The standup comic (Lights Out) (aka @BSComedian) and Iraq War vet opens up about his unstable childhood – being lied to and moved from foster home to foster home – and how it has affected him, what he learned about white people while serving in the Marines, battling Major Depressive Disorder and his thoughts on cultural appropriation.

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Episode Transcript:



Welcome to Episode 466 with my guest, Brian Simpson. I am Paul Gilmartin. And this here, this here podcast, this'n here thing is the Mental Illness Happy Hour. It's a, it's a place for honesty about all the battles in your head, from medically-diagnosed conditions, past traumas and sexual dysfunction, to simple, everyday compulsive, negative thinking. I'm not a therapist. I'm a former stand-up comedian and TV host. I'm still a professional jackass. And, uh, this, this podcast is not meant to be a substitute for professional mental counseling. It's a peer-to-peer thing. And, uh, we've been doing it … nine years. God, I can't believe it's, it's been that long.

[00:00:52] I've had one of those weeks that is just, uh, Christmasy. And for those of you that don’t enjoy Christmas, you know (laughs), you know what I mean. Th-, there's that, I have that feeling, like when I see lights go up or somebody getting excitedly talking about Christmas, I just feel left behind. It's, it, it's a feeling like … standing out in the backyard, looking in through the window at everybody having a party that you're not invited to, and … I think it's easy to kind of adopt a cynical attitude about … about Christmas or the holidays.

And, and, um, but for so many of us, we're not exaggerating. It just really is something to be endured, rather than something to look forward to. And I WISH I looked forward to it. But I think the catastrophizing part of our brain has so much past information to load that the pictures it creates in anticipation of Christmas moments, it's pretty based in, in fact. But I think it also keeps us kind of in that place where we're listening to the fear in our body, rather than just being open to a potential moment that changes our, our view of what Christmas is.

I dunno. I've just been feeling numb, a bit melancholy, and REALLY having trouble getting things done. Dishes piling up, not making the bed, waking up at 1:30, um … you know, still going to my support group meetings, still sharing with people, but still feeling that there's something that I'm missing, some key to unlock the numbness and the detachment that I'm feeling, that I just can't see or I'm too lazy to pursue. And so, on top of feeling numb and detached, I also feel lazy and stupid. (Laughs) And that can count as multitasking, thinking those four things at the same time.

[00:02:59] You know, I've been, I've been sharing with my—Maybe this would be a good place to, uh, plug our, our sponsor, betterhelp.com. I've been … sharing all of this with my, my therapist. And one of things that she helps me with is kind of to, to separate, what are the facts on the ground from what are my negative self-beliefs. What are the, the things that I tell myself that keep me stuck? And sometimes, there is, there is no way out, other than through it and just kind of enduring it and waiting for, for it to change. But sometimes there are negative self-beliefs that I, that I have that I, um, that I need to look at. And, uh, regarding betterhelp.com, if you wanna check it out, uh, go to betterhelp.com/mental and fill out a questionnaire. Make sure you include the "/mental" part so they know you came from this podcast. And, then filled out a questionnaire, and if they have a counselor they think is a good match for you, they’ll match you up with one. And then, you can experience a free week of counseling to see if online counseling is right for you. And you need to be over 18.

[00:04:05] Anyway, I know there's a lot of you that, that relate, uh, to it. And sending ya, sending ya some love. We have some, uh—I'm gonna, uh, load up most of the surveys before the interview here. And we have some great awfulsome moments. For those of you that are new to the podcast, uh, an awfulsome moment is something that was awful at the time, but in hindsight, uh, kind of makes you chuckle, uh, or, or there was some, you know, silver lining to it. And this was filled out by a woman who calls herself "Can't Find My Keys." And she writes, "I once dated a guy who had a micro peen. We've been friends for a while and, we had a lot of mutual friends who would hang out together often. And this guy had been courting me pretty persistently for a long time. He was incredibly tall, wore a size 13 shoes, and I discovered only after we had start dating that he had the penis of a very small child. But I really liked him, and I wanted to protect his manhood, so I didn’t make a big deal about it and just tried to have a normal sex life. I even went online a special ordered a box of Trojan Snug-Fit (sp?) extra-small condom, and I would open the packet and toss it before he could see the packaging, just so I wouldn’t make him feel bad about his small appendage. One morning after a bit of a drunken sleepover, he seemed extra concerned about the fact that he could not find the condom we had used the night before. 'It's probably down the side of the bed or something,' I muttered, and rolled over. He was pretty insistent that it was nowhere to be found and that it might be up inside me. I'd never heard of such a thing, but I went to the bathroom to have a dig around, and nothing. Still, he was insisting it might be up there. So, then I had HIM dig around for it and still nothing. But throughout that day, he just kept insisting that I should probably go to a clinic and just have them check to make sure. In hindsight, I realize that this probably wasn’t the first time this had happened to him, even with the special extra-small condoms. So, I went to have one of the most embarrassing clinical experiences imaginable, where I had to put my legs in stirrups and let a random male clinic doctor pull out the forceps and get right up there. And sure enough, pulled out a used condom that was lodged so far up my vagina that it couldn’t be reached without the help of a doctor's forceps. The doctor claimed, 'This happens all the time.' But it's possible he was just trying to ease the awkward tension. He then commended me for coming in so soon, because many women don’t realize this has even happened until days later, when it starts to stink to high heaven." Sorry for that, uh, that visual. "About a week later, I was looking around for my keys and couldn’t find them anywhere. And my underendowed boyfriend said to me, 'Did you check inside your vagina?'" (Laughs) (Sighs) Oh my god. Something you don’t really hear very often is men, uh … talking about a partner's vagina being too large. And I wonder if that's a bit of a double-standard. Because there's a bit of a, uh … I dunno, a punchline quality to recalling some guy having a … a small penis. But, you know, I wondered if you, if you were in the same group of, of let's say people at a cocktail party and you were anony-, sharing about an anonymous person that you had had sex with that—and let's hope that you're doing this around people you’ve never met before (laughs)—and you were sharing about somebody that you had had sex with that had a, a, a, micro penis. I, I … I'm sure it would elicit laughter. But I wonder if instead of that conversation … somebody talked about somebody that had a really large vagina, if, if it would get the same reaction, if it would … still be considered punchline worthy. I dunno. Just a thought.

[00:08:24] This is an awfulsome moment filled out by a non-binary person who calls themself, uh, "Assigned Fuck-Up At Birth." And they write, "I'm from London, but I have a large extended Irish family. Every year, in the run-up to Christmas, I find myself at gatherings of 30 to 40 relatives that create the perfect cocktail of alcohol, passive aggression, unprocessed family trauma, and hours together in overcrowded terrace houses. Usually, as a queer person with borderline personality disorder and as a survivor of sexual violence by an intimate partner, these events are a nightmare. I find the noise alone too much to deal with, and then I have to spend hours being asked questions about my future, when will I have kids and a husband, people speculating about how well I am. Like most people, it feels like family know exactly how to push my buttons. This year, the first of many Christmas parties, set an all-time record, and for once it was so awfulsome all I could do was laugh. Sitting, eating pineapple and cheese on a stick, my aunt gave me a small, lovingly-wrapped present. I thanked her and said she shouldn't have. I didn’t realize how prophetic that comment would be. I carefully unwrapped the shiny box, only to find a small, gray, plastic rape alarm. Amongst the noise, no one had seen it but my sister, who sat next to me. We met each other's eyes and part of me wanted to just break down. What was my aunt thinking? My family all know my history. Instead, me and my sister just started laughing, and I whispered to her, 'Five years too late.' Still reeling, we made a beeline for the garden where we had a smoke. My dad's girlfriend was there and after five minutes, she turned to my hyper-body-conscious sister and asked if she had put on weight. Later, when the party was over, my sister messaged me and said, 'What a fucking afternoon, right?' I texted back, 'I know, right. I'm so glad you were there, though.' She said, 'Me, too.' We weren’t always the closest of siblings, but the day made me remember that she has my back and that she's willing to remind me that it's not all in my head. We won't stop being a dysfunctional, sprawling family anytime soon. But sometimes, we can laugh through the more surreal moments." Oh, that is fantastic. The (laughs), the capper: Did you put on some weight? That's like out of a movie. Out of a movie. Thank you for that.

[00:10:56] This is an awfulsome moment filled out by a woman who calls herself (chuckles) "Poopseroni." And she writes, "A recent awfulsome moment from my life is when my long-term boyfriend, who I have lived with for a year and a half, told me late at night that he didn’t wanna be in a relationship anymore. Both of us went into panic. I had a really intense panic attack that felt like I was dying. I could not breathe. And then, he ran to the bathroom to throw up. When he got back from the bathroom, I rant to the bathroom to poop. This happened three more times over the next 10 minutes or so, alternating between him vomiting and me pooping right after him. The decision he made to end our relationship has been incredibly terrible and painful for me, and I had to move out of our home and leave our dog. But there is something about that night that just makes me laugh because it is so funny to me that we took turns running to the toilet to stress vomit or poop, and then back to the bedroom to keep talking and crying. And, I have not had a normal poop since then, and this happened about six weeks ago." (Laughs) Oh, you guys are giving me Christmas presents early. A good awfulsome moment is like a—Any survey that, that moves me or makes me laugh or makes my jaw drop is, uh, is a little, tiny Christmas present.

[00:12:23] One of our sponsors for today is Remrise. A lot of us struggle with sleep: getting good quality sleep, falling asleep when we wanna fall asleep. And Remrise can help you with that. It's a personalized sleep solution, and it uses natural plant-based formulas to help calm the mind, relax the body, and get your circadian rhythm on track for a better, more restorative sleep. It's drug free, there's no groggy side effects. I can tell you; I have made it a part of my night time routine. And, they will customize … based on the input you give them—you take a little quiz online and they, you know, ask you questions like, you know, do you find yourself ruminating when you're having trouble falling asleep, etcetera, etcetera. And the one that recommended for me is one called Power Off, because, um, apparently I … have trouble shutting, shutting my brain down, turning, turning my motherboard off when I, when I lay down at night. So, all you have to do, go to getremrise.com/mental. Take their free quiz. And, um, there's also a digital app that you can use to track your sleep progress. And it also included guided meditation. So, uh, check out Remrise today. Go to getremrise.com/mental. Take their sleep quiz and when you guys sign up, you'll get your first week of Remrise free. And all you have to pay for is shipping. And you won't find an offer like this anywhere else. Get your first week of Remrise for free when you sign up at getremrise.com/mental. That's getremrise.com/mental.

[00:14:05] And then, uh this is one more survey before we get to the interview with Brian Simpson. This is an awfulsome moment filled out by a woman who calls herself "Sunflower." And she writes, "I grew up in a dysfunctional household with an abusive dad and a codependent mother who was a victim of sexual abuse, so it wasn’t so surprising that I felt like I had to lose my virginity right after I turned 15 years old. So, eight days after my birthday, which happened to be Valentine's Day, I had my boyfriend come over. My mom was out of town visiting my stepdad. This boyfriend was 18 years old, had a Dawson's Creek haircut, played Dungeons and Dragons, and was goofy as fuck. But, he was sweet and funny, so I was 'in love,' I guess. Boyfriend had his dad drop him off that night, and we go into my room and start to mess around. He wanted to go down on me and I was hesitant and nervous because it made me uncomfortable, but I let him anyways. So I'm laying on my back on top of the covers, completely naked, and he is not. And he looks up, right at me, before he starts and asks me, 'Who won the presidential election?' Without thinking, I answer, 'Bush.' I then tell him to get the fuck out of my house." (Laughs) "I was mortified. So he leaves my house at ten o'clock at night, in the cold, on foot, to walk about four or five miles up in the mountains of central California. Did I feel bad? No, I did not. No wonder he was a virgin. But don’t worry, I ended losing my virginity a few months later, after a 420 party to a Slip Knot-loving, pot smoking, 16-year-old gut who, a few years later after our relationship, was expelled from school and ended up on house arrest for accidentally starting a fire with a cigarette. And no, there was no bush."

Intro

[00:17:03] Paul: I'm here with, uh, Brian Simpson, who … somebody turned me onto. I think it was, uh, Ry Doon, who was a guest a couple of months back. It was some comedian, I, and I can't remember--

Brian: It, maybe it was Ry Doon, yeah.

Paul: I, I think so. But he said you gotta interview this guy. He's a stand-up comic, he served in Iraq, and, uh, and he deals with depression. I was like, "Check, check, check!" And then I, uh, I just watched your stand-up the other day, the set from, uh, David Spade show. What's, what the name of his show again?

Brian: Lights Out.

Paul: Lights Out. And I was telling Brian as, as we were munching in the kitchen, uh, very little stand-up comedy makes me laugh or surprises me. And I so enjoyed your set. It was just so refreshing and, um, just, just great. It's just great. You really dry wit, great, great writer and great thinker. And I, my favorite comics are the ones that really, just kind of think outside the box. They have a way of looking at things, um, that—I, I, I guess that sounds kind of obvious. But anyway, I just wanted to gush about your stand-up for a little bit on mic.

Brian: Thank you.

Paul: Where do we start? You're, you're from Maryland.

Brian: I am. I'm from Maryland.

Paul: And then you lived in San Diego for a while, when you joined the Marines. But let's, let's go, let's start with Maryland. What, what was like, uh, life like, where in Maryland?

Brian: I grew up in, uh, PG County, Maryland, southern Maryland, which is basically like the, the, the DC-Maryland-Virginia circle there. And, and I, um, you know, I was, I was in foster care from a very young age. So just a long of bouncing around, home to home to home to home to home to home to home—

Paul: Holy shit.

Brian: You know. And so, I, uh, you know, whether it be family members or, or, um, strangers or whatever, I just, I must have moved, you know, I must have moved probably … 14 times.

Paul: How many different sets of, uh, caretakers have you had in your life?

Brian: Well, some of them were more than once.

Paul: So, you'd go back to somebody.

Brian: Yeah, sometimes. Yeah, or, um, so, um, lemme see … I probably, I lived with, one, two … three … four people. I lived with four people twice. So—Damn, I've never even really thought about the, no, how many. So, lemme see. (Pauses) So probably nine …

Paul: Damn.

Brian: Nine different, uh, people.

Paul: Where were mom and dad in the picture?

Brian: (Clears throat) Well, I mean, I, I—My mom was … um, in California, iron-, (chuckles) ironically. I guess that's, that's not ironic. But, no, she, yeah, she was in California, um, for, you know, for various reasons. And, my dad, I actually lived with my dad for some of those, a couple of those years. But it was a whole, a whole, weird-like dynamic, you know what I mean, where my, my mom had, my mom was a teenage, was a teen mom, and she was living with her mom, who dated a-, abusive men. And she … couldn’t take it anymore. She like burned one of them with an iron, and like, and then, and it, it turned into this BIG THING, and she ended up just having to leave. But she couldn’t afford to like take us, you know. And but, she, I think, you know, she knew that her mom wouldn’t let anything happen to us. Like her mom was our best bet. So whether, you know, it was like, it was better, to her, it was better for her, us to be with her mom than to be with her out on the road as a teen, you know, as a 18-year-old with, you know I mean, with two—So, she left us with her mom … and, um …

Paul: And so, did you endure abuse from your grandmother's boyfriends?

Brian: No. No, not never. Never. My gra—Oh, no—My, see, that, I mean … She would put up with a lot of shit from (chuckles), from dudes, but that was one thing where she didn’t play that shit. You know, it was like—I mean, seriously, I mean … dude would, uh—I mean, I watched her put up with a lot of abuse, but when it came—

Paul: Towards herself?

Brian: Towards herself, right. But—

Paul: And it sounds like, also, towards her daughter.

Brian: No. I don’t think my mom, no, I don’t think so.

Paul: Oh, so your, your mom was sticking up for your grandma.

Brian: Right. My mom was sticking up for my grandma, right.

Paul: I gotcha.

Brian: And, and, you know, because … that the weird thing. It's like if one of them had done something to one of her kids, I think my grandma woulda killed that motherfucker, you know. Or, maybe they did, you know, because me and my mom never really go that deep into it, you know. But, uh, but, um—Shit, I could do a whole podcast with my mother. Probably talk, just talking about all those years, you know. But—

Paul: You should.

Brian: Maybe I should. Yeah, maybe I will. But … BUT, you know, (unintelligible), when, when my mom was in the picture, I saw my, I saw my father often. But my grandma didn’t like him. So when my mom left, I never, I didn’t even know where he was or any of that. Like, cuz my grandma was like, "Nah."

Paul: It … Do have any memories of what you felt or thought back during those time periods?

Brian: I, I, I know that like, there was a series of events in that early time that, that e-, that eroded my trust in … um, authority, you know. And, I, I, I don’t think I've ever really regained that. It's, it, you know, because you still, when you, you know, even as an adult, even all these years later, you still have, you have to deal with the same … because it's your foundation, you know. And so, you can't re- … you know, it's ha-, it's so hard to like redo that and relearn how to feel, you know.

Paul: (Stutters)

Brian: And so—

Paul: Put it so perfectly. And, to learn how to trust again, the biggest hurdle is to realize that you're not even trusting, because it just seems like common sense.

Brian: And, well, thing is, I, I didn’t lose the trust, cuz … cuz my mom was always very … um, she's always been, uh, uh, uh … uh, pragmatic, you know. So she was always very—And she always respected my intelligence. No, at, even when I was very, very young. So, she didn’t have a problem explaining things to me, if I was curious about them.

Paul: Were you a little philosopher even back then?

Brian: I was. I, like—Well, you know, if I wanted to know something, she knew that I would go find out if she didn’t tell me. So, she didn’t tell me like bullshit, like, uh, you know … One time, she told me babies came from the cabbage patch, you know.

Paul: (Chuckles)

Brian: You know. And—

Paul: You said, "Then why are you fucking so much?"

Brian: (Laughs) No! But I came back, I came back from school the next day, and I, and I, and I … and I told her, and I was like, "Well I found out babies come from vaginas." And, from that moment on, she was like, "Okay, look."

Paul: (Laughs)

Brian: (Laughs) "Look, we'll just, we'll talk about it like when you can, you know, when you know more." And I'm like, "A'ight." But—So after, after that, it was like if I asked her about something, she would—So anyway, when she left, she … um, she told us that she le-, like she didn’t just like disappear. She like sat me and my brother down and was like, "I gotta go. These is the reasons. I'ma, I'll be back; I promise." Blah, blah, blah, blah. So, that wasn’t, that didn’t damage us, or at least not me. Actually, I've never really spoken to my brother about it either. But, but … um … But then we, uh, we ended up being home alone one day and one of the neighbors or one of, somebody else had called the cops and said we were home alone. And that was a weird thing. And … um, and we ended up being taken from my grandma cuz, you know, we were latchkey kids. And we were given to our auntie … who lived upstairs in the, in the same apartment building. And … um, and that was a weird situation, too. But then … uh, my brother, my, me and, my brother and I have different fathers. And his father's mom was a foster ki-, mom, So my, my auntie, who now all of a sudden had four kids—cuz she had two of her own—and all of a sudden she has four kids, she's like, "I can't, I can't do it." So, she, so she put us in foster care, right. And, and this is where my trust was fucked up. It's because … um, because … because she told us that we were going to—

Paul: Six Flags?

Brian: No. She told us we were going to—Cuz my, my brother's grandma lived in the suburbs. So, so at this point, we live in, we living in Southeast DC—Mar-, you know, Martin Luther King Avenue. And, my gra-, his grandma lived in the suburbs. Like, she had a nice house, she, you know, they had cable, they had Nintendos. You know, it was like, they were living good over there. But, she was kind of an asshole. So, it was like one of 'em things where it was like, if we … visited, it was good for a little while, but it was like, yeah, all right, let's get the fuck up outta here. Cuz she, you know, cuz she could cook, you know, it was like nice. And she goes, "Yeah, we going over, we going over Grandma's for, for, for Christmas," you know. And we got all ready, got all, packed all our stuff up. And then, you know, Christmas came and went and (laughs), and then she didn’t come back and get us. It was like, "What—" And, and, and I was the last one to know, you know. And I was do furious. I was so furious, because it was in the middle, it … was in the middle of arguing with one of the kids there … you know. And it was like, you know, and I don’t know, I wa-, I wa-, I definitely didn’t have the balls to say fuck you, but I was saying something to th-, to that effect, whatever the kid equivalent to that was. But I was like, "Fuck you. I can't wait 'til we go home," you know. And the kid was like, "What? You live here!" And I was like, "NO, no the fuck we don't." And I remember (laughs), everybody was like—

Paul: This is your, your auntie's … uh—

Brian: No, this is at my brother's grandmom's house.

Paul: OHHHH! Okay.

Brian: So we were living at, we were living with our aunt.

Paul: Gotcha—

Brian: And then we, we went—

Paul: You visited.

Brian: We went to visit there for Christmas, but in reality, we were, we ,we-, we had been put in foster care—

Paul: I got you. Holy shit—

Brian: You know. And when I found, when I found out, I was … I … You know, I think it was the first time in my life that I was ever enraged. And I didn't, and … At the time, I couldn't've put a word on it, but I was so fucking angry and I felt so powerless. I was so angry (laughs), I can't, I couldn’t believe it. Yeah. That was, that was the first little straw. And then I, um, they start making you go to therapy right off the bat, right. And I remember them trying to prescribe me Ritalin when I was like six or seven years old, right, which was … um, I forget what they call it now, what they giving the kids, but it's, uh—

Paul: Were you a hyper kid?

Brian: Well, I was diagnosed with, um … It wasn’t ADHD back then. It was just, it was just—

Paul: ADD—

Brian: ADD, right. And they get, and they—Yeah, they prescribe me Ritalin. I wasn’t a hyper kid. I was, uh … I just wanted to do, I was just—

Paul: You became easily bored by something and your brain moved onto the next thing?

Brian: Right, right, just—Which, which, which was weird because they see that as a weakness, which I don’t think it is anymore. But anyway, they give, they try to give me the pill, and it tastes like shit so I didn’t take it. And then I remember … like after a couple of weeks or a month or two of doing it, I remember … go-, going to the parent-teacher conference, and the, and the, and the teacher and the school, the gui-, the guidance counselor, and all of them, they were all sitting around talk-, they were all sitting around patting themselves on the back, like, "Oh, I, I, I see the progress …" and not knowing that I wasn’t taking the pill. And I'm sta-, I'm sitting there. And I'm sitting there like, "The—" You know, and I—Again, my language wasn’t the same, but the sentiment was the same. I was just like, "These mah-fuckas are full of shit." So I didn't, so … from, from—

Paul: That was the second straw.

Brian: That was, that was the second straw. But that's all it took for me, you know. I was just like, "Man, I'm just going—" At that time, I wasn’t 100, like 1000 percent rebellious … but, I was … It, that's, that's, that's what got me going. I was like, "Whenever I get the opportunity, I'ma do what I want."

Paul: Would it be safe to say that you realized that you … can't depend on anybody and that you alone are in charge of your destiny? Was that …

Brian: Well, I (clears throat) …

Paul: Or was it just those group of people you couldn’t depend on?

Brian: No, it was definitely not that. You know, because, because at the—Like if you had asked me at the time, I woulda said this was the worst, these are the worst people (laughs), you know I mean? They're mean—cuz that was my word for everything, like they're, they're mean, you know. But, looking back on it with, with hindsight, I just think it was … um … um … it was, it was very similar to what happened to me in school, but, but emotionally, right, where it's like you will go, you know, you get, you, you, you get sent to a new school in the middle of the school year. And you get there, and the, and, and, uh, and the curriculum is different or the class is in a different spot or you just in a completely different classes than you were at your last place, and you just behind, right. And it's the same thing. It's like you go to a new home … and the emotional foundation is different. Like the basics are different. So what's expected of you … is, you know, it's assumed that you, that you already have certain shit—For, for example, it's like my, when I lived with my grandma, it's was like she was on top of EVERYTHING we did, you know. It was like you, if you … you know, if you walked in the house and she was like, "Where's your homework?" you know, she wanted to look at it. She wanted to see it. She wanted to make sure you understood it, and all of this. But this new, this new foster home, she had too many kids to be doing that shit. So, it was just like, you know, it was like, "Do you have homework: yes or no? Oh, okay. Well, if your report card come and it's, and you don’t have good grades, you gon' get your ass whooped. But I'm not gonna be on top of it every single day," you know.

Paul: Gotcha.

Brian: And that’s what I mean, or it's like ... um … just like, it's just like little, little, little stuff like that, where it's like, you're, you, you, you become like an emo- … um, like, like an outsider, an emotional outsider in the, in the, in the tribe, you know.

Paul: What's that feel like?

Brian: I don’t know. It felt normal to me. Like … after a while, it just felt like normal. Th-, that's the thing, you don’t really, like I, I didn’t walk around like feeling like some fucked-up kid, you know. I didn’t realize really—

Paul: You didn’t, you didn’t say out loud, "My emotional needs are not being met?"

Brian: (Laughs) Right; nah! I just, I just didn’t—And I think I was, you know, I frustrated a great many a therapists because I ne-, I very rarely did I open up to any of 'em.

Paul: as a kid, you mean, in therapy—

Brian: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Cuz th-, and this was, this was the last straw, was, uh … I remember being sent to therapy one time, and, uh, and the therapist, you know, going through the whole, they whole rigamarole (sp?), the whole, the whole, you know, "You can trust me, and, but," you know, "unless you say you gonna hurt yourself," and all that other stuff. And we go through this long, you know, session or whatever, and, uh … and then I'm like, "All right, take it easy." And she's like, "Oh, no, no, no. Just wait," you know, "Just wait in the lobby. I have to talk to, um, your foster mom," or whatever. And … and then she spent like 30 minutes talking to her, you know. And I, and, and after that, I remember being like, you know, "Wa-, wait a minute. What, what were you talking to her about?" (Chuckles) And she's like, "Oh, just some stuff." It was like, it was like they had a secret me—Cuz like you ain't in therapy, muthafucka. Why does what y'all talk about have to be a secret, you know? Cuz she just told me that whatever I said to her is between me and her. So what the fuck is she talking to you about, you know I mean? And they, and they wouldn’t tell me, you know. And I'm like, "Fuck this," you know I mean. (Laughs) Yeah. And so, every time they try to send me to therapy, I would just sit there until—And, you know, after about four or five of those sessions, they’ll stop wanting, they’ll be like this is pointless, you know. And so—

Paul: Ha-, have there been, uh, I, I guess I should say, are there … things in your life where that feeling of rage … comes up again, uh, situations where you can remember feeling rage that intensely as you did when you were lied to?

Brian: Yeah, because … um—Yeah, because I think my rage is often rooted in … things is not making sense, you know, not adding up, you know.

Paul: Not necessarily people being deceptive?

Brian: Right, but I, I see, I think … I would definitely be upset with someone being deceptive. It'd definitely mistrustful of someone that I thought was being deceptive. But I would … But if they had no reason to be, like no logical reason that I could …

Paul: I see.

Brian: … that I could ascertain why they, why they're being deceptive. That is what would make me enraged. When I was like you're just being evil for the sake of it, like, you know, like you're The Joker or something, you know.

Paul: Right. (Laughs) Right.

Brian: It's like, I just, I just have this, I have this like desperate need to make sense of thing, you know.

Paul: That, that makes sense.

Brian: And so, it's like people that hur-, people that, people that try and hurt you for no reason … are the people that like … you know, I just, I got, I got no sympathy for.

Paul: Are there any examples that you can think of?

Brian: No, no, not really. Like a, like a mass shooter. Like somebody that's like … ma-, because … um—Actually, I talk about this on stage a little; it hasn’t gotten, it hasn’t gotten a really, got, really gotten it to work yet. But, but, it's like—

Paul: Really, your mass shooting bit isn't—

Brian: (Laughs) Well, not the—

Paul:—isn't bringing the house down?

Brian: Well, just this little piece of it. But it's like I would … I would have, I would have far more sympathy for … uh, for, uh, a student that went back to school and shot the muthafucka that was picking on him … rather than just shooting up everybody in the class, right. Because that, it's senseless (chuckles), you know. And that’s what would enrage me. Where it's like, "Oh, that dude put your face in a toilet every morning. Yeah, okay, I get. I, I get. You know, not that I necessarily agree with what you did—

Paul: No. Yeah, I see—

Brian:—but I get it. You killed HIM because he was fucking with you. But you just killed ANYONE?! Like you don’t even care … innocent people?" That, I can't, I can't get past it.

Paul: So, it's, it's, it's a … to, to relax you wanna a least know what the rules are.

Brian: I don’t know. I guess I never really, um—Yeah. But I guess, I guess, yeah, that’s a good way of putting it. that’s a good way of putting it. I need to know—

Paul: The, the landscape—

Brian: It's gotta add up.

Paul: Yeah.

Brian: You know. Yeah.

Paul: What, what's the next … stage of, of your life?

Brian: So, I did—

Paul: And, and don’t let me put word in your mouth, you know. Sometimes I like to sit here and pontificate and summarize and … you know—Don’t, don’t let me do that if I'm misrepresenting what—

Brian: You're doing pretty good.

Paul: Okay.

Brian: So, then I end up, I join the military … to, um, to like get away—

Paul: Cuz you didn’t like authority? (Laughs)

Brian: Well, you know what, honestly, it was just, for me, it was just about making my own decision. That's all it was it was like, and, and like—

Paul: Was it, was … a financial … element a part of it?

Brian: No, not at all. I mean, maybe a little bit. But, but, no, what it really was was just about not … having someone else be in control of me, you know. Like that—

Paul: Hold on! Hold on! HOW is going into the military somebody not having control of you? That seems like the, the ULTIMATE version of that.

Brian: I know that, I know it seems, it seems sort of weird. But I didn’t look at it that way, because it was, it was my way to freedom. It, because … Keep in mind, it's like I've been part of this institution that is PG County … What was it?? What the fuck do they call it: PG County … Child Protective Services or whatever it is. I've been a part of this institution my, my whole life. All, you know. And now I'm 18, and it's like … (sighs) you know. And, and I was in this, I had just started their little program of, they wanna, like they’ll … take care of you until you're 21, as long as you in class. And you gotta go, you know, they gotta come and take you grocery shopping and come and take you clothes shopping once a month or twice a year or some shit. And I just was so over that. I was so over it being THEM telling me what to do—

Paul: Got you. Got you.

Brian: The, like this, this … Cuz it’s this, it’s just this organization that's like hovering over your life, and then every now and then they'll swoop down and fu-, and fuck it all up and like change it all around, you know. And I, and I just was, I was just over that, you know. It was probably the, the smarter decision to stay in foster care and, and get my degree. But I was just like fuck you. I'll join the military and get my degree that way, you know.

Paul: It, it also seems like the military would probably … uh … be more upfront about what it is that they expect of you that … there would be more, uh, logic to what it, what the rules are. (Both laugh) You know what I mean? Like—

Brian: Well, I don’t know if that's quite how I would put it.

Paul: I, I dunno. Th-, that’s my interpretation as somebody who has never been in the military, is it seems like ... you know, the ru-, it's all about the rules. So you have them pounded into your head: you can do this, you can't do this. Whereas it sounds like in, in, where you were bouncing around from house to house, you're a bit off-balance with what's okay and what's not.

Brian: Right. Well … yeah, I'll say that. In, in the, in the military, for the most part, the rules are pretty straight forward … though a lot of them are up to the interpretation of the—Really, it's, really it's … it's a pseudo-meritocracy—

Paul: Right. (Chuckles)

Brian:—that doesn’t turn into politics until you reach a certain rank, you know. But … for me, it was just a way through—I never had any intentions of staying. I, you know, I didn’t do, I wasn’t joining out of like patriotic reasons. And for, for, for a split second, I thought I wanted to be a grunt and like kill people. But then, my, you know, my recruiter was like, "No, you don’t, dumbass." Cuz I scored, I scored pretty high on like the practice tests, you know. And he was like, "No. If you get this score on the real test, you can do whatever job you want, almost," you know. You can get out and get, have, make money … you know. And I was like, "Oh, okay. Yeah, you right!" (Laughs) Yeah, what am I thinking? Yeah, but for me, it was just a, a means to an end, you know, even though I'm so glad I did it, because it … it was, there was stability there that I didn’t, never had.

Paul: Talk about that.

Brian: Because I was … I forgot why I, I, um … Yeah, I was … (sighs) the, because there—The unit I was in was, uh—I got stationed in San Diego … and it was, um, a temporary … uh, thing … you know, it was a temporary thing before I got there and a little bit after.

Paul: And this is the Marines?

Brian: Right. But, but, but my, my actual unit was in Yuma, Arizona. And then, it was, it was a temporary thing, at this … base. And then it, it got turned into a permanent thing. And so, everyone that was there was sort of moved in the system from Yuma to San Diego. And so, it, that, the one move that you usually do in your career, that you usually have to do, I mean, per enlistment I mean, it, it was a, it … you know, it had technically happened for all of us already. So we ne-, I never left. I never went anywhere else, I was never in no other unit. I was never in any other platoon … you know. So—

Paul: And that's a good thing or a bad thing, or—

Brian: It’s not a good thing or a bad thing, but it's just a unusual thing, But, it was great, it was a good thing for me because I had never had, I'd never been in one place that long. I was there my whole time, and with the same people. So—not every single one, but all but like two or three of us were there our whole time.

Paul: And how many people is that?

Brian: I think that's probably—I don't know, (unintelligible)—it’s probably 40 or 50 of us. But I was only probably close to like 20 people.

Paul: Give me so-, give me some, some snapshots of your time in the service, whether it was here or, or overseas.

Brian: What you mean, snapshots?

Paul: You know, little moments in … in, in time that are, you know, paint a picture of … you know, either the, the drudgery of it or the drama of it or … something that dispels a myth about it. Just anything that kind of comes to mind.

Brian: Oh, you know what—

Paul: Even if it's something, as, that's seemingly unimportant.

Brian: I've, I've talked about the, my service a lot on other podcast. But I don’t, I don’t know if I've ever brought up the fact that, um, I did a lot of mushrooms at one point. That was the, probably the most transformative period of my entire life.

Paul: And what was your job in the platoon?

Brian: I was a, um …

Paul: Shaman? (Both laugh)

Brian: No. I was a, uh, just for simplicity's sake, a radar technician, even though I actually didn’t, I didn’t fix the radar itself. I fixed the … um, the, the box that connected to it. The tactical … what the fuck did they call it—tactical air operations module, which probably doesn't even exist anymore. Yeah, because I think, as I was getting out, it turn, it turned from a, it was a van about the size of this room, like 20 feet by, by 10 feet. And by the time I was leaving, they had, they had already, they put it, they had put it in the back of a truck. And, and so, it probably now, it's probably just a, it's probably just an app on a, on a cell phone.

Paul: (Chuckles) Probably.

Brian: Yeah, who knows. Cuz it's weird, that's the one thing where they, they, they weren’t cheap about. But, anyway … Yeah, I was, I was only black person for, for a little while because they, they'd had some kind of racial incident before I got there. So I was like the first black person there, um—

Paul: In the platoon?

Brian: In the platoon, yeah. From, from the moment I got there, you know. I don’t, I really don’t know that much about what happened before I got there. But—Cuz depending on who you asked, the story's different. But the, that was a significant thing. I did, I, I remember doing, um, like, my closest friend in the world—like still, to this day—I remember, um, being—He was new to the unit. And I remember we were at someone's house, um, for Thanksgiving or some holiday or something like that. And, they (laughs), and they, uh … they offered us weed. And, and, um, and neither one of us trusted each other, so we were both like, "Oh, no. I would never—"

Paul: (Laughs)

Brian:"—I would, uh, never do drugs. Are you kidding me," you know? (Laughs) And it's weird, because we ended up doing a lot of drugs together. Like, we ended up, uh, doing—We probably, I did, I probably did mushrooms probably about … 20 times. Maybe a little less. But, that was the most … I completely, it completely changed my way of, of, of … of, uh … of thinking. I think it was a—

Paul: How so, how so?

Brian: (Sighs) Because ...

Paul: I think, I think I understand what you're saying, because I've also done hallucinogens. But—

Brian: I think, I think it was the first time I had ever stopped and … reflected on, like self-reflection, like self-examination, in a way that was productive, you know.

Paul: Yeah, there are, are, are those moments sometimes where … you go, you go from the, the view where you are just stuck in the woods, your face is against a tree, to all of a sudden, you're pulled out above the town, above the city, above the state, above the United States. And it's like you're looking at the globe. And all of a sudden, you see all of these patterns and these interlocking things, and these, these, uh—At least, for me, those, those are the moments that felt, uh, mind-opening when I was doing hallucinogens, was, was just ... seeing things from a different perspective. Is that something you can relate to at all, or, or not?

Brian: Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Or just being aware that there were, that there was a such thing as perspective, you know.

Paul: For instance, any, any insights that you remember, uh, popping into your head and what they felt like or how you felt about yourself.

Brian: Yeah, I think the, probably the most powerful thing I, I took from that whole period—cuz it was probably like over the course of maybe like a year, year and a half—but … the most powerful thing was just that, uh … that you co-, that you can be who you choose. You know, that, that life isn't something that's just happening to you. You know, that you, you're a participant in, in it. And so, you can affect who you are. You know, the … it was just—I don’t know, it was just such a profound thing for me at the, at the time. It was like, oh, I can … shape my, my, my own self—

Paul: How I react to the things I can't control. (Laughs)

Brian: Right. Or just like—I think before that, I was just sort of a passive participant in … you know, I was only, I was only existed in the moment, and not, and not at, not in the fu-, on in the past, and not in the future. Like I, I just … I think I had just maybe never even considered the possibility that, um, that I could be a different person of something like that. Or that I could be …

Paul: In, in terms of your external circumstances or your personality and how you interact with the world, or all of the above?

Brian: You know what it is? It's like, it's like … like the first time, it was like the first you se-, there's a mirror, that you see a mirror, and you're like, "Oh, I … oh, I can control how I'm perceived. I can control what this reflection is," you know. That's what it is. It's like … it's been like, I had never looked in the mirror before, you know. And that was like, oh shit. Like I have to start, I can pay attention to … you know. I think I—Yeah, I think I just start, I stopped feeling sorry for myself and stopped feeling … um, victim—Cuz I was, I mean, I was sort of a victim of circumstances to some, to some degree. But I also realized that like … whatever debt you feel the world owes you, it’s never gonna be paid, you know.

Paul: Wow, that's—

Brian: The … the earth is in tre-, the earth is in tremendous debt to a lot of people. Just the world, the earth, the universe. It doesn’t, it do-, it's never gonna pay you.

Paul: Dude, that is so going in the opening montage of next year's podcasts. (Laughs) It's such a (laughs), it's such a great … sentence—

Brian: You already know what the opening montage of next year's podcast (unintelligible)—

Paul: I know that clip is going in there.

Brian: OH, OH, okay. I see what you're saying. I thought you meant that you already had a montage—

Paul: No! No. When somebody says something that, that, uh, really hits me, um, I'll, I'll often say to them that's going in next year's opening, opening montage. Cuz it, it's, I like to find little snippets that kind of, uh, encapsulate the vibe of the podcast, the great moments of the podcast. And that one just, uh … was such a condensed version of what this podcast is about.

Brian: Oh, okay. I'm still not quite sure what the podcast is about … BUT DON’T TELL ME!

Paul: (Laughs)

Brian: Don’t … wait 'til, wait 'til, wait 'til after. Let's—

Paul: (Laughs) Share some … overseas memories, if you, if you can.

Brian: You know, a lot of that is kind of a blur. It was mostly just boring. Yeah.

Paul: So there's no PTSD or—

Brian: Just boredom. I mean, I, I definitely think that, I think it definitely exacerbated a lot of … mental stuff that I—Because, because you know what it is? Is that, after … I joined the military before 9/11, so I didn't … you know, I didn’t have patriotic reasons. I wasn’t trying to … be a hero or none of that. I was just trying to make it out in one piece with my college money, you know.

Paul: So what were the years you were in?

Brian: 2001 to 2006. I joined in March of 2001, and then—

Paul: Oh, wow!

Brian:—and then, and 9/11 happened like six months later. And …

Paul: And did you, did you think, "Fuck?"

Brian: Yes! Yes. I was real upset. Because now there's stakes, you know. It's like … (sighs) and you're, and, you know, you have to have … trust in, you know—The, there're, there're, there're people above you that are not competent, you know, cuz you—

Paul: Who … who ha-, control your life.

Brian: Right. And, man, lucky for me, like the people above us were, were, were pretty competent, most of them. But it's like you, there's such a long chain of people that have to, you know, just … marginally know what they're doing. And you have to trust—And it's like, I, I don't. I never trust the government to get anything … you know, cuz they're gonna cut corners, you know, they're gonna give you expired shit. They gon' have you in the wrong place. You know, and you find out afterward, you know, you always hear, you always find out afterwards that, oh, the, you know, these people only survived because, you know, they just so happened to stumble—And, you know … people have so much trust in the, in the machine, you know, and I did not.

Paul: Was, was there, uh, any element of also being worried, being a person of color that, that you would be treated differently? Or, was it—

Brian: Oh, yeah. Of course—

Paul: Talk about that.

Brian: That was a constant worry for me, but ju-, just because … you, you know what it is, because a lot of racism is … you know, it's systemic. And the, the military is America, you know. And so, it, it's, it's just a, it's just a sample. You know, it's like if you took a, if you took a, a ,a, a, a eyedropper and dipped it into America and pulled it out, I mean that's what the military is, right. And so, and—But the difference is that, people, people above you in rank have absolute authority over you, at least the closest that it … it could be in America to someone that, you know. So it's like what are the chances of you encountering a racist that has unquestionable power over you? Like as long as they don’t straight-up call you a, a racial slur … you know, directly—Cuz they don’t even have to, cuz they can just fucking screw with your life … you know. And, and, uh … But it's weird, I, because I think you get so used to being treated like shit anyway that, even if (chuckles)—It’s like, I, it, I would have a hard time looking back and, and wo-, and, and figuring out what happened because I was black and what happened … for some other dumbass reason, you know.

Paul: You would have a hard time or you wouldn’t?

Brian: I would. I would have a hard time knowing which, what the reason—

Paul: What was malicious and what was just incompetence?

Brian: Well, it's all malicious, you know. Like … But I would have a hard time separating like what were the times that this happened because of racism or for some … Cuz like this person's an asshole. They're being an asshole to me. And it's like, but that, but also everyone's an asshole in America. So, it's like (chuckles), sussing out their motivations is im-, almost impossible, you know. But I'm, I'm, I know, I'm sure it happens.

Paul: What's it, what's you're thing about, uh … pennies?

Brian: Oh, the joke, the pennies joke. Did I do that on …

Paul: You did.

Brian: What do you mean, you, you want me to do that bit?

Paul: Yeah. I mean, you don’t have to perform it, but what, how does it go again?

Brian: That America, America looks at black people the way cashiers look at pennies.

Paul: Yeah. (Chuckles)

Brian: Legally, they have to accept us everywhere, but—

Paul: (Laughs)

Brian:—if you walk in with more than a handful … uh, everyone's like what the fuck is going on?

Paul: (Laughs)

Brian: Right? And that, and that's really, that's what I learned. I learned so much about white people from the Marine Corps.

Paul: Talk about that.

Brian: Just be-, because I was just, I was just … I was just given a triple dose of it.

Paul: (Laughs)

Brian: You know, just … surround- (chuckles), just immersed. I mean, the thing is, be-, being black in America, you, you're already immersed in white culture outside of your own stuff. But this was a whole different thing because … um, outside of any kind of institution, you don't really have to conform, you know. But this was a, this was a weird thing. And I, and, uh … you know, and I, I, I spent a lot of time frustratedly trying to like explain racial stuff to white peo—And … I mean, I've, I gave up. I … I got … a couple of people in the fold, you know. But it was just, it was, it was a mostly fruitless—

Paul: Any moments you can remember—

Brian: —endeavor—

Paul:—that, that were fruitful or fruitless?

Brian: No any moment in pa-, any moments in particular. But I just know, you know, I know that it's like … was it Remember the Titans? What movie was that, where they—Paul: With Denzel?

Brian: Right, where, where it was like, when he brought the team together, they we-, they all came together cuz they, you know, they were from a racist town. But when they, when he took 'em apart and they all (unintelligible). But as soon as they got back into town, it was back to business. You know what I mean? So it’s like I don’t know, I, I know that the, the … you know … (sighs) The military's tough, because you're, you're, you're given an identity, you know. And you have your whole lives in common. But when it's over … what's left, right? Like how much of what you had in common was just that your … I think that's true of any job that is also a lifestyle, right, whether it be a cop or a musician or, or a comedian, whatever. It's like, you have your who-, you have EVERYTHING in common, as long as this is your job, as long as this is your life. And then, as soon as that's over with, you're back to just being somebody from Mary-, like that's all … We don’t have anything in, we're nothing alike, you know. So I don’t know who is what back in their hometown, you know.

Paul: Yeah. I always think about the really, really top-notch athletes and what that's gotta be like sitting on their couch the first day of the next season, you know, that, that they’ve retired.

Brian: Oh, man!

Paul: That, that has to be, um, you know—Money aside and all, all that other stuff, that, that has to be a difficult adjustment. Anybody, I suppose, who's, who's in the spotlight and just is, is used to … this certain world that's that way since they were probably in little league or playing pee-wee football—

Brian: Well, that's why I like, that's why I like stand-up, cuz that's, that's, that's the profession where people don’t expect you to stop when you're getting older, you know.

Paul: I didn’t think I'd ever stop. I thought I'd be doing it until, you know, whenever. And, honestly—

Brian: Why did you stop?

Paul:—I still love wri-, writing jokes. I just got tired of the road. I got tired of, um, you know … terrible feature act being put on in front of me, and the just, you know, having to struggle for five shows cuz … you know, it was just … a barrage of loud dick jokes setting, setting up, you know, the show before I got on. Being away from home. That’s probably the biggest thing, is I, I just, the traveling, the airports, um …

Brian: And, now you know wh-, what's so weird is like … show-, well, showbiz in general, but stand-up in particular has become so exploitative, you know. It's, it's, it, the people, the—

Paul: How so?

Brian: Well, because the pe-, you know comics now are, are shamelessly underpaid.

Paul: Because they need the "exposure?" That's the, the thing … they get used to leverage?

Brian: I don’t' know what it is. I think it's because … I think mo-, some of it is just because the mo-, the … And it's, it's so saturated, it's so oversaturated that there's always a comedian willing to do it for that amount of money. So—

Paul: I gotcha. So what's, what's the average, uh, feature act make, make on the road for, you know, uh, Wednesday/Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday or a Thursday through Sunday?

Brian: I think it's different, it's different for everybody. But I'll, I'll just say this: if you're, if you featuring on the road, you, you, you pretty much have to hope that the headliner lets you sell merch, you know.

Paul: T-shirts and CDs and stuff like that—

Brian: Basically, any com-, and comic that's getting paid decently … is because, like any, any unknown comic that's getting paid decently is because someone is being a good person. Someone just went out of their way to be a better person than they have to be, because most promoters are scum. But I think that's probably true in every industry. (Chuckles) But—

Paul: That was the true, uh, true. When I was doing stand-up—I started in, in '87. And, you know, I was fortunate enough to have started when the comedy boom was underway. So you didn’t have to be great to get stage time. They, they were just looking for warm bodies. And then, when it, uh, just kind of … collapsed in the, in the early 90s because it was oversaturated, that's when the real comedy business emerged, and you, you kind of found out what the, what the marketplace looks like, in terms of, uh, your power to say yes or no or, um, you know, who are the good club owners and who are the bad ones. And there was a few good ones—

Brian: There are. There, there are, yeah. And now, I think it's … there's a bubble again and an oversaturation again. So … you know, who know? And that's the thing. I, I know that the industry has, has always been this way. It's, it's, it's hard to resist the temptation to assume that … all our problems are brand new.

Paul: (Laughs) Right?! That's, that's one of the disappointing things about getting older that, you know, and especially being a fan of documentaries, is you, like, watch a documentary on the Gilded Age, the late 1800s, and all of the wealth was held by like 10 people—

Brian: (Chuckles) Right.

Paul: And they thought that they had cured that will all of these anti-trust laws. And here were are again, 120 years later, and it's the exact same fucking thing.

Brian: Technology … fools us into … into believing that we have made some sort of progress as a species, you know. And so, it's like, it doesn’t matter if it's a sword or a laser beam, you know, or rail gun or whatever. It’s like we’re still the same human beings.

Paul: Has decency evolved, that's the question.

Brian: Well, just technology evolves faster than human … um, I mean, I think the human capacity to fuck up is, is the fa-, is the fastest evolving part of us. Technology is just, it's just a different way for us to fuck things up.

Paul: It's just sped up the accidents? (Laughs)

Brian: It just, I think every, every time we make any advancements, it's, it's just that whate-, anything that can do good can do harm, right, I mean, pretty much. Like when we discovered gunpowder … you know, when we discovered electricity, when we discovered nuclear, it's like it can all be used for good or bad. And it's like I, but our, we haven’t matured at all. You know, what makes, what makes us different from the, uh …

Paul: You don’t think there's been any evolution in terms of, uh, emotional literacy?

Brian: No.

Paul: I feel like, I feel like the-, there is a segment of the population that is becoming more enlightened. And, while I think it's the minority, um, I, I, I, I feel like there, there … has always been that, that, that movement, but I feel like it's, it's growing.

Brian: I don’t know. And see, and this is me being cynical, I guess. But—

Paul: Maybe cuz I'm not in comedy clubs anymore. (Laughs) That's so (unintelligible).

Brian: No, but I, but I think that, you know, there's always, there's always that feeling; I just don’t know how true it is, because … you know, it, it's, it's not a coincidence that we feel morally superior to people from the past, right. And, and so, the que-, my question is, you know, and … I don’t know if I necessarily have to answer, but my question is, is it that we're morally superior to the people in the past, or is it that we, we're the ones that get to measure? E-, everyone in, you know, at every present, you know, or in the future they're gonna look back on us and go, you know—It's like, it's like are we better than them, or is it just that we get to say what's best because we exist now? Cuz every generation has thought that we're better than the previous one, right. So …

Paul: I feel, I feel like there are some things that we've improved on and there's something's that we're gotten worse at. And I don’t know what the, the overall grade is.

Brian: Cuz we still—Cuz here's the, here's the deal. We, we … we still have all the same problems and on a larger scale. So—

Paul: Just tip your mic up a tiny bit, if you will.

Brian: Oh, sorry. (Adjusts microphone) We, we still have all the same problems and on a large scale. So, are we …? I mean, even our morally superior people, are they mor-, are the morally superior to the pe-, to the, morally superior people from the previous … you know? I don’t think, I don’t know. I don’t think so.

Paul: So, maybe just the weapons we use to, uh, harm each other and the presents we give each other have changed, and, uh … I don’t know.

Brian: And our way of pretending to help. That's a big one. Or, or, like doing things to make us feel like we're doing things.

Paul: You know what annoys me probably more than anything is the … people, the benefactors that have a, the wing of a hospital named after them. And they've spent most of their lives amassing a fortune built on the backs of exploited people.

Brian: (Laughs) Yeah.

Paul: And then they get to have a, you know, a ball where everybody dresses up and lauds them and talks about how, how great they are. And, uh, have you ever seen the movie Arbitrage?

Brian: No.

Paul: Ar, ar, ar, Arbitage? Arbitrage, yeah. Arbitrage or Arbitage? It's, uh, with Richard Gere, and it’s about that very thing, about the, the one percent and the, uh, kind of the, the two-faced nature of, um … their lives and, you know, the benefactors and the donating of things. It's such a great satire on that—

Brian: That's why every-, that's why everyone is obsessed with, uh, Succession. You watched that?

Paul: It's AMAZING!

Brian: It is, it is amazing.

Paul: Oh my god! I, I cannot wait for, for next season. And it, I think it’s also really satisfying because it’s clearly pointed at, uh, the Fox New empire. And it's … you know—I, I'm sure they would deny it, but the parallels between that and the Murdock family are way too coincidental, uh, to, to not be intentional. And so, it feels like those of us that disagree with that worldview are having our voices heard.

Brian: Yeah.

Paul: But you probably wouldn’t know what it's like to not have your voice heard.

Brian: (Laughs) Right, right, no, no, I wouldn’t!

Paul: Let me tell you about it. (Chuckles) I got, uh, an email from somebody a couple of months ago that said, why do you only ask about race when you have guests who are persons of color? And I said … well, the, kind of the default view on race is everywhere the, the, the, the white view, uh, on race, we hear it everywhere. You look at our media, you look at, at, whether it's … outspoken or not, whether it's, uh, you know, kind of written between the lines or, or not, it’s not hard to discern what somebody's view of race is when they make a TV show or they make something else, it's there. Or the stories they choose to put on the front page of a newspaper. So it’s, it's everywhere, the, the, the people that kind of own our culture. And so, my, my point was I want to hear about it from peoples whose voices have been marginalized historically. And, and I was honestly a little baffled by it. What, what are your thoughts, uh …

Brian: On race or on why people—

Paul: On, on that?

Brian: Oh, on that, on that email?

Paul: Yeah! If you were to answer that email, what would you say? Because I, while I understand the—Yeah, I, I could ask my white guests about race, and I'm sure that there would be, um, some … some insights there. It's not the most pressing question to me when I have somebody sitting across for me for, for an hour. And so, I guess I'm, I'm, I'm looking to, uh … learn more ab-, about when do you talk about race, when do you not talk about … race.

Brian: See, I always, I get that, I got that criticism a lot from that … TV spot, um … um …

Paul: Why, what were the criticisms?

Brian: Well, just, you know, which I, I already knew they were coming because I'm, like I told you, I've had the, I've had the con-, I've had this conversation a thousand times (chuckles), you know. And so, I knew what the criticisms was gonna be. But it was just, oh, you know, another black dude bringing up racism. How original, and … you know, or ra-, you know, racism only exists because you bring it up so much, or …

Paul: (Laughs)

Brian: You know, like all those, all of the, the—

Paul: What does it feel like, when you hear somebody say something like that?

Brian: For, for me, it's just, it's, it's, it's such a old song to me that I'm just like, I, I, I mostly, I feel pity for the person.

Paul: So you don’t feel anger.

Brian: No. No, not anymore. No. Very few things … really make me angry like that. It would have to be like gross injustice or something (laughs) like that to like piss me off. But, uh, but, uh …

Paul: So that email.

Brian: That email … I think I would say to that person like you … See … Because—Have you ever had, have you ever been in a situation where, where like something, someone in your house is … um, is playing music or has the television on, but they not watching it?

Paul: Um-hmm.

Brian: And then you come in the room and change it something that you wanna watch, and then they go, "Hey, I was fucking watching—" That's what white people do with race, right, where it's like there's this ubiquitous background, like you said, the white perspective is everywhere and it’s so, it's so, um … the word escapes me, but it's so damn—

Paul: It's universal.

Brian: Yeah, ubiquitous, right. It's so e-, it's so everywhere that when it, the moment you don’t hear it anymore is when you start, the moment you don’t hear the, it's the, it’s the, it’s the cosmic microwave whiteness, right. And the moment you, you don’t, the moment you hear anything else, that's when you notice … you know. So, and so it’s like when people of color are just those people walking in the room, going, "Oh, no one's watching this? Well, let me just real quick check the game." And you go, "Hey, motherfucker! What are you doing? Why are you always changing the channel?" And it's like, "Well … you, you always watching—" you know, it’s the same thing. It's like America is constantly focused on … (sighs) on, you know, the white perspective, you know. And right, and right now—Cuz what I always say, cuz sometimes I get, I get, I get heckled this, you know. And it's like, and my thing is always been, you know, you only have to hear about racism for the rest of my set, but I gotta be black forever. So, you know … it's like, you know, if, if you, if you, if you, if your stake is that—Cuz I … I don’t know this person, so I don’t know if they're one of these people that thinks like racism doesn’t exist or something like that, but it's like, um—

Paul: No, this person was definitely not, uh, of, of that. No, I, I think they, uh, they … I, I wouldn’t say that they thought that I was being racist, but they thought that I was perhaps being, in, in terms of the broader, uh, view of race, that I was being, uh, narrow in when to talk about it, who to talk about it with. That it was kind of a low-level, um, bias.

Brian: Right. Well that, cuz, well, to me, that's like a, that's like, it's like a microdo-, it's like the what about me-isms, you know, the … um—And, you know, and maybe, maybe it’s subconscious, but it’s like what, what is your …what … I guarantee your view about race wouldn’t surprise me … you know. Because it's one of two things, because like I told, I've, I've, I spent so long, much of my life trying to make, or having to make white people comfortable, right. And so, and, and, and when I started doing comedy, I stopped doing that, you know. And so … it, it … you know—

Paul: Did that feel freeing?

Brian: Not necessarily. I, I just, I—Cuz I realize that it's just more effective. It's more effective, you know, because, because most of the time, it … just from my experience, most of the time, when someone is asking me to ex-, when a white person is asking me to explain something racial to them … I have to determine whether this person is REALLY trying to learn, or if they just want me to make them feel better about some racist shit they did or said or view that they hold. Cuz that's what it is most of the time, is, it's they, they want, they're not listen-, they're not hearing me. They just, they want me to make them feel okay about … they shit they're already doing … (chuckles) you know. And so …

Paul: Are there any particular instances or subjects that you can, you can recall, uh, that …

Brian: (Sighs) I mean, fuck, there's so many. (Pauses) Black, well, like Black Lives Matter. Well, you know, when you hear the All Lives Matter. Like ask yourself what is, what is, what is that rooted in … you know? Is, is … in some cases, it's, it's willful ignorance, or whatever. But, but, so, you know, so often, I'm in a situation where, um … um, I can't think of anything specific off the top of my head. It's just soma-, (laughs) it's so often I'm in a situation where I'm … where I am … um … where I'm asked to explain race, some racial thing, or I'm asked what I think about some, some racial thing. And then, in the middle of the conversation, I get a … (sighs) somebody'll say something like, uh … So … you know how like, have you ever been, have you ever been … like rolling a conversation going back and forth and back and forth. And then, and then the person you're talking to goes … on a tangent, as if you agree with everything they're saying?

Paul: (Laughs)

Brian: Like that sort of thing. Like … I mean, oh, okay, you know what? A big one is, is, uh, is saying the "N" word, you know. Can you, can you say the "N" word to black people? And it's like, "No!" (Chuckles) You know, but it's like don’t, but it's like don’t try to assert it … on me, you know. Cuz, to me, it doesn’t, it doesn’t have to make sense, you know. It's just, it just is. It's just a rule. You know, it's just a respect thing. It's … you know, it's the same reason why I don’t have a problem trying to call trans pe-, people by their pronouns or stuff like that, you know. I mean, at least, at least try … to be respectful, you know. Cuz it, it, it's like … it's like stop and ask yourself, do you … did you, when, did you start thinking about racism only when you though it could apply to you?

Paul: (Chuckles) Right. When it became inconvenient or "annoying" to you?

Brian: Right, exactly. Oh! I do, I do have a specific situation. I remember being in, um, being in Iraq and, and, uh … we, we're, so we were attached to, we were a-, my last deployment, we were attached to a reserve unit. My platoon, just my platoon, was attached to this reserve unit … um … what the fuck was the fourth unit? So, we were attached to this division that we weren’t a part of at all. And, so we were, so there were all these people that we had never, that we don’t, didn’t know, AND they were reservists, which is a big line in the military, right. And so—

Paul: It's kind of the difference between a, a cop and a mall cop, or, or is that too severe?

Brian: No, that's too severe. It, it, it isn't really the difference between a cop and a mall cop, but it's more like, um …

Paul: A doctor and an EMT?

Brian: No. It's more like the, it's like, it's like the difference between, um, a hobby comic and a road comic, you know. It's like—

Paul: I gotcha. And apologies to any reservists out there—

Brian: No, I don’t apologize, I don’t apologize to you at all—

Paul: No, from, from my—

Brian: Oh, from him? Yeah, I'm sorry. (Chuckles)

Paul: For me calling you a mall cop. Yeah.

Brian: Yeah. But, no. But they, they, uh … um, but I remember—So, so we're, we're around that we never known that, that very long. And I remember being in the situation where, um (clears throat) … So our, my, our little can, our little 20, our little where we lived, you know, there's like … there's like six, six of us in a 20 by 10 space. Like we got three, we have two, you know, it's like bunk beds. It's three bunks beds in a room just a little bigger than this, right. And … But we had ours, ours was decked out, you know. We had a, we had a couch in there. We had a TV. Like we, we wheeled and dealed and bought shit from the locals and we ended up, we ended up with an Xbox (chuckles) and, and all of this stuff that like we shouldn't've had, um, looking back on it. But, uh, but, but everybody would end up in our … in our space at the end of the night sometimes, because we had … we were the only people that had any of that stuff. So, I remember, um … And I don't, I don’t know, I don’t remember what was on TV or, or someone, someone read a article, and it was the, it was, it was, it was something with a, the lead singer of Pantera had like said something … to that effect, like ra-, you know, like white people are under attack or something, something like that. And I just remember everybody … looking at me, like, "What do you think," you know. And I'm the only, and then I'm the only black person you know I mean. And, and, and, and that was one, that was one of those situations where it was like nothing I said … could, was, was penetrating that cloud, you know, because they didn’t want to really hear what I thought. They just wanted me to make, to affirm—

Paul: Make the moment okay.

Brian: Exactly. And I'm like, you know … you know, that's the … I can't tell you how many times I've answered the question of like where, where is, uh, you know, why is there a … a, a black entertainment television? There's not a white enter—You know, that kind of thing, where it's like this, it’s the, it's the white—

Paul: They don’t understand that the white is the default.

Brian: It's the, right. But it, there's this insecurity, you know … that (sighs), it's just, it's just so many, it's just countless times I've had this conversation. And … you, you know what it is, too, is you, you're, you can't, um … you don’t re-, it's, it's something you have to ACTIVELY work on. It's not something that just gon' ma-, feel better (chuckles), you know. And it, and it's not, it's not, it's not any minority's job to like make you feel better. It's nice, it's nice when you meet, when you get a minority friend that's willing to answer all of your question—

Paul: (Laughs).

Brian:—and all of that. But, but, uh, I'm retired. That's some, that's, that's a young man's game, you know.

Paul: (Laughs)

Brian: I don't, I, I, I've spent so many years doing it, and I'm, I'm just over being—If anybody's first black friend, I'm not gonna do it again. You know?

Paul: (Laughs) There was a guy that I went to college with who … will sometimes post things on Facebook that … um, are, are the polar opposite of the things that, that I believe. And when the whole, uh, Black Lives Matter movement started, this person said, um, "Well, what a-, why aren’t these people protesting the black gang members killing each other?" And … I said, "Because we don’t pay gang members to protect us."

Brian: (Laughs) Right.

Paul: "They're not being paid by our tax dollars." And the, and the fact that somebody couldn’t see the difference between … a systemic, institutionalized thing and something completely different—I mean, yes, they're both tragedies that people are, are being killed. But, I, I just can't, um—And I know that, that I, I … have things that I can be more enlightened on and that I have blind spots—

Brian: Yeah. It's, it's gotta click. It's gotta click. Cuz I bet you—Are you, are you familiar with "Old Town Road?"

Paul: Uh-uh.

Brian: So, there was a country song called—So, so—

Paul: OH! The thing that's a gigantic hit, that was done by the, uh, uh, a—

Brian: Lil' Nas, Lil' Nas X.

Paul: Yeah, yeah, yeah! It's like the most downloaded … song ever or something.

Brian: I don’t know about ever, but definitely last year, for sure. But, um, but, but, you know, can't tell you how many times I've tried to explain cultural appropriation, or I've had to answer a question like what is that to, to—

Paul: Oh, they try to do the, the, the double-standard of them, they're taking white culture?

Brian: Right! Well, I just think, I just think there're probably, there may be a handful of white people out there that, that, that had, it hit them. You know, they, they had this epiphany of, "Oh, shit." Not everybody, but I'm sure some people did, you know, when I t was like—Because the, they, they initially—The controversy on that song, which I guess is not even a controversy anymore, um, but they took it off the country charts … right. It was, it was initially trending on the country charts. And, and, and then Billboard took it off after pressure from, I don’t know, the country world or whatever, because—And, and their reasoning was that it, it wasn’t clearly country … you know. It … it wasn’t country enough, you know. And then a lot of people made the argument of, well, you know, he didn’t move to Nashville and like give in to the culture and, you know, they were afraid that he was just a culture vulture. They was afraid that he was just doing country to make a buck and then, but not really gave a shit about country, you know I mean. And, um, and I always thought like … you know, the is the per-, that is a perfect example of what those people were afraid of is cultural appropriation, what black people complain about … right. But some of those people will say it doesn’t exist, or it, or it's just something people crying about, right. And, and the, and here's the, here’s the sweet, the co-, the cosmic justice, right, is that, um … Miley Cyrus is one of the biggest perpetrators of this, you know. Because she, she, uh—There was a little point in her career where she started hanging out with rappers and ball players and started making more hip-hop … And then as soon as it started hurting her image, she dropped, she dropped it. She's like, "Oh, I don’t really believe in those things," and so on and so forth. And, here, here's the real cosmic karma, is that … what got Lil' Nas X back on the country charts was that he put Billy Ray Cyrus on the remix. Cuz that's the song—If you've heard that song, it's, it's probably you’ve heard the remix with Billy Ray Cyrus on it.

Paul: Yes, I did.

Brian: Right. And THAT, and that was not the original song. But he is the one—You know, I think it's just funny, cuz Miley Cyrus is his daughter, who is one of the biggest offenders of cultural appropriations. And he was the remedy … to assuage the white fears that that was happening to them.

Paul: So is it … culturally appropriating something for any white person to … do hip, to hip-hop?

Brian: I don’t know. I think, I think there's the, there's ongoing debate about that. I don’t, I don’t know—

Paul: I mean, like what about the, the Beastie Boys. How do you view them? Because, to me, they seem to have … put their own spin on it, rather than just taking something and repurposing it without adding anything to it.

Brian: Yeah. I, I, it's, it is weird how, it is weird why certain people get a pass and certain people don't.

Paul: Do you think it has to do with authenticity?

Brian: Yeah. I think it has to do with authenticity. I think it has to do with whether you of the culture, you know. Because I don’t think the Beastie Boys … The Beastie Boys were hip, were hip-hop, you know.

Paul: You think they were, or they weren’t?

Brian: Yeah, they were. At the time, they, they weren’t, it wasn’t just something they, that they were pretending to be, right. So … and that's a hard, uh, I don’t, I don’t know if there's a, if it’s a black-and-white, hard-and–fast rules. But, you know, it's one of them things where you know it when you see it.

Paul: You know it when you see it. Yeah. Like Vanilla Ice, that was cultural appropriation.

Brian: Of course. Of course. Yeah. But I don’t know Vanilla. I mean, cuz now, what is, what's he? He's a, he does rock and roll now, right?

Paul: He was a home remodeler, the last time I, I saw. He was, uh, doing the, flipping houses. But that was a long, a long time ago. I don’t know. I … I'm pretty out of touch. I'm pretty out of touch.

Brian: Yeah. I'm a, I'm a, I'm mostly a hermit myself. I only leave (laughs), I only leave the house when I have to.

Paul: Do you live with anybody?

Brian: Yeah, oh yeah, of course.

Paul: Married, kids?

Brian: Nope. None of, none of that. We just roommates. I think …

Paul: You get along?

Brian: I'm not surprised, in Hollywood, if anyone has roommates. You could be in your 50s and you like, "I live with five people." And I'm like, yeah, of course you do.

Paul: Yeah, it's expensive.

Brian: (Laughs)

Paul: It's expensive. Yeah, to—

Brian: Yeah, it's super expensive—

Paul:—somebody that doesn’t live here, a, a … barely nice two-bedroom apartment in a so-so neighborhood is at least $1500.

Brian: Oh, yeah. Yeah, easy. Yeah.

Paul: Yeah. Anything else you, you, uh … you wanna talk about? We didn’t really talk about depression.

Brian: Oh, yeah. That was the whole point of this.

Paul: No. No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t, wasn’t—It was one of the things that, that made me want to interview you. But, you know, if there's any subject we've talked about, um … the most on this podcast, it's been depression. So it's not like we have to get to this. But if there's anything that you wanna share about your battles with depression. When did it start?

Brian: Oh, yeah. Well, I definitely had—I'm a, I been, I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder … um … a few years ago … which I've always known. (Sighs) But I think it, I, if I'm being honest, I think it started way back when, but I just didn’t know.

Paul: How does it present itself?

Brian: (Pauses)

Paul: Like difficulty getting out of bed? Trouble making decisions?

Brian: Yeah, trouble, uh … I feel I get numb. I think lot of people that aren’t, that aren’t depressed, they think it’s being sad.

Paul: Right. (Chuckles)

Brian: And it's like, if, I WISH I could feel sad when I was depressed. But it's not; it's feeling nothing.

Paul: Feeling nothing. Yup. It's a gray blanket. It's just all the color leaves, and it's just meh!

Brian: Yeah. It's like, it's like a feeling—Like imagine your (unintelligible). Have you ever has a split-second where you thought you couldn’t feel your legs or something like that? It's like imagine that, but for your, for your emotions. That's what it's like. It's like, it's like being, um … it's like being completely emotionally crippled.

Paul: Andrew Solomon, uh, who is the author of Noonday Demon and, uh, another book that … name escapes me. But, uh, really, guy has written extensively about depression. And in a Ted Talk, he said, "The opposite of depression isn't happiness; it's vitality." And I went, "Yeah!" That is such a great way of, of describing it.

Brian: Yeah, it's like, it's living.

Paul: It's living. Feeling a part of the, the stream of life.

Brian: Yeah. And I, um …

Paul: Are there ways you soothe yourself of—Finish your thought first.

Brian: I do. I mean I, I think it's, it's a constant thing, because I can never (sighs) … I don’t, there's never, for me, there's never a one-time thing for it. I find that it happens less often … when I'm making healthier choices.

Paul: For instance.

Brian: Just, just when I'm not, you know, eating a bunch of fried foods and, um, and, when I'm ex-, you know, exercising regularly, when I'm, um, when I'm sleeping well—

Paul: How about opening up people. Do you, do you ever get vulnerable with, with people or share your feelings?

Brian: Well … I also have the, the intimacy issues from the, my childhood, so that's hard for me. But—

Paul: Is it—Go ahead.

Brian: No, what were you gonna ask?

Paul: I was gonna say, is that something that you had any desire to work on or are you okay with where it's at?

Brian: No, I'm working on it. (Laughs) I'm, I'm working on it. I, I think I keep telling—

Paul: You seem like you're trying to convince yourself th-, that you're working on it. (Laughs)

Brian: No. I think, I think I keep telling myself that … you know, I think, well, I don’t know, I don’t know if I've even explicitly said it. But I think my, my general plan is that I have to—It's not a priority until I'm … successful enough to, to be able to focus on not surviv—Cuz, you know, cuz out here, it's like that's, that’s a pr-, that’s why a lot of mental health shit gets worse out here, it's because …

Paul: But why does it have to be mutually exclusive?

Brian: Because I think you just have to put so much energy into survival, you know, that you, it's … it’s not impossible; that's not true. But it is, it's easy to believe that it is. It's easy to believe that you just need to eat and sleep and occasionally have some sex and you, and you'll be good 'til the next …

Paul: I, I think also, you know, one of the hallmarks of depression is that everything feels overwhelming. So the idea of going to get help, going to a support group, seeing a psychiatrist, you know, whatever, whatever it is, uh, you know—

Brian: Well, se, my, my big issue is with the VA. It’s just that … because it was, there was a, there was talk for a while of making it so that you could go … to any hospital, and the VA would pay for it. But now, you can, you can only do that if it's an emergency. And … even then, still, I think it's only certain hospitals and, you know, and … how are you supposed to know that in emergency? But the point is, um, you know, the fact that like—cuz I don’t drive—the fact that I have to, have to go all the way out Westwood whenever have any appointment at all means, that means it's all day. It’s a all-day thing. I can't do anything else that day, you know. Cuz it’s a two, two-and-a-half hour drive, ride out there, because you gotta, cuz the, the public transport's so unreliable that you can't plan it down to the minute. You have to, you have to plan it like, give yourself a 45-minute window, you know, so that, in case you miss or something comes late or leaves early. And so, you know, it’s a, it's a two-, three-hour trip there, and then a two-, three- hour thing while you're there, and then a two- or three-hour trip back, you know. And so, you're, um, you know, and so the way they schedule things, it's like sometimes, man, I can't. I don’t have my whole day to give the VA, you know. It’s like I wish I could do that shit over Skype or (laughs) something. It's like I came all the way out here just to talk to you … you know.

Paul: Well … I'm gonna do a shameless plug, uh, but one of our sponsors is, is BetterHelp. And, um, I do online therapy from that … easy chair over there every Monday afternoon, and—

Brian: Really?!

Paul:—it's fucking great.

Brian: Is it expensive?

Paul: It's, it's less expensive than most in-person therapy.

Brian: Oh, wow! And, and, um … what about the confidentiality and all of that?

Paul: It's same thing, same as, as a … I'll talk to you more about it off the air. I don't wanna, I don’t wanna do a, uh—

Brian: Nah, plug it!

Paul:—a, a, a, plug here for it—

Brian: Nah, get that, get that money—

Paul:—but they’ve been a sponsor for two years, and I've had the same online therapist for two years, and she's helped me through a lot of shit. And I just love not having to get in my car—

Brian: Me—Yeah, that's—

Paul:—to do, to do stuff—

Brian:—that's a big one. Yeah.

Paul: You know what? Maybe I'll, I'll talk to them and see if, uh, um …

Brian: They'll sponsor my podcast?

Paul: If they'll sponsor your podcast.

Brian: (Laughs)

Paul: Yeah. And then maybe, uh, get you some complimentary, uh, things and you can try it and see if you like it.

Brian: Yeah, we'll see, yeah.

Paul: Yeah. Anything else you wanna share before we wrap up?

Brian: (Pauses) No, not really.

Paul: I feel like we covered a lot.

Brian: It was a lot. It was. How long we been talking?

Paul: Hour and 17 minutes.

Brian: Oh, wow. Nah, that didn’t feel like that long.

Paul: Dude, thank you so much. I really enjoyed talking to you. And, uh, again, I love your stand-up. And anybody listening, go check out his stuff. You got any road dates coming up? Although I have no idea when this is gonna air.

Brian: (Laughs)

Paul: So, let me drive them to your, to your web site.

Brian: Yeah, no, just go to, just go to my Instagram. bscomedian on Instagram, yeah.

Paul: All right. Thanks a lot, buddy.

Brian: Thanks for having me, yeah.

Paul: Okay, all right.

Brian: Yeah.

End of Interview

[01:33:27] I hope you guys enjoyed that as much as, as I did. We only have one survey post-, uh, post-interview. And this is a happy moment filled out a guy who calls himself, "Jesus Doesn’t Believe In Me." And he writes, "After spending most of my life knowing my mere presence was a burden to those around me, I had a couple of good days. I was leaving the mental health support group I go to, when two people I'd never seen in the group before asked if I wanted to hang out. I was too anxious to say yes right away. I made the excuse of having to check on my diabetic dog. I did, but it could have waited several hours. They texted me a bit after I got home and asked me if I wanted to go bowling and grab some food. I did wanna go, so I gathered all my courage and went. It was a blast, and we made definitive plans to hang out again less than a week later. Then, two guys who host a nerdy podcast that I love asked me to be the guest on the next episode. I hadn’t asked these people to be included; they asked me to join. Since then, the couple I met at group have become some of my best friends of all time. We have standing plans to hang out every Monday and Thursday. And, I was asked to join the podcast as a third host. The help I get from my growing support system of friends gave me the clarity of mind to end an extremely toxic relationship. I'm not a piece of shit. I'm a person, and now I can accept that." Oh. I love when I … hear stories … about people creating a support network and FINALLY feeling love and trust and support and healthy boundaries and being able to start experiencing intimacy and vulnerability. And, uh, it's just, it's, it's … makes my day. Makes my day.

[01:35:21] Well, I, I, I hope you got something out of this episode. And … if you're struggling, especially this time of year, HANG IN THERE. You are NOT (chuckles) the only one. I can tell you that, that, uh, kinda can't, can't wait for January 2nd to roll around. Oh, that's, that's a weird date, too, because that date my (laughs), my dad died in, uh, in 2006. So let's say January 3rd. Let’s do that. And let's end the, the show with you picturing my dead dad. Let's do that. Just … I think Santa would, would enjoy that. And just remember you're not alone. And thanks for listening.

End