# Joe "Boopsy" Ferris B.U.P.C.: The Gen X Poet Tells His Story - Episode 81

- Podcast: GenX Adulting Podcast
- Published: 2026-10-19T01:00:00.000Z
- Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2398379/episodes/19981287-joe-boopsy-ferris-b-u-p-c-the-gen-x-poet-tells-his-story-episode-81.mp3
- Page: https://genxadultingpodcast.com/transcripts/podcasts/genx-adulting-podcast/episodes/episode-81
- Source: https://genxadultingpodcast.com/episodes/genxadultingpodcastepisode81.html
- People: Brian Barker (host), Nicole Barker (host)

## Summary

In Episode 81 of the GenX Adulting Podcast, hosts Brian and Nicole welcome Joe 'Boopsy' Ferris, a Gen X poet and comedian. Joe shares his life experiences, including his upbringing in a military family, his journey into content creation, and the challenges he faced while balancing work and family life.

## Key takeaways

- Joe Ferris identifies as a Gen Xer, born in 1978.
- He grew up in a military family, moving frequently due to his father's Navy career.
- Joe's childhood was marked by a strong bond with his friends, especially with fellow comedian Dad Bod.
- He began creating content on TikTok after being inspired by a friend.
- Joe emphasizes the importance of friendships that can withstand long periods of silence.
- He has a unique perspective on parenting, wanting to ensure his kids feel supported and valued.
- Joe discusses the challenges of balancing work, family, and personal aspirations.

## FAQ

### What year was Joe Ferris born?

Joe Ferris was born in 1978.

### What is Joe Ferris's background?

Joe Ferris grew up in a military family, moving frequently due to his father's Navy career.

### How did Joe Ferris get into content creation?

Joe was inspired to start creating content on TikTok after seeing a friend's videos.

### What does Joe Ferris think about friendships?

Joe believes in the value of friendships that can endure long periods without communication.

### How does Joe Ferris approach parenting?

Joe aims to create an environment where his children feel supported and valued, emphasizing open communication.

### What challenges did Joe face while balancing work and family?

Joe discussed the difficulties of managing multiple jobs while ensuring his family was taken care of.


## Referenced links

- [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqJGS5Ic5ac)
- [Listen on Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/joe-boopsy-ferris-b-u-p-c-the-gen-x-poet-tells-his/id1764838823?i=1000796996886)
- [Listen on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/7Fb4eWlqKGikmJ1RzHLWB6)
- [Listen on Buzzsprout](https://www.buzzsprout.com/2398379/episodes/19981287-joe-boopsy-ferris-b-u-p-c-the-gen-x-poet-tells-his-story-episode-81)

## Transcript

Welcome to Gen X Adulting and today we have Joe Boopsey Ferris,
comedian and content creator. Welcome,
Joe.
Hey, how's everybody doing?
We're so happy to have you. We're doing great.
And our first question is always,
what year were you born?
I was born in seventy eight.
So you are Gen X. As it says behind you.
Gen X. Some people try to slam me.
They try to slam me in
that little, you know, but aren't you technically a Zennial?
No, I'm not. I'm Gen X. Gen X all the way.
You're Gen X. You are. Gen
X, it goes to eighty. You're Gen X.
~ that
That's it.
whole Zen Xennial thing, I I d you're right.
I think they try to say it's seventy eight to eighty two or eighty three,
Something like that.
but I don't know any Gen Xers that were born in seventy eight,
seventy nine, eighty that want to be a part of that.
Yes.
It's it's always the millennials eighty one,
eighty two, eighty three that should be I'm this is who I am.
Yeah. Yes.
No you're not. No you're not.
Yes. They're
trying to still like anchor themselves a little bit to our generation.
They're like, I kind of have one foot in.
It's like you don't.
I mean me you
you you may not have had the internet,
we'll give you that, but no. No.
Right. You had to you
had to go through what we went through to be able to say you're gen X.
You gotta be the same. Yeah.
You yeah, exactly. And where were you born?
I well, I was born in New Jersey,
~ Lake
Okay.
Lakewood, New Jersey, but I wasn't there for very long.
~ my pop was in the Navy and so I remember nothing about it,
like Jack Squat, and then I moved to South Carolina ~ when I was two
and lived there for
Okay.
a good majority of my youth. So
So
you were briefed you were just he was what stationed there?
Yeah, he was stationed in whatever I don't know what base in in New Jersey,
but yeah, he was stationed there for a little while.
So
Okay, and then do you know why
they went down to South Carolina,
same reason? Okay.
orders just you know he he was a corpsman
on a sub and so you know just moved to a new sub in in South Carolina at
the new ~ at the naval weapon station there.
~ they had submarines
Is that
and missiles and all that stuff.
So yeah, Charleston. It's a it's
Is that Charleston? Okay, so
an it's a nuclear base now, but it used
Okay.
to be like a major shipping port in and out of there.
So
Okay, so side quest here. ~ have you and Dad Bod bonded over that?
Because hit no kidding.
Well we w Dad Bod and I went to high school together.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay, okay. 'Cause I was gonna say,
wait, we've he's been on, so we know
his story, and I'm like, that sounds like what where he grew up and okay,
Yeah. Yeah. We actually
okay.
we've ~ we met probably our eighth grade year and
we played football together. We were on opposite sides of the ball for a while,
but our senior year we we were playing the same position and you know,
went through a lot of stuff with I mean,
through our formative years, John and I went through a lot of stuff together
and you know, through various people in our lives passing and life changing
and all that stuff. So we
Right.
We've we have some teenage bonding years in there,
you know.
That's
cool. Have you guys stayed connected through the
years or did you get reconnected
Not like
with social media?
I mean we not like serious connected.
Like we we send messages, you know,
a lot back and forth like on Facebook poking poking jokes at each other just like
we did back when we were in high school.
So it's it's it's not been like,
hey, I'm flying out to your place every weekend.
But
Right.
you know, I've been out there and and and we talk and we,
you know, we'll call each other on the phone,
but it's not like it's not like the the you know,
we're best friends, but we have an
Right.
old we have an old friendship that
It it it's there when we need it and when we want it.
~ and we're okay if, you know,
six months, year goes by and we don't chat.
It's just it's I I think normal guy relationship,
Listen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
you know.
Yeah. But you know
what? Those are the best friendships.
I have some
yeah.
girlfriends like that and we may not talk for six months a year,
but when we do, it's like we literally just talked yesterday.
Yeah.
They're my favorite friendships.
They're solo maintenance. And also those people are vetted,
right? Like they know
yeah.
they know me. So no matter what happens in my life,
I can I can trust them. And that's huge,
yeah. And and it's and it's fun.
you know, so
I mean the the when I started doing this this content creation stuff and
and I was like, Hey, do you wanna you know do you wanna make something together?
Like what do you wanna do? Can we do that?
And he's like, Yeah, fly on out and we'll do some stuff.
So I stayed at his
That's awesome.
place in the for like a week and I went to Charleston before he moved
and played around
That's
and then came back home, you know.
So just yeah, just having fun.
That's very cool. And what are the chances
the two of you would end up doing this?
I know.
Well, I so
so I started doing TikTok and and things like that when it first came out
Yeah.
and then like I I probably did something for like six to eight months
and that was like right before my life blew up.
Like just, you know, kids and jobs in school.
Like I was I was working two jobs and going to school the and had a kid
at the same time, just like
Right.
everything was there and so I just stopped and
And then actually I saw a video of John's and I was like,
wait a minute, that's John. And I said,
Yeah.
What are you doing? He's like,
I just do stupid stuff and I make videos and I have
fun telling stories. And I'm like,
you know, I got a lot to say. Maybe I should start doing that again.
And so
Nice.
I tried a couple of things and,
you know, and it it probably took about six months for me to figure
out what I wanted to do. ~ because I was so far removed from anything digital,
I was just like, you know, post picture for mom and dad.
Yeah,
yes.
Post picture for family. You know,
if I'm pissed off, you know, you rant at the camera for five minutes.
And then I was
Right, right.
like, Well if I do the right account,
you mean I can actually like make a couple bucks?
~
Yeah.
okay, okay, I'll do that. And just you know,
and poof, here we are.
That's amazing. And I love that
John kind of was that one, that little bit of inspir inspiration to get you back in.
That I that's a full circle. I love that.
I love that. Okay, so you were saying your dad was stationed in Lakewood,
Uh-huh.
but
to go back, like where ~ do your parents originate from?
Like what state did they originally
~ well
settle in?
well my d my dad grew up in Texas.
~
Okay.
although I think most Texans don't actually accept him because he
was in Corpus Christi and every time I bring that up they're like,
That's not real Texas. ~ I don't know.
my god, that's funny.
~ but my
my mom grew up in I think it's called ~ Groton and everybody else I know calls
it Rotten Groton. ~ I don't know again,
I have no clue. I've never
Ha ha.
been there.
~ but they grew up in in different spots and my dad was stationed
in Connecticut when they met. ~ really ~ like
Okay.
like really old timey type of a thing.
Like they met 44 days later they were engaged.
Wow.
My dad left on his on a tour on a sub,
signed over all the paychecks to my mom,
who he was going to get married to,
three months and like a couple of weeks after he got home,
they got married.
And it was just like they half of the relationship before they got married,
he was away. And so yeah, it was
Wow. So when you
say Groton, is that Texas as well?
Connecticut. Okay. So
No Gro Groton, Connecticut. Yeah.
I've heard of that. I've never heard of that.
Okay, so so he's from Texas. She's from Connecticut.
He's up there stationed.
Mm-hmm.
And then they meet. Do you know how they met?
Okay. so he went to church even where he was stationed.
church. Like he went to chur he was he
Okay.
was investigating, you know, whatever church he was there and my mom I mean it's
a really funny I mean kind of funny story actually because my my mom
and this lady were friends. And my mom wanted this lady's boyfriend.
But this lady had met my dad and brought them,
you know, brought him to whatever activity or something like that at
Right.
the church. And then I th I I could be screwing this up a little bit,
but I don't think so. I think that my mom and this dude started making
out to make the other guy jealous or something.
If I do this, he'll see me and ~ you know.
And so then, you know, I I guess my dad was,
you know
a stand up guy and my my mom was like,
I'll just date you instead. And
Yeah.
You know, times were simpler than I think.
So much.
You know? Yeah. It's just like,
okay, you know, let's just so was she ~ was this after they
had graduated high school? Were they more in their older teens,
That yeah, I think my parents were about twenty five,
early twenties? ~ Okay.
twenty six around this time. But but my
so I I actually do have an older brother and an older sister from
my mom's first marriage that she
Okay.
got married and had a baby when she was in high school.
Like like
Okay, so
all right, so she was married,
she had a baby in high school.
Are they both from that marriage?
That marriage, my older brother and sister,
yeah.
Okay, and then they got divorced,
and then your mom met your dad.
Forced. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay,
okay, so then and did they did she have custody of them,
like you grew up with them?
Yeah. Yeah, I grew up with them.
Okay, what's the age difference?
my brother's ten years older than me and my older sist well,
I'm the youngest, so I've technically I have two older sisters,
so ten years for my oldest brother,
~ my older brother, excuse me,
eight years for my oldest sister,
and then my sister right above me,
she's two years. we have the same parents,
Okay. Okay. So it's kind of like those two and those you're the baby.
so yeah. So I'm I'm the baby.
You're the baby.
But you also got ~ a sibling close to your age,
Yeah. yeah.
which is kind of nice. Yeah, there
wasn't like just this wide, wide gap.
Okay,
Nah.
so they they basically he marries her after he gets back from leave.
And how long were they in Connecticut?
Do you know?
~
I I I think it was like two years because that's where my sister was born.
And
Okay.
then right after that we moved to New Jersey,
which is where I was born. So it's it's it was very,
Okay. And
very quick. So
then you moved and then you guys moved down to South Carolina.
South Carolina.
So he
was in the Navy. Do you know what he did?
Corman, on a sub for most of the time.
So just took basically a ~ field medic,
I guess would be the the closest thing to it.
So
Okay. And
would he be when he was gone, how long would he be gone?
Three months at a time.
And then how long would he be home in between?
Three months. It was like in out,
So three months on, three months off?
in out, in out, in out. Yeah.
And was that consistent through most of your childhood?
~ I think so when I was eight we moved to Key West,
Florida and I he had like a short like he worked at a hospital there,
I think is is on ~ whatever the key is just the north of ~ of Key West.
And we were there for two years when he wasn't.
~ but he was always gone. Like it was really,
really weird. He was always gone.
He had a lot of duties. ~ like if
If s example, like if someone was going crazy and ~ I don't want to
say going with someone was having like like suicidal thoughts or,
Mm-hmm.
you know, was having a a major traumatic breakdown,
my dad was the one that they called to help it all out.
If someone had unexpectedly died,
my dad was always called to go deal with whatever the you know,
help the family out and do whatever.
~ I it it was a very interesting combination of
You're in the military, you're a medical dude,
but it kind of almost felt like a I would equate it to like a quasi chaplain almost,
but he had nothing to do with that,
Yeah. Right.
'cause like, this family's having
a difficult time. You're the medical dude,
go see I I I I didn't understand what it was.
I just knew that he was always gone.
Whatever it was, he was always gone.
And was
it always related to military?
He was
Always.
okay, so never in the civilian ~
No.
okay. ~ that's so in so it's almost like he was on call.
It probably felt like
~ pretty much.
I mean I and and I don't want to say it wasn't ever in this in
the civilian because we did I mean we had you know,
we had family and church things and my you know,
we would get called upon to help out people in the church and,
you know, holding various positions within church or whatnot that.
So it was i i it was both, but I would
Right.
say, you know, like, you know,
Sally Sue is an old lady and she needs help,
you know, building something, you know,
well, why don't you go do it? And so I mean it was things like that.
But I would say the
You have to go now mandatory type of a thing.
Was military. You were
Always military. Yeah.
gonna ask something, I heard you.
No, it almost sounds like it's that old school generation of you go
to the doctor for everything. My husband's
Yeah.
got a you know, whatever. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm upset. Go to the doctor.
Yeah. Yep.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did
he did he have a medical background?
Is that what he went got his so he was
Nope. Just everything everything happened in the Navy.
so he's a f you called it a field medic,
right? Am I saying that right?
Kinda the field mech. Everything
everything was trained though in the military,
yeah.
So kinda like how y a normal person can go for C PR training in the Navy,
you get trained maybe to stitch people up,
to deal with emergency traumatic injuries.
That's is that's crazy. Do you know how much training he got?
It I mean it
it alwa it it always felt like he was doing some kind of a training and
I mean it it's really it's really interesting just how much stuff he could do.
Like,
Yeah.
you know, so and so's sick, give him this medication.
So and so is cut, bandaged in this way.
I mean they all they also had I mean in in Charleston there used to be
a the naval hospital like fifteen minutes
Yeah.
down the road from where we lived,
but when they were at sea
~ it was all just him. So anything that happened,
he's the one that dealt with it.
So
Sounds like a smart
guy. I mean you'd have to be, right?
It's like the original or a good bullshitter.
Original do it yourself, or really.
Or like a medical handyman. MacGyver.
Yeah, like, yeah. Yeah.
That's kind I mean, that's kinda how it was.
And I mean s some of it was BS.
I mean, I I remember I mean, serious I like I
remember a story of my dad telling me about a dude who was freaked out,
like he had some major thing, and he,
you know, he he pulled out this little ~ brown bottle of liquid and he gave
him like two two tablespoons of that and said,
Take this, come back and see me like right before your test,
take this and we'll you know, it'll work and you'll be fine,
pr it'll calm you down.
~ in the Navy or I don't know if it's all in the military,
their cough syrup or the cough syrup that they had was like eighty proof.
So it's basically like drinking vodka.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's hilarious.
So my dad basically gave this dude like two tablespoons of vodka before whatever
~
he had to do. And you know, and then he sent him on his
way. You know, and I'm like, You gave the dude basically liquor?
Now the funny thing is that's also the,
you know, cough syrup that I had when I was a kid.
Yeah. Well yeah, no. I think
So it
a lot of well yeah, he probably gave you that even we had weird stuff
and you had like even the more high tech weird stuff.
We ha yeah. Yes he he gave it to me.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
why is this bottle always empty?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I don't know. ~
Well how old
were you when you realized that that that's something to go to?
Were you in your teens when you're like,
wait a minute, this is a good stash?
Like ten. Like t
Okay.
I mean I mean, you know, you take I mean now the thing is was like
a normal bottle and
Right.
you know, but it you know, you'd have half of it and that's like taking a shot.
So
my God,
no kidding. That's now would he also treat all of you guys?
Like it or so you never went to like a regular doctor?
Most of the time. I
mean I no, I ~
Mm.
yeah, we we were always so my my family had
probably the worst luck of anything.
~ we always were hurt or in trouble or whatever.
And the the the funny the funny thing is about the is like we we kinda jumped that
line a lot between we
We didn't go to the hospital or we always went to the hospital.
~
It was like
these things were not big enough,
but like I'm trying to remember the th the three or four incidents that happened
like within one week. ~ I don't know if you can see it
Check it out.
right you can't see it like but right here on my left wrist I have a scar.
Yeah. Scar? Yeah.
~ now what happened with that and nobody believes this,
nobody ever is like no that's bull crap.
So I was stuck
Three maybe and I climbed up on top of the fridge and I had a cookie when
I was told I wasn't allowed to have a cookie.
And when I opened the jar and touched it,
the jar shattered and it slipped my wrist going down.
And so the
~ jeez.
funny it do you know the song Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?
Yes.
~
that's how they kept me calm all the way to the hospital with my slit wrist,
and when I got to the hospital
They said, okay, because this was the third thing that had happened that week.
The first thing was my brother was playing Tarzan ~ out in the woods behind
our house and a vine broke and he fell and broke like one of the bones in his back.
And another thing was ~ my sister was riding
in the front seat of our old like box Chevy van and they turned the corner
and I like I don't know if
the door wasn't shut at all or she bumped the hand,
something stupid happened and she flew out and cracked her skull.
So
my gosh, dear.
like same week. So me being the third incident of the week,
Yeah.
who who was called? You know, we got CPS coming in the,
Yeah, yeah.
you know, and
and so CPS is like, okay okay.
So now no one's allowed to call me this.
If I mean whoever watches this,
if you call me this, I'm gonna get mad at you.
So the di the doctor comes in and they go,
Okay, Joey
All right, Joey, tell us what happened,
Joey. Because when I was a kid,
that's what they always called me.
But ~ imagine, well,
Joey stole the cookie from the cookie jar.
Yeah.
And they're, you know, and so they automatically get set off like,
You did this to your kid because he stole a cookie.
And then they're like,
Right, right.
and then they're like, no. And so they're like,
okay, let's sing the song. So we're all in the emergency room.
I got stitches going down and blood all over me,
and they're singing
Gosh.
the who stole the cookie from the cookie jar song.
~ my gosh. ~ my gosh.
You know? And
and so then like I think like two or three days later,
you know, CPS shows up at the house and like,
Well, Mr. and Mrs. Ferris, I understand that you've had some incidences happen.
And, you know, I mean, t tell us more about your son's broken back.
Are you sure you didn't beat him with a billy club?
Are you are you sure? You know,
Yeah.
and and just how exactly did your seat belted daughter fly out of the
van and crack her
Yeah.
head? I mean, there's I mean, there's n
There is no measure of the human mind where you're like,
these three kids getting that badly injured,
these parents are beaten there.
I mean, they didn't. I'm not gonna say that
Yeah. Yeah.
I wasn't s you know, I didn't get smacked around and had a belt or whatnot,
~ but I mean, they weren't like that.
So but it was just like all of these things just happened.
And so yeah, CPS.
That's crazy. And how That's hilarious.
So how many times was it just that one time CBS came or did they have
to do another visit?
no, more than
once. I mean I mean 'cause there was I mean one time it came because
my sister was tired of my parents and she's just like,
I'm calling CPS and telling them that you beat me.
~ my god.
And
so and so my mom was like, All right,
call ~ Go, do it. So
Like once you're
on the radar, it's like you're on the radar.
Yeah, they have to come out, right?
Yeah. Well
so they they came out and took my sister away.
I think she was gone for like two or three days before she
Wow.
said I was lying and they brought her back because I guess wherever she went like
I I was six and seven at this time.
Yeah, yeah.
So these are
these are the stories that I'm being told from my sister and my older brother,
~
Right.
slightly from my parents. You know,
my I I think my mom plays let me rephrase that.
My mom definitely plays a lot more innocent than I think that she really is.
~ but ~ you know, my brother and sister are like,
you know, I went to this place and it really sucked,
and so I came back. You know, I you know,
it was a bad place, so I didn't want I told I lied.
So whether
Wow.
she did or not, whether whatever happened,
I you know, I I still don't know between my sister and my my s my older brother
and older sister's relationship with my parents was much worse than mine.
~ but you know
Well, do you know ~
how your father's relationship was with your two older siblings?
Because he was their stepdad, right?
It
he always tried, but the like the difference between
my brother's father and my father was pretty extreme.
Like my dad's kind of a nerd and his dad was more of a fireman outside,
you know, kind of a not not like an outwoodsman,
but you know, kind of the dad slash hunter slash,
you know
Yeah.
kind
of an outdoorsy dude, but not like you know,
not like the big buff dude that we think of nowadays.
You know, when you say
Right.
outdoorsman, you know, you you you think of,
you know, the brawny paper towel dude.
You know, but he he did a lot more stuff outside with my brother than
I think that my dad did. And
Okay.
I it didn't come as naturally for my dad.
~ and so it was harder for my brother.
My d my brother w brother was all like,
all right, you take care of me and you do all this stuff,
but you're kind of a dork.
So Yeah. It was rough.
Right, right, to connect, like to find that bonding.
D
do you know when he became an adult though,
if they found a connection?
It
it was always the my brother has always had the respect for him,
~
Mm.
because he was the man who took care of him.
So there's always that, but it's always that underlying,
you know, you're not my dad. You know,
I appreciate all the things that
Right. Yeah.
you did, but you're still not my dad.
So
Well plus he was
away, come back. True. But ninety days away,
ninety da yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Well I mean and and
and because of that, I mean he he did take care of myself and my old my
my sister a lot. ~ you know, I I can remember lots of times,
you know, and and thankfully my brother wasn't a wanker to me,
like he was pretty cool to
Yeah.
me. ~ but ~ he would take me tons of places,
you know, whether it'd be riding on his motorcycle or I can't remember what type.
I just remember he had a little I wanna say it was a Spitfire,
but I could be completely wrong.
He had a little red car that he bought and fixed up a little bit and
You know, he would drive it around and let me drive and I'd sit in
his lap while we're going around with the top down and the in the navy base.
So I mean I remember things like that,
but he was he was always cool to me,
so Well, that's when he wasn't throwing knives at me.
That's cool. That's cool. Was because you were ~
That's a whole different story though.
~
Well, so because you were the youngest,
~ you you and your ~ the sister that's two years ahead of you,
you guys were similar ages, but your
Mm-hmm.
older sister, did she also kind of was she like another parent to you as well?
No. Okay. Okay.
She was psycho. ~ I love my sister,
~
but she's nuts. ~ and like it it's
like it it was always the the trying to be more grown up than she was
and trying to go
out and do all of these things to be the adult that she felt that she was.
And so she always I mean, she always got into a mess of trouble and
did dumb stuff and ~ yeah,
I mean it was it was a very interesting Rocky relationship and you know,
lots of I mean, still is to this day.
Okay.
~
so it's just it's just completely weird with my with my older sister.
So I mean I
What about
I I feel like I'm older than her or more responsible than her.
Okay. And what about
your other sister? Are you guys close?
Or were you were you close growing up?
We're close. We ~ so we
we we fought all the time as kids,
but we were also very protective I mean I it I think it's that that stereotypical,
you know, I wanna rip your head off but nobody else can type of relationship.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean,
like she has you know, on top of the scar from falling out of the car,
she also has a scar right in the middle of her forehead,
~ because I threw a cup at her.
Like I th one of those thick,
no.
hard plastic cups.
and you know, sliced her eye right here and she tried to push
Changes.
me out a window. ~ I threw a stereo at her.
I mean it just it was I mean it was it was balls out,
you know, let's let's get after each other.
But I I will never forget like when I was a teenager though,
~ I was dating this girl who my sister did not like and she went after this girl.
She was like she's like, Joe, she's bad.
I don't like her and
She went after her. It was it was not a good thing.
Yeah. Was it justified at least or No,
No. No,
okay.
she there's just
something about this girl that she didn't like.
And and just
Yeah. She's protective of you.
whatever it was, she just went she she would like interrogate anybody
who wanted to date me. And ~ she would just be like,
You're not gonna talk it this way,
you're not gonna be this way with my little brother.
Because I th actually I think from like age ten she stopped calling me Joe.
And my name became little brother.
Like nobody nobody
knows me as Joe from her circle.
It's little brother. And still it's little brother.
Yeah. ~
Like I'm like we're in our forties and she still calls me,
Hey little brother,
how you doing? So
amazing i keep going back to the scar because long i how that's dangerous long
the way it cut that could have been really bad
yeah.
that's not a that's not horizontal that's a vertical and
Vertical.
for anyone who knows anything like that could have been fatal there's no question
yeah.
so ~ I'm just that's absolutely nuts so go ahead
I I but I was
always getting sick that way. I always I always had almost fatal.
So inj injury or ill like
~ gee. Like just from injuries or from illnesses too?
I like
I had scarlet fever. ~ so yeah.
No shirt.
So like well I mean, you know,
you're not sick, walk it off, have some cough syrup,
Yes. Now you're drunk with scarlet fever.
you're fine. No, I wasn't. ~ like I can Yeah.
So it was it was great. Why is this kid falling all over?
Yeah.
~
But no, like I I can remember being being like
~ not able to move my arms and legs because I was kinda septic.
Like I
my gosh.
like we had a big chair, not like the recliner lazy boy thing.
It was just like a big backed chair,
and I was laying between where,
you know, my feet were up on this armrest,
my head was on this armrest, and
Yeah.
my body was in between, and I was laying there sick.
And they were like, All right,
we need to take him to the hospital.
~ you know, he's looking bad. I'm like,
Yeah, I'm dying here.
Mm-hmm.
Excuse me. And and they're like,
All right, Joey, let's go. And I'm like,
I can't move. Like I I physic
Gummons.
like I I cannot move. And I f I I'm pretty sure that it was like sep like
I was septic. Like I I had the ~
the nodules in my throat from ~ strep throat and I mean it was it was bad.
~ wow. ~
I think I had
like a four day stay in the hospital and like they I can still remember
the coldness of they sat me up in the X ray room and I can still remember
the coldness of the plate that was on my back
Yeah.
when they were X raying my chest to figure out just how bad this was.
And and yeah, like I it was bad.
It was really bad.
That's crazy.
So it's almost like pr it probably felt like paralysis to some degree,
It it
right?
it really was. Like I I could yeah,
I couldn't move. It was it sucked.
Six or seven? Like I was I was pretty young.
How old were you when that happened?
Okay. Yeah.
But I mean I s
I mean I can st the that's probably where my vivid like some of
my most vivid memories are, like five,
six, seven of my childhood, some craziness like that.
~
Now,
did you have the typical like well,
what did your mom do? Was she a stay at home mom?
At
that time she was a stay at home mom.
Yeah.
Okay, so did you have the typical Gen X feral childhood where you would
go out and be gone all day and come back when the street lights came
on and she didn't know where you were?
yeah. We
no, we so we lived until I
was see six at that time,
we lived in the back of like right on the edge of a forest.
So a whole big forested area, where that navy base was.
And so like l twenty feet behind the fence of our house was a big forested area.
So we'd go back there and play and be in the middle of nothing.
~ and or we would just drive around the bikes all around the neighborhood.
~
You know, or we would sneak onto the top secret Navy base where they made missiles
through the hole in the fence.
And
You ever
get caught? ~
Kinda. we were seen. but
~ you know, when y I'm little and I can go through the fence and the MP
Yeah.
can't go through the fence and you know,
we're on our bike away and they can't catch us.
I mean, but yeah, sneaking into a military top secret base was I mean,
you know, hey, I did not do that.
I definitely did not do that.
Yeah. Listen, that's that's like leveling
up in Gen X feral childhood stories.
There's only a small amount of Gen Xers
Yeah.
that can say that. So okay, so and then would you have a time like would
you have to be home like when the lights came on or
It was typically like when the lig
yeah, I mean the you know, the lights in the neighborhood always came
on and then that's at when we had to be home.
But I mean, there was always some craziness.
I mean, I on top of the the the missile base and all stuff like that,
when we lived in Key West, you know,
we lived five hundred yards away from the water.
So
Mm-hmm.
I can remember, you know, being eight years old,
nine years
old. I
get done with school, I come home,
I do my homework, I have my snack,
and my brother and I would grab our fishing poles and if if you look
on the if you look on a map you can see exactly what I'm talking about.
But if you go to Key West, just to the north of the island,
there's a little key called Dredger's Key.
And it's a little military base there.
And on the if you the the aerial view you can see a really darkened spot that's
a square. We would walk out to that dugout
channel there and drop our fishing line over and fish for sharks standing
~ wow.
in the water
with the sharks.
So it's like shallow until you hit the the deep spot and it's a cliff.
I mean I mean I'm eight years old so shallow yes was up to here
Yeah. Okay, yeah. Yeah.
and my my my brother was eighteen so is you know up to his mid up to his waist,
Yeah. Four feet. Yeah.
you know, but four or five feet deep,
but you
know, somewhere in there. But I mean yeah,
we're we're in the in the reef there,
so to speak, in the in the water,
Mm-hmm. And there's were they swim
fishing for sharks.
were they swimming around you,
the sharks?
They they were typically down in the the drop off there.
~
Yeah.
so I mean we'd throw the line over and bring up and whack with
the little bat and take home and clim yeah.
Did you keep ~ And cook And sharks sharks actually good.
yeah. yeah, blacktip shark is really good.
It is good. It is.
yeah.
Did you ever go down and swim with them or go in the water?
yeah, we
well we so when and that was actually the fun part.
Like we would go swimming and snorkeling all the time.
Like that was like the normal thing for us when we lived in Key West.
Like, okay, you know,
Yeah. Yeah.
whether it was fishing or snorkeling,
we were always there and I mean it might be spear fishing.
We had the little it was basically like a regular spear with a rubber bait like
a large rubber band on it. You hook it around your waist and you know,
you you shoot your arm straight,
like, I want to eat that fish.
And
Yeah.
so you shoot the fish with the spear.
on the rubber band, and that was your dinner,
you know, and or you go crabbing.
~ you know, where not we wouldn't take the whole crab because this
was my dad's whole idea. We would take the crab,
rip one of the arms off and let go because they grow back.
So you would you would it was
~ wow. Okay.
an endless supply of crabs because we would always just rip one arm
off so they could fight, survive,
and eat. And so
We would do that and then, you know,
like five months later you'd see the same crab with a,
you know, a little bit smaller arm and you rip the other one off,
you know. And
I I it's Yeah, but that's what you mean.
No, but it sounds like inhumane but humane at the same time,
Like we didn't kill ~ I mean, we didn't ~ we we didn't kill ~ We left with something
if that makes sense. You didn't kill him.
You know, you maimed him. Yes,
def we maimed maimed ~ temporarily.
you maimed him. Yeah. Yes, yes,
They grow back. ~ but yeah, you know,
yes. I'm I'm a
I mean it was i it was a constant
supply and demand rotating, you know,
if it was efficient. We didn't destroy the population and we had food.
Yeah. Is that is that
So
common or is that your dad's own thing he created?
I
I don't know. I mean I've never had anybody else say that.
Most people just take the whole crab and throw it in there.
I mean we
Yeah.
we did that too, like when I moved up to ~ to Charleston,
~ we would go out under the bridge and not that kind of under the bridge,
for anybody who knows the song,
Yeah.
but we'd go under the bridge
~ and go like crabbing there where you take a fishing string,
you tie some chicken on it, you got a net,
you throw the chicken out and you pull the crab over to the net and
you pick the neck up net up and throw it in the bucket.
Yeah.
When
we did that we would just take the whole thing and throw it in a pot.
Yeah. Right.
~ but when I was younger it was the you know,
the one leg at a time.
I'm picturing
that's such a skit to picture a bunch of like one arm crabs fighting under
the water. The Ferrises were here.
Yeah, yeah, totally. that's too funny.
Okay, so when you guys were y from those years of cause when did you move
~ to Charleston from Lakewood?
We
Like
you were like one?
I was two years old, I think, when I moved to Charleston.
Okay, so from like two to eight you were in Charleston before you went
to Ke the Keys?
yeah s I think six, seven right in that time.
And then
Okay.
I think it was eight and nine in Key West.
And then we moved back to Charleston.
So those younger years, did you go to school on the base when you were like what
Yeah. Yeah, ~ kindergarten through like third grade,
kindergarten in my kindergarten first grade on the base?
Okay.
something like that. It was Menrive Elementary,
I think is what it was.
And then ~ you didn't go to school to elementary though with Dad Bod,
right? He wasn't in Okay.
No, no, no. J we just high school,
yeah.
Just high school. And then when you went to the Keys,
were you also going to ~ school on the base?
Yeah, right on right on Dredger's Key,
it was Sigsby Sigsby Elementary,
I think is what it was. So No,
And then was your mom still a stay at home mom when you guys were in the keys?
then she she got a job as a phlebotomist.
~ so
A flip okay, okay, right. And
she worked at the hospital on the same military base where my dad was.
Okay. What is that again? What is the people who take your blood?
okay. Yeah, yeah. The blood Yeah.
Blood draw, yeah. We called her a vampire 'cause,
you know, always taking blood.
So then when she was working, was that when you did you ever become latchkey?
Okay.
yeah. yeah. That was the
whole time in I mean, the whole time in Key West and everything after that
was all you know and I mean
Last key.
she wa she was always gone. So like even even when I was in elementary school,
you know, kindergarten on, she was always doing something.
~ and I mean on the military base they had the the auto repair shop,
they had a a ceramic shop, ~ a whole bunch of I mean a whole bunch of crap.
Mm.
that they
would do and my mom was always going and doing than that or doing something
Okay.
with the church. So it wasn't necessarily work.
~ but
Right.
she she had part time jobs, but she was never home.
Like she was she was home afterwards.
Like we'd get home and do our stuff and then come
Right.
home. ~ but from probably like six years old on,
it was all like she was gone, you know.
What
a what a great place to be a latchkey kid though.
Key West is awesome. That whole area with fishing.
yeah.
Yeah. The whole whatever. Were you did you and your sister that's
two years older than you, 'cause you guys then w were both latchkey around
the same age, would you guys kinda go do things together or 'cause I know
you said fishing was with your older brother.
Not not really.
I mean she she also started out in a very similar fashion like
my oldest sister trying to be much older and crazy and s and you know doing
all the whacked out I mean my sister has years that she does
not remember because you
Okay.
know she was doing you know recreational products.
so I mean very very good.
Right. Key West is good for that too.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
It's right, you know, I mean just ship right in from anybody who can,
~
you know, pull up a boat.
~ but yeah, it was there was a lot of that going on.
~ and yeah, it was it was a very,
very interesting time for me. I all I mean,
I always kind of felt alone because when she when we got to that age,
she was off doing her own thing.
I mean, my brother, we would spend that time together,
but
Yeah.
can you imagine a six and a sixteen year old kid hanging out all the time?
He he had a job a lot. ~ so he'd
Yeah.
get off and go work at a ~ whatever the local grocery store was there right near
the high school. ~
So I mean it was most of the time I was at home alone.
~
Okay. 'cause your sister's out doing her thing and your other sister's
out doing her thing and he's older.
So would you pretty much hang out with like a group of friends?
Or was it
yeah.
okay.
We so in the in that like I'll s I'll s stick with the I mean both
of the military bases. I mean I there was the group of friends that ~
I played with on Knutsen Street.
~ you know, there was the you know,
our neighbors that were to our right and left and you know,
all the military kids who we hung around with and went to school with,
we all had our little gang and group that we
Right.
hung out with and and so we'd ride around and do stuff.
Or when I lived in the Key West area
It was the cul-de-sac'cause there's a cul-de-sac here and a cul-de-sac here
and a whole bunch of townhouse,
you know, military row style housing.
So we would always play around in that.
I mean, that's I think I can't remember which I can't I think it's this eye,
but I have a scar from under on the corner of one of my eyes from ~ a rock from
a dirt cloud war, slicing my eye like right here from,
~ jeez.
you know, playing in you know,
playing rock wars, dirt clod wars with the
with my buddies. ~ you know, there's always there was always something.
I've got a
I actually have a scar right here.
~ because I was hit with a two by four with a nail in it.
~ so I've got like this nice little
my god.
round scar right here. ~ 'cause we ~ two by four with a nail in it.
Who wouldn't use that for a sword?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
And you know, and I I I was not defending
myself. It's all my fault really.
And so, you know, but yeah, I got a boom,
a nail right here. I've got another slash right here from another you know,
just always crazy. I mean, it was always dumb stuff.
Yeah. Have you ever
And you know, but
taken stock of all your Gen X childhood scars?
How many you have?
I d I there's too many. Like the like I will honestly
Ha ha ha.
I'll like I'll be looking around like if I'm like if I'm bent over putting
on a pair of socks, I'm like, what is this scar from?
Yeah.
And like
I'm trying to remember like where d how did I get hurt here?
You know, what is this from? Like I've got a big,
you know, grey spot in the middle of my shin.
How did I get that scar? Like I don't know
Mm-hmm.
half the time. Like these these few like the ones that are right here,
like these are really cool scars,
so like I remember them very well,
but I
Yeah,
there's random. That's funny.
I've got a lot of just dumb stuff that I've done.
So
For
those, were you at least allowed to go to the hospital or did your dad show
No. No. No,
up and he so he took care not even a tetanus for the nail?
I took care of it. But I did not like yeah,
You took care of it. That's why there's a scar.
I like it was ~ so I mean when when your
Yeah, there you go. Yeah.
dad works on in the military ~ you know,
medical area, he brings home stuff.
So like I had I had like stereo strips,
yes, okay. Okay.
like the the
~ like the band aid stitches.
So like when I sli when I had that slice right here,
you know, I just I held it together and put the band-aid and just
Right.
took care of it that way. And you know,
when I had the nail in my ~ in my shoulder here,
I just, you know, alcohol and did that,
big old gauze and slapped it on and I I had I don't even think my parents even still
know that it happened. You know,
my gosh. Did
I mean I just take care of it myself.
I mean
your did your dad ever have to stitch you up ever?
Did he ever did you go that far?
No, he he actually never he actually never did that.
~ I I took care of things like that if if it was.
I th I think the only thing that I actually have another,
I don't know if you can see it,
I've got another scar right there.
~ I don't know why I was doing this,
but this was actually a scout group.
I think I was like 12 at this time,
but I was cutting rope with a bowsaw.
I don't know why I was cutting rope with a bowsaw,
~ but I was, and the bowsaw jumped and sliced my finger.
Yeah.
But there were like five adults around,
like Scoutmaster type dudes, and they're like,
run him to the emergency like they were freaking out.
He had blood all over his garage floor and you know,
but you know, they just they ran me to the Navy hospital and you know,
put it was sliced up pretty bad.
It was like three slices because the bowsaw,
like it's really rigid. It's not like a normal Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, no th I'm cringing honestly.
I've done something like that.
And so it was like jump, jump,
jump. And and so like this the scar is nasty.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No one ~
when they were all like, ~ you were probably like,
What? What's the big deal? 'Cause no one ever reacted like that to you.
Like I I'm like I'm like this is I'm like well this I was like
Well it hurts. Yeah, but Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
~ and they're freaking out. I'm like,
hey, you got a band aid? Like,
what do you
mean, Joe? You gotta go to the hospital.
I'm like, what for? Like, give me a band aid,
Yeah. Really Yeah.
wrap some gauze around it.
Just need some Robotussin. Yeah.
I l I'm gonna go get some of my dad's cough syrup.
Like it just it would like I
It'll be fine.
I didn't get it, but they were like we we're taking you now.
Right, right. Right.
I I th I think
it was honestly the first time any of these parents had seen a child like
a child with blood, my gosh. Because I don't know,
we kept it away from everybody.
It just but yeah, they they freaked out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's funny. So well being the youngest and I'm not gonna say injury prone,
but you had a lot of injuries.
~
did you get blamed for a lot of stuff or were you babied?
Or was it more like because you were the youngest
Both.
Okay.
Both. So I will say ~ I'll say two things.
So my well a couple my my my older brother and o oldest siblings blamed
Mm-hmm.
me for everything because and I will I will also say that
~ the greatest trick the devil ever did was to make the world believe that
he did not exist and my parents still think that I'm the wonderful little godchild.
Mm-hmm. ~
~ so
I was very sneaky with doing things and getting away with things.
~
Mm-hmm.
sometimes when I have a story and I talk about it in my older years,
my parents are like, When did you do that?
Yeah.
Well, see what ha happened was ~ so I mean there's tons
of stuff like that, but when like my kids would call me the golden child because
my parents wouldn't ever think that it was me.
Because
Mm-hmm.
when I was in front of my parents or in front of people who knew my parents,
you know, you know, I knew how to carry myself.
Like yes, sir, yes, ma'am, absolutely,
you're correct. This everything is wonder like it was this
Yeah.
it was this great big act.
Right.
And I I was really good at it.
But when I was away with all my buddies,
it was like, let's go. You
Hey.
know, so it it it it was a duality ~ that is that was kind of fun to get away with.
I'm sure. But when your older siblings blamed you,
was were they r right in doing that or were you getting blamed
for things that weren't even okay.
Both. Like I I
So they
remember I remember getting blamed for burning something.
Like I can't remember what it was,
but there was there was like burn marks on something in the house
and like everybody looked at me and I'm like,
I don't even have a lighter. I don't what are talking about?
Yeah. Yeah. Do you know who it was to this day?
You know? But I got in trouble.
My brother. It was my brother.
Okay. Okay.
My brother was psycho
and he you know he always was doing nutsy stuff and he knew that I wouldn't
get in trouble.
You know, I was the youngest. What did I know?
Yeah. ~ Okay.
So he'd be like, Joey did it. Joey did it.
Yeah, yeah. So they could blame you to c cover their own butts,
but
yeah.
then you were doing your own stuff as well and denying it.
It sounds like fun. Yeah, yeah,
those are those are those are life skills right there.
Those are life skills you can apply in the future,
yeah. yeah. Mm.
and I'm sure you did. So
when you during those elementary years,
and I know
you moved from Charleston to the Keys and then back Charleston,
but ~ were you involved in any extracurriculars like sports or clubs
or music or theater, art, anything like that?
gosh.
~
So it in I was always involved in like the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts
and things like that. ~ I was in choir ~ and band
nice.
when I was in junior high. In
Mm-hmm.
high school I was also in choir.
I was in a show choir. ~ can you can you imagine me in a nice I mean
Wow. That means you're good though.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm I'm okay. I'm you know
I I would make it past the first round in like one of the music shows
and then I would get booted.
Yes.
~ I wouldn't be as bad as like William Hung or anything like that,
Yeah.
but but I
mean I I I can I can sing and I I mean after three surgeries I can't dance anymore.
~ but but yeah I was I mean it was fun doing that.
~ I did drama. I was in a couple of school plays.
~ I was the lead in two of ~ I was chart
Wow.
I was Charlie Brown and Santa Claus.
~ different years. But
Two two different what
was the Charlie Brown play?
Charlie
Brown, it was it was your good man Charlie Brown.
It was my senior
Okay.
year in high school. and it it I mean,
it was a whole big old production and you know I mean it was fun.
I had a blast doing it, had to sing and dance to the ima you know,
imaginary kite playing, imaginary football.
~ it was I mean, it was fun and just,
That's cool.
you know, being
so so yeah, I mean
And then what about the Santa Claus?
What play was that?
Santa
Claus, I think I that was my eighth grade year.
It was ~ I I can't remember the name.
I just remember that I played Santa Claus
You were Santa.
for the eighth grade like drama play at the end of the year or the at the
at the end of the semester or whatever.
So you were kind of a theater kid?
A little bit, but I I mean I also did all the sports.
~
Okay.
you know, I mean I I did football,
wrestling, weightlifting, track,
well, the field portion of the track.
It's not like my big fat butt was running.
But I mean, you know, I threw I threw shot put and discus and stuff like that.
So ~ they you know, they they in in my school,
at least in my high school, there was like the band nerds and
the chorus jocks because it wasn't just me,
okay.
like
Like I had like there's a dude named Terrell and Terrence and Omar
who were also played football who were also in the same choir as me.
So like we just
Wow. Yeah, interesting.
like it was just it was a it was like the whole defensive line in choir.
And yeah. No no
That is so it's like glee. So no one's messing with you either.
Yeah.
Yeah. Go ahead and pick on me.
I mean, well
we we had we had four guys in the high school who had their own little like boys
to men esque style singing group and I
Mm. Wow.
mean you you you gonna go and you're gonna go and tell the three hundred
Yeah.
and fifty pound lineman, you know,
you're stupid, you sing. I want like I I will watch this.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This will be great. And
so but no, it was great. Like we had a really,
really excellent diverse
you know, high school with, you know,
people just doing breaking all of the norms.
Like, do what
Home.
you want, be whoever you want.
It was great.
Now was this a public high school?
Okay, so during those early years when you were going to military school,
did you ever was it always segregated?
Did you ever ~ hang out with civilian kids?
I I honestly I don't remember if I don't even think that they could get in there.
~ I mean I I
Okay.
I hung out with civilian kids like at church and stuff like that,
but never like in the neighborhood.
They yeah, they couldn't
Okay.
really get in there.
And then when you went to junior high,
was that on the base or was that public?
junior high that was public school.
Yeah.
So how was it transitioning from military school to public school?
It it was I mean it was very s it was very similar.
I mean, because I think the o the only difference I think was the actual location.
It happened to be on a military base,
but it was it it it wasn't like a military style school.
So
Mm.
it was just I mean, normal crap playing around,
you know, I mean tetherball and you know and softball and nah.
So it wasn't it wasn't a hard transition at all for you.
It
it was really it was really easy,
really normal. ~
And that's
where you played band, you said junior high?
What instrument did you play? ~ nice,
Junior high, yeah. Saxophone. Yeah.
nice.
And but you didn't take that into high school?
No, I you know, I I don't know why I stopped.
I just did. I I I think I actually I think it's kinda like what my
my kids are dealing with now in high school.
So I've I've got young kids who are in high school and they they play sports.
Well, my my second girl, she enjoyed band and she was really good at pre percussion,
but she couldn't do basketball and band because you had to pick something
Mm-hmm.
for the slot. So I think that's
if if
I mean I don't remember exactly,
but that's likely what happened with me.
I had to choose something and banned was yeah.
You had to make it a system. Yeah.
Well,
between all the sports and your choir and theater,
there were that's a lot of events.
Were you because for so many of us Gen Xers,
our parents didn't it's not like now,
our parents didn't come to any of our things.
Now we all go to our kids' things,
right? Like crazy. Because
yeah.
a lot of us even go to practices.
~ how were your parents? Were they at your events,
at your plays, at your games?
My
mom was
mostly if it was a home game or if it was a home like a the
the drama performance out of high school.
Right.
'cause typically they were seven,
eight o'clock at night and so,
you know, she would get off of work at five thirty,
six o'clock and come home and you know and do whatever.
But ~ but yeah, she would she would come to like the home football games or
Mm-hmm.
a home wrestling match or something like that.
Did your dad ever come to any of your stuff?
Almost never, almost never. Almost never.
Even when he was home? D
He was always doing something.
So he was always that quote unquote on call or helping other was that
a theme where he was more involved with other people than with his own family?
It it felt like that sometimes.
I mean I I remember just trying to to get him to so to to spot
me in weightlifting. So I in I enjoyed wet weightlifting.
Like I I was a beast in the gym.
It just it was where I shined.
Like no one no one could beat me when I was a kid.
And I remember going to this competition and I had asked my dad,
I said, Look, I'm trying to do this competition.
for you know bench and squat and all this stuff,
can you can you spot me? Like I don't need much help.
Like you will not like you're not gonna have to pick this weight up off of me.
I just if I if I lose it at the top,
you gotta touch it. And I'll get the rest of it.
Like you really are not gonna have to do much.
And he was like, nah, not my like it I don't think that he did that for
me until I was twenty two. Like just nothing.
And
and do you think it's because his energy was s just so completely displaced towards
others, or do you think that just wasn't in him?
I I I
don't I don't know what his I his motivation with that was,
but it just I think it was because it wasn't his thing.
Like now I I
Okay.
I when now I will say that he was like my scout leader.
So for
Mm.
some for some years he was a scout leader.
And so like if we went camping,
he was there. Or if we did some scout stuff,
he was there. ~ but it was also like so very
annoying because he treated the scouts like the military.
Mm.
And like I'm like, I just I want to like,
you know, lash some sticks together and make a raft.
And he's like, you know, no, we've got to,
you know, make our camp this way and we've got to dig out under our tent.
And like everything felt like a military operation trying to process it
in the camp for 10 year olds. And I'm just like,
Right. Right.
I'm like, I'm
I'm I'm 10. Can I go throw rocks in the stream?
Yeah.
~
You know, but it was always this,
you know, everything has to be ordered and s set a certain way.
So
Right.
And and all the other ten year olds are looking at you like your dad like what's
Who is this guy?
Yeah.
Yeah. ~ okay, so and was he consistent like that with your sister too,
or he wasn't really going to her things or
There w I don't think there
was much that he ~ he made time for.
~ so yeah.
Okay. Or unless it was something he was interested in or
gotcha, gotcha. Isn't that isn't it interesting 'cause I'm sure you've broken that
generational cycle. Yeah, I think that's what yeah,
my gosh, yes. my gosh.
yeah. Most of us Gen X parents,
we put so much energy into that,
Well like like my daughter my daughter
right?
is in she's in cross country. Yeah,
we we we give the energy, I feel like.
Like my daughter's
Yeah.
in cross country. I have absolute zero interest in running.
Yeah.
I do not want to run. Run to me is a four letter word.
Like it is bullcrap. But
I will drive two hours down to Medill,
Oklahoma for a fifteen minute race for my daughter that she
Mm-hmm.
is going to lose. She's gonna be at you know,
in the fifty percent of the pack.
But she enjoys running. It's something that makes her happy.
So I will run all over the course and scream my daughter's name like
a lunatic because it's what she wants.
And I I will support like you want to do something,
kid? Tell me what you want to do.
Like, I mean, this is my daughter's yarn because she is into
Mm-hmm.
~ she's into stuff with this. She's cross stitching and macrame and stuff like that.
I'm like, you want yarn? I'll buy you yarn.
Yeah. Yeah.
You y you want to make something out of noodles,
I'll buy you all the noodles you like.
I don't care what it is, I'll buy you
Yeah.
your thing. my other daughter paints.
You want, you know, ninety thousand different types of paint,
I will buy you the paint. I don't care what it is.
I will do what I can so that you can have the thing that you want.
And I will tell everybody how awesome I think you are,
because really you are. And the the cool I was talking to my daughters
the other day about this, and I know I'm jumping all over the place,
but like
Now you're good.
My daughter, like I came in the house the other day from doing my stuff outside,
my normal daily chores, and my daughter was cooking a dinner that
she decided she wanted. She found it,
went online, got all the stuff,
and like here I'm gonna make this.
And I walk inside and I'm staring at her cooking,
and I was thinking, I did this because I had to.
You are doing this at the same age and making dinner for yourself because.
You want to. You are
Mm.
doing it out of independent desire,
not of not out of independent need.
And so I feel like a lot of the same behaviors that I did are st or that
I that I did as a kid, the same thing,
the things that I had to do, they're doing,
but with a very different reason and rationale for getting into it.
It's it's because they want to,
not because if I
Yeah.
don't make my own dinner, I'm not eating.
It's it's it's very interesting to watch that happen.
And that's breaking a generational cycle.
yeah. yeah.
And you did
that, you did that. And that's something that I think not enough
Gen Xers give themselves credit for because I think a lot of us really devoted
a significant amount of our lives to making sure we did that.
It
it it's a double edged sword, ~ quite honestly,
with this. And I've I found this out in probably the last year.
So I think we all became the parent that we wish we had.
But
Yes.
the problem is, did we become the parent that our kids needed?
We became the parent that we needed,
but
Right.
I've been questioning myself like,
am I doing am I doing the thing
That my daughter needs, or am I doing what I think she needs because
I didn't have it and that's what I'm doing?
So I'm
Right.
I am constantly questioning myself and my own stupid behavior like,
are they not really liking this because that's not what they want?
How do I recognize more what they need as opposed to giving them what
I would have needed? So it's it's really yeah.
Yes. Yes. It's a fine line. It's a fine line.
It's it's almost like making sure because I do think by becoming
the parent we needed for our own kids,
it is kind of a part of our own healing journey.
And I think that's what we realize as we get older.
So it's making sure that we take a step back and keep perspective whenever
we can to make sure of our intention behind what we're doing
is not indirectly self-serving for our own healing.
You know
yeah. And I mean and I mean I there's a part of me that really wants
to do those things. Like like I I have one thing that I do because I never had it.
Like my house has snacks galore.
Like like we have the refrigerator full of ice cream
Yeah. ~ God. Yes.
and popsicles, you know, there's candy bars and you know,
Yeah.
goldfish crackers and triskets and you know,
all of the snacks. Like we have You know,
Yep. Yep.
you want Sonny D, I got Sunny D.
You Gatorade,
I got I got juice boxes.
I've got fruit snacks because I never had like there was no stash of that stuff,
but you know, my
Yep. That's her.
I I I ca you I can I relate to every single word you said.
But the question every single word you said.
We have a snack drawer, we always have.
We've got two mini fridges, one is soda,
one is waters and juices. Our pantry,
half of it is just snacks, and then the freezer,
everything's full. Ca Costco knows me.
But they know me. The big question I have is
When the friends come over, do you go on a whole sermon about where everything
is and help yourself? 'Cause that she gives every kid who comes
Do whatever.
over, if there's a snack girl here,
help yourself. Yeah.
No, my
kids, it's you know, do whatever.
You know, I just I I
Yeah, that's what I mean.
I say, listen, the rule in our house is don't ask for permission.
There's the snack drawer, there's the drinks,
help yourself. We were always the house where every kid you could come
and eat and drink and to your heart's galore.
You know, that was our house. And ~
Yep. That's that's the way it is.
that's the way it is. But but like you're saying
Not just that, I want my kids to grow up with snacks and their friends to
be able to help themselves, but I am resolving something in myself by doing
yeah.
that. You know, and I our youngest is sixteen.
I we have a twenty nine and a twenty-five year old who s live in this town
and are over a lot. So it's not like they're gone,
gone. But
Mm-hmm.
my sixteen year old ~ has friends come over,
but I'm still buying snacks like I have three kids under ten.
Like I'll be in Costco buying snack size goldfish still for the snack drawer.
And I have juniors in my house in high school.
But they still go in on it.
So go in on it, but I just can't I have anxiety about not having enough food
in the house. You know.
yeah. Well I mean I
I I have it because we had all the we had food that I didn't want.
~ I mean we we weren't we weren't dirt poor but we were kinda poor.
We were we were financially stupid poor is kind of what we were.
Like my my parents bought the first microwave for five hundred dollars
in the eighties, you know,
Yeah. Yeah.
like why? Because we gotta have the microwave.
~
Yeah.
you know, I s and you know, and dealing with the financial out you know
Buying that microwave in nineteen eighty four is like spending a thousand dollars
on a microwave now. You know, it was it was a such a
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
dumb financial decision. ~ but I mean my parents wanted to,
you know, keep up with the Joneses or whatever,
or be the ones who had it and you know,
but but then it was like, Well,
we only used it to warm up our leftover soup,
you know.
Right.
You know, I mean what
Yeah.
I mean, I I think we every now and then when they had that microwave meals,
like the biscuits, the the burgers,
Yes.
I
think there was like the they even had like the which was the dumbest thing that
had microwave milkshakes. I still don't understand.
There was a company, it's like my it's a I can picture it in my mind as like
a red and yellow microwave meal company.
I think they were only around for like four or five years.
But they made burgers
I never heard of that. No.
and milkshakes and
You know, all the normal stupid stuff.
Mm-hmm.
And we would buy this crap. I I can't remember the name of the company.
Pardon me wants to look it up on my phone right now,
but it would like we bought all this stupid stuff,
Yeah.
but ninety percent of the time it was like warm up your pea soup.
'Cause you know, cause
Yes. Yes.
we're too stupid. Why I don't understand why we bought that.
Now it makes sense to have a microwave,
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
but in nineteen eighty four, you know,
war warm
up your crap. It it was dumb. So it was so dumb.
Well now there's rows
and rows of
you know aisles at the grocery store of microwaveable stuff.
Right. But now
Yes.
like yeah, but back then my dad actually 'cause my parents were divorced,
but my dad would buy the big ticket items for my mom randomly,
you know, just as part of whatever was going on between the two of them.
So we had it as well, like in the early eighties,
and I think that thing was like six hundred dollars and it was so heavy.
They were huge.
yeah.
It was huge. And but yeah, we but again didn't even have the rotating plate.
No, no. You had to open
No no
it halfway and spin the thing and start it
It was crazy. Now, so were your parents because I know you've mentioned church
a few times. Micro magic. Micromagic guy.
Micromagic was the name of the company.
Micro Magic.
I'll have to look that up. I'm gonna look that up because that name doesn't even
ring a bell. Like I don't even I wonder
I grew up in Oregon. I wonder if that even made it to the West Coast because
I it it was it
I have no memory.
was literally like a v like it was out three or four years and then gone.
And then gone. A microwave mouthflake,
But I just I still just remember the stupidity
what a concept.
just the stupidity of a microwave milkshake.
It didn't stop me from getting it,
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
but it was dumb.
What a trip. That's hilarious.
But you've mentioned ~ church a lot and then you guys it sounds like
you were involved in church. So were your parents were they heavily involved
in the church? Were they like leaders of
my gosh.
the church and like you said that you guys were
Yeah.
you know, were they giving to the to others a lot?
You know, more than maybe within your home?
That is a major pain point between my brother and I and our well are not between us,
but that we talk about a lot. Because like my my
mom consid considers herself like this major awesome cook.
~ she's not. you
Ha ha ha.
know, she she cooks good enough to get things and she cooks good enough
for normal things, but
Right.
it's not like Martha Stewart's gonna invite her on a show anytime soon.
~ but like
She would make things for these church activities.
And I think my mom's best thing that she makes is like desserts.
Mm.
And, you know, like, you know,
37 level level, you know, chocolate cakes and,
you know, strawberry cream and icing inside of the angel food cake.
And I mean,
Yes.
it's really good desserts, but it would be made for the church and we would
not have anything. Or like she would make this 37-layer lasagna in this giant
pot and
We're eating three bean soup.
Mm.
And all of these things were made for everybody else.
And my like the conversations that my brother and I have,
it's like it was all about the show,
about how how you were perceived throughout the the normal community
and the church community. And the Pharises,
they're such wonderful people.
And now I'm I mean, I'm against it because of all that stuff.
Like I
Yeah.
I help out people, but like there's no way in heck that I'm gonna be like,
okay.
You know, if my kids don't have it,
there's no way in hell I'm making it for anything else.
Yeah. Right. Right. It's not like it's not like she was making two lasagnas,
I'm not doing it. Not happening.
No. Nope.
one for the home, one for the church.
Right. Yeah. I think I
Nope. Always for everybody else.
th I think that was kind of common for so many families too,
is the perception from the outside versus what was going on inside the home.
Yeah, during
yeah.
that time for a lot of us growing up.
~ but I'm sure that that created a decent amount of resentment and as a result,
tons. Well, I
yeah, yeah.
mean, and the the the worst this was the worst thing.
Imagine eating the same thing from
the giant huge pot of soup that your mother made on Sunday and you're still eating
it on Friday, but you get up in the middle of the night on Thursday
and they're eating steak.
The pa your parents are? So they would have their own me okay.
Steak and potato yeah. They're eating steak
What a trip.
and potatoes at, you know, nine o'clock at night,
ten o'clock at night 'cause all the kids are asleep and they're eating their
own thing and we just had soup for the fourth time.
And you guys all knew that was going on.
Yeah, that would create
I I found out I found out a little
bit later on, like I think I was like twelve when I caught them,
but my brother was like, Dude,
Yes.
they've been doing that for years.
So yeah.
Yeah. And that and that
that creates anger and resentment because then you automatic
yeah.
that there that's very layered in how you view your entire
yeah.
family dynamic and your parents and all of that.
So just
yeah.
that one move right there with the food.
I don't know if I've really ever heard of that before.
I I feel like maybe, but what's what do you think was going on there?
I
I I honestly think that like they were trying
Yeah.
to live the life that they wanted to have without us while still having us.
Mm.
Like they they wanted to do all the things and have some that level
of freedom but they couldn't except for hiding it here and there.
And it it it was it was always just a weird
dynamic. It always felt like something was off.
And when I found when I saw that for the first time,
like it like it was like, how long how in the hell long has this been going on?
Mm-hmm.
This is like really trippy. Now,
now I won't say that I won't buy my own treat and I'll be like,
Yeah. Yeah.
no, this treat is mine. You know,
these are these are my donuts,
don't touch them. But
like when or or if I buy the big giant cheesecake,
I'm like, you better not have all of this.
You better make sure that everybody,
you know, it but there's nothing in my household that
you know, it's only mine and you can't have it.
It's you know, I I may buy two so that I can have my thing and then everybody else
can have something, but it I I can't think of a time where it's ever been this
is just mine. So
I
I'm sure it felt like a betrayal.
Yeah.
Always. It and the more that
I f the more that I find out, the more like as my brother and I
are talking about things, ~ it it's just like,
yeah, that's why they did this.
Well they did that because did you do you ever s yeah.
And we're we're it it's all of these behaviors that maybe I didn't
see that my brother saw a little bit differently because he was ten years older,
that now I'm like, yeah, that makes sense.
I can see,
Yeah.
you know, or yeah
They really were dirt bags for doing this to us and then and going here
and leaving us home or it there was always something like that.
Would they go on vacations without you guys?
We we almost never went on vacations.
~ we only went on one real vacation,
but they would never really go anywhere ~ without us.
Now, they would go other places to other people's house without us,
~ but not like far away. No. We d I mean,
I believe though only because we were poor.
Right.
Okay. So with with their ~ persona that they were projecting out there,
it sounds like it was kind of them as a unit and then they happen
to have these kids.
Yeah. It w we we just we were just kinda there.
We were
Yeah.
we were you know, drug along or tagged along or something like that.
So
And that again explains why you're so involved with your own children.
It's just yeah, yeah.
yeah. yeah.
And making sure everything's yeah.
And and I think, you know, a lot that's very consistent theme in diff
in a different ways with our generation.
I think some of us have gone through those feelings of it's really
not feeling like the priority in your parents' life.
Like they were their priority.
No. Yeah. And I mean even
Yeah.
ev even in my friends, you know,
I've I've got a buddy who actually ha he has got a granddaughter as as as
old as my youngest. And, you know,
we'll we'll be talking about stuff and I'm like,
hey man, you want to go here on Saturday?
you know, 'cause I I get together with my buddies on Saturday and
we go eat breakfast like eight in the morning and three of us will go
That's cool.
chill. And he's like like he started the other ~ like two years ago.
He's like, I can't this Saturday because my youngest has a football game.
Or or my granddaughter has a you know,
she's cheerleading at a football game and I'm gonna go watch her cheer.
And ha I mean, he's he's so involved in the kids' life and the grandkids' life
and everybody that's around him and doing everything,
he he will not take the time for himself.
And I'm just like, I get it
Yeah. Yeah. And
I think we all do. And I like doing anything
Yeah.
other than that would feel uncomfortable and foreign to us.
Well I I asked so I remember when my ~ when my daughter was starting
her cross country in her freshman year,
~ I wanted to do something. I think I think I was going ~ it that's actually what
it was. I was going to John's house to to create content.
And I said, Hey,
Mm.
you have a meet this week and this week.
Are you like I are you okay if I miss one?
And if I miss one, which one do you prefer?
And I I still remember that conversation and
Yeah.
she's like, Well and it was it was really adult of her is she was like,
Well, I would prefer you to come,
but I also understand that you have your own stuff that you want to do.
So if you're gonna miss it, miss this one because I don't care about that
one as much.
Mm.
And I mean that I was like giving the kids the opportunity to tell me no.
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, I'm you know,
I pr I probably would have tried to push it even more and been like,
you know, are you sure you don't want me to go?
Yeah. Yeah.
Can I you know can I s I can I please go play with my friends?
But she was sh I mean, she
was really grown up about it. I mean,
even I think at the age of fourteen at the time.
~ but I mean
Yeah. Did did you
have to learn that or did that just come naturally and you evolved into
it like this is how I'm gonna do it?
I I always wanted to
so I've not always been able to do that because my my job when
I first started working at the at the at ~ at this company when I when I
had the the kids were younger,
I was always at work. I think at the time I was going to school working
two jobs because my family like we we got into a financial mess right after
we moved to Oklahoma, like fifteen,
sixteen years ago. And
So I was going to school, working two jobs,
and was the dad, and I could almost go nowhere.
But ~ I busted in my butt,
you know, advanced in the job and then ended up getting another
job and doing something completely different now,
but you know, still have a lot more financial security than I did,
you know, back in like two thousand eight,
two thousand nine. ~ and so now that I can do those things.
I have evolved to be like, okay,
I'm gonna be everywhere that I can if I can.
And if I can, I want to make sure that I go to the right,
you if if I can't take off the time,
I wanted to go to the one that you want me at the most.
You
Yeah.
know, so it it it it evolved as my life evolved,
but it's always been who I wanted to be.
Like I've always wanted
Mm.
to be at all the places while realizing that as an adult,
a father, a husband, I have all these responsibilities.
And so I I need to to bide my time and schedule my time so I can play
all the roles that I have to while not pissing my family off.
Like that's that that's like the number one thing.
Like even even with the ~ the comedy stuff that I do now,
you know, it's all like I I go and I talk to my wife and I go and I talk
to my kids and I'm like, I've got this thing going on.
~ and like during basketball season that's coming up,
I probably will not be doing as many shows during the week because
Tuesday or Wednesday night, there might be a basketball game.
And I
Mm-hmm.
can't go to that basketball game if I am n am not here.
You know, a year
Yeah.
I think six or seven months ago,
~ John was asking me about the the cruise and
Mm.
if I was gonna go on the cruise and I'm like,
Nope, because my daughters have basketball and that's right at the end.
They might be in state this year,
and there's no way that I'm missing that.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Like, do I wanna
go? Heck yeah. But do I wanna miss maybe my kids going to state?
No, I'm never no. So I will always pick them one hundred percent over
anything that's going on. It's it's always
What
gonna happen.
What's cool is they know that,
right? 'Cause when you talk to her about it,
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah.
she gave you the options. So that's cool.
It's working. Good job. And
yeah, and that's what I was gonna say is communication.
Is through that talking to her,
you have the open communication.
Nothing's being hidden, you know,
everything is out in the open.
You know, you've given that to them too,
is that open communication and created the space for her to feel comfortable
to be honest with you. That's I mean,
if you really compare how you grew up and how you're I mean,
it's like night and day.
Okay.
And
and I mean it's it's not it's not just that 'cause ~ right I mean right
now I'm giving this idea, this perception that that Joe guy,
he's the like the most awesome f I mean I'm an asshole a lot.
Yeah.
I'm not gonna lie, I'm an asshole.
And my kids know that. And and so,
you
know, I do a lot of really really dumb stuff and I say a lot of really dumb stuff.
I probably am more mad or angry than I should be.
And you know, but I still ~ every now and then will
we'll have the conversations like if I'm if I'm with my kids alone,
they'll take the the chance to be like,
Dad, you know, you're a real butthead when you do this or,
Yeah.
you know, I like it when you do this instead of that.
I would really prefer not this,
you know, or how come you you know,
how come you reacted this way when this happened?
What's the frickin' deal? You know?
Yeah.
And and so it's it's not always that that happens,
but when that happens, I'm like,
you know, I I screwed up, you know,
I'm
My bad, I really I really sucked this month,
you know. I mean I'm so it it
Yeah.
things like that happen a lot more than I think now than they ever would have
in my childhood.
But you they feel safe to be able to even bring it up to you.
Yeah. Yeah.
Well and you
cre you cre you and your wife created that,
you know. So that just the fact that they feel safe to and to be open with
you and honest with you with how they're feeling.
And that's great. With your daughters,
you've taught them also w what to expect from a partner that they should feel
yeah.
safe.
And expect
yeah.
that they can express this to a partner,
and if they can't, that's a red flag in your partner.
You know
yeah. I mean my th they won't
they won't even have a relationship that feels like it's too much work.
I th I think I I can't remember exactly,
but I think my second daughter like,
No, that's just too much work.
It just it's not
Yeah.
worth it. The relationship with this guy was just too much and I was like,
Okay. I mean I'm all right, you know.
That's awesome. I yeah.
I didn't understand
it, but I'm not gonna be like,
No, you have to just like Okay,
Yeah, no, no, no. No,
bye.
but listen, Gen X women were raised.
No, you have to, and a good woman sacrifices and a good woman gives everything
yeah. no
of herself and it's so we've broken that with the Gen Z girls.
Like
I think so.
big time and I love it. I just the Gen Z men have to be ready and rise
to the occasion and hold we need to raise our Gen Z boys to also be able
to be emotion have an emotional IQ.
I I think that
the first time that my oldest daughter was in a relationship where the
guy like I did not like the guy,
my wife didn't like the guy, and we were just like,
no, this has to end. We like we were like,
This kid gets three strikes and he's gone.
And she was so mad at us when that happened.
But now she's she's been dating,
she's dated a couple other guys,
and she was dating this other other guy very recently,
and like he was super awesome guy,
like super gentleman.
You know, wanted to make sure like at the end of the the like when I went
to go pick her up because at the time she didn't have a a driver's license,
I went to pick her up. He was like,
No, I need to go see your father.
I need to go shake his hand. I need to say hi,
Mr. Ferris, and thank you for letting me spend time with your daughter,
Mr. Ferris. You know, when it was all this real like grown up man stuff
and I was like, You can keep this one.
You know, this one this one can stay.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
You know, I'm glad
that other one was but she was mad at us when we were like,
This first one has to go because he sucks.
Yeah.
She did not
like it, but now she she's like,
~ this is how a man is supposed to treat me?
Well, yeah, that that's how it should be.
And if it's not
Yes.
like that, then it's not worth it.
Yeah. Yeah. No. And I think we're helping change the shift for the entire
yeah.
generation. There's no for the girls and the boys.
Because
yeah.
on the boys side, like we have two sons and you know,
they're raised to be like that,
but also about consent and about a whole bunch of other stuff that just wasn't
discussed. So okay, to go back to high school though,
~ was college discussed
in your home? Was that something you just assumed you would be doing that
was the natural next step after high school?
Yeah, it was either that or military.
It was like either go to college or you go to military.
That was kind of what it was. It wasn't like,
you know, trade school or, you know,
go be an electrician or a plumber as an apprentice or anything like that.
You just college or military. So
Did you have any interest in military?
I did. ~ I I made a recruiter rather upset when I backed out at the end.
So like I and and I I did it because of
the wife that I had hoped to have it someday.
So ~ John joined the Navy and I had another buddy join the
Good.
Marines. ~ and like I was like,
you know, I'm gonna go join the Marines.
I'm gonna go be the Marine. I'm gonna do this.
I went, I did all the tests and I,
you know, and I was ready to sign my name on the dotted line to where every like
I'd I'd lost like forty pounds and,
you know, could run the mu the times that they said that I had to run
and do all this stuff.
And I was sitting in the office and talking to the guy and he was like,
All right, sign the dotted line and I'm like,
Nope. And I just walked
Wow.
out and like he he has I was like,
I can't I said, You won't understand it,
I can't explain it. But he called me a while later and I was like,
dude, I can't do to whoever I marry what happened to my mom because my
mom was home all the time alone.
And I mean, I I remember when we were home and,
you know, crap would happen. Like our house flooded once when my dad went to
you know, went to sea and we had two inches of water in our house.
And, you know, it was like, you know,
dealing with that by yourself and you know I don't I don't w when I went
I went to California for a week,
~ you know, at the beginning of the or at the end of the month,
and I was like, you know, I hope nothing happens when I I I made everything happen.
Like I bought all the stuff for the animals and all the feed and I was like,
Yeah.
this is what
we gotta do when I'm gone so that my wife doesn't have to deal with anything.
You know, it should be, you know,
she's gonna have to step up
and do the things that I would normally do because I'm gone,
but I want it to be easy. But I didn't go to the military because I did
not want to leave my wife home alone for X amount of time ever by herself for,
you know, three months, six months,
a year. Like just it rubbed me the wrong way.
And that's the only reason why I didn't go in the military.
Was that always did that just literally ~ come to
It's it's
your s come up when you were about to sign or was it kinda there the whole time
you were in training and everything?
It it
was it was there in that moment.
Like
In that moment.
I remember going and and they were like,
dude, you're too fat. You gotta lose weight.
Like, ~ okay. You know, and so I I lost weight.
I did all the stuff and you know,
and I was geared towards I think I lost like forty or fifty pounds to go and do it.
And
Well.
at at the end when I had met all the requirements that they had said
I needed to fit.
I just I was like, no, I can't do it.
Like it just it hit it hit me in the
That just it hit you.
back of my head. Well then here's the funny thing.
My wife, the woman who I have been married to now for almost twenty years,
said that she never would have married person in the military because
Mm.
she did not want that. And
so it all just kind of came together.
And like I I don't enjoy being away from my wife and and my family.
Like when on on Thursday before I flew home,
I was like, I just, I just want to see.
I to I sent my wife a message.
Like, I just wanna see my wife.
I wanna hug my wife and hug my kids and be home with them.
I d I'm I'm done being away. It sucks.
Mm-hmm.
I would much rather be here.
Was this when you were eighteen?
~ well I mean this yeah, this happened right after the original thing.
No, no, when you the signing. Yeah.
The the I think
it was like eighteen nineteen,
yeah.
So to me, I'm I'm Catholic and I'm I'm believing I I always say this whenever
I before I say something, 'cause I know not all our listeners are religious,
but I am. And so in my
Mm-hmm.
mind, I'm interpreting it as I think that was God sending you a sign.
That's how I interpret it. Because for it to just come like that,
I feel like that was part of ~ your like gearing you down a
You w
path.
you want to hear the next story that's gonna put your beliefs to rest.
Well, not to rest, but build them up and be like,
Right. Right.
yeah, that's definitely it. So
but when I when I first met my wife,
it was on ~ October the twenty third and she had shown up in ~ I think
it was two thousand and ~ gosh.
Two thousand and five, I think is when it was,
two thousand five, two thousand six.
~ but it was October the 23rd.
I met her, she showed up, and hi,
how are you doing? You know, whatever.
We talked for 10 minutes and went away.
Two weeks later, ~ my church does ~ like these classes in the middle
of the week, and there were two different classes,
and I went to this one and she went to this one.
This class had just started, and now I didn't know that she was at this class,
so this is gonna make the story even better.
Like, I went to this class and I'm sitting in this class and I'm just like,
This isn't where you need to be.
Like this thing just hit me in the back of the head,
like, you don't need to be here.
This is not where you need to be.
I got up and I left and I went to the other class.
And the only spot that was remaining was in the back row with this cute little
redhead. And I didn't have my books with me.
I didn't have my scriptures with me.
And so she shared her scriptures with me and we read together.
And I didn't see her for a week.
~ after that. ~ and then we went back to the to the same class 'cause like there's
no way I'm not going back to this class with this with this hot redhead.
Yeah.
~
and then that night I asked her out.
~ and a couple of weeks later we had our first date and that no a couple of days
Wow.
later it was like that Saturday we had our first date.
And
Yeah.
but yeah I I was I had this feeling that the class that I went to was
not the right one. I went to the other one
And she was there and the only spot was right next to her.
It was just so so yeah, I
That's amazing. And you guys
mean
That's that was the plan. That was
Yeah.
yeah, that's the one of those where he has a plan and you're following
it whether you want or not. And you've been together since when you want or not,
We wanted to or not. Yep.
it all
makes sense and you just have to trust.
So cause I mean, obviously making that decision at 18 or 19 with that forethought
is incredibly mature, but I do think there's divine intervention in there
for sure to have it to be so instant.
I I would not disagree.
Yeah. Okay, so you didn't sign on the dotted line.
So what did you end up doing after making that decision?
~
I I actually I ended up ~ doing a lot of work with my church and I ended
up going to college and working.
I I had two or three jobs at the time and I was going to like a local
~ local college. I think it was Trident Trident Technical College.
~ did that for a while. ~
What did you study?
at first I studied psychology.
Mm.
My my dad was actually into psychology.
I think he he ended up getting his associate's degree and then got
his bachelor's in psychology. And I enjoyed the study of the mind.
I still do. So I studied psychology for a little while.
I did all the basic courses that I had to do.
But at twenty two or twenty-three,
I think, I had moved to Colorado.
And then at that time,
the
the company that I worked for,
I used to work for USAA Insurance.
~ they would not pay for a psychology degree 'cause it had nothing to
do with the business. And so I s I switched to a business major and
I got my master's, I have an MBA.
~ so but yeah.
Okay. ~ so
did you work through high school at all?
~ not my job was ~ sports and and I d I didn't really have a job in high school,
Okay. So was your first
no. well during
during school. I had odd jobs during the summertime,
but not during
Right.
school.
So was your first like quote unquote real job after you made the decision
not to go in the military and you got a job?
~ yeah, I mean my real a real job.
I mean I worked at a moving company and ~ and a shipping company,
but like the real permanent job,
like it was yeah, probably at that
And
time.
what so you said you worked for USAA,
what did you do for them?
Call taker, you know adjust in
Okay. And that
insurance and stuff like that.
did that start in Charleston?
No, that started in col that started when I was twenty two moving out there.
But I I worked at like General Nutrition Center and and Aeropostel and
I was a bouncer. and a couple of other like I worked three jobs at while
I was going to school at at the beginning.
So
Did you move
out to Colorado for that job?
No, I moved to c I moved to Colorado because I was bored with South Carolina.
I was like, I've been here
for twenty you know,
Mm-hmm.
I think the total time from moving to South Carolina Key West and back
to South Carolina was like in South Carolina was like twenty years.
And I was like, I'm done.
Mm.
I'm done here. My brother was in Colorado.
~
Okay.
and so I was just like, Hey, can I live with you for a while while I get on my feet?
And
What part of Colorado?
Colorado Springs.
nice. And so that's your first time out on the West Coast.
That's a transition as some speaking
Yep. yeah.
to someone who's from the West Coast.
And then you got this job. How long were you out there?
~ I was out there from two thousand and two until I think it
was two thousand and nine, I think is is when I moved to Oklahoma,
two thousand nine, two thousand ten.
And were you with your wife at that point?
Uhhuh. I met I met my wife and we got married two thousand seven.
So did you Did you meet her in Colorado?
Uhhuh.
Okay, so you get out to Colorado,
you're working for USAA, ~
Mm-hmm.
you're going to school for your MBA,
Mm-hmm.
and you got involved in a church out there.
Mm-hmm.
~
and so you said the first time you met her was what she was just kind of a meeting,
like hi, you're at church type of service.
Like she had moved she
had moved to the to the location and and she had gone to that church
and ~ and that's where, you know,
she was she was in kind of the foyer and you know,
Okay.
I was like, Ooh, that's a hot girl.
And ~ she was
actually honestly like every other relationship.
No one believes me when I say this,
but every other relationship that I'd ever had was just kind of this this meetup
thing and we just kind of started hanging out and,
you know, just ended up going out.
She's the first
Yeah.
girl that I ever purposefully approached to ask out.
Okay.
Like
ever. Like I've never walked up to a woman and be like,
Hey, you're cute. I like you. She was the first.
Yeah.
And what was she doing out there for work?
~ she was a vet tech. Yeah.
nice.
Okay. Is that what she did for her career?
Is that what she
Mm-hmm.
does?
Yeah, she went to school for that,
got a degree in animal sciences and that's what she did up until one month before
we had our first kid.
Okay, that's very cool. We actually had a ~ veterinarian on ~
and she specializes now in burnout for vets because a lot of vets in that industry,
there's a high burnout.
yeah.
with yeah, and so she specializes in that.
So it was really interesting having her on,
but a there's a lot goes into that career and a lot in that industry.
You're super invested emotionally,
mentally,
yeah.
physically. That's a lot. So I can't imagine
And my wife loves
well, my wife loves animals more than people,
so it it it was even more invested with her.
Yeah. Yeah. I think we all do.
So
Yeah, I yeah, right.
I can't imagine doing that though and raising kids.
It's kind of like people who teach and raise kids.
I don't know how they do it because you invest so much.
Well well when well
when sh when she was eight months pregnant with my oldest daughter,
that's she stopped working.
Yeah.
~ let me rephrase outside of the house.
~ she stopped working outside of the house.
Very good. Very good. Yes.
~ so she before we got married,
she told me she said she wanted to be a mom,
that that was her job. And
Yeah. Yeah.
I was like, Okay. ~
Yeah.
which is why when the crap hit the fan.
Why I had two jobs because her job
was to be a mom. And so
Right.
I I got two jobs and I made sure that she kept the job that she wanted
and it's still that way. She has not had to work outside of the house
in anything that she does not want to do.
And I I think that and I always say this,
we raised our our sons where ~ they should work hard enough where
if their wife wants to be home and work inside the home,
they have the freedom to do that.
But if their wife doesn't, you support her in that too.
~ but I think one of the biggest flexes for a man is if their wife does want
to stay h and work inside the home that she can.
I always tell my sons that I was like,
that's a flex, you know, as a man to be able to ha that your wife can stay home.
Like I I I love it.
And do that.
Like and and and well the here here's the thing.
Everybody's like, so you have home cooked dinner every single day?
Yeah. Yeah.
Hell no. No. You think my wife waits on me?
No. My wife
takes care of the kids most of the time.
You know, I mean it
Yep. Yep.
you know, she cooks just as much as or I cook just as much as she cooks.
~ or
Yeah.
we or like, you know, we get wings stopped because we're just like
the heck with this, I ain't cooking today.
So i
Yeah.
I mean it's it's we do n we do not in any way have like the,
you know
Leave it to Beaver style household where,
you know, I work and it's the dutiful wife who is taking care of me.
You know, my wife runs the outside,
she handles our horses and our pigs and our garden,
you know,
Yeah.
and you know, our house looks disheveled.
It's it's a you know, it's you could eat off of the floor,
but it's disheveled.
Yeah. No, but
it's but when you're home like that,
you're working still. It's a job.
yeah. she's she's never not
There's an yeah
doing something. She's always doing something.
Exactly. There's no. Yes.
Yes. I remember because I was home too,
but there was a period where I was part-time,
~ a brief period, and I remember enjoying just being somewhere that I could have
a sandwich and no one was asking me to do anything,
or I didn't feel like I had to get up and do an I was like,
This is easier than being home.
Yeah, but then our house fell apart.
But then the house did fall. And I think it's ~ the way your approach you've
approached it where you share you guys share duties.
And all domestic duties and all that.
That the new younger generations are doing that.
And I love it. Where the the young men are expected,
even if their wife is home, the domestic front is still shared.
Mm-hmm. I mean
It's not assumed that she's
going to take care of everything,
but that has not always been the case in any way,
I mean
shape, or form.
I mean I'm a I'm a dad and a a husband,
so it you know, it doesn't it doesn't mean that because I make the money that
I don't do the things. Now I
Right.
I will t I will honestly tell you that I have not washed a dish or done
a load of laundry outside of the time when my wife was pregnant.
Okay. I will I will say that my number
Right. Right. Yeah.
one, if I did it, my wife would probably kill me because I don't do it her way.
Yeah.
So she does not like
it when I do the laundry, she does not like it when I do the dishes.
She hates doing it, but she hates me doing it more.
So
Yeah.
I don't do those things, but I will gladly cook any meal or do anything else that
that she wants me to do at any other time ever,
you know.
I think it's a balance. I think it's about communication and respect,
right? And ~ but I think you guys having that conversation,
we did the same before even getting married of she said,
I want to be a mom. We had that conversation too.
And I tell young people, you need to discuss how you envision your family
and you envision your roles and they're it's fluid,
Mm-hmm.
it's fluid and and you need to be able to ebb and flow with it.
And but make sure you communicate how you see things because you have to
be on the same page.
Well they and and in what was it two thousand twelve,
I think is two thousand ten, two thousand twelve,
somewhere in that time period,
~ when the crap hit the fan. Like we bought our house
and the local community like passed a bond and it hit our house values with
the taxes and the and
Mm.
everything like that, and like the mortgage shot up like th like four hundred
dollars.
And I I think that there was some economical fall.
I but everything hit the family like at once.
Yeah.
And like I I I lost it. Like I was just like I was done.
And I remember going to my wife and I'm like,
we're we're not gonna make it.
Like we're gonna lose the house,
we're gonna lose everything because the money is running out a lot sooner.
I'm I'm borrowing from Peter, John,
and Paul and I I can't do anything.
And so I you know, I
I remember I was like, I need you to get a job and she's like,
Nope. And I was like, What?
I was like, We we can't make this and she's like,
Nope. She says, You told me that I get to be a mom.
I mean, I I will say that the conversation was much nicer than this.
It wasn't as direct, but this was the general message.
Right. Right, right, right, right.
You know,
and it was like, You told me I get to be a mom.
You you
Yeah.
told me this is what I'm and I'm like,
so you're telling me that I gotta get another job?
And she said, Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I got another job.
And I, you know, I I worked at a call center and I worked
at Chick-fil-A from seven in the morning until one in the afternoon,
Monday through Saturday. And then I went to my other job from
two thirty until eleven at night.
And
Wow.
I did that for probably like a year and a half,
two years. ~ you know, sleep you know,
and I worked I worked an hour away.
So we drove I would drive an hour.
She's ~
Yeah. I would drive an hour, do
the work all day, shower, shower at my office because I smelled like Chick-fil-A.
And then work my other job and then come home.
And I think I slept maybe f four and a half,
five hours, if that for a year and a half,
two years. This is in Oklahoma,
Wow, and this was in Oklahoma when you guys went to Oklahoma.
yeah.
We bought our house here and a year,
year and a half later, everything just
went to crap.
Why did you guys decide to go to Oklahoma?
The the company that I was working for in ~ Colorado,
it was like you you either we're we're moving this part of
the operation to Oklahoma. So you either move
Mm. Okay.
with us, you switch to the other department,
or you lose your job. Like it was these are your three choices.
And so
Right, right, right.
I I got lucky and it was, you know,
I I I kept my job, I got a promotion and I moved to Oklahoma.
And so it was good, but ~ when that financial thing hit two,
three years later, ~
Yeah.
it it just was it was crap.
No, I mean and 'cause you
also weren't seeing your kids or your family.
Nope. That was that was I hated that.
You were just working. Now she was holding it down.
Like it yeah.
Like she was
yeah, she was holding the domestic front down.
yeah.
The kids
were having their life did probably didn't feel the stress
no.
because you guys both work together to make sure their
yeah.
lives stayed. But that that's also can be a strain on a marriage too.
That's where friendship in a marriage comes into play.
yes. It I mean it it it was hell,
You know.
but
I I I remember like, you know,
how how much can we spend this month on on groceries or,
you know,
Yeah.
what's Christmas look like this year?
I mean, I I remember when our Christmas gifts were five dollars,
you know, the five dollar Walmart play school toys.
Right, right.
And, you know, and and my wife not being able to do the things that
she wanted to because we just couldn't afford it.
Yeah.
Or, you know, we couldn't go on the vacation.
We we couldn't go see her family,
you know.
in Colorado because we just couldn't afford to make the trip.
Just everything
Right.
was everything was no for like three,
four years. Like we can't do this,
we can't do this, we can't do this,
we can't do this. ~ it was it was it sucks.
Would you say
did that ~ bring you guys closer going through that rough period together?
I
I think it it it did. ~ I think during the time
it sucked because you when you're so worried about
all the financial stuff,
Yeah.
everything else you don't have the mental capacity for.
Like
Yeah.
whether it's you know, the each other's relationship or your relationship with your
kids or doing anything outside of that,
like there is no mental capacity for anything.
Like I I
Yeah.
remember like
being the complete worst, you know,
pecker head of a person because our our water heater broke.
And it was just the one financial thing that hit us and,
you know, I couldn't afford the five hundred dollars,
but I had to and you know to buy and I was I mean,
I think that was like ten years ago,
but it just it was just like a punch in the gut.
And I was angry and mean and just stupid butthead because everything was wrong.
You know,
Yeah.
and
But now, you know, years later and I've I've busted my butt,
got much better job, ~ and much better income and doing all doing
all of these things and you know,
kind of proving my worth in life,
I guess, you know, now when something like that happens because of all that,
it's not a big deal. And
Right.
my wife now she she she does constantly say to me,
~ you know, it in and this is a big thing,
she's like, Thank you for working so hard.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like it's it's
it's it's not thank you for providing me with the stuff.
You know, it's it's it it she values the work,
the thing that I do that makes this stuff happen.
She thanks me for the effort involved in all of these things.
You know,
Yeah.
and and my my kids too. ~ you know,
my my kids, you know, thank you know,
thanks for the treat. Thanks for taking us out to dinner,
thanks for doing all this stuff.
~ especially with my older kids,
'cause I I f I don't know if they remember it as much,
but you know
We never had the money or anything like that when they were younger to go
out and do anything. And now
Right. Right.
it's now it's like, dad, can I go to McDonald's after whatever?
Can you put some money on my card?
Here you go. You know, and and but
Yeah, yes, yes.
it's going going from that both as husband and father to where
we are now. And I think mostly everybody in the family.
who was old enough or who was alive at that time really realizes it.
My younger two have no clue. But the older ones,
I think that they they see it a little bit more.
Like we we couldn't always go out to,
you know, to Chick-fil-A or to Wing Stop and have this fun.
But now Dad says yes. Like dad does not know the word no most of the time.
He knows yes.
And and that just that that freedom to be able to do that,
you and your wife
probably appreciate it like you're saying every single time you can
say yes because you you know what it was like to have to say no.
So it and I think that really brings a a different type of contentment
and happiness to life.
yeah.
You know, because you you truly understand where you were and where you
are and can find happiness in that moment and not always be like,
but then I wanted this and then I'm trying to get that and then I'm trying
to get this. You really appreciate what is important and that freedom,
you know
Well not not only not only
that, but not to get you know,
I mean we've we've touched on religion here and there,
so I'll I'll touch on it again.
But if there is some type of an aspect where you're supposed to listen
to a voice, how much easier is it to listen to a voice of you know,
some, you know, higher power telling you what to do when you don't have
all of the noise in your head of the bullcrap that's outside?
I can't I
Yes.
I have no peace and calm and quiet inside of me when,
you know, my brain is going crazy.
You know, I can't afford this.
I can't do this. I have this deadline.
I have this and this and this.
But busting through all of that and getting through all of that,
how much more my brain is not thinking about all of these things.
So I feel like my life is somewhat more inspired and
has a little bit more direction because I can hear what I'm supposed to do.
Yes, yes.
I d I truly believe that.
Yeah, no, I know I understand exactly what you're saying.
The space is there to hear and to listen because it's no,
it's that's such a great point.
That's such a great point. Go ahead,
I'm sorry. I was just gonna say I think too with
Six days a week all day is tough.
When it's Sunday rolls around,
you probably just need to kind of get your regroup.
But you've got these people coming
No. My kids.
at you. Yeah. So when you finally kind of came through that other side,
you probably became just a a little a lot more calmer,
a lot more emotionally available and the whole thing.
For
for the most part, yeah. I mean,
you know, when when Saturday would roll around and I'd get off of work
at one o'clock and I'd come home,
~ you know, and it was it was time to be daddy.
You know, and
Mm-hmm.
you know, my wife would, you know,
hey, can we like there's free festivals and free places and free things
to do all and my wife was the queen of finding free.
Like she if it was free, she knew about it.
And she would research
Mm-hmm.
on Facebook to find all the free things that we could go and do.
And so
When I got home after working on the Saturday,
it was time to go be family. On Sunday it was time to spend time as a family.
And so it was, you know, it it wasn't this,
I'm dead tired, you know, the heck with everybody else.
You know, it was it was time to be a dad,
you know, because I wasn't allowed to be the dad,
so to speak, Monday through Friday.
Right. So ~
y your wife has to be a pretty good partner then,
because for you to roll out of that,
my my wife is a badass.
yeah,
I mean that's that takes a partner to kinda give you the fuel,
I think.
my my my wife is a badass and I can't say anything other than that.
She is she is awesome. She knows everything and can do everything.
Like when she was once responsible for teaching a class for a longest
of time and I ~ like just one instance of why my wife is awesome.
And she did not we live on like we live on forty acres and she felt it
was wrong to kill the snakes on our property.
And all of them died. Because we had kids.
So every snake that came into our property died.
And I remember one time I killed the snake and she says,
What kind of snake was that? And I said,
Alive one. She's like,
Yeah. ~
But
every single one of these snakes can't be bad.
And I'm like, You're probably right,
but am I supposed to care? Like it you know,
it's a snake, it's in our house,
it's on our property, it's dead.
That's my role, you know. Rah,
Yeah.
I'm I'm
I'm the backyard barbarian. I will destroy whatever it is.
And
Mm-hmm.
she felt wrong about that. So my wife took it upon herself not only
to learn every species of snake in south in ~ Oklahoma.
Like she can look at it and be that's this,
that's this. It's not venomous.
Mm.
It does this. And you know, this is
what this eats, and this is what it like.
She'll know everything. And she taught a a class to all of the kids
at church because of that. And
Wow.
now she'll be like, hey, there's a snake.
Yeah, but.
That one's a racer and this one is a you know ~ a king snake,
a a yellow speckled king snake,
and that's a yellow ring tailed wachinami thingamababa.
She's like, just move it over there.
And so now I go grab the snake and I move it over there.
And but all of that came from my wife's desire to not kill the animal,
to be more humane. She learned it all on her own,
and now we all do it. Like the whole
Yeah.
family is like, what is that kind of snake?
When when we found two speckled kingsnakes under a big tin that we had,
you know, the whole family came over and looked.
this is what this looks like. Don't kill this one because it's not poisonous.
It'll leave you alone. Or if it does bite
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
you, you're fine. Like be
Yeah.
she did that because she's awesome.
And there's
Yeah. Yeah.
not one thing in her life where it's not like that.
Ev
That's awesome.
everything that that has I mean,
if you imagine anything that has ever happened to you.
And you're like, I don't know about that thing.
My wife now knows about whatever that thing is.
Okay.
And I can't
argue with her about it because she she knows more.
Like what the hell am I gonna say?
I love that.
I love I feel like I'm gonna be in major trouble after this episode.
We gotta cut this thing short,
man. Yeah,
This guy Joe is not good for our relationship.
she's cutting this whole thing out.
I don't like him anymore.
Well, no, and I was thinking about during that time when you were working so much,
she also was essentially like a single mom.
Mm-hmm. yeah. yeah.
You know, and so she was
holding it down and then, you know,
she both of your guys' mental health was affected during that time
in different ways, right?
So, because you're
yeah.
you're outputting, so is she. But then when Sunday comes around,
she needs you to step in because she also needs to not be that that point
of contact for those kids for a little bit.
Mm-hmm. Yep.
So
the fact that you guys were able to get through that time together is a testament.
That's marriage. That is marriage.
And that's what I think gets so hard for a lot of people is understanding there will
be times like that. That's when you have to really grip on and hold on
to that ride because it's it's
It's coming. You know, but you will get through it.
You'll get through it, but you have to
Well it
get through it together.
and it it was I mean honestly I will say it was the best and worst part
of our marriage because we
Yes. Yeah.
we we were so tired of everything else and so we were also because
of that probably tired as hell of each other and everything everything
Yeah. Okay.
was was was hell. E everything was a problem.
Everything blew up in our faces,
we blew up at each other's faces,
but
We didn't have anybody else, like neither of us have family who's anything less than
five hours away. That's our closest family is five hours away.
And that's
Yeah.
my sister. But after that, it's ten to eighteen hours away.
So it's not like, I need help this weekend.
Can mom come over and help? We don't have that.
And and
Right, right.
so it was all on us, and we had no other choice but to be the person that
we needed to suck it up and move on and to rely on each other.
And and it that's just how it went.
Did you guys have the 40 acres during that time?
Okay,
Yeah. Yeah.
so you guys, when you went for it,
you went for it. You got a
We
house,
40 acres, you did the whole thing.
We're is it a farm? Yeah.
We went from apartment in in in Colorado
Springs to house with forty acres.
Geez, did either one of you have experience with working land like that?
My my wife grew up on a farm. So ~ she I
Okay, okay.
think her grandfather had like t I wanna say like two hundred acres in in Colorado,
~ in in the San Luis Valley, and he he did cattle and stuff like that.
So she grew up as a cowgirl riding horses and stuff like that,
Okay, okay. ~ wow.
which which are still the two horses that we have when that she got when
she was a twelve year old, I think.
~ wow. Wow.
Like eleven, twelve year old. Yeah.
Yeah, we have
we have what the veterinarian calls is the the nursing home of horses here.
~ so
Wow.
So did you guys get have animals immediately when you moved to Oklahoma?
yeah, we we were when we were living in Colorado,
we boarded there. And then when we moved here,
we you know, I I learned how to put up a barbed wire fence slightly crooked.
~ and
Ha ha.
we've had I think it's ten acres that we cross fenced and that's where they've been
the whole time. So yeah, it was we came I came out a month before everybody,
closed on the house and put the fence up,
went back to Colorado and we drove out with our oldest daughter Kyla.
And there are two horses.
That's awesome. And then what other animals do you have?
We
have two pigs and a bunch of cats and dogs.
So
That
is so cool. So yeah. Do you eat anything you you grow?
Like for lack of better word or raise.
I would they won't. I will they like we we had pigs
Raise. There you go. Yeah, yeah.
No, yeah, no.
and you know we we butchered one of them but I was the only one who ate it.
My kids were like, This
wow.
doesn't taste like normal. I'm like,
yeah, because it's not the processed bull crap from the store.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, but ever ~
it wasn't the best, I will say that everything everything tastes like a pork chop.
You know, it it wasn't
Yeah, okay.
like the the bacon wasn't cured really well,
the ham wasn't cured really well.
So everything tastes like a pork chop.
~ I was okay with it, but I was like,
you know, it's not what I paid for.
~
Yeah.
but now ~ we the the one of the pigs that we had was the runt
of the litter that actually ended up living in our house for like six weeks.
So we we
my goodness.
had these pigs in the middle of a like a winter storm or whatever,
and he was sick and we thought it was gonna die.
So we brought it in the household.
And took care of it. I mean, we had like a dog crate and newspapers and
That's awesome. I love it.
we fed it with a syringe. I mean,
it
was I mean, it it was the craziest,
wildest, funnest, dumbest thing.
But
I think that's awesome.
now he is a five or six hundred pound pig that is a pet.
No.
And we will never get rid of him.
He he will Oreo. Oreo.
What's his name? Aurea. Well, your wife knows how to take care of animals too.
yeah. Yeah. yeah.
That's a huge help. Yeah.
So she's you got like your on-site vet pretty much there.
yeah. Like she
That's
she she knows what to do. So like even when we have to ad I mean,
I'll make fun of myself, even when we have to administer medicine like penicillin,
you know, I
Yeah.
mean it's hard to give a five hundred pound pig penicillin and give a
Yeah. Yeah. ~
shot. So, ~ when that has to happen,
my wife this I I love this story,
she
Mm-hmm.
she put the needle between her fingers like this,
smacked the the pig so that it stuck.
But then we had a really long tube that was going to the syringe that
had the penicillin in it. And we had locked this pig inside of a it was like
12 foot by 4 foot space. So he could still go back and forth,
but he couldn't go, you know, this way or that way.
Yeah. Yeah.
But I'm on the end of this rope with the pig pushing this syringe,
trying to dance back and forth while he moved.
I look like I was doing the fat white boy hammer dance.
Yeah.
you know, trying to get this pig's medicine in.
And it the it was ~
Cra the crab walk back and forth.
it was horribly stupid, but my wife was laughing her butt off the whole time.
That's awesome. Now
But yeah, so
she can do that, but yeah, it's it's that's our life.
H have
your girls grown up taking care of the animals too?
~ they feed but when
Okay.
you know, any any time that you know,
that we don't they'll they'll come out and feed But I mean,
for the most part the animals they just they're kind of barn farm pasture animals.
There's not much to take care of.
~
Right, right.
But still taking care of forty acres,
I mean, that's that's a lot, right?
There's there's always
That's a lot of
land.
there's always clean up and fix fence and pick up trash that blows around
Yeah.
in the Oklahoma wind. I mean, there's always something to do.
~
Yeah, for
sure. That's like another job almost is just the
But it
the property.
but it's also fun like we have a spring on our property and so like when it freezes,
like we have a frozen waterfall in our down in this ditch that we have in
the pr and we like to go
Cool.
explore that and go down there and you know,
check it out and I mean it's just fun.
That is so cool, so cool.
So
Now when you went from ~ Charleston out
to Colorado, was that your first time traveling out like out of state?
Had you traveled
No.
before that?
yeah. when I I mean to move somewhere,
no, but I had traveled I mean,
we'd gone to Florida. We had b
Yeah.
we had gone to Florida a couple of times.
~ but when I was f thirteen or fourteen,
I wanna say fourteen, ~ and my brother got married,
I got on a bus in South Carolina and went to Colorado by myself,
~ to spend a week with my brother.
And
Like a greyhound?
huh.
How long did that take?
~ two days.
So you're thirteen or fourteen on a bus alone on a greyhound with a bunch
Uh-huh, uhhuh. Uh-huh. Yeah.
of random strange adults probably.
And ~ at Weirdos. Weirdos. Weirdos.
Ver ~ yeah. I will
n I will never forget the dude that got on in Detroit.
my gosh.
God, so you had to go up north and then
The it it went like this, it went to
Tennessee and then up north and then back down and then over.
It was like the I'm like, why did we not just stay like now I know,
I'm like I could have just stayed on I forty since Tennessee,
but no, it went up
Yeah. Yeah.
and it was the weirdest, dumbest thing.
And they make so many stops and people get off and get on.
Were you scared?
I so I the only thing that is different about me since high school,
since fourteen, fifteen year old is my stomach.
Like I was I've always been a big old bastard since I was a kid.
Okay.
And so
I also I had my brother's ~ army ~ duffel bag.
So it was this
Mm.
big green duffel bag said US Army on it.
So everybody thought, even at the age of fourteen,
everybody thought that I was just moving to a new duty station.
~ okay, okay. Yeah.
And so I played along with it.
You know, I s I probably sounded
like an idiot making up crap, but I was playing along with it because there's
no way that I'm gonna be like,
no, I'm just a fourteen year old kid ~
Yeah.
you know, and I'm traveling across America by myself.
No one has any clue where I'm at.
~ but I tried to lean into that role.
~ and it it it there was one dude that scared me.
~ and it was a I'm he got on the bus and he sat right next to me.
And I will never forget he hunched up like this and was rocking back and forth.
Mm.
And he was just going for three hours.
my god.
And I like I I I could not be any further to the left.
Like I almost became the armrest on the left hand side of my seat.
Like I'm scooting
Yeah.
over as much as I can. Cause I mean,
he he just kept on whining and wailing like that for like three hours.
my god.
When he finally got
on I I think he got on the bus like at midnight or something like that.
We stopped somewhere at midnight.
And so it's pitch black. He sits right next to me.
~ my god. ~ my god.
And I'm you know, I'm just like,
Really? There's nobody like
you couldn't sit anywhere else and
That's crazy. That is w now how many states did you hit?
~ so it was n I think North Carolina,
Tennessee, ~ whatever is up of Tennessee up to Mich like Detroit,
Talkie.
back down. Like yeah, I think it was like Ken Kentucky and Illinois I
you know went up and then back down and then Tennessee,
Kansas, Colorado. So I I s I still
Cheese.
am trying to figure out why we went up like that up to Detroit,
but that when we got to Detroit that was the weird part,
but
I can't imagine Did you have to take a bus back?
No, so my family came out for my brother's wedding and we drove back.
Wait, why did you go out on a bus and not go out with
for
your family?
for whatever reason everybody had decided that I needed like one last week with
my brother. Like that was like the consensus like
They weren't so
you were getting time with your brother before he got married,
separate from the family?
Yeah. And it was and
it was just me, not my sister.
So I had
Right.
my my sister who's two years older than me,
but it was just me, not her. So I d I I went out,
So you went out, had that time with your brother.
had that time and yeah.
Okay. And
then that is so interesting. Now and I didn't ask you when you were in Charleston,
did you have was it just your parents and you guys,
did you have any extended family?
Or did you ever
W I mean
grow up with uncles or aunts or anything?
He had an uncle who lived near us,
~ and I will say that the fact that he's dead makes me happy.
Yeah, I had he was
So you so was he involved in your
he was he was he lived with us the first time that we moved
to ~ to Charleston when we were living in there and I mean he was not a good man.
I mean, he was I the more that I learn about this ~ this person,
I d I can't even call him a man.
~ the more that I wonder why my parents even let him move in with us.
Because my
Whose brother was he?
my mom's brother. and I I I won't I won't
go into this because it's not my story to tell,
but if you picture the worst type of man,
that's who he is. And
Yeah. Okay.
the fact that they knew this and let him move in
No
with us, like have yet did
Okay.
do you believe in repressed memories?
I didn't.
I I do, 'cause I've had them.
Yeah. ~ Interesting.
I didn't until he died. When
he died,
this all these things came up in my head and I called my brother and I'm,
dude, why do I have this thought?
Why am I picturing this? He's like,
dude, because that happened. I'm like,
Yeah.
what?
He's like, yeah, man, that happened.
And like completely disassoci like I I
You probably disassociated. Yeah.
never like if anybody had talked about repressed memories up until what was it,
three years ago, I would have said,
bullcrap, whatever. Now, one hundred percent believer.
Because his his death his death allowed you to release your subconscious
One hundred percent believer. Un yes,
yes.
then was allowed to release it because it you felt safe enough to let it release.
Yes. It it
was the weirdest like it I mean it kind of felt like that,
you know, that flashback thing that you see in movies
Yeah.
where like all these memories and this weird convoluted,
you know, movies playing in the person's head and they're shaking and like that's
Yeah.
what it was like. I was like, Why am I having this thought?
Why is this popping into my head?
This is jacked up. And I I l I had to call my brother to validate and he's like,
Dude, that's only the half of it.
I hope nothing more pops up. You know,
I mean it I mean it was
Is there any
anything
Go ahead.
super traumatic that you feel comfortable sharing?
yeah, I I'll I'll share what happened to me.
Yeah.
I you know, there's other
stories that's not mine to my to tell,
but ~ I mean being locked in the closet and beaten with a coat hanger.
my god.
You know, and and having him laugh at it,
you know, and then thinking it was hilarious and you know,
things like that. And I like here's here's the thing.
I don't bruise. I do not bruise.
Like I have had a twelve hundred pound horse fall on me without a mark.
Jeez.
I have been
hit with a sledgehammer, not a mark.
Like things so when my uncle would hit
me with various things, even as a six,
seven, eight, nine year old kid,
not a mark. Nothing.
Common.
I've I do not bruise. It is the weirdest thing.
And and so telling people without having any visible marks
Mm-hmm.
on me was the hardest
thing.
However, I will say that when I was when when my grandfather
was diagnosed with cancer and all my uncles came down and the whole family
got together and this same uncle held me under the water by my neck
and was choking me under water.
Like at a lake or a pool?
No, in his backyard, in his house.
My I don't know how my uncle ended up marrying a psychiatrist,
~ other than the fact that maybe she thought that he'd be he'd be
her best patient because he was a bum.
~ he was a complete piece of trash and I'm very comfortable saying that.
I'd I'd this this man being removed from existence is a good thing.
~ but yeah, he he was holding me under water,
choking me, and I ended up punching him in his nuts to get loose.
You know, and I you know, everybody's like,
What's going on? And and I was everyone,
But were you guys outside like in a pool?
But were you in a p what was the water?
everyone was yeah, we were in a pool.
In a pool? Okay.
We were in a pool in a pool in his
backyard. Sorry. Yeah, we were in a pool in his backyard and all my other uncles
and everybody was up around the,
you know, the Florida room and all this stuff and ~ you know we were playing around,
And he just all of a sudden started stri choking you rand randomly.
we were in the water and I I guess he decided that I was being too aggressive
and he had to choke me.
~
And like I said, I I I
I was a big kid, but it's not like I was doing anything malicious.
Right. Right, right, right.
I wasn't trying to do anything
or hurt him, but no. No.
Was that one of your repressed memories?
Okay. Okay.
No, I r I have always remembered that.
That's that's one of the
Okay.
things that happened in front of everybody.
But ~ but yeah, that was like I think everybody got a glimpse of who he
was at that moment.
Did your mom keep a relationship with him always?
Or did she ever cut
Unfortunately.
she never cut him off? And she knows everything he did.
Even even when he called
~ yeah. She she is keenly aware of everything that he did.
So Yep.
And they're g and there's the res more resentment,
right? Yeah.
Yeah, that's I don't know how ~ I think that's what gotta be one
of the hardest things is when you know your parent knows something is
not good for you or they should have protected you from it
and they knowingly didn't. I don't know how you resolve that in your mind.
That probably has ~ like messed me up more as an adult coming to that realization.
Because I I didn't know a lot of these things when I was a kid.
Right, of course.
Because of you know, what why were they gonna tell me?
Okay.
Right.
But as I got older and these things were revealed to me,
I was just like,
Yeah.
What? You you you allow this man in our house with this
full knowledge of who he was like blew my mind.
Well, and also when you become a parent and you realize,
okay, I know how I feel about my kids and there's no way in fucking hell that that
would ever happen. ~
no way no
so how could you have let that happen to me?
Like I I don't
You know?
even I don't even like when a coach yell like like yells at my daughters
or says something to my daughters that I don't think that they should,
you know, like and my my kids all know that if somebody does anything they tell
dad and whoever it is is gonna be destroyed.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
And
so to know that my parents allowed that it
Yeah.
just it it it tore me up realizing that.
I think it's something that for those of us who've gone through situations where
we we realize that about our parents.
It's it's so much of letting go.
It's having to re we're not gonna get closure from them.
So it's understanding that that has to come from us and it's our own
yeah.
work it's our own work because it's and unless there are people have
got who have gotten apologies.
And we've had guests on who've talked about things and they're they've gotten
an apology from a parent and they understand how rare that is because that just
doesn't happen, you know, where accountability
Well I
I I am so my sister and I have not talked to our
parents in probably like two years.
and it it all came down to
so my parents would not go anywhere for anybody.
Like like I will like I will pay for you to come to my house.
I will buy you a plane ticket so that you can come visit us.
No, no, no.
You know, I will I you know whatever I will pay for the gas because
you just bought a car, I'll pay for the gas and the hotels and whatever
for you to come out and visit us.
No. No, no. They had a friend die who they hadn't seen in like twenty years,
and they drove eighteen hours to that person's funeral.
And my sister lived three hours to the north of that person,
and they would not go see her.
And they would not come see me who lived three hours from my sister.
So drive 18 hours for this person,
but not three and six hours for us.
And from that moment, my sister and I just decided we're done.
And it's it's not like we made this big giant declaration,
like, you know, I'm you know, I'm done with you,
I hate you, I'm you know, we just stopped.
Yeah.
There was we were just like, you know,
if if there is not the ability to put in this effort for your children
and you're gonna put in this effort for these other people.
We are done. I feel like and and I think the worst part is about this
is realizing how little my life changed.
Like
Right.
zero change for me. Like b I mean it's not like I made like I would make a week,
you know, once or twice a week conversation.
I'd call them, you know, hey, what are you doing?
What's going on? How are things?
That's what stopped. That's the only thing that stopped is I no longer
was making the effort to have a relationship.
And and it just
I was just like, Okay, you know,
whatever.
Well then it showed you
how little effort they were putting in because when
yeah.
you stopped n there was no other changes that occurred.
So and not just not putting in the effort with you,
but for your children, for your grandchildren,
Yeah. Well and y you wanna know
you know, for their grandchildren.
so I think two week two, three weeks ago that came to a light in
our household when we were going through some old pictures and my youngest said,
Who's that? It was a picture of my parents.
'Cause
Yeah.
she's never really had a relationship with them.
I mean th I think the last time that she saw she was like three or four
or something like that. I don't know.
~
Yeah.
but she she
She does not have a recollection of who they are,
doesn't remember anything about now my wife's parents,
my gosh, like
Yeah.
phone calls, how are you doing,
what happened in school, you know,
all of these things. But, you know
Yeah. Which
which is awesome. But your parents' behavior is consistent with what they were doing
even when they were raising you guys.
yeah. It it hasn't and and I think that's the worst thing.
They're prioritizing themselves.
It hasn't changed.
It's it it wasn't that they did it when I was a kid,
it's that it's continued when I'm an adult.
If it had changed when I was an adult,
I could be like, Well yeah or i if they had gone to being these like these normal
these caring people, like I could be like,
Okay, you can be in my life, but if I refuse to put effort into
any relationship if the other person's not,
and so I'm just like, Yeah, I'm done.
What about
your older siblings? Do they have contact with them?
My s my brother, not really.
~ he doesn't want to deal with the drama.
~ he's just like, you know, I'll you know,
if if you want to talk to me, talk to me.
But like he doesn't make the effort.
~
Right.
my s my sister now, my sister did my sister who's two years older than me,
she said, Do not call me, do not talk to me,
leave me alone. I want nothing to do with you.
I just said nothing. I'm just like,
I'm done. Bye.
Right.
And but no effort has been made,
you know.
My now I will I will say that my wife has reached out and been like,
you know, you can call You can call our kids.
You can talk to them on their birthday.
You can do what you want. You can send messages to Joe.
You can call him.
Mm.
And and quite honestly, the funny thing is,
and the worst I mean it's funny,
like weird, stupid, ironic. That's the one thing that I would want for them
Right.
to make the effort to do anything.
If they would make even the slightest effort.
To put some something in I could be like,
All right.
Yeah.
Nope.
Isn't it amazing though the forgiveness of a child?
Because that's your inner child,
right? But
Well yeah.
that that if that we would take the smallest thing and then give tenfold back,
but they can't even do that small step.
But I'm but I always I mean, look at your life though.
You have this amazing wife and these beautiful children and this gorgeous probably
home on this on this eight. So the trade-off,
like God came through, you know.
Mm-hmm. yeah. Like my my li I I say
like my
Yeah.
life is r it really is good. Like I do not have
Yeah.
a horrible life. You know, does it mean that everything is,
you know, sunshine and roses? No.
I mean, I've got problems just like everything else.
But quite on I mean, altogether,
I mean, I I have a great job, I have a great wife,
I have really great kids who I mean,
they're smarter than hell, they're on the honor roll,
Mm-hmm.
they're
They're in the National Honor Society.
You know, one of them's getting,
you know, getting ready to go to college.
And, you know, ~ great kids, teachers love them.
You know, everybody who I meet has all the wonderful things to say about them,
you
Yeah.
know, and I'm just like, all right.
You know, this this this is the thing that my wife and I have created.
You won. Yeah.
I'm good. I'm cool. Four.
Yeah. How many how many kids do you have?
Are they all girls? Is he the youngest?
three girls, one boy. No,
he's ~ he's the third one, he's ~ eleven and then the youngest cur daughter's nine.
Okay, and what are the ages right now?
~ seventeen,
fifteen, eleven, and nine. yeah.
So you're in it. You are in it.
You're in it. Yeah, you guys are
Yeah.
busy. Cause they all have activities too,
probably, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
~ yeah, yeah.
You guys are busy, busy, busy.
That that that hard time you guys went through was just getting you ready
for this time with your kids, because that's a whole different type of busy.
It's it's just busy doing something
So
else.
Yes, yes,
but much much more enjoyable. I bet too where you're at,
yeah.
like where we're at, if there's a sporting event we can go five miles,
maybe ten miles, six whatever.
I is is everything you do kind of far away?
Is anything close?
a lot of so like for basketball it's pretty close.
we play a lot of the local teams around here.
But like for track and cross country,
I drive like there's a place called Medill that's two hours south.
Every year. Madill,
sulfur, hour and a half.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
I I you know, one of us is gonna be there,
whether it's my wife or me.
Yeah. Yeah.
A lot of times it's gonna be both because if I
If I know when when something is,
I'll take the time off, you know,
Yeah.
so that I
can go t go to it.
So after that hard period and you had worked ~ you know,
the two, three jobs going, going,
going,
Mm-hmm.
what shifted to did you ~ have a complete job change?
Like what made it so you weren't in that space anymore?
Yeah, that's
that's basically why I I moved to a moved to a different job
and total different position and everything.
~ and I mean it was like a a a rather significant bump in salary.
And so, you know, it kinda took the ease off of everything.
So like I I had gotten promoted in my company ~ sufficiently
to do to to quit the second job.
I was making just as much slightly more actually
with the promotion that I was doing the two jobs.
And so I got my time back, which meant that I could be at home a little
bit more often. I was still going to school,
finishing up my MBA, but ~ but then that stopped about a year later.
And so I got more time back and and then switched jobs.
And I think there the funny thing is there's information out out on me still that
I work for this old company. And I think somebody contact somebody contacted
the old company like
We don't like his video and I'm so they sent it to that company and
~ that's awesome.
they were like, Why are we getting stuff from you?
You haven't been here in years.
Like I
huh.
have nothing about my job on the internet at all.
But people still contact that old company.
So it's I anyways, that was a tangent.
Yeah, just run with it. Yeah, that's no,
But ~ yeah, I was like, This is funny.
but that's that's
that's that's actually funny about a troll trying to do that.
That's that's crazy.
yeah. But but yeah, so I I
I got the new I got the new job,
the new c the new ~ everything,
and ~ everything kinda changed.
And my my time is better, my every availability.
I mean I literally I work from my living room now.
~
And so and that all happened like right around the COVID time and
Yeah.
where everything kinda switched and ~ I got to be
as close as I possibly could to being a stay-at-home dad because while
I was working, I was at home. And so my daughter,
I got to watch my daughter do all of the things
~ that I missed with the other three.
~ I I think it has caused a little bit of a closer relationship between
me and my youngest because we've spent so much time and because
we had that availability that the I did not have with the other three.
~ I f kinda feel like I missed out on some things.
well, I mean I don't kind of feel I I did.
I completely missed out on it.
And it's just it's interesting to see how the relationship
has adjusted and changed. But even with the older ones,
now that I'm here, they know it's easier to rely on dad to come and save
the day if the crap hits the fan.
And so
Yeah, yeah.
the the time back, I mean the money was great.
I'm not gonna say the money's not great.
The money is awesome, but ~ you know
Please give me more. You know,
Yeah. He deserves a raise.
if if you're my boss and you hear this,
feel free. but ~
my boss loves me. He you know,
tells me all the time. But ~ but yeah,
he it it gave me the opportunity to be to be the person that I always wanted
to be and to handle the things that I always wanted once all of these
big changes started happening.
It just I I kind of felt like
That's awesome.
everything fell into place and by
I mean, you know all the crap that they told us,
you know, you go to college, you bust your butt,
you do all these things. It took until I was,
you know, in my late thirties,
early forties, but life is pretty damn good.
You know, I'm just I'm just gonna
Yeah, yeah.
say, I busted my butt and I kinda you know,
I I'm not there, I didn't make it,
you know, it's not like you know,
it's not like I can replace all four tires on my car at once
and everything is great, but ~
Yeah.
but I mean it's it's still a pretty decent life.
You know
absolutely. And you know how you know the other side of that.
So you know that it
yeah.
absolutely is. So in so things are looking pretty good.
So then where does this content creation career begin?
What was the birth of that?
Just ju because I had a lot of crap to say.
I
mean, I just I mean when so when I again saw like I always I
was always on Facebook. I was always seeing stuff pop up and I was kind of doing it,
but I didn't have the right account like on Facebook.
like I
Mm.
would put motivational things out and my my brother would laugh at me and be like,
Mm.
you're a dweeb. ~ but
you know, I would make videos on on TikTok after I,
you know, after I started seeing again and I was like,
this is kind of fun. But then it was just kind of like boom,
people started paying attention to what I had to say.
And I kind of started leaning into those behaviors and
the attitude and kind of the gruff I'll say the gruff intellectual,
~ because I I think I have a different style than a lot of other people do.
~
And at the risk of sounding like a peckerhead,
I think you have to be smart to listen to some of my content because I
Mm-hmm.
I use a lot of alliterative language and I use a lot of vocabulary that
I don't think many people use sometimes,
which is actually due to a punishment that my dad would give me when I was a kid.
I was punished with schoolwork.
~ so like
Interesting.
if if I didn't know something and I'd ask my dad a question,
it turned into having to write a paper about it.
Wow.
So
Like it was use the use the dictionary in the thesaurus so that you can use these
Yeah.
words so that when I come up with this story that has,
you know, this alliteration of ten words long that all begin with a B,
you know, everybody's like, How do you come up with this crap?
That's because I was punished as a kid.
~ so
No kidding. Wow. Okay.
so I kind of drew so I turn I I I made a short kind of series off of this.
I turned my punishment into power.
You know, the thing that I I was dealt with is a crappy hand,
I was like, No, I'm not
Not a stupid person. I I like to use big words.
I had to use big words. And so I was like,
I'll do that in my videos. And I it was fun to do that.
And then, you know, I started taking the,
you know, bust your butt, no one's gonna do it for you,
suck it up, type
Mm-hmm.
of mentality. ~ and very, very recently I started ~ doing a lot more content about
like marriage and you know and stuff like that,
and which I I like I was just on a podcast with
with with two gynecologist female doctors talking about that because they loved
the take that I had and I was like,
what am I gonna talk to about two with two doctors?
Ha ha ha
Like why
are you asking like I'm a I'm an idiot from Oklahoma.
What are you talking to me for?
but they ate it up and thought that my take on it was wonderful.
So I mean I was like, okay, it got me somewhere.
So I mean it just it it was it was seeing somebody doing it.
And I think seeing somebody else do it who I who I recognized,
I
Yeah.
don't want to say it
it kind of felt like I don't want to say it gave me permission,
but it also it it made me realize that I can I just do what I want.
Why why
Yes.
am I why I just do what I want.
Like I didn't even think of content creation as a possibility.
Like I was
Right.
just like I'm gonna make a couple of videos here and there and I'll just
put something out there. But then it w I started looking into it and I was like,
~ like I can actually make a buck or two off of this?
Like,
Yeah.
okay. And then I just started doing it.
And
I found that the more real that I was,
the more that I opened up about the bull crap of life.
Everybody else was like, ~ me too.
And
Yeah.
and I I think if if if we had to sum up Gen X content creators into one sentence,
it's a group of people who allowed everybody to realize that they were also that
exact same way.
We we did not have that open connection around the world where everybody was like,
you know, and and we wouldn't have even thought about it.
You know, there was no I wasn't gonna get together with my buddies and be like,
you know, my parents left me alone when I was a kid.
It wasn't a thing. It was like,
what are you doing this weekend?
building a shed. But it it was this extra space to blow off steam when
I had a thought. And it's really just what it is.
It's a random thought. And I'm like,
I'm gonna make a video about that.
And I write a short script, I I read it back to myself like 30 times and
I record a video. And then everybody is like,
me too. And and they jump on it.
And and it's it it's this online community of misfit toys.
I kind of how I feel like we're all the br we're all the broken toys
on the island of misfit toys. And you know,
we're we all have found some home that,
it's okay to be screwed up. We're all a little bit screwed up and
and ~ you're screwed up and you're screwed up,
we're we're all kind of screwed up.
Great. I found my people. We are all jacked up and we can talk about it now.
Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. You've and you've helped Gen Xers feel seen.
I I think so.
And no one has seen us. We've been invisible.
And and like you said, and we were all kind of going through it,
but we we didn't know to talk about,
please. And so it's really as we've hit midlife and with social media where
we can all be like, You two? my God,
I'm not the only one that did that or went through that or had that experience.
And
with all you guys coming out and and you share your auth it's
the authenticity is what you're talking about.
That's huge. People know if you're not being authentic.
And I think
Trying to be authentic without being authentic is where y people miss the mark.
You have to be real.
yeah.
And that requires a vulnerability and it's a risk.
But ~ it's allowing then others to share their experiences.
~ just like John kind of inspired you to,
you know, take that little bit of a leap when other pe when we see other
of our peers taking those risks,
then we're like, Okay, well maybe I can go for my thing that I kinda wanna try.
And it gives it gives each we we're giving each other,
you're giving
people courage to chase to chase that dream,
Well Well
basically.
well and I f I feel like the dream has been coming from multiple places because
I mean I've met several different people through through content creation.
~ you know one of my one of my great friends who I met slightly over
a year ago was was Graeson Mcgaha
Mm.
And ~ he he pinged me one day and he was like,
Hey man, can I call ya? I'm like,
Well, how'd you get my number?
Sure, you know.
~ but ~ he called me up and we started talking and you know he gave
me several pointers just out of the blue,
like no reason. He didn't owe me anything.
Like
Yeah.
he's just like, you know, I you know,
you're kinda you're kinda cool.
I like your crap. I'm gonna give you a call.
Mm-hmm.
And ~ we s we chatted and then we chatted again and chatted again
and it just it just emerged into this friendship.
And he would give me content creation pointers and I was like,
yeah. He's like, Well do it this way,
do it that way. You know, s say it this way,
lean harder into that. And I was like,
Yeah.
okay. Like it it would he had been doing it a a a bit longer than I had
and he was like, you know, be more.
Well you know who you are, be more.
And
Yeah.
and that's actually in and how I I got into where I can now call myself
a comedian, because one day he said,
Hey, I got a show in Tulsa, you're doing it with me.
And I was like, what? It like wasn't even ask,
you know, hey buddy, would you mind?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Do you think maybe he's like, no,
you're doing it with me. I'm gonna be there.
Wow.
I like your stuff. You're doing it.
And I was like, Okay.
~ and and now I've done several shows with him.
You know, anytime that he's close,
like within three to five hours,
he's like, I got a show in your area,
let's go. And so
That's awesome. So that's
cool. What was it like though,
the first time going up on stage?
scary as hell. So
How did you
even prepare for that?
He just said, think of stories and make them funny.
Like I got zero, zero coaching.
Ha ha ha
He just he lit it it was the most level of belief that I think that I've ever
had from a peer. Because it was like,
dude, you're funny. I love your stuff.
I I trust you one hundred percent.
Get up on stage and tell a story.
It's awesome.
That's that's
that's the coaching that I had.
And like
That is awesome.
and and the the so ~ I will say that we you know,
we lied to the ~ the guy who owns the facility.
He knows this now. ~
but the guy who owned the facility where I did it,
~ it was my very first time and I had twenty minutes.
So I went from like zero to twenty minutes.
Wow. That's a long time. That's a long time.
Most most most
Wow. That's a long
time.
Most people like, okay, you get five minutes.
Right.
Tell
you know, tell a four minute joke and you know,
an open mic night. No, twenty
Yeah.
minutes to the start, like boom,
go, have at it. And
She's
and so, like, he was like, no,
I got this guy, he's an opener,
he'll be, you know, he's he's done it before.
And so he's like, Hey, don't don't mention this.
~
Mm-hmm.
don't tell anybody that you have never been on stage before and just get up there.
If you die on stage, I will come save you.
So don't worry about anything.
And I was like, Really? Like don't like seriously don't worry?
He's like, no, I don't care. Like he gave me,
Graeson gave me the room to be a complete failure.
And he said, It doesn't matter.
I'm the only person who will who will falter for it.
And I've got your back. So go.
And I was like,
Well
~ okay. And
when it was over, like number one,
I don't remember what I said. Like I was so like I have I have a video of the first
You blacked out. Yeah, right.
like five minutes, but I went blank and he w like after it was over,
he was like, dude, that was awesome and I was like,
Can you tell me what I said? He's
Yeah.
like he's like, dude, if you don't remember it,
then you're definitely in for it because the fact that everything just came
so naturally, you are a natural.
And
I've flown out to North Carolina,
gone down to Texas and Kansas and I mean done all these things.
I mean I got another show actually ~ on the what the the le on the eighteenth,
so next week. I'm doing a show at the same place that I started with him
a year ago doing shows. And
Wow. That's awesome. Is
are all your shows always with him?
So far they've all been with him.
~
Very cool.
I have like ~ I have not felt the need to jump out and
I also haven't felt like, you know,
do I really wanna do that? But I en I enjoy the heck out of it.
I'm I'm building up the desire in me to do my own show.
~
Yeah.
I I did contact a couple of people,
~ and I'm gonna reach back to them to see what they wanna work out.
~ I will probably do some hosting at that the ~
~ where is it at the in Tulsa where we're gonna be at ~ on next Sunday
~ with with their club, probably do some things there.
But I just it I don't know,
it was cool getting the opportunity to do what I want and knowing that
I could fail and it wouldn't matter.
Like he would just be like whatever.
That's
cool. Yeah, he gave you safety net.
So you could just go for it. And so how much of a rush is it to be up
on stage and to make people laugh?
It is it is hilarious.
Like I always joke about it. I'm like,
you know, I usually have to wait until I post a video and you know,
Right Yeah.
if it dies, it dies, but you know,
y'all are gonna boo me off of the damn stage if you think I suck.
So,
you know, I was like, This is instant stuff right here,
you know, a and
Yeah, yeah. I
yeah, instant and it that instant validation too.
So that's really
And and
cool.
and and that's what it, you know,
for the majority of it is. It's just it's instant validation because you can
Yeah.
and it's it's lit and the funny thing is is it's just I just tell my story.
It's just a story and I go, blah blah blah joke,
blah, blah, blah, joke. I just throw in a one liner to a
Mm-hmm.
normal story that I'm going to tell my friends anyways.
Like when I get together with my buddies on Saturday,
I'm gonna tell the same stinking story.
Yeah.
And now I'm literally just telling two to four hundred people at the same time
and getting the same reaction.
And I'm just like, this you know,
this is hilarious and fun and you know I mean,
I get more hyped up because, you know,
it's it's on stage and there's a microphone and a light in my face,
but it's so fun, it's so exhilarating.
That is so cool. Now, do you get recognized in public?
yeah.
And how do you feel about that?
Like when people approach you?
For the for the most part it's
cool. I mean I mean I I I think I've only one time had had someone
who like didn't catch on that I was trying to back away.
Like I was I
~ Mm.
was with like ninety percent of time I don't care.
If you recognize me in public,
come up and say hi. ~
Yeah.
I always feel weird asking, you know,
do you want a picture? 'Cause I don't wanna be some presumptuous prima donna
be like, You want a picture with me because I'm cool.
Right. ~
And so I like I don't know how to navigate that yet.
~
Yeah.
But if if anybody asks, I'm like,
Yeah, sure, let's take a picture.
Cool. You know, shake my hand,
high five, whatever. You wanna tell me,
you know, they tell me, you know,
this video you did, it made me laugh,
ha ha ha. ~ I think it's great.
~
That's cool.
but most people are really cool about it.
And I mean, yeah, I was even in California last ~ when I was coming flying home.
Some guy's like, he said, Do you just have one of those faces?
And I was Well, first off, it depends on what you mean by one of those
fac like is it one of those faces you want to punch?
Like what are we talking about here?
And and then he just says, No,
you just you're familiar to me.
And I said, Boopsy?
And he goes, ~ shit You know, and it was this instant like he
Mm.
knew the face, but he didn't know how he knew the face.
And right
Yeah.
when right when I said it he knew it.
But yeah, I I mean I go to Walmart or or the you know,
whatever grocery store around town and and people are always like
Mm-hmm.
You know,
I like I like having fun with them.
Somebody somebody last week they were like,
You're boopsy and I'm like, No,
I don't wanna be
that that guy's a jerk and they're like and then I I l I I you know,
What?
thirty seconds later I was like,
No, I'm kidding, it's me. So
Where did boop C come from? B-U-P-C.
I
know you've probably been asked this a million times,
but for our listeners and your fans,
if you would share again where that came from.
So yeah.
So boop boopsy is a nickname that I when I when I first moved to Colorado,
like I I found the church that I was gonna go to and kinda got connected with
a small group of, you know, twenty to twenty nine year olds,
you know, group of people that were kinda,
you know, my mix of people and ~ and always hanging out and there
was this one girl who would constantly say
that's so cute. This is just so cute when you do that.
And I think I was twenty two at the time and I you know I I was a
big buff power lifter. Like I literally just won like a national competition like
two weeks prior and this girl that I just met is like,
you're just so cute and I'm like,
No, I'm not. Cute
Yeah.
cute is for puppy dogs and little boys and I am neither of those things.
And and so after like three or four months
Probably like months of her saying that and getting turned down by me saying
I'm not cute, stop it. She got mad.
And she's like, Well, if you're not cute,
then you are just a big ugly piece of crap.
And I'm like,
Hmm.
Okay. And then two or three months later,
you know, she still she's like,
Hey, you big ugly piece of crap.
Hey, big ugly. Like, she would that's how she would call me.
Like, she wouldn't call me
Yeah.
Joe. It was, hey, big ugly piece of crap.
I had another buddy of mine, Kyle,
and he's like, you know, big ugly piece of crap is way too long.
Let's make that into an acronym.
B U P C. And so he's like,
if we really want to shorten it,
it'll just be boopsie.
Perfect.
And so everybody in that little group just started calling me Boopsie for,
you know, a while. And I was like,
you know, that's gonna be my screen name.
It's just gonna be boopsy. I'm just,
you know, I'm just gonna throw
I love it.
it out there.
Yeah.
Now that
that wasn't my first scream name,
~ but it's the one that stuck the most and the one that caused me to
get reached out to less by weirdos.
So
Yeah.
No, I love that. And does the Gen X poet does that tie into what
you were talking about
earlier using the extensive vocabulary?
So when like when my dad would make me write and do all of these things,
like at first I hated it because it was a it was a punishment,
like I had to write. But at some point I found that
I really like I just really enjoyed it.
And it became something that I was good at and I was like,
you know, I can
I can talk about things this way.
I can rhyme. I can I can basically just do whatever I want
and write it down and get it out.
And so I started just I started writing.
And like I I wrote poems for my my wife.
I wrote poems for my parents. I wrote poems for people who pissed me off at work.
And it it may have been something that I never gave to them,
but
I would write all these things and I would have all of these things and just
do it in a very creative way. And
Mm-hmm.
and then I stopped doing for I can't remember why I stopped doing it.
I just never I just quit taking the time to do it.
And then probably after six to eight months of jumping back into
the content creation, I was like,
no one does it like this. So I'm gonna
Mm.
do it like this.
So I just was more colorful in my wording and more descriptive and you know,
I tried to take from from the edges of kind of like the edges of my mind from
all the books or movies or TVs,
the most beautiful and ugly things that I could think of and put that in my content.
So, you know, I described I describe menopause as,
you know, being lying on the floor like,
you know, some rock that was just left at Chernobyl,
you know, and and
Mm. Mm. Yeah.
~
you know, and you know, how hot it was and how the hot flashes like that.
And, you know,
I call I called women with hot flashes,
you know, hot flash hellcats. ~ you know,
Mm-hmm.
it just like and so it just,
you know, there's there's things that I think that when when you can
be colorful and descriptive and make it fun and stupid,
I think people jump along and it's just much easier.
And I in I enjoy
I enjoy the creativity because it allows me the opportunity to say what
I want in my own method, in my own manner that I I think I don't think anybody else
does. And so and
No, yeah.
so I just I enjoy being kind of I kind of like the Renaissance
Gen X because I mean I did I did,
you know, I was the football player,
the choir dude, the band dude,
the you know, the
The chorus jock. I mean, I'll go back to that.
Yeah.
You know, I got the best of both worlds.
I I played with all of the the geeks and the nerds in drama and the jocks
on the football field. I did all of that stuff and no
one has really said, stop this,
you suck. I hate this. I mean and and even if they did,
I probably wouldn't give a damn.
and make and I'd make fun of
Yeah.
I mean, but like, you're just upset that you're not smart enough
to understand what I'm saying.
Yes.
~
but it's you know, it's it's just been fun to create something that
is really authentically me. And so whether it's a you know,
I think one of my first big hits is a poem about being a a dad who paints his nails,
~ you know, or the the the fact that,
you know, I'm a I'm a stupid husband who does dumb stuff in my backyard.
You know, it just it doesn't matter what it is,
it's just a creative writing.
that gives me an ultimate release,
you know, and just
Yeah.
and it's fun.
It's a great what a great outlet.
I I love to write too, but what a wonderful outlet for you during those times when
if you needed to vent you you said like with a coworker or mess maybe something
how you're feeling about your parents or,
you know, love towards your wife that you were able to ~ use that vehicle of poetry,
but then to transcend it over to your content creation and take it with
you into your content creation,
it does make it so authentic because it was already such a part of your life
and you just brought it in and no one else
is doing that. And it also keeps you from not niching down too much because it's
always original.
Also
You can you can you can touch on any topic using that form
~ of of message. So it's not just that one type of thing,
but it also is that balance of,
you know, you were the football player and you're this kind
of big gruff personality, but then this gentleness of poetry,
it's you've melded it together so well.
Thank you. It it it's fun to quite honestly finally feel
like I can truly be me. And the odd thing is I'm truly being me with
a whole bunch of random people who just happen to watch.
Like I
Yeah. Yeah.
have I have found more authentic appreciation and love from
all the randos outside that I I have never met and may never meet.
You know, un unless we bump into each other or they come to a show or something.
But it's just like it it's the it's an acceptance of people who I never knew
I needed the love from. It's it's just
Yeah, yeah.
awesome.
It's very cool. How how are your kids about your content?
Do they watch it?
~ no. They they're like my dad's a dork and he's embarrassing.
~
but I mean a the funny thing is a lot of the kids at the school know who I am.
Yeah, yeah, I bet.
~
but and and they think it's funny.
So I I will occasionally get a story from my kids that
I turn into content. Like
Yeah.
we we had a kid who threw coffee at one of the teachers and I made that a story.
wow.
~
And you know, and that teacher loves it.
He's like he plays it all the time.
He's like, This is about me. ~ and so it's it's it's fun to do that.
~ and you know, it's just fun to be a part of,
you the community and s and I I think the other cool thing is that,
you know, using you know what you know,
it's not like I'm a millionaire from doing this,
not even close. You know, everybody always thinks that we make a lot more money than
we really do. But, you
Right.
know, the little bit of money that I do,
like like that goes to my kids' sports.
Yeah.
So,
you know, like I, you know, I I I paid money to put a banner up for
my kids' sports and put my stupid boopsy picture up on the scoreboard,
but the sports got money, you know,
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
and or
my local library gets money. You know,
all of the little things that I want to do that I want,
you know, all the things that I say,
you know, if I had the money I could do this.
Well, I got a little bit extra money and I can,
you know, my family reaps the benefits and I get to do a little bit more
of the philanthropic stuff that I've
that I've wanted to do and and always have dreamed of doing.
And so it's just I'm I'm kind of fulfilling all the you know,
if if I had the money to be the good guy that I wanted to be,
you know, here's what I yeah, I can do that.
So it's it's it's cool. It's fun.
That's awesome. That's cool.
How does your wife feel about it,
your content creation?
~
she she does she's like, you can do whatever you want,
but I don't want to be a part of it.
She's like, I don't want to
Right.
be in there. She's You can tell whatever story you want,
you can say whatever you want.
Try not to embarrass the hell out of me.
~ but
Yeah.
~ you know, go ahead. And and so,
you know, I probably take you know,
I don't take too much time away from the family for the most part ~ to do that.
~ but you know, it's it's pretty free reign,
you know.
Have you had any ~ past friends or relatives contact you from seeing content?
Several past friends, yes. ~ I get messages every now and then like
so and so doesn't believe that I know you and I'm like,
okay.
All right, you know,
why do you want to know me? I'm a I'm a dipshit with a device.
What does it matter? You know,
I mean it is it is interesting that people want to know that guy.
Whoever you know, whoever
Yeah.
that guy is that's you know, whether it's me or Graeson or Jon Sherri
Right, right, right.
any of the people, every
like you attach to that person and
It's like this I I don't want to say like a de facto celebrity,
but it's kind of like what it's like.
Yeah, yeah.
It's like there's
this recognition like they want to be a part of that thing.
They want to be around that person.
And it's it's oddly interesting.
Like I I, you know, you know, I'm I'm literally just a jerk who tells stories
on his phone. And it's just it's weird to to feel that there is
so much ~ you know,
pomp and circumstance that's come around that.
Yeah.
But
it's also I mean, but also I I enjoy it.
I enjoy being the fun person that,
you know, people want to identify with,
you know, and and to have the story.
Or sometimes, you know, people want me to tell their story,
which I think
Yeah.
is really cool. You know, I I can't get this out.
Can you get this out? I've told several
That's cool.
stories that were not mine, but were from somebody else in their authentic words.
that I may have s you know spruced it up a little bit to make it a little
bit more dramatic and a little bit more,
you know, boom, but telling somebody else's story,
you know, and like, hey, did that,
you know, did that meet your needs?
Like, dude, that was awesome. That was great.
Thank you. And it's just you know,
I did one last week. And it was it's just it's fun to be asked
to tell somebody's story, to be
Yeah.
asked to be a part of somebody's life and to feel that that draw towards
You know, randos, just complete randos.
Well, I mean it's an honor, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
~ a hundred percent. You know,
I d I
don't get it, but it's still an honor.
Yeah. Well I think I
I ~ this whole conversation I find you so relatable.
Just a like a shared experience.
Things that have gone on in your life.
I'm like, Yeah, yeah, totally,
totally. And I can think of twenty other friends who would probably
be sitting here saying, Yeah, ~ uhhuh.
So I think that's probably your hook.
You resonate. You resonate and people relate to your story and your vibe
and and everything you're doing.
It's an authentic celebrity. You know.
But I I but I th well,
I s I say it all the time when my when everybody's asking me,
you know, how how do you come up with all this stuff?
I mean it's really it's just life.
I'm literally
Mm-hmm.
just talking about my perspective on everything that I'm doing,
no matter what I'm talking about,
whether it's, you know, the the dumb interaction at the restaurant I had or,
you know, going out with my wife and my kids or,
you know, screwing up as a husband,
you know, it's all just a normal story in life that I'm talking about.
And the fact that I'm the one that people chose to listen
to is humbling and inspiring.
Like like I I am I am literally the schmuck from Goose Creek,
South Carolina.
Mm-hmm.
Like, why? But they they they like it,
they love it, they are are asking for it,
they're pushing for it, and I'm just like,
you know, I will continue riding this train as long as the people will,
you know.
will watch it and ask for it and and accept it.
And, you know, it it's fun and gratifying to to really have a voice that wants
to be heard. But I think the fact that to to your point,
you know twenty other people who have a lot of the same stories,
it's humbling to be the one that they're willing to listen to.
You found a way to get the message across so it resonates and unites people.
And I think that's that authentic celebrity,
you know, where p where you guys are celebrities,
but in a real way. And that's why I think
the the ~ fans or whatever followers,
it the it's it's real and genuine.
So they stick with you. It's not one of those things like,
I saw a movie and I like that person in the movie,
and then you forget about that person through
Months later, like you become a part of people's daily lives.
And I'm sure in a lot of ways,
~ there's been people who've contacted I would guess there's been people who've
contacted you maybe that have gone through a dark time and told you
my gosh.
you you got me through that. And that is having a real impact on people
in a real meaningful way, and that that's creates loyalty.
That I think that was one of the first times that I realized that I actually
I made a difference in somebody's life,
like it actually meant something.
A guy contacted me. He's like,
Man, I'm in the hospital and I've been in the hospital for two months.
I've been sick. I can't remember what he said was was wrong with him,
but he he's like every day when you post a video,
it is, you know, five minutes because I usually post two to three.
He's like, I get five to ten minutes of just complete laughter.
And joy, and sometimes it's the only thing that makes me laugh during the day.
And I'm just like, ~ man. Like it it's almost pressure,
Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
like I can't stop now. Like I have to do this,
yeah. ~
you know. You know, Johnny needs me,
you know, and and and and
it's it's it's kind of turned into this mission,
like, you know, I've I I feel like I have to do this,
and if I if I don't take the opportunity to make fun of the
you know, all this superfluous bull crap in life,
then who am I letting down? You know?
Right, right.
And so it's
it's it has become somewhat of a need ~ to fulfill
for others that ironically is also fulfilling a need in me to share my crap.
So it's it's it's a double fulfillment.
That's why it works. It's symbiotic.
Yep. yeah.
And and it's serving. You're serving.
You know, and I and I always I I always talk about this intention behind what
you do, I think, is is so important and it also the suc success will come
and it depends on the intention behind it.
You know, and your intention is coming from that place of serving,
authentic authent it's authentic,
it's resonates and you're real and so the success is naturally going to occur.
But it's because of that intention,
you know. So I know you were gonna say something.
No, I d I was just gonna s
Totally ch topic shift, but it's even validation.
I'm sitting here thinking I can relate to what you're saying,
but you've also validated some things in my own life in terms of I've worked
my ass off before too, right? And you come out on the other side and
and it it validates it 'cause that's a shared experience we both can relate to.
But the f the f on a more lighter note would be the you do some quirky shit,
it sounds like and then you come in I do the same,
so they'll I get picked on.
Like, you know, light hearted picked on,
like, there's dad doing his weird stuff.
But we all do that. And that's something that we all have that self deprecating
thing, I think, from our generation of our quirkiness that our wives,
our partners and the kids around us find,
well, there's dad. And it's I think you don't feel so weird.
You you're one of the misfit toys.
I'm a misfit toy. We all are, yeah.
I I I think I think that's a a connection
that we all feel as Gen Xers is that we all belong on the island of misfit toys.
We are we're
Yes.
all jacked up in our own little way.
And the the great thing is is you know,
I care that you're jacked up, but I don't care that you're jacked up.
You know what like
Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah.
I have the acknowledgement
like, man, you're jacked up and I'm like,
Yeah.
you're jacked up.
Yeah.
It's i it's the same
statement, but it means so much different how you say it.
Like realizing there's other people like me and you know,
it's a sad thing that it you know,
a whole generation of jacked up kids,
but we've all turned out all right and we have finally
Yeah.
found some commonality and I think it's awesome.
When so when did you realize you were jacked up,
misfit and it was okay? And I I have a feeling your wife helped you get there too,
would be my hunch.
I
the I think that the realization was when I realized that it was okay.
Like know like I've always known that I'm well,
I'm a little messed up. ~ you know,
I I say things, I think things that and I say it out loud when other people would
not. You know, I'm all I feel like I've always been the guy who said
the quiet part out loud. And it's
Probably the real the real hit was probably around the summer
of last year when my all of my accounts just kind
of went you know when I I you know everything just blew up and you know
it went from like two hundred thousand to five hundred thousand
and then seven hundred thousand and within a year it it you know bumped
up to a million on like on Facebook and I was like,
Wow. It's amazing.
crap.
Like
People are really like it just was this constant roll of things,
you know, I agree with you, you say this,
you feel this. And I was like,
you know, my being jacked up is what's resonating with everybody else.
So this really is okay to say.
Like, I've never been not okay with saying it because I'm comfortable
in my skin, but realizing that it wasn't putting a lot of other people off.
Like like I will say a lot of things because this person is doing something stupid
and I feel like you need to say it.
If I don't say this, you're gonna keep on being dumb.
Mm.
But when I
say this and somebody else goes,
Yeah, all these other people are being dumb and he just said the thing that's gonna
stop I like or he said the thing that made me feel like I'm allowed to do it.
That kind of drew me into even more,
you know, realizing how many people else ~ out there were in the same boat.
And, you know, it it again, validation ~ on all of the things that what
I'm doing is right, what I'm doing feels good,
and but there are so many other people out there who want to be heard ~
or now will be heard because they've kind of found their group.
You know, one of us.
Yeah, well it's almost taking a f it's being a leader,
taking a form of leadership too.
b and as we've talked about already,
you were the baby, you were the youngest.
Was there ever a time
within your family where you became the leader or where you took care of
yeah.
someone in your family and you played that role?
~ when I was I graduated high school and I
was working ~ and I had a job and I saved most of my money,
~ my dad actually got injured and he he
got injured at work but he for whatever reason was not going after the workers comp.
I still won't un I still don't understand this,
but ~ so then I you know,
he wasn't working for like six to eight months.
And
Wow.
so yeah.
And so I had done nothing with my money.
Like I spent I I spent only fifty percent of it and I stuck the other fifty percent
of it in a bank and I didn't touch it.
And when this happened, two months into it,
my parents were like, I don't know how we're gonna do this.
We can't pay our mortgage. You know,
dad had surgery, it's not gonna be good for another couple of weeks.
~ and so what what do we do?
And so I wrote my check a my parents a check for like seven thousand dollars.
And you were how old?
And I seventeen, eighteen.
Wow.
And I was just like, mm, here's the money,
you know, and we lived off of my paycheck that I had worked for for the past
six to eight months, off of that.
You know, they paid the mortgage,
they paid the bills, they bought the groceries,
and it just I handed over my money and I'm like,
Here, there you go. And
Wow.
that was it. You know, I st I
took care of my mom and my dad and my sister and mean it just it is what it is.
You know, somebody needed the help.
I had the money and I, you know
Was it money from your summer jobs that you had said you would work through high
school?
it was
it was some of that, but you know,
right after I graduated I got a job at a lumber yard and
Okay.
so it was all the money I saved from that,
you know, up until the time, you know,
just doing things like that. ~ it was after I it was af it was after I graduated,
so I was no longer in high school.
~ so I was working all the time.
~ actually I think I had two two jobs at that time,
but ~ but y the primary one was a lumber yard and
But y
I'm smiling because he had that Gen X hustle.
yeah, the multiple
~
jobs. Yeah. Just doing
And
it.
and so yeah, when when they asked for it,
you know, I was just like, All right,
here you go, you know, whatever.
And did you know
handing that over, you knew you weren't gonna get that money back?
No, I I I didn't even think about it.
I just you know, it was just I I I
Okay. Let's do. Yeah, that's
knew that it was needed. I knew that I had it and so that that's just what happened.
That's wow. But
So
it is. That is part of that Gen X hustle.
And not ever questioning if you're gonna get the money back.
That's just wouldn't He wanted a steak dinner though,
instead of a soup. Yeah.
I did, you know. I mean I was buying my own steaks at that time,
Yeah, good, good.
you know.
Yeah, no sneak and steak dinners if I'm giving you the Here's a check,
Alors.
but ~ one string. Yeah, yeah,
You're eating the pea soup, dammit.
yeah.
Okay, so I always ask our gu our Gen X guests this.
~ is there a movie from your childhood,
your Gen X childhood? What would say be your favorite movie?
Favorite movie?
man. There's way there's
I know. It's a tough question actually.
I mean, I'd probably say like one of the one of the movies I d I don't know
if it's my favorite movie, but it's probably the movie that I think that more people
need to resonate with and the message I think resonates with me more
and more and more. and the more that I I think about it,
I wish that I wish that the movie meant more to more people and it's really just
one line.
Be excellent to everyone. And Bill and Ted.
~ Just
Bill and Ted. Yes. I I
I that you said it so calmly, they didn't come to mind immediately.
Well, let me let me I I did it wrong.
Yes. Yes,
I'd be like be excellent to everyone.
there you go. Yes, there you go.
I I I honestly
That's better.
think that if you know if we if we really just tried to not be
a bunch of buttheads to everybody and we just really took care
of ourselves and after we got done taking care of ourselves,
tried to take care of somebody else and help the world not suck that.
Yeah.
things would be, you know, awesome.
~ you know, just it would be. I mean I I will
Yeah, no. I think you're right.
say that I I you know I I watch all you know,
I just got done watching Rambo,
~ you know, the other
Mm.
night. I love, you know, I love all of those shows.
you know, there's there's nothing more awesome than eighties gratuitous violence
and and blowing things up. But
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
but I I I I would say that in my in my adulthood,
be excellent to everybody from Bill and Ted is probably the message that sticks
out the most.
I like that.
I just
I just think it's what what we need more of right now.
So
I agree. I agree. What about a T V show?
T V sh ~ my favorite TV show, quite honestly,
~ and I've watched this I've watched every single episode probably ten times,
~ Highlander. ~ and it's,
~ Highlander, yes.
you know, I mean, imagine being the dude who has survived everything forever
and who constantly is learning and growing and doing something new.
Like like I mean, my job now is because I learned something as an adult.
Like I completely changed
Yeah.
who I am.
And I got a much better job. And you know,
and I kind of feel like if you're always learning and growing and pushing,
you know, and and striving to s see and find a better meaning,
then I think things go along. And,
you know, that that idea presented from ~ from,
you know, Duncan McLeod in that series,
it just has always stuck with me.
Like I was like, you know, that's a really cool character.
So
Yeah.
And growth is uncomfortable and it's so important as you get older.
It's important
yeah.
to be uncomfortable. One of the worst things you can be is too comfortable
as you get older. So that's that's good.
And what about ~ music? An artist or a band?
~ man.
~ I'm I'm kind of a I'm I'm kind of
a renaissance with that because I mean when when
I'm feeling th how I'm feeling will depend on which one I want to listen to.
But you know, if I'm if I'm pissed off it's you know I want to break stuff
by limp biscuit. When I'm feeling,
Mm.
you know, calm and serene, ~
you know, it's I I I will honestly throw on some version of classical music,
you know, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin,
something like
Hmm.
that. ~ I love I l I loved like R and B spoke a lot to me.
So I I do listen to like some of the groups like Shy or Boys to Men.
~ so it's it's it's really hard to just pick one thing because there's there's like
a music for every mood. And
Yeah.
so it really depends on which
mood that I'm dug into and that that music will jump along with me and
in and I mean if I'm if I'm in that mood for a long time I might play that song
on repeat just because, you know.
Yeah. I think Gen X is an interesting generation because we can flip
so quickly among genres of music.
yeah. yeah.
~
you know, if you you could have a playlist that is incredibly diverse and
be i i because we were presented,
I think, with some of the best music ever,
Well yeah.
~ and the best artists. And so it you really can't pinpoint us,
you know, because you never know what we're listening to.
Yes.
Fr from Enya to Metallica, I've I'll listen to it
all in the same day.
Yes, exactly.
I saw a meme that talked about that.
It's listed out like ten different songs,
all different genres, and it was about gen X.
Yeah, that that's And we can sing along to all of it type of thing.
All of
Now before I ask my last question,
do you have any ~ other questions?
Not that I can think of. I really appreciate you taking so much time with us.
Just really relate to a lot of what you talked about and think it's really cool.
It's awesome that I I love how you just
You didn't have it easy this whole time and you just appreciate what
you have and it's really cool.
I'm glad you're having success,
man. It's it's it's an amazing thing.
And that you recognize it, right?
It's cool.
I I recognize the luck that I'm in and you know,
it
Yeah.
it's you know, there's a I can't remember who sa who said it,
but you know, that which we achieve too easily we esteem too lightly.
And it's you know, it's something that's always stuck with me and I don't feel like
anything that I've ever gotten was easy,
so I always appreciate everything that I have because I know that myself
and and definitely my wife we've all busted our butts for it and so
I mean I appreciate, you know,
right
right down to the last speck of rice that I have for dinner.
It's it's
Yeah.
it's earned, so
Yeah. And and through that comes true contentment and happiness.
You know, and
yeah.
and and appreciation is so underrated.
It really is. That that is where you will find that contentment in life.
So my in
Hundred percent.
my opinion. ~ my last question or our last question is always,
where do you see yourself in five years?
~ shoot, five years. I will probably start making videos about being
a grandpa and what it means
Mm.
to have another generation of little kids who I feel like I have to take care
of and making sure that I,
you know, leave them in in a world or let me rephrase that,
leave them in a place where they can handle the world that I've left for
~ making sure that they are equipped with all the skills,
mentality and and everything needed to survive a world that is,
you know, much different than the one that I grew up with,
you know, helping them find the the the grit that may be needed to deal with
all the bull crap that life is gonna throw at and and if I'm lucky with
a little bit of an inheritance left over.
I think that's great. And you're so right about the grit.
Is ~ you know, that is one thing that we all acquired through survival as Gen Xers,
but it is a gift. Grit is a gift and scrappiness.
And as we broke those generational cycles,
we did take a little bit of grit away from our kids.
And so it's it's it I think it's interesting when you talk about
~ with your grandchildren. Cause I have already thought about that,
like
kind of making sure my our kids,
even though they're older, reminding them about grip.
But with the grandchildren, I think it does give us another chance
to even balance things a little more of bringing some of that back in.
Does that make sense? You know?
yeah, yeah.
So I I love that you brought that up.
And So are you gonna be jerks then?
No, no, no. But I I just think
it it goes back to what we talked about with breaking that cycle
is sometimes you're doing some things for you and so there is no grit there,
right? You know, it it does align with that.
So,
Yeah.
you know, ~ but I I love that.
I think that's a great five year plan.
I c I couldn't have said it better.
I I will say we have a twenty nine and a twenty-five year old and
if somebody had asked me five years ago,
I would have thought that I would be talking about grandchildren,
but not yet. So I hope that happens for you.
Ha ~
'Cause it's not happened yet. But I know it will.
It'll come. They take longer now,
this generation. You know.
Yep. It it'll it'll either be,
you know,
I am a grandpa or how come I'm not a grandpa get working,
Yes, yes, exactly. But it's good for them.
you know.
They are taking longer, but for good reasons.
So but thank you, Joe, for giving us so much
Yes, definitely. ~ my pleasure.
time. Honestly, we really appreciate it.
And ~ yeah, I know so many listeners and your fans,
of course, are gonna this is gonna resonate with so many people.
And thank you for being so candid about your upbringing and your life.
And ~ I know you're gonna help a lot of people feel seen through this.
So we really appreciate that. And I know your fans and followers will
really enjoyed this long form content to you.
So thank you.
Thank you
for creating the space. I really appreciate the time.
This is awesome.
No.
It's it's been great. And for ~ listeners who don't know about Joe,
which is hard to imagine, ~ everywhere you can find him,
Boopsy will be in the show notes,
but you can find him on all social media platforms.
Just search up Boopsy or B U P C.
He's the only one. Unless there's some
Ha ha
weird impersonator, which they're always that they usually have fourteen f yeah,
There's always some of but yeah.
but they have like fourteen
followers, so you should know it's not him.
But everywhere you can find Joe will be in the show notes.
~ and feel free
Leave any comments or questions,
he'll see them. And it as always,
we love to hear from you. But again,
thank you, Joe. Your story is very inspiring,
~ it's so relatable. And it's it's also not just your your childhood,
but what you're doing now is so inspiring to your peers,
to your Gen X peers, and it will continue to give people our age courage
to go after what they want to go go for because they get to see you do it too.
So that's that's just
Such a wonderful thing to share and connect with everyone.
So thank you for that as well.
my pleasure. Thank you.
And listeners, we always love to hear from you,
so please leave us any comments or questions,
and we will see you next time.
Bye.