate towards the storytellers like Berg Kreischer and those folks
that tell stories that aren't just a one liner. So
most of my content is, you know, story based. A
lot of it is picking on my kids, and you know,
they all know that they're all set up for that.
And then it's a lot of self deprecation. I write
my own stuff. I have a little karaoke machine and
the Missus and I Before every show, we sit in
the living room and she listens to my whole set.
She times me, she gives me feedback, cut this out,
do that, do that, and then when we get to
you know, show times, it's game time and we just
walk out on the field and throw a touchdown.
Speaker 2: How much? How much time are you doing?
Speaker 1: We're just doing twenty minute sets. Yeah, fore it's get
at twenty minute set.
Speaker 2: But that's a lot, right, and especially for someone who
hasn't done comedy, I mean you build up to that.
You know, it's usually ten fifteen and then twenty is
a middle act in most comedy clubs. I think that's
really impressive. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the best things I think that's happening in
this scenario is that the three of us don't know
what the hell we're doing. So when you say stuff
like that to us, we're like, oh, yeah, I didn't
know that. No, I mean, we don't greatest, we don't
have that baseline to understand how this world works. We're
all just doing it to the way that we think
it should be done. And I think that's part of
what going on here with us is by the fact
that we break all the rules. We've got four balanced headliners,
plus we have a musical component, Plus we have other
interactive things that we do at the show that get
the crowd engaged with us as a group. You know,
we have skits and it's more of a variety show
than just a comedy show. But the fact that we've
broken all the rules of how this is supposed to
work has attracted some attention from some people really high
up that are now calling and saying, hey, we want
you to come to our venue. We'll let you go
to this, that and the other thing. And we're also older,
and we're like, no, we don't want to be on
the road twenty four to seven. We'll do one or
two a month, and it's whatever we want to do, right,
and they're all so it's really it's like a shift
in the dynamic, at least from our perspective, that's caused
ripples through the industry, an industry that we have no
clue about. And we also don't care because you know,
we know that this thing's got legs for a period
of time and then we're either going to get too
old to do it, or you know, we're not going
to be cool anymore. And so we're just enjoying it
as long as it lasts and take it wherever it
takes us.
Speaker 2: I think that's uh the best attitude to have with it, right,
because you're right, nothing kind of lasts forever, uh, And
you're not taking it too seriously where you know the
these I mean, god, you want to hang out with
real comics, they're some of the most depressing, sad, uh neurotic,
narcissistic assholes you'll ever be around. And so to be
able to just go, yeah, we're this is what we're doing,
and this is how we're gonna do it. And I
also think being I'll say naive, I guess, but everybody,
everybody who's ever done anything, if they knew the rules
along the way, they probably wouldn't have made it.
Speaker 1: Right, you know what I mean. And it's had to
start out with it with a zero baseline exactly.
Speaker 2: And I always say, and the guys would get annoyed
with me. There's other guys on the on the podcast
now here at the moment, but I always say, the
barrier to entry is gone. It's gone. I don't need, right,
I don't need the corporate people anymore. You just need this, yes,
And I think what you've really proven is that if
you I don't know, if you got a talent, you're
a storyteller, you get out there and you do it.
That that's the thing. Give me how that that began?
From what I understand, you have five kids, which means
you had to start early if you're and then I
knew you were an empty nester.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So so my first kid was at eighteen, as
a lot of South Carolinians do, from the type of
area that I'm from, and I joined the Navy directly after,
well actually before the kid was even born. It's my
twenty seven year old daughter. And uh, you know, I've
got three with my first wife, and then two that
joined the family from my missus dad bod and so
five total, and the two youngest of my natural born
kids are twins. And I, like I said, you know,
I've been a father since I was eighteen. And then
when it came to empty nest time, the last one
to leave, which was kind of my best friend, was
a little traumatic to me. I didn't take empty nesting
very well because I'd been a father my whole life.
Everything I did, all my decisions were based on my kids.
It wasn't based on what I want, you know, And
here I am facing what the heck am I going
to do with the rest of my life? So got
a little bummed out, got a little depressed. It not
gonna lie about that. But I started shifting my mentality
to what's next in my life that I care about
because I personally don't care about career. I personally don't
care about, you know, all the things in the world.
I care about my family. So every decision I've made
has been towards them. So I started thinking about my grandkids.
And so when I started thinking about that, I started
playing around with social media because I had never done
it before, and I said, wouldn't it be cool if
I could create this library of videos for my grandkids
to tell them what the world was like when I
was a kid from my perspective, wouldn't it be cool
if I did it in a voice that I would
like to hear stories from. Yeah, And that's where it started.
Was I was originally just telling stories with this voice
that I would have loved to hear stories from, to
create a library of videos for my grandkids. And then
the whole world liked it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: The first one to really take off was after I
had been doing the stories of my own, people started
asking me and say, hey, what does the dadbod think
about this? And it was a video of a kid
asking how pieces were delivered before GPS.
Speaker 2: I saw that. I know that video. I do know
that one.
Speaker 1: And that's the first video I think.
Speaker 2: I think of that video every time I use my GPS,
because I don't I've looked at a map, I haven't
done anything I can get anywhere on the planet. Now
I go, boy, you want to talk about Everybody's like,
I don't want to lose my freedom. I go, every
time you're being tracked, you lost your freedom. You asked
whole You don't even.
Speaker 1: Realize it, but you're you're codependent on your latch.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I did it today. I had a meeting.
I didn't know where I was going at GPS. That's
so funny that it was very interesting. And then I
think there were some other ones that I saw.
Speaker 1: Just snowballed after that. Yeah, I mean, everybody started throwing
me and there's a videos like what do you think
about this? What do you think about this? And that's
where it turned, is to this reaction bit of me
reacting to whatever scenario was put in front of me
that people were sending to me. I didn't have to
search for the content. It was in my box there,
so it was like the self feeding thing. Yeah, and
I had a lot of time on my hand.
Speaker 2: Talk to me about the character voice. Do you use
that on stage or you talk like I was surprised
when I heard your voice, and I wanted it to see.
So I sought you out on another podcast and I
was listening for a little bit and you had popped
on and I was like, oh, wow, you have a
really pleasant speaking voice. By that other voice, I would
never have associated I actually you have watched your videos
at one point tried to see if you were dubbing
it in some way, like with your lips syncing to
somebody else's book. I couldn't. I go, that's an amazing
like it that voice I just never expected to come
out of you.
Speaker 1: It's hilarious because when I started doing ads for sponsors
and stuff like that, and they would want me to
do it in my natural voice because they wanted me
to be serious. And when I did that, people would
send them to me and be like, look, they're doing
an AI version of you with this voice. I'm reporting
it and I'm like, no, no, no, that's actually me.
And it's over the past probably the past year that
I've been trying to massage it two different because I
have a lot of voices in my head. I'm just
going to put it out there now. It's always been
a thing that I've done since I'm a kid. Is
I love to imitate voices of different accents, et cetera.
This one just happened to stick with everybody, and I've
tried to change it. I've tried to introduce new voices
in my content and people are like, no, I don't
like it, so I go back to what works. But
in the show, up until the last show, I did
not do the voice at all. Okay, but we now
have a bit that I do with Kelly that I
do a narration for part of her comedy skit, and
so I kind of just step on stage and narrate
something that's going on.
Speaker 2: In Oh Okay.
Speaker 1: The voice is kind of a David Attenborough style.
Speaker 2: They must the audience, it's just all they.
Speaker 1: They went wild. They went wild because it's absolutely hilarious.
I'm not going to give it away, but it is
an absolutely hilarious bit on its own. And then you
throw it, throw me on top of it, and the
voice on top of it. It is just a beautiful cake.
Beautiful Yeah.
Speaker 2: How fun is that too? Yeah? You know, everything in
life has started with an idea that somebody had in
their head, right, whether it be a building or a
road or whatever. But for a guy who has had
his first kid at eighteen, that had to grow up
real fat. And then and on top of that, I
would even say doing some military service is another You're
gonna grow up real fast. I mean, there's no bullshit here.
Speaker 1: It's the same time.
Speaker 2: It's like it's it's like holy, I mean, your life.
You just think about this several months prior to all
that you were in high school, I would assume.
Speaker 1: No, two weeks okay, two weeks after I graduated high school.
Speaker 2: This is what I mean. Okay, so a couple right,
and then and when did you know that you were
having the kid while you were still in high school?
Speaker 1: When I was in boot camp? First phone call, holl okay,
I it was a graduation present. Yeah, to say it
that way, So graduation, you know, Yeah, and then uh,
we didn't know until after I got to boot camp.
And I mean my first phone call home she was crying.
I was like, what are you crying about? She goes, oh,
by the way, and I go ooh, that's cool.
Speaker 2: You said that.
Speaker 1: No, I seriously, I was like, I was like totally,
because you know, I've always been a kind of a
family guy. Sure, and so I here, here I am.
And you know, she wasn't exactly happy about it, but
we had a good twelve year marriage out of it,
and we're still best friends.
Speaker 2: And yeah, how was how were your parents and her parents?
I'm trying to think.
Speaker 1: Back to, like, you know, my parents, my parents, my
dad had already passed, but my mom was like totally
a static because she's like, I got grandkids.
Speaker 2: Fine, yeah, yeah, I was the.
Speaker 1: First one to have grandkids out of me and my siblings.
Speaker 2: Her mom.
Speaker 1: Her mom believes and still believes that all things are
meant to happen. Okay, you know, whatever happens is meant
to happen, right, so with that, you can be happy
about the situation, right because that was something that was
supposed to happen. So they both took it very positively
and again we're still friends of this day. And you
know you grew up I did Charleston, South Carolina.
Speaker 2: There is no accent.
Speaker 1: I mean there can be. There gonna be an accent.
If I want to go, I can turn it on off.
It just depends on who I'm talking to.
Speaker 2: I think there was a radio station down there. Is
there something called the twin something or the duel or
like two frequencies, because it's maybe they were more out
on the coasts. I don't know. I was on a
bunch of their stations for iHeart back in the day,
and I just remember reading you. They would send you
liners and stuff, and so you have to talk about
these towns like you live there, you know what I mean.
And I always thought this is this is the death
of radio right here. This is the death. You cannot
homogenize this shit, and you know, just all of it.
And then of course the other stuff is I'll seek
out my entertainment the way I like it. And I
love that people from the gen X have found you guys.
And I don't know, man, you got such a cool,
calming way about you that it doesn't seem like you're easy,
easily flustered at all.
Speaker 1: No I've been accused of being the adultiest one in
our group.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm the one who plans everything out and make
sure all the things are laid out. Yeah, it's just
it's just the way I am. Maybe it's the Navy.
Maybe it's just you know, having so many damn kids,
is I got to make sure everything's laid out.
Speaker 2: De risk Yeah and d risked. So how did this
come together? For the the gen X takeover? Right? With
the professor and the real what was it? The real
slim Kelly? Yes?
Speaker 1: Sorry, I'm sorry, but the real I won't tell her.
Speaker 2: Please don't do that. But I'm such a fan. I
how does that come together? Right? Because here again is
people from different parts of the country normally when right
and you all come together and you've built this mini empire. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Sherry's in Atlanta, Kelly's in Saint Louis. Nick is
in New Orleans. Uh. Sherry and Nick had gone to
the Cheer Choice Awards the year before, which is like
the Emmys, if you will, for social media creators. It's
it's in Vegas. They had gone to that. I didn't
go to that, and I guess they had a discussion
about you know we should do some type of event,
creator event, et cetera. And so Sherry and I have
never met before this point, but we have very parallel
pass We started out almost exactly the same time. Our
growth was almost the same trajectory where Nick and Kelly
had been in the social media for a lot longer
than we had. So we had DMed back and forth
a couple of times just to chat it up, and
then one day she sent me a thing and said, hey,
you want to do this, And I'm like, sure. I'm
in the business of not saying no to anything right now,
because I believe right now at this point that the
world will say no for me if it's not supposed
to be done, like either I won't have enough money
or I won't have time, So I'd just say yes.
I said yes, and you know then, you know, between
the time that I said yes and the time that
we actually got to Nashville, all the wives got involved
in that transpired. It didn't really turn into this huge
thing until after Cleveland, because after Cleveland we realized we
had something we legitimately. Now now we've gone to two states,
completely separate, completely different demos, and people were raving about it,
and also we started to get some people calling us
that would not normally contact us, and so we said, okay,
let's make a tour and let's just do a couple
of cities just to try it out. So we tried
Atlanta next, and in Atlanta was when we brought on
probably one of the biggest catalysts to this thing growing,
which is our tour manager, Reuben Buck out of Seattle.
Ruben is very very intimate in the comedy scene. In fact,
him and Donald Rawlings and Dave Chappelle are actually very
tight together. He's every time I talk about a comedian,
he pulls out his phone and he goes, oh, you
mean this guy, and it's his phone number. And I'm like,
like neighbor, Gatzi and Bert, and you know, I was like, oh,
how does this dude know all these people? And so
he jumped on board because he had heard about it
up in Seattle and he's he's a he's a very
early gen exer, you know, he's almost you know, sixty
one now, Oh my god, and so he wanted to
be part of it. Yeah, because he's, you know, he's
on his downslope. He's like, let me do one last
cool thing that I think has legs, and so as
soon as he went in there, he came in and
grabbed that, and he's like, Okay, we need to do this, this,
this and this, and we're all like, I don't know
what you're doing, but let's do it. So we brought
in Justin Rupple, the Millennial, who is our host, who
was a voice actor for How to Train the Dragon.
Then we've also got Jojo Malagar who's now our musical component,
who's on stage with us the whole time. You know,
he does all the sound cues, et cetera, and it
turned it into a production. He also got a relationship
with our booking agent who has brought all the venues
that we've got casinos and things, the same guys that
do Vanilla Ice and Lodacris and the Isle of Nineties tour.
So there's some future potential integrations with Vanilla Ice and
some things coming up that you know, would be really awesome.
And yeah, it's it's just like we've already got twenty
twenty seven or twenty twenty six almost out, and there's
a potential twenty twenty seven talk. I mean, this is
the dumbest thing I've ever been a part of. But
I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 2: I gotta think it's it's probably one of the coolest things.
And I think your attitude of just say yes and
I'll call it the universe, you call it the world,
We'll let you know. And I think that that is
the way you need to live. I think we should
all sort of live that way. We can't, right, especially
when you know you had five kids in a navy
career and corporate career, whatever. But the uh, I think
you open yourself up to possibilities and sometimes you know,
I always go, there's two things in the world. It's fear, right, anxiety.
All this shit is all fear based. All that stuff
is just fear, and the other is love. And so
where are you gonna go? And when it's just going?
I love it. I love entertaining. I love telling the stories.
This has I mean, it's like mind boggling and I
got it. Well it has to be because I look,
I did thirty years on the radio, I write, I
did all this stuff. I did a lot of FM
talk I was around. This is to me the coolest.
I love that it's organic. You've made a connection with
people All people want is a connection and to feel
like they matter, and you've built something cool and I got.
I think that's amazing. My question for you is five kids,
how do they react to this?
Speaker 1: So initially they were like what are you doing? In fact,
it's kind of funny. Is the youngest kid, the one
who went to boot camp, knew nothing about this whole
thing while he was in boot camp. And there was
a huge trajectory that occurred while he was in boot camp.
And then when he got out of boot camp and
I went up to his graduation, he said I told
him about it. He says, yeah, yeah, whatever, You're not anybody.
I was like, okay, but just hold on a second.
And so I went outside and he was getting out
released from his little boot camp thing to come spend
the afternoon with us, and I'm sitting there waiting out
side of the front gate, and it was I just
remember the look on his eyes. He got out and
we're hugging and we're saying our thing. We were about
to walk to the car. One of his drill sergeants
walks up to me and says, are you the dad bod?
And he shakes my hand, and but the look on
my son's face was hilarious. He went, I'm not kidding
this true story. He went white and he says a
drill sergeant and he's like, hey, are you a son.
He's like yeah, he said, well you got a cool
dad here. I mean, it was just he didn't know
how to handle. And then after that he goes, Dad,
what happened?
Speaker 2: What happened?
Speaker 1: While I was like, dude, I told you something happened.
It was a little awkward for most of them, but
now they're all like totally on board.
Speaker 2: Effect.
Speaker 1: A little while ago, I had a lot, a large
bit for one of my kids that that I call
him the FAFO Boy. And he's the one that went
into the Navy and he's boomerang back and he's living
at home with us and he's going to the college
right now, and I call him the FAFO Boy. So
I did a whole thing with sitting out dowry applications
to try to help him get a date, to try
to wet him out, get rid of him. Has it
worked very well, but they've all totally embraced it. They
all totally love it, and they all love being a
part of it, and they're all bragging up their dad.
And my daughter's in Arkansas. She works at a hotel.
She's like talking to their social media manager and said, hey,
let's get my dad to come here. And they're like,
who's your dad And they're like, oh my god, that's
your dad. So they all love it, and I'm happy
for them that I can be something for them, you know.
I tell them all, I'm like, look, amused the crap
out of it. It's not going to last forever. If
you want a name drop, name drop, I don't care.
However you benefit yourself from this scenario that we've got
run with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the greatest attitude of all that, you know,
being a gen X. And we often joke about, you know,
drink from the hose and ran around and didn't know
we could get a hold of you till streetlights. I
always think nowadays. I had a friend who used to
go the greatest time to leave alive was to be
a white man in the fifties because you could just
disappear and no one would find you, and no one
gave his shit. You went to work, he left, I
had a two cocktail lunch and didn't go back. Your
wife didn't know where you are. I mean, like you
think of that and you look now, and I go.
I got my fifteen year old son lives with me.
My older guys are want to be twenty five next week,
and ones in grad school's a little bit youngers in
his twenty three, mid twenty, early twenties. But my fifteen
year old tracks me everywhere I go and ask me.
And I'm driving by a place he goes. You go
to a bar, and I'm like, oh my god, I
couldn't imagine, but saying that to my old man. My
old man used to come home and he would buy
Manhattan's made for two and then he would drink it.
And the fight between my parents was, it's always cocktails
for two, but it's for one. Was my mother screaming
at him, like that was the ship, and like I
would take off of my bike. You would drive three
miles into town and no one, no one.
Speaker 1: No one cared.
Speaker 2: And I don't know that they didn't care, but I go, boy,
it was the freedom you had as a kid. It
was nice. It was nice. Where now it's like, I
feel like it's somewhat overbearing. I think that we live
in such a fear thing because I used to say,
and I got my my ex wife, we get very
upset with me, but I would be you know, we
got to protect the kids, and you gotta keep it
out on the people grab I go, yeah, I know
of no kid that personally ever that was stranger abducted.
I don't know them. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't happen. I'm
just saying, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Back when we were there, it's milk cart and kids,
you know, yeah, and there are dozens of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly exactly, and you know, okay, so there was
that sort of thing. But I'm trying to think, like
in between, it feels like and my kid will say
to me, you think we're soft, and I don't think
you're I don't want to say that word, right, I won't.
I try, I try, I try. Yes, but do you
understand what I'm saying, Like, what happened to a little
bit of grit and a little bit of dirt and
a little bit of whatever? Do we make it too easy?
Speaker 1: I think it was well, well it became well, okay,
so there was I think there was a time where
where the the grit became abuse. That was one factor,
is that there's a lot of sensitivity towards how people
handle their children today versus yesterday. That culture has caused
that to be unacceptable, not necessarily bad.
Speaker 2: I get that. I mean I remember when the Dagoski
twins came in to school and one of them had
their dad's handprint still across his face, allegedly from the
night before because they were wrestling and he hurt his dad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I remember my parents went to they went
to teaching. They went to parentings class to learn how
to spank appropriately. They went to a class to make
and no, this is true, this is a true story.
Is after they went to parenting class, me and my
brother were fighting one day and so their parenting class
said you can still spank them, but you need to
spank them appropriately. So our appropriate spanking was we had
to put our hands on each other's shoulders and look
each other's in the eyes while the parents spank both
us at the same time. It was but it was lessened, right,
it was structured. It was structured. They'd be like, Okay,
this is what's going to happen. Do you understand why? Yeah,
I understand why this is going to happen. It sucks
there's no crying. It was all just it was all
very structured and deliberate and all that stuff because that's
what the world had told them they needed to do.
And so there was the evolution. And now that evolution
didn't stop at some point, and we've gotten to the
point where that's not even okay anymore. And so there's
no you know, fear of the rod spoiled kid kind
of situation going on. And then you throw social media
and it where everything is publicized everything, and so there's
a lot of criticism towards parents being parents, and school
systems don't help because you know, they'll come and call
the teacher. I just I saw a beautiful bit on
TikTok just a minute ago before I get jomped on here.
This guy was making fun of him getting called out
on the carpet by the principal when his kid came
to school and said that he laid hands on him.
And he, you know, he was like, I just disciplined
my kid. He's like, yeah, but the kid was crying
and this and that the other, and it was absolutely
hilarious because it's so true. I could see that actually happening.
Is that a parent gets called out on the carpet
by the kid because he disciplined him. And that's where
the I think the shift happened. And that's where the
inability to have that grit, as you say, is gone.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: There's there's no opportunity to give your kid grit or
do any of those things that would cause their kid
to be exposed to something that's hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, difficult, No that okay. So that that's a that's
a really good way you put it. I will say that,
like my youngest kid is I would I used to
read for the growing up as a feral kid kind
of both my parents worked and I said Farrell and
I meant that more as a joke. But he's a
bit of a feral guy. And when his mom and
I separated, he wound up living in the South in Alabama.
And he came back and there was a days going
can I have some money? Can I have some money?
I'm like, buddy, that is so all of a sudden,
we live in this nice area and there's a no
solicitation rule. I get a call from the the h
O A or whatever that he's been going around saying
he's raising money for a basketball team. That doesn't exist,
and I that was I mean, I had to put
a stop to it. I had to, like really, but
there was a part of me that goes, oh, no,
he'll survive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he'll try, he'll be okay, he's created, he'll be okay.
Speaker 2: You know he was. I'm not, you know, so when
I call him, I go, where are you now? I'm
in Rochester, New York. In Rochester, New York's gourmet contribution
to the world is something called the garbage plate. Yeah. Oh,
it's two cheeseburgers, diced up potatoes, onions, hot sauce over
macaroni salad.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think the gen Xtur should come
this way. The Kodak Theater would be a nice place
for you guys. So, oh, you're going to Buffalo, and
we're going to Buffalo. When is that next March? Okay,
well that's a that's a good time. I think the
new stadium should be opened by then. I don't I
don't know. I'm just saying you can't at least tour it. Maybe,
I don't know. You should bring Josh Allen out on
state something. I mean, that would all be But anyway,
the the garbage plate. So I call him and I
go where are He goes, I'm at And every every
like suburb of Rochester has their own plate spot. So
ours is parenton hots and he goes, I'm getting to
play a parent and Hots, I go, where'd you get
the money? Well? I just had it. I go, oh,
I just got a call. How much did you make?
One hundred and ten dollars? I go, this is out? Yeah, yeah,
just And I go what kind of sales pitch are
you giving these people? But I'm like, all of that
to me was sort of the grit you had to
figure stuff out as a kid. And I think, now
you get a tutorial. I used to think the Disney
Channel and you, as a dad may know this too,
gave kids a tutorial on how to be a little
bit of a smart ass, right STARCASSM. Yeah. And now
we've got the phone, which is it's twenty four to seven.
I'll even say things like I don't think we'll ever
have a great guitarist ever again, because the guy who
is so introverted in wanting to learn the instrument and
sat in his room for hours and hours on end,
is now up in his room hours and hours on
end looking at porn only yeah, or scrolling or porn.
I'm just saying, like, you know, you're never gonna have it,
So the world has changed. But I love what you
guys do. I think your messages are are so they're positive,
they're nice. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I always have to remembered that the origin of this
whole thing is is is a record for my grandchildren, right,
And so I stay true to that even when i'm
you know, dicing on somebody else. I don't want it
to be so bad and so deliberate that, you know,
it could be construed as me being insulting to somebody.
So I call it the Disney effect, is that there
are jokes in Disney movies that are meant for the parents, right, yes,
and the parents get them when they watch Milana or
something like that, they get those jokes. I do the
same thing. I slide some in there that the adults
really get and the kids are paying attention, going what
and they don't get it, But that's okay. Later in
life they'll get it when they watch it again. So
I'm very sensitive to making sure that it's pc for
everybody with a twist.
Speaker 2: I love that and I will ask you, with this
newfound fame, how many people have come out of the
woodwork that were in your life at some point, Navy
guys whoever that are reconnecting on what do you you know?
Speaker 1: As, oh, yeah, I get that all the time. In fact,
this is, like I said, this Charleston show is going
to be interesting because I did a celebrity which was
weird for me to do a celebrity charity softball tournament
here in Charleston with a bunch of MLB players, And
all these MLB players wanted to do was talk to
me and Nick and understand how social media works. It
was crazy. We're like, what, wait, you're like a Hall
of Fame baseball player, what do you want to talk
to me for? And they're like, man, I just want
to know how do you do it? And so, but
at that game, half the stadium was my high school,
you know, because it was here in my hometown. And
so now we're going to go do this show in
October here and half that half that place is going
to be mine. And so it's been really because I
don't again I you know, poster since I don't see
myself like that, I see I still go to the
grocery store, and I still, you know, go to the
car wash and I still go to the dog park
and all that stuff, because I don't see myself as
anything different. But they're ha. I've been a lot of
people in my life that have come out of the
wood work and be like, hey, what's going on. That's
going on? Yeah, And if they were significant part, you know,
I embrace them and say, well, here's what's going on.
And if they weren't, I'll be like delete.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean, time management is a big thing.
When you got you know, something that you have going on,
plus the kids, you want to have a life. You
could hand it all over to this and take this
as you know, the ride as far as you want.
But I think the way you're doing it and the
whole crew is doing it, it sounds more intelligent. Right.
Speaker 1: Then again, we're older, so we also Number one, we
don't bow to anybody, right. That's one thing that we've
stayed true to is that we own this company, the
four of us, and as long as the four of
us stay together, this thing will run forever. And so
we're not selling out to anybody or any group. Yes,
we're sponsored by AARP. But that is part of the joke.
Speaker 2: So are the Stones.
Speaker 1: It's just hilarious.
Speaker 2: I went to the Stone show, that would be my call.
I love the Rolling Stones. I'd be like, hey man,
same sponsor as the Stones.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly. And the fact, I mean the whole I
actually made it. Part of the bit is how that
relationship developed was that we were like, maybe we should
get sponsors. Who should we get. Let's call the pens,
let's call ensure, let's call fix a dent. What about AARP?
Now they're too big? And then they've called us and
we're like, holy.
Speaker 2: Shit, that's fantastic. You're too young to get AARP, I think.
Speaker 1: So here's what I found out is they don't advertise
to anybody less than fifty because then they can't get
their tax exemption for being a fifty plus supporter, you
know what I mean. So anybody over the age of
eighteen is eligible for ARP as a membership in the discounts.
There's certain things you can't get to your fifty, like
you can't get the life insurance, et cetera. But they
are they are open, and that's why they don't use
the words behind ARP an more. They just call themselves
a ARP when I never hear him say the old
words that we know, yes, right of what it sands
Association of American Socials are retired people. So we actually
did a bit on stage last show to that effect.
But anyway, so yeah, anybody over eighteen can get it.
So I've had mine for actually, way before they became
our sponsor, just because I like, you know, cheap meals
at Denny's.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I didn't know that. And I've just had
we do a couple of different podcasts here and there's
one called two Fit Chicks, and one of the women
is fifty seven years old. I throw that in the
garbage every time it comes. Really yeah, And I know, man,
I think what you're doing is helping them immensely. I
really yeah, I agree. I think that was a brilliant,
brilliant way to connect.
Speaker 1: For They came to our Nashville show because they just
did a one time sponsorship there and they hadn't been
and they've been our sponsor all year this year now
and they hadn't been to a show until we were
just in West Virginia, which is right outside of DC,
and they were like, oh my god, what happened in
a year. Yeah, and they're like, how did this. We're like, well,
I don't know. We're just doing whatever we do, and
whatever happens happens. They're like, this is amazing, and so
they're all floored. And now we're talking about twenty twenty
six for a sponsorship too. It's just like, wow, this
is crazy. This is wild.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is wild. I'm sure, and I love it.
But I think that you know, when I'm sure, people
do ask you, how do you do it? How do
you keep the social media stuff from what I'm hearing
from you is the authenticity to telling my stories to
my grandkids and.
Speaker 1: Keeping that that's stay to that route as long as
I don't veer off that route, as long as I
don't get in and I never do politics, I never
do religion. I never do anything that's insulting, truly insulting
to an individual. It's usually a general response to a situation.
As long as I stay true to that, I'm happy
doing this. If I ever get forced into doing something,
like I've had sponsorship deals, they're like, we want you
to do this, I'm like, that's okay. I don't need
your money. I didn't have this three years ago. I
don't need it.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great way to sort of people
always to tell you to protect the brand, so to speak.
And that's a really important thing to do. And I
often I was thinking of things to ask you, and
I go, there had to be a day in the
Navy where you were just sort of scared shitless as
to what could go down? Right, Well, you don't need
to you don't need to say anything. But and then
I go, so here on a day I really don't
want to get on a plane to Seattle. You go,
oh wait, I'm getting on a plane to Seattle. You
know what I'm saying to do for people? Yeah? You know?
Well right, but you can understand. I always say it's relative.
But your experience, I think can bring you back to
oh no, people are gonna be happy to see me.
You know, I'm not eating slop and see for six
months and on a carrier waiting for you know, somebody
to come. You know, Putin will do whatever with a submarine.
I think that that's got to keep things in perspective.
And to me, uh, maybe it's a gift, right, Maybe
it's a gift. You did all those other stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, there is not a moment that I would
change in my life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, give me real quick. The uh the handles for
people like TikTok Instagram, if you don't mind, they want
to look you up. I know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's the dad Bod veteran on all places, and
you can go to the Dadbod Veteran dot com and
you've got the list and all the way all right there. Yeah,
it makes it really easy.
Speaker 2: Go on there and watch. By the way, TikTok. I
always love when uh my kid tells me I I
was on TikTok for a little while and then I
stopped posting videos and things because it's a monster you
got to keep. Oh yeah, it's one of these things
you gotta do. I mean I would assume, do you
like batch record a bunch of things and put them
out every day, or.
Speaker 1: Well I've transitioned to most recently, I transition a little
bit away from the reaction stuff, or if I've trickled
down on the reaction stuff and now I'm doing these
daily dad Bod videos where I'm actually writing a script
where I pick a topic whatever it is, like this morning,
I picked a top but about taking baths and the
fact that I take a bath, and I decided to
do a video explaining sarcastically why I take a bath
from a gen xer's perspective about my achy joints and
EPs and salts and you know, this is my peaceful
place and blah blah blah. And I do one of
those every day, and maybe I'll do some reaction videos
that day, maybe not, but it's just my morning thing
that I do. Now as I make one daily dad
bod video and it's starting to catch on, people are like,
I needed this every day because it always ends in
a positive note. You know, no matter how sarcastic the
video is, no matter how insulting it is to myself,
I always end it on a positive note to give
somebody to carry something to carry forward with the rest
of the day. So I'm trying new things here and there,
because you know, as we all know and entertain you know,
what you did is only going to last for so
long and then you've got to, unfortunately reinvent yourself to
stay relatives.
Speaker 2: So why as you're talking and I'm thinking of, uh,
there's a lot of thought that goes into this. There's
a lot of I would even think. You know, especially
now that you're doing stand up, you see the power
of the words right word and word economy and all
this stuff is so important in that in that world. Uh,
teachers you tried to impress maybe along the way that
have seen you. Now have they reached out and complimented
you on on what you're doing. I'm just curious.
Speaker 1: I haven't had any teachers, but I've had coaches, Okay, okay,
coaches that are like, you're the you were the big
dumb animal, Like how are you doing it?
Speaker 2: That's That's where I'm going, because there's it's it takes
an intelligence to do this. It takes the thing. And
I go sometimes, you know, I don't know about you.
I was probably more the I like living on the edge,
even as a kid, right, so I'd be right on
the edge of always getting in trouble, being the smart
ass or being whatever. And to have somebody who you
always wanted their approval as a teacher or something, and
then yeah, even to get it later in life, I
just think that's so cool because they would go, I
never never would have thought you would do this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And that's the same thing with all the friends from
my high school, They like, I never would have pegged
you to be the guy. Yeah, and I'm like, neither
would I. So we're both in the same boat. But
I was the riddling baby, so I was the bouncing
off the walls of riddling baby and then the big
dumb animal in high school. But it wasn't because I
was the big dumb animal. I was very smart. It
was just I was lazy, so I didn't want to
do it. Right now I'm in a scenario where I
want to do this, So it's very easy to apply
yourself when it's something that you see is valuable.
Speaker 2: It's something to always keep in mind as parenting too,
right to realize that with your own kids and not
try to beat them up too much. I guess on
some of these things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard. That's that's really hard. It's so hard.
That's hard, but they're all you know. My goal with
my kids has always been that they need to be
independent first and then they can be successful. I don't
care if you're successful. I care more that you're independent
just in case, you know, the world decides that my
time is over. I want you to be able to
live and survive. So every life lessons that I've ever
given to them has been all about that first and
then we'll be successful.
Speaker 2: It's been a pleasure talking to you. And I apologize
for the informal meandering that I did with this, but.
Speaker 1: No, this is this is cool. I love doing it.
Speaker 2: It is fun, and I think you're probably you're very
natural at talking and stuff. And man, I hope when
you guys are in Buffalo and March that maybe we
put together a bus and go up and.
Speaker 1: See you come on, man, bring it on. You'll give
me a holler before you come, and we'll take care
of you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be uh, that would be a lot
of fun, and it would be fun to kind of see
if you can do it.
Speaker 1: Maybe you can do a live one, get all four
us on there.
Speaker 2: That would be a lot of fun. That actually would
be a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: Oh listen, I tell you what you get the four
of us in a room, and it's watching four rabbit
monkeys fight. I mean we are. The dynamics between the
four of us is insane. There have been people that
have come into the group, a very small group, and
they're like, what the is going on with these guys,
And We're like, there's just four creatives who are all
kind of spastic working together.
Speaker 2: Right, and yeah it's magic, yep. But it's crazy to
watch content creation. I think it's I love it, and
I love that it's the gen X people taking over
and doing it. I think that's fantastic. You're never too old, right.
Speaker 1: We're no longer the forgotten generation. We are now the
generation that no one will forget.
Speaker 2: Awesome, well, said John Wellington. A pleasure, Thank you so
much for your time.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, thank you, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: All right, just one last thing. It's just me sitting here.
So I wanted to find a way to talk about
the Jimmy Kimmel situation. Maybe a little differently. I saw
Dave Portnoy, who I always appreciate people who have opinions
that I feel like are thought based, right, which I
know that sounds kind of dumb. Right to have an opinion,
you got to be thinking, But I feel like may
he made a point I think some people will agree with.
He said, what happened to Jimmy Kimmel is not cancel culture,
because cancel culture involves digging up things from the past,
tweets and things on people and using that to make
them less popular or get them or knock them down,
so to speak. And my answer back to that is
I disagree with that statement. I think that sure, that's
how certain people seemed to get canceled from past behaviors.
Probably the most notable would be Bill Cosby, and we go, well,
maybe it should have happened, right, I mean, he was
pretty disgusting in what he was accused of doing. And
when you have sixty women coming out and saying it
all happened to them in one or two, you can
kind of goa, they're making it up. This you certainly can't. So,
but I don't necessarily agree with that. And I was
thinking Roseanne bar was canceled and kicked off her show
for a tweet that she sent out a social media
post that she tried to say she was on Ambient
and people were highly offended by it. And again ABC
ironically decided that she shouldn't be on the show anymore
because it would possibly lose advertisers coase what she wrote
was considered so controversial. I just here's the thing that
I go back to, and I'm hoping people really really
see this point, because I again I think these these
situations become emotionally charged, and when we're emotionally charged, we're
not necessarily thinking logically or understanding others' points. And that's why,
like I saw the Portnoy thing, and I go, maybe
your first ace full of shit. Well, no, he has
a valid argument there. I'm not going to agree with
it because I think cancel is just being canceled for
something you said, whether it's in the present moment or
the past. Especially if it's in the past and the
person has a pattern of doing better, why are we
going to punish them for something they did a long
time ago? And Day's right. Not necessarily famous people, but
students have lost scholarships for something they wrote. You know,
they were picked by a school to play wide receiver
I don't know at a D one level, and then
they're they're gone. They lose the scholarship because of something
they put out when they were fourteen fifteen years old
at social media. Is there a lesson in there? Yes,
the lesson would be be careful what you're putting out
on social media and words have consequences. And that was
more of Portnoy's point with Jimmy Kimmel that what he
said had consequences. Yes, And I go back to you know,
and I've said this continuously now for a couple of
weeks over different situations. It's a business decision if you
start losing money as a network and you're also on
government airwaves. But when you see headlines like the FCC
head was offended by what this person said, Saying offensive
things is not illegal, Saying offensive things should not cost
you your job. And I'm not again, he's suspended, not
fired as of the moment. But can we start to
see a pattern of you know, the President did say
Colbert is just the beginning and the other two better
be blah blah blah. Sure, Jimmy, he would go at
the president, But isn't that what we want in a
free speech world? And again ABC, so if it's government airwaves,
I would look for these shows to start showing up
online in some way. You know, the only thing that
Late night really has is the personality. And you know,
you can say I'm glad Jimmy Kimmel's gone, right, but
what about somebody you really like and if they said
something that was controversial and taken away, it comes down
to sort of this power struggle, you know, I still
will say the Charlie Kirk situation, to me is a
free speech issue that concerns me gravely over the fact
that people not express ideas that they believe to be
true and trying to be beneficial. And I know there
are people going do you hear the things he said?
He said things that were inflammatory, but if we got
to the root of it, I really do feel like
he was challenging people to defend their positions and think critically.
I don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing. However,
I understand, but I can't cheer that person being killed.
And I certainly think that other people will say less
now because somebody has died for saying that, we can
say we're going to be brave and stuff, and even
Charlie apparently I think there was a bulletproof vest on right,
So it's I just the whole thing is mind boggling
to me and upsetting. And then to see the Kimmel thing,
I go, now, we're on the other side right when
we're silencing another voice that was giving a different opinion
and it's one that you don't agree with, so you
get to silence it. And that's what this in my opinion,
seems to look like the argument can certainly be made.
We're gonna lose money if he keeps saying these things.
We don't want to support it. That's a business decision.
But when it's the head of the FCC didn't like
what was said and it was somewhat innocuous, then now
we need to We're gonna shut this person down. That's
not American. It's not American. Let me know your thoughts.
I'm always always open to hearing them. You can text
any time. The numbers right there on the bottom of
the screen five eight five two O six eighty eight
sixty six, and you can always hit me up on
email as well. And I appreciate you listening, and I'd
love to hear people's opinions on this. But I do
worry that this is you know, we're silencing people right
one by killing somebody and now one by a government
agency saying I didn't like the way you said that. Now,
that to me is not American. I don't know. I
don't know how you feel, but I'm open to the discussion,
and I appreciate you more than you even know. For
myself and for John Wellington, the dad bod veteran. I've
the Moran. We'll see them all. We'll see it Monday.
I'm ti a TV. I want to rule a letter
to you Dad. Mat about the United State. Seem they
were looking borrow kind of light with tennis. Eve me