Nico Carney Believes in Evolution

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Your favorite friend group is back. FX's Adults follows five roommates living in New York, leaning on each other to navigate love, work, friendship, and family while tackling pressing questions of your 20s like what if the person who inherited your fake ID is cooler than you ever were? Why does being around your family make you regress into your worst self? And how do you tell your roommates that you have other friends? FX's Adults. All episodes now streaming on Hulu. Wave. I read this book called Transgender Warriors by Leslie Feinberg. That's like a history of trans people through space and time. I'm trans. I'm not a fetishy guy or something. No, he's cis. Don't listen to him. Caleb wanted to get a really fetishy guy on the podcast to talk about trans people. I said, Nico, you can come on, but you have to talk about your trans fetish. Today's episode is sponsored by Domino's. Thank you, Nicole. Let's start the episode with a thank you to Nicole. Thank you, Nicole. Nico, how's it going, dude? Hey, what's going on? Thanks for having me. I'm good. I'm excited to be here. I'm enjoying the So True studio, enjoying our time. We're talking about the So True-dio. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we're getting into it. I hear that there's a different thing every week, so I gotta. There's a different thing every week. I'm gonna tap in. God damn it. No, we're gonna fix it. We're gonna stay on the set this time. Yeah. What's been going on with you? Tell me everything. Damn, I've just been enjoying the spring weather, trying to, you know, get outside, trying to hang out with people, trying to just, like, I don't know. Trying to. I'm trying to live in the moment while also not feeling so much the collapse of the universe all at once. And the collapse of at least society is seemingly upon us. Yes, impending doom, all that stuff. But I'm trying to just, you know, take it day by day and enjoy my life and make other people's lives better, hopefully. You. I mean, my perception of you. I know that perception isn't always reality, but my perception of you from the times that we've been around each other, and from what I see of you, I feel like you're really hanging out. I feel like you're seeing people. Like, I feel like you are seeing people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like to hang out. Like, you know everybody, you're around. Like, I feel like you're getting out there. That's so funny. Okay, well, I mean, I think so, yeah. Like, I. I'm definitely, like, pretty social. I've been playing a lot of pool with my friends. I mean, that's a lot of what I've been doing recently. Are you good at pool? I've gotten good. That's. I know that's right. Let's go, brother. Hell yeah. My buddy Jesse and I, we have been playing a lot of pool. She's between tech jobs right now. She's a comedian as well, but she has finagled her way into these, like, six-figure tech jobs. She's, like, sort of qualified for it. Nobody look into that. Nobody Google her. Do not look into this. And so she and I have, like, similar, just, like, weird, you know, like, free time during the afternoon. So we've been going to some bars to play pool, and we got really good. And then we were. We did a tournament at the Johnsons in Bushwick on Tuesday. And it was, like. I mean, it's such a. Like, I've come into so many bars over the last five years, you know, to do stand-up open mics or whatever, bar shows and stuff. And I don't feel, like, uncomfortable. Walking into these spaces, it's, like, whatever. Like, my anxiety for that is, like, is kind of gone now. But then I walked into this pool tournament to, like, sign up, and I was like, oh, no, what if I'm bad? Like, what if everybody's really good? And what if I'm bad? What if I make a fool of myself in front of all these, like, straight guys that have gloves on? Not gloves. Gloves. Not gloves. Not putting their own pool stick together. Are you putting your own pool stick together? No, I'm not, but people. Thank God. No, but there's guys that are coming in and putting their pool sticks together, and, like, they got the gloves on. One guy just had just the fingers. That's. Just the fingers. Unfortunately, pretty fucking sick. Unfortunately, I find that pretty fucking sick. Well, I turned to Jesse, and I was like, I feel like that's, like, an undiscovered, like, lesbian sex toy. Like, just have it excrete, like, some lube. That's, like, so. Come on, you guys. Somebody get on it. Two fingers. Two fingers. Two fingers gloved. Two fingers gloved. Just walking around with it. That's pretty. You see it? The girl, she's at the club. She's got two fingers gloved. You know what's up. You know what's up. You can get those fingers if you need them. Yeah. She's down. She's community finger. She comes with her own lube. It's good. It's good. That's so fucking funny. Dude, I am bad at pool, and I feel. There's this pool bar that I love in Kin City called Chartreuse Saloon. Shout out Chartreuse. Love you guys. They. I will go in there sometimes just to fuck around with my friends. I'm bad at it. I know I'm bad at it. I'm not trying to be good at it. I'm not practicing. I just like it, okay? Then these guys will come in with their little stick in a bag and start putting the stick together and start chalking their hands, and I get fucking terrified. No, it sucks. Because they're also old. They're like old-timers. Yeah. These are like old Kansas City guys that have been there forever. People that take it seriously. And the Midwest is big for pool. I've been doing some research. It was like. It's like kind of where it started. Hello. Yeah. Have you been to Kin City? I actually have. Wait. I flew in there because I did. Oh, my God. What was the name of that college? I did a college show. Was it Colgate? No. It was really small. Oh, it's going to bug me. I'll figure it out. I'll tell you later. It wouldn't have been Avala. It was like. I want to say it might have been a historically women's college. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. It was Jewel Williams. No. God damn it. Outside of Kansas City. It was like maybe. I drove like an hour. You drove an hour? Oh, oh, oh. It was Columbia College. It was in Columbia. God damn it. I think it's where Leah Delaria used to. We woke up women's college, Columbia, Missouri. I think it's this. Could be. Stevens? Oh, God. It's like I can't even. Oh, it has to be Stevens. It was like a school with like no kids. And they all came to the show, which was cool. And I love them for that. God, I think it was Stevens. It was like one of the first times I ever ran an hour was for these. And it was so crazy because I was like in the middle of Missouri and I was like. And I had never been before. I'm like an hour from Kansas City. It's like a one-stop town kind of place. And it was like. It was the Hampton Inn I was staying at and then the Walmart next door and then the college was somewhere away. And so I was like, I guess I'll just go to Walmart to get my food for dinner because I didn't want whatever other thing was around. And so I went into this Walmart and everybody was staring. And I was just like. I was feeling so like, oh, am I being clocked? What's happening? People, they know, whatever. And I was like, they probably have never seen a stranger. They haven't seen a stranger in this Walmart in a long time. So they're all like, who is this guy? What's going on? It's that you don't live there. It's crazy. Yeah, no, totally. And then I was like, oh, okay, I'm safe. I'm just walked into this town and nobody knows who I am. Yeah. Truly. It's still like that over there. And it's hard to tell. Yeah, it's like, are they also transphobic? Probably. But do they know what a trans person looks like? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. They're like, look at that young man. Yeah, yeah. What is he doing here? We don't know him. Yeah, everybody here is blonde. We don't know who he is. Oh, my God. Yeah. Well, you should come with me sometime. You need to do a show there. I would love to. Yeah, I definitely want to do. I love going to the Midwest. It's like some of my favorite places to play because I feel like. I feel like the Midwest has a lot of folks that are like. They're really smart and they're like left-leaning generally in their politics but they're also just like grounded, normal-ass people who aren't like. I feel like sometimes in New York or LA you get to shows and you're like, why is everybody overthinking everything and everybody's overly intellectualizing? They're placing themselves in the material too much. They're not just here to have fun. I don't know. It's like whenever I'm in the Midwest I'm like, these are just normal fucking people who want to have a good time and also aren't going to say something weird. Well, it's mostly I feel like about. My favorite leftists in the country are in the Midwest. Yeah. I have always. I've said for many years that the most important things I learned about organizing I learned in Southern Missouri because then I moved to Chicago and I was totally. I was just shocked by the kind of leftist discourse that I encountered that was so infighty and also like theoretical that it was like. It was really smart. It was a bunch of people who went to really good schools and they're from really cool places and they're really, really, really smart. But I was like, oh, all the leftists that brought me around and taught me about organizing worked like real jobs and had like a class angle to everything they were talking about because they didn't have a choice. And I realized how important that is at least to me in my view. But that's what it is is a lot of the people that are coming out to like your show or my show in like a Midwestern city, they work real jobs and like actually still wonder how they're going to pay their rent. And it's not to say that is not happening for leftists and queer people on the coasts, but I feel like it gets to a way more intellectual place because it's been a lot of like sitting around and talking and like dissecting. Whereas there is a more like humble like pragmatism to the Midwest and South. Like that is real. Yeah. Yeah. And it's always so interesting, especially, I don't know, I've met more. I've met more people that like went to Ivy Leagues working in comedy than I think if I had been a doctor. Like it is fucking insane. Yeah. It's their little rebellion. Oh my God. These folks, they are just coming out of every nook and cranny of the Ivy Leagues. But anyway, it's always so funny to me because it's like these. I don't know. It is a lot of like theory and just like this, I don't know, really esoteric ideas about these things, but it feels like so far removed from, I don't know, real life or just real people that when you go actually like out to these places and talk to people and I always really enjoy talking to people after the show is like, again, like I really like seeing like trans guys that come out to my shows and like just like asking what their life is like in these other places that like I just like, I don't know, I could feel fearful of living in or whatever and it's just always really like cool to be like, these are just like cool living their life. It just gives, I don't know, it gives me, I don't know, some reprieve from some of the headier nonsense that comes with like living in a coastal place that's you know very uppity about its own sense of self i guess yeah yeah absolutely and very like self i mean i think all the time of that who was it jemima from girls that that she that someone wrote to her on instagram and was like what's your advice for unconfident young women and she was like i think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much yes i think about this all the time that i'm like the number of times i have to tell myself that that i'm like i'm like oh what what you know what is xyz thinking about me or what is the opinion of me doing this and it's like you're thinking about yourself too much dude who cares get over it that is like what i'm literally like this week for some reason i've been so in my head about stuff and just like i keep having this thought pattern where i'm like literally think about anything but yourself think about anything about yourself right now like think of anything else right now find one thing that's not you yes to think about right now it's so god it's so god awful and then i'll just like somehow it'll like creep back in i'm like why are we doing that again why are we doing it's horrible yeah it's hard i mean i don't know how you feel about working in this industry in this career like especially as a stand-up i don't know like because so much my material is anecdotal or it's about my life like there's like an element to my work that requires some like introspection and and like thinking about myself but then it gets so dangerous when you start to think about like the stuff you can't control or just like it starts to creep into like career stuff and i find myself finding like trying to take a balance of being like smart and planning for things or being industrious in a certain way with like career but like not overly worrying about crap like i just like can't control yeah yeah 100 i feel like i was just talking to a friend yesterday who's like really she's a entertainer and she's got a lot going on and she's really burnt out and like having to like pair back like immediately yeah like you know when you get to like a mental health like uh cliff and it's like oh i gotta pair stuff back now like i have to cancel things tomorrow and we were talking about it and i was just like you know like because part of what she was saying that i feel like a lot of people that do this kind of work experience is like oh i don't feel like myself i don't really know who i am right now and it's like right well part of it is like i don't know who i am right now part of the job if you like are in comedy and like entertainment is just like mining everything that happens to you all the time to see what's interesting and relatable and what's different and unique and what's weird and like you'll go to the grocery store and experience the same thing that someone who isn't a comedian experiences but you're the whole time being like oh that was weird that's kind of funny like what if i wonder what that person's like point of view is and like oh why when they said that to me i wonder if they meant this or like who do they go home to like you start pulling threads on everything to try and make something interesting to try and like figure out the most interesting thing about whatever just happened to you and so yeah you start living this like meta existence where you are a character in a story and you really have to push back about against that yeah and like let things happen and then revisit them later totally and i think like social media has made it all the worse like i don't know just to say this i feel like we all have this like sense of who our our public self is even if you're not a public person even if you're just like you know you have an instagram account i feel like there's this like this like for the last you know decade and a half there's just been this splintering of the actual self and the and sort of the you know public self of who we put out in the world in this like social media lens and i think it's just made us all so much more aware of the way that we come across or what our opinion is just like to like look at our lives as such an outsider as well it can be so dangerous i i don't remember whose quote this was but i've seen it a couple times and said like don't do the i think it was like marcus aurelius or something don't quote me on that don't check it um but it was like don't do yourself the disservice of looking at your life all at once and i try to about that a lot because that feels like what that instinct is to like yeah metatextually like discover i don't know just think about too much about like who i am as a person versus who i am as a i don't know an entity a brand whatever those things are and it's but i think people are doing it on all levels of of that spectrum of fame from like the most famous to like people that are just on instagram i feel like it's like really such a brain worm that i don't know i'm interested to see how the um that changes us as people in general yeah i am also interested uh but with uh i'm so worried about it i don't the internet i'm like we really should have stopped at a certain point oh man yeah we keep going oh man yeah i'm like stop just stop hey but the metaverse is shutting down hey hey that billion dollar flop is shutting down any questions about that i love that yeah anybody anybody make a visit to the metaverse yeah i was there this morning yeah right paying my respects you have a lot of friends there don't you oh yeah yeah in the metaverse oh my god you think you're okay liberty in real life you should see them in the metaverse you should see them in the metaverse i well i probably should see them in the metaverse i program them to only say what i want so they all i mean anytime i tell a joke they don't even laugh they just go yes yes they go they she they she they she yes king oh that's so funny what you were talking about um earlier you said something that i wanted to talk about you were um you said like oh yeah i'm trying to like i'm trying to get out and see people and pretend that like society is not collapsing yeah yeah how what's your what's your relationship with happiness right now are we happy most of the time no yeah yeah i think i'm a generally pretty happy person i i don't know i i'm definitely like a i i've realized in my adulthood that i'm more of a depressive than i thought i was like i i think depression's a bigger part of my life than i thought it was but um but i'm also very happy generally speaking i think i i don't know i i find a lot of happiness in connecting with my community and being with people and being with friends and find a lot of happiness performing um but i think like i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know but i think it's like uh every day is a a battle to try to be happy yeah in a way yeah 100 yeah yeah i mean that makes total sense to me and i feel the same i feel like there's this mix of like i don't know like i don't know i don't know i don't know i also i'm always wondering like what what am i gaining slash how am i helping by knowing the intimate details of every atrocity ongoing like i feel like people will be like don't don't look away and i'm like right and i'm not i am totally tapped in i know what's going on i'm trying to talk about it but i'm also like do i need to see every photo of every horrific thing like i'm trying to find the balance of like yes i absolutely believe that we need to know what's going on and be talking about it and i'm trying my best to like be a good person i'm trying my best to be a good person all the time i'm doing the best i can and also i don't know some of my most miserable friends god love them are the most tapped in i think you could know 30 to 40 percent less and still be a good person a good citizen yeah a good neighbor without making yourself so fucking sick and miserable yeah do you know what i mean no totally i mean it's always the people that are most online that are the most sad uh and the most like yeah just be fucked up by it all but i i've been trying to like just like whenever i get into that space where i'm like freaking out about stuff and obviously it's like justified freakouts that you know because of what's going on but i i've been recently trying to just like be like is there something i could do right now like do i have some old clothes i could just like go donate and that would maybe be a moniker of impact in a positive direction even though there's a million things coming this way um i really want to get involved with i used to work with kids i used to coach kids soccer um for my day job and i liked that and i liked it a lot but i i want to i i don't think i want kids but i like working with them and i i want to get like more involved with like trans youth in the city or something like that like i feel like that's like an actual way that you i could get involved that would be like a positive you know i don't know fight against all the shit that's happening right now because it just feels like so overwhelming all the time to be like everybody needs my donations i don't even have money myself like this is crazy like it's just like yeah like everybody needs money and everybody needs help all the time it's like where do i even start so i think like i'm just trying to be better about getting really involved in like my local communities and fighting like yeah starting from the smallest place that i can actually like make some tangible impact that's it yeah i think i sometimes i've said something like this on substack recently and people it was met with varying degrees as are all things that i say um some people you're kidding no shit people some people really related to it some people thought it was the worst thing that's ever been said but i i have found in my own experience that like the the people who tell me they're the most hopeless are often the most privileged and they're doing the least and i'm not saying that i'm doing the most but i'm saying like the people that i know that do the best work like my organizer friends that i'm like you are a legitimate hero i come nowhere close to doing the good work that you do in the world and i am trying every day to get even an inch closer those people have the most hope of anyone i know yeah and they see the worst shit they're making the least money they are every day in like like truly dire circumstances trying to save lives yeah and they have the most hope and that's just the thing that i've observed that i'm like but it's because every single day i think it's the thing you're talking about where it's like every single day they're doing stuff that makes the world immediately at least a little bit better for somebody yeah and then my friends i've got friends you know that have like like very well-paying jobs and cushy lives and they're not they're not like a marginalized person living they don't have like a intersection of multiple marginalized identities living in some dangerous place yeah and they're the first ones to be like oh god the world's a dumpster fire we're fucked and i'm like you do nothing like you this is a total privilege for you to sit here and say this totally and i'm not saying you're wrong it does look like a dumpster fire hey we we do seem to be pretty fun yeah yeah i'm just saying to like sit there and like spout that is not ever the behavior i see from the people that are doing the best work no totally you know what i mean it's kind of like that i don't know if this is a real fact or if this is like an old wives tale but um again nobody check anything check this quote this i have no facts today everybody everybody stop um but like that i that adage that like you know somebody who if somebody's asking for money on the train or something like that it's more likely that the person who like doesn't have a lot to give will give them a dollar than like somebody who's like in a business suit is not going to give them any money and it really is that idea of like when you know what it feels like to be close to the bone like you you want to help more because you understand and empathize whereas i think people that have these cushy lives like they just they're like perfectly i mean they are systematically positioned in the middle to feel comfortable so that they are the buffer between the elite and the the rest of the working class the whole point it's the whole point yeah so it's like yeah you you feel this guilt in this cushion because you're you've been systematically set up to be here to feel this guilt but not enough to like do something about it anyway yeah i could rant for days but um i i like i've been reading a lot of history books to like ground myself in some like you know the things have been worse and people did more when it was harder and like that kind of stuff and that's been really helpful too i read this book called um transgender warriors by leslie feinberg that's like a history of trans people through space and time i'm trans i'm not a fetishy guy or something um no he says don't listen to him caleb wanted to get a really fetishy guy on the podcast to talk about trans people i said nico you can come on but you have to talk about your trans fetish listen and i i've been begging to get an audience to listen about it so thank you for yes everybody yes um but anyway it's uh it's a really great account of like leslie feinberg was like wanting to like look through history to find themselves in history was actually the conceit going in and um it was really cool to read just like oh we've existed across you know civilizations and time periods and continents and it's just like so cool to like actually be like yeah all this stuff that's like this is new and this is like fake shit it's like you know that's the part that's fake and made up like and you know i don't know for me it's like really helpful to just like ground myself in this like a tethered reality to other human beings throughout time and space that like is very helpful for that kind of stuff yeah yeah that makes so much sense yeah you and i have a i i feel like a pretty similar you grew up in savannah um and then now you're like you know a comedian who's out touring and living in new york and like i feel like we have had a lot of similar uh experiences like the way you talk about things yeah i feel that too yeah like what is your relationship to to georgia and to home uh at this point in your life yeah i i feel like i've had an evolution with it because when i was a kid it was like i gotta get out of here i gotta get out of here they don't understand me i gotta get out of here i'm too different and it's a thing of like when you're young and especially i think like for i don't know i mean i'm sure a lot of different types of people but as a trans person like i'll bring it up again now that i brought it up once um it's this thing of like i don't know why i'm different but there's something different about me i don't know why i'm different but there's something different about me and nobody here understands me and that and i think that's an experience a lot of kids have in high school anyway but anyway so that was kind of my mindset and i was like i gotta get out of here and then i went to um i played soccer all through school so i played in college and so i went to wake forest which is where i played and um which is not that much different from georgia it's like a very a very wealthy school in north carolina so like it was a lot of them more of the same but so i was still kind of feeling like this like i gotta get out of there and then i was back home with my folks in savannah during covid uh and i like had such a new appreciation for the city and just like i got to meet a lot of people and i was like some people that were like not my parents friends or not my friends parents and just like a new idea of like what the city was made up of and stuff and it was just like a really eye-opening thing to do like to experience at 21 it would be like oh like i like lived in this bubble within this city that i felt very oppressed by but there's so many other types of people that live here and there's obviously so much history to savannah and so i just had like a much broader appreciation for just like what the south represented and like all the erased people that get you know erased by like the northern elitism of like we should just let them fuck themselves over and like yeah go legislate yourselves into the dust and it's like whoa there's a lot of people that live down there um so i think i've had like a broader appreciation for it and i like going back to the south and like i like i like going home and i like to i used to feel like resentful of that like sort of identity of being like i'm from the south but like i've come to really appreciate it because i think i want to reclaim that among this like sort of i don't know world where like so many of these like whack people from the from the fringes are coming in to try to like claim southern identity is one thing when i think it's much broader so i don't know i feel like i really i don't know i i really i like i like that that's a part of like and it's also like living up here now it's like everybody's from fucking connecticut it's like at least i got something interesting exactly don't you feel like an undercover agent a little bit totally i'm like i have a superpower i understand that is how i felt after 2016 that my whole life up until then mostly i had felt like oh god i'm like fat gay and from middle of nowhere missouri like this is these are the least interesting things i'm like i want to and honey it gets worse i'm like maybe it gets worse and then everyone after trump got elected ever all my friends on the coast started being like we really got to understand the middle of the country and i was like i understand it over there and i felt like for the first time i was like no it's actually like cool that i'm from there and i know about that place and you're right you guys should have been paying attention yeah and so i felt like yeah i i had a total reclamation and started like yeah i started like loving home actually and wait no i i guess i just had the realization that i was letting them win but i was like you don't actually get to kick like me and my friends out of here and claim this as your own like weird christofascist like we live here yeah and like we're important to here and if we did leave here you guys would be fucked yeah you can't do this without us no totally i feel the kansas city that you love is not the same without all the trans people making it cool totally and like that is reality like you can't you just can't do any of this without us you need us and we like the same way that like queer people living in cities need farmers that they don't agree with on stuff y'all need us too like we all need each other and that's being like obscured by these rich billionaire psychopaths that are like sending out like bat signal hate messages yeah yeah but we do all need each other apple pay is the simple secure and fast way to pay that's because your credit or debit card is right on your iphone accepted at millions of places from big box stores to boutiques you can check out with your iphone anywhere contactless payments are accepted apple pay is more secure than a physical card because you authenticate your credit card with your credit card you can authenticate your purchases with face id before you pay and your actual card number is never shared with merchants add your debit or credit card to apple wallet to check out in seconds simple secure fast that's apple pay terms apply endless summer escapes start here travel the worlds of netflix irl inspired by fan favorites like stranger things and squid game brave the upside down face off with the front man play leveled up arcade games shop exclusive merch and enjoy themed food and drinks beat the heat play eat and shop on repeat at netflix house at galleria dallas bring your crew and save get your tickets today at netflix.com slash house your favorite friend group is back fx's adults follows five roommates living in new york leaning on each other to navigate love work friendship and family while tackling pressing questions of your 20s like what if the person who inherited your fake id is cooler than you ever were why does being around your family make you regress into your worst self and how do you tell your roommates that you have other friends fx is adults all episodes now streaming on hulu yeah no and it's it's i don't know it's just like it's given me such a more i think well-rounded i don't know view of people because i just like you just are used to having grown up with all these people that you don't agree with at all like having to like have gone to school with these kids forever then and i don't know it's just interesting it's also been i mean i will say on the on the flip side it has been a little tough at times to like you know i've definitely lost relationships because of people's political leanings and you know how that intersects with my identity and things like that and it's like it can be really frustrating i think to like be like i see this place as this beautiful opportunity and like you know i find that like a lot of the north is a lot less diverse than they they're like oh we're like really great to black people up here i'm like you don't have any black people up here what are you talking about like you know it's like yeah there's actually people or you live in a separate part of town right and y'all don't interact yeah it's like or exactly that was shocking to me yeah when i'm coming from kansas city where look everybody was poor but white folks and black folks were hanging out all the time right and the mexican folks and like everybody was together at the same barbecue restaurant and then i moved to chicago and the black folks and the white folks by and large separated intentionally by interstates not talking not hanging out not being in the same spaces and i was shocked i was like oh this is like supposed to be like liberal heaven right what is going on right and it's like yeah and then so it's always so i anyway so all that to say like i just find it really i can find it frustrating on the flip side of that argument of like when like i can see this beautiful diverse place that could be so much more and like you're just hanging on to your creature comforts and you're and you're you know this middle zone where you get to feel comfortable all the time and i i just so it makes me frustrated at times that some people down there really double down on the comfort of just being like i live on a river and i'm never going to be politically engaged and honestly i wouldn't either living on the river's part of it yeah i would love to live on the river and not be politically engaged either but yeah something about living by a body of water makes a whole bunch of people go i'm done i'm not i'm not hey it's five o'clock somewhere it's five o'clock always that's so funny yeah you said something earlier that i uh am coming back to since then and have been thinking a lot about lately which is you were like oh yeah i think a lot of kids in high school just feel like this regardless yeah if you're like even if you weren't trans that you're like growing up and feeling artistic even in georgia you'd be like i gotta get the fuck out of here totally and i've been thinking about that so much with this like driver's license situation in kansas about my buddy i have a my buddy's a trans guy he lives in missouri he passes most people in his not most people in his life a lot of people he interacts with at work he's a mechanic don't know and he's not out to anybody at work and then this fucking license thing happened in kansas where they revoked everyone's driver's licenses he's on the missouri side so he still has his license for now but of course we all have like these big fears that it's going to happen there yeah but he works in kansas a lot and so he was forced to come out to his hr supervisor which is extremely unsafe we yeah she we don't know like we we didn't know how she was going to react yeah and luckily she was really cool and she was like you know like don't tell any of the other guys like i got you we'll take care of it we'll figure it out when the time comes which is so lucky. Don't tell them when they're under a car. What? Boom. And then they'll have little birds flying around their head. And then they'll transition. It'll be a nightmare. I mean, we're going to have to get, what a health plan we're going to have to get. This cannot be a trans mechanic center. No, no, no, no. But yeah, like he goes and fixes these people's cars that like would probably did vote against his rights. And if he gets his driver's license revoked, like it's not even this like, I don't know, these debates turn into these like big like weird conversations that are so unrooted in pragmatism. It's like, no, this guy just needs to get to work. Well, that's the other thing. It's like, okay, so we take a bunch of people's driver's license away. Okay, now nobody's getting anything at the coffee shop. These people can't get to work. Like, you know what I mean? It's like, I mean, it's just like, it's just not practical at all. It's just like, we're just getting a bunch of people who now have to like try to figure out how to get the bus on time. And that's like not helpful. I don't know. It's just, it's, it's exactly that. It's just like, it's like, this isn't even something that's going to, even if you didn't want trans ideology out there, like people not getting to work is not going to help. It's the, the, yeah. The thing that it makes me like so sad and pissed off about is I'm like, this is actually, it's painted as this like unrelatable thing that is nowhere near your community. And I'm like, no, it's the most relatable thing imaginable. You're a teenager who doesn't feel loved and wanted. You're barely making rent and you have to be able to get to work. Like, these are the most relatable things in the world. You have three to four situationships that are untenable. Hello. Your, your polycule is going through a tumultuous time and they are, and there's a lot of infighting and that's a big part of the community is fighting yourselves. And how is that going to help anybody? It won't, but we will. Every farmer in Kansas has had a situation where their polycule got out of control. Okay. Yes. They also have multiple wives. It's okay. Someone wasn't doing their chores. Someone wasn't being communist enough at the book club. Like we've all experienced, these things, these are universal. I know. I just, I mean, I was just telling my friend Jesse when we were playing pool the other night, I just really hope that this year's Dyke March gets out without, gets off without a hitch. Oh my God. I'm going to knock that over. I was curious what would happen with the water, but I just wanted to see what would happen with it. I'm just too finicky. Wait, what's happening with Dyke March? I don't know. Every year it's like, they're like, we have just announced that we are doing the Dyke March again. And there is a fight happening between the organizers. It's like every year without fail. They're like, there's some sort of infighting going on. And it's like, what if the, what if the theme of this year's March was we're all going to have fun? Yeah. What if we were all going to have a good time? Well, I feel like I'm, was it, was it, which March was it? It was some pride thing that they were like, we're doing it again this year, of course. And we are having the cops. Like, was that part of it? Like there was like, I think that like in the early, I mean, to be fair, this is all people being, trying to be respectful and empathetic, I think. And it, whatever gets out of hand. But I think it began maybe with like, there was, uh, yeah, maybe something with the cops. I think there was something to do with masking, like post COVID. Like, it was like everybody had to wear a mask. If there was like a masking section, I don't know. Anyway, it started off as those kinds of things, but then it always escalates to just like people. Like, I mean, it's like so many people's exes are probably working on this thing. It's like, it's just gonna, it's a hotbed. It's a hotbed. Look, my only goal for this year is that the Dyke March goes off without a hitch. I always have a great time, but I'm just like, and then what were we fighting about? Everybody's out here in the sun. Like having a good time. People get their shirts off. This is great. Hello. Yeah. That is so funny. Yeah. I mean, like maybe I'm naive, but to me, when I first went for the first time, I was like, the most powerful thing that's happening right now is that I'm looking around and seeing a bunch of people like me, like with their shirts off, doing like incredible things and just like being out here kissing each other. I was like, this is healing so much in me. Like whether or not we are, I don't know, abiding by every possible, you know, moral upstanding thing we could be doing here today. I think there's a lot of good being done. Let's just have a good time. That is, yeah, we're splintering. We got to stop splintering over stupid stuff. Like there's all the, like the language policing and the, like, like who makes fun of who in the community. I'm like, do we want to be in community or not? Everyone needs to relax. Everyone needs to get cool quick. Yeah. Because it's not helping. It's only making it worse. It's splintering us. And they're on the other side, by the way, they're completely unified on everything. Of course. They have a, they on the, on the right wing side of things, they have somebody who comes out and says something that almost none of them agree with. And they go, yeah, that's crazy, but he's ours. It's like, that's my uncle. Like that's their attitude towards everything. That's our Senator. I know. Yeah. That's our senior Senator from Utah. Sorry. Even with them all kind of coming out against, uh, like even that it's like not even working. Um, wait, I was going to say something about, uh, Oh, I was going to say, despite, despite all we're saying, I will still be coming for gay guys. I'm not sorry about that. What are you coming for gay guys on their behavior? Yeah. What are we doing? How they speak to me? Right in my head. How are they speaking to you? Directly above me talking to another gay guy. Um, no, I'm just fucking around. I, um, I've been doing a joke up top where I, when I ask if there's any gay guys in the house and they'll say, you know, they'll cheer and I'm like, Oh, I love when there's gay guys in the audience cause they have to listen for once. And I think that's nice. Dude, Carly Kane has this fucking, do you, you and Carly, yeah, you know each other cause we've all hung out. Uh, I feel like I've met her once before maybe, but I am familiar. Yeah. Um, she has this fucking hilarious joke where she was doing it all the time, opening for me on tour, which was disrespectful, where she's like, she's like, I'll butcher it, but she, maybe we'll, I'll have Carly send a video of her doing the joke and we'll put it in right here. But she, Carly, basically the joke is she's like, I love hanging out with my gay guy friends because I don't have to say a word. I wake up the next morning, I have no anxiety and I'm like, why, why don't I feel weird about last night's hang? Oh, I didn't speak once. And she's like, my gay guy friends are the best cause they don't care about anyone else. And I, she would tell that joke every night on my show. And I'm like, I'm your best gay guy. Sorry. That is so fucking funny. I'm the aforementioned gay guy. Sorry to number one gay guy in your life. I think I'm about to chat for another hour for you guys. So not beating the chatty allegations. So fucking funny. 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so next time you're at the grocery store be on the lookout for those blue bags with fruit found in the freezer aisle and for their new greek yogurt drink greek yogurt thank you true fruit for sponsoring this episode boy these are tasty we had some of them off camera and we were just delighted weren't we they're really really tasty that's so funny what is the makeup of your audience what's who's mostly in there it's uh i get a good amount of trans people i get a lot of lesbians a lot of bisexual women um and then i'll get like some straight people and then i'll get like like parents of trans kids sometimes too that are like really excited about you know that kind of stuff there was a guy in the front that could make me cry for kind of no reason by the way right oh my god so i have two stories so there was a guy in philly who's front row my show and i was like and he was like very burly looking and i was just kind of like okay did you know what you're coming to because i never know with like clubs and stuff like that because like i'm doing like my audience is like uh i'm very grateful everybody who comes to the show but i'm not like so like sellout level or whatever so i'll get some like random people that just show up and i'm just like okay well i'll be like this um but then he stood up at the end and he had a uh parents of trans kids or whatever or protect cancer shirt on it i was like and i was like okay this is awesome um but i was at it i did a benefit uh i did heartland pride in omaha last summer which was really cool it was a cool event um and they did like a little meet and greet kind of thing after for the acts that were going on and this uh this little trans boy ran up with his two trans dads and i was like i found the epicenter of my audience everything builds from here like brother brother brother perfect family um so anyway so two trans dads and the trans son and i just like talk about being a short guy on stage and uh the one of the dads was like he kept being like he's not that short why is he saying that he's not that short and the dad was like i didn't know how to tell him like he has no understanding of like what short is he has two trans dads like to him like height is like not doesn't it's meaningless it's like yeah it's like we're the tallest people you know and we're five three like it's like yeah it's like well yeah okay you don't know so i get a lot of that which is cute yeah that's so fucking funny yeah i mean i guess mine's a lot of bisexual women they're really in there i mean they're good ticket buyers and i love them they buy tickets because they have good jobs uh-huh bisexual women uh-huh quiet as it's kept they are the backbone of this nation they are the only thing with i mean our gdp is is all because of bisexual women these women are saving our lives they're saving our lives they really need to be thankful to them they really are no i i have all love to the bisexual listeners i'm a big fan of yours too big fan thanks for coming out thanks for buying tickets yeah yeah that's so funny no it's so funny like i don't know there's some um i don't know there's but i feel like there's been this movement in comedy over the last several years of like it's more bro-y whatever i mean i'm this is all things we know but it's always so interesting to me when i think about just if you're looking at it from the most like business-minded capitalistic lens you could of like i want to sell out and have like like sell out shows and stuff like that why would you appeal to cis straight men like they don't buy tickets for themselves they don't have a lot of friends they don't go do group activities like invest in audiences that are going to invest in you they're embarrassed of earnestness like go like i i'm like yeah i like that girls come to my show because they bring eight friends yeah that's eight more tickets that i wasn't gonna you know what i mean it's like why would you invest in a bunch of guys they're gonna be single ticket buyers and sit by themselves like that's crazy you're bad at business you need to be nicer to girls you're bad at business yeah seriously my one of my favorite things and i i sometimes wonder what this says about me that i love this so much i think it's just that i like to win people over but one of my favorite things is i can i'll go out in a i'll go out on stage if i'm headlining and i can see immediately the guys who are only there because their girlfriend made them come and they are not thrilled to be there and my favorite thing is to win them over yeah i'll get them i can i'm like i can get you you know you're gonna try to stonewall me but i'm gonna get you yeah and i love that can i okay i i have i have thoughts and questions on this so do you feel like okay because i have this thing too where i i find like i get i get so nervous about like the like the straight guys i like ahead of time and i feel like i want their validation and this like this like deep-seated thing in me do you feel like you ever fight that about that or just like hey fuck this i don't care if these guys like this or not or do you feel like you're like oh i want to win them over because i because i know they don't like it and everybody else here likes does that i don't know if i'm yes it makes total sense i've i've spent a lot of time thinking about this thinking about do i want to win them over because they're the straight guys right right that uh whose approval i wanted when i was 12 like is that what's going on here is this about my dad you know basically what is what is this and i spent a lot of time thinking about it and i genuinely think that i genuinely think that it's just that i want to i want to get the hardest person in the room like i want the person who wants to laugh at me the least is who i want to win over it happens to be those guys but i mean it would mean just as much to me it's just not as easy to spot i know it would mean just as much to me if it was like there are plenty of like hardcore like tender queer leftists that don't love me all the time they think i'm annoying they think i'm too i go too far i think i say things i shouldn't say they are they're a different kind of opposition to me straight guys just think i'm like they don't think of me at all or they think i'm um i don't know like they they don't think of me at all or they think i'm um i don't know like they they don't think of they just can't imagine that i'm someone they would think is funny yeah uh i would want to win either of them over i want in the room out in the world or on the internet i don't you can't play the same game because it's people it's manufactured outrage in order to get clicks and attention they there are some people that are not going to like you just because it's the unpopular thing to do and it'll get interest in the real world in the room it's different because funny is funny yeah and i don't know so i i really i think that it's that but also like sure maybe maybe part of it's that i just want these guys to like me because i have that same thing where i'm on stage and i'll be like scanning the room and then there's like one dude who's like towards the front who's like kind of i'm trust doesn't care and i'm like okay i want this guy i want to get this guy like i want i keep looking at him i want him to laugh and i'm like oh this next one maybe i'll get you and they're like whatever and it's like there's so many people having a great time enjoying themselves came to see me wanting like i should give them my attention not get but it's like i can't stop because that's the illness it's like i got it it's like if everybody in this room doesn't think i'm funny i'm a fucking failure you know it's like what is that well that's the this is the whole thing about what we do it's so sick yeah it's so sick the whole reason we're up there is because we need who who needs a room full of people to show up and spend the night of their life laughing yes like that's insane it's like i came up with these little thoughts i thought you'd like what do you guys think yeah isn't this true sorry this is mostly about me but this is kind of my life story i hope you guys were cool to spend 40 dollars to it applies to you guys in some ways yeah no it's insane yeah it's a completely insane endeavor and i've yeah i definitely want but i enjoy we actually had a whole joke on our last tour where we like we did like a like basically a moment of uh silence for the the straight men that had to come with their girlfriends and it was so much fun they loved it i mean they were like there's also they love to be talked about they love to be talked about to be addressed they love to be addressed in a gay space i find they love to be addressed in a gay space and it also gives them permission to these guys will come in well they're so i mean look i don't want to be too mean but they're so insecure and scared and i get it and it's in some ways their fault because they perpetuate it and in other ways it's just like what we do to men in this society yeah that like they have to come in with their arms crossed and like and i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know everyone needs to be visually signified that they're not they're not gay they're not happy to be here and the second you give them permission like you say like hey i know your girlfriend brought you and you don't want to be here they're like yeah there's only a cosmo in their hand do that one again you nailed that one girl all of a sudden they feel so comfortable being like okay everyone knows i'm straight i can relax no totally it's so funny though because it's like i'll find like like if i'm in a if i'm playing for a straight crowd and i'm gonna ask like are there any trans people here like maybe somebody will be willing to say it but a lot of times People are either just if there is a trans person they're probably not gonna like shout out and that's totally fine fine they don't need to do that in a room full of straight people but then if you're in the opposite you're around a bunch of gay people in the audience and then like any straight people here they're like let's go okay well it's like it's like the reverse of this is not happening like people are not as excited to announce themselves anyway um but no i i like i like when there's straight people in the audience because i i do find it is like a good place to it's a good place for them to be hearing about things that are otherwise being talked about so negatively so it is nice that they like you know i i like when they venture in and then like yeah and i try not to overthink like playing to them but yeah it's the that's the line to walk is like i don't want to play to you but also i would like to expand your horizons a little bit like i'd like to be i'd like to imagine that you come to your girlfriend drags you out to this show you didn't want to come but she didn't want to come alone you kind of have to do it uh i'd like to imagine that the next time she asked you to go see a gay comic or a woman or a trans person or anyone that seems outside of your wheelhouse that you might be a little more excited and go oh last time it was actually pretty good yeah i'd like to imagine that that's maybe some effect of that and i'd like to imagine that that's maybe some effect of that of all that yeah but whatever you think god's real in some form yeah what form oh man i think probably like some sort of uh non non-embodied thing like a like a light or like energy some sort of like goodness energy that is existing that is not i don't necessarily know that it's like all-knowing or all-powerful in the like i think it's powerful in the way that like human connection is powerful and the energy is powerful but like i don't think it's like this you know judeo-christian tradition of like there's a moral understanding and that i think that that is something we map on to god but um i do believe there's something that is why we're here connects us all there's some sort of some sort of life force um and i i was raised catholic so like i always have that kind of in the back of my head but i don't really feel i don't really feel that like i don't really feel like i'm a Catholic i don't really feel like i'm a Catholic any sort of human idea of what god could be is like i don't even think we could possibly conceive what it is like i wonder if it's something that we can't even fully in this form like see you know you know there's all these things out in front of us that like other animals can see or some shit in here yeah yeah like right in front of us yeah right here the tension between specifically right here yeah yeah i think yeah i think god i think like god is like you're saying like an energy and a thing that everyone has felt everyone has felt god in whatever that is but i think the only thing humans could have ever done with that feeling is what we have done which is mapped humanity onto it right right i've been like well first of all it's a boy and second of all he's violent you know what i mean like he snatched his hello he's hot he's violent he's white it's like okay yeah humans yeah the humans in power were always going to map as much of themselves as they possibly could onto this energy it doesn't mean the energy looks like the king of england or something no no i think he's white and thin maybe he looks a little like me and i think if you're a Catholic you're a Catholic you're a Catholic you're a Catholic you're mean to him he'll kill you it's like okay and he doesn't want women to talk and he wants me to have eight wives yeah yeah i don't know i think he wants me to fuck a lot and for you to be obedient that's kind of what i've experienced with him he told me he told me yeah i'm talking to him yeah and then people go well why isn't he talking to us no don't worry about it he's very shy he likes to talk to us he has favorites and um yeah but no i think yeah i think it's um i think it's i don't know i go back and forth on whether or not i think it's like intentionally nefarious like the way the way that we got here i think certainly it has been used that way but i'm like i just think it's a misunderstanding of the energy and what's going on yeah i mean i think there's a version of religion that's really positive i think like i just don't trust a lot of humanity and the current power structures to for that to i mean i just don't know that there's a world where like religion in its best form and capitalism can coexist yeah i don't think those things i mean i completely disagree the devil i think i completely disagree i think that god is um a capitalist well i mean i think the energy wouldn't that be funny i'm like the energy i'm actually uh wants you to be a landlord um the energy i'm talking about is the invisible hand and it's trickling down thank you reaganomics big at the true at the so true oh i'm a big reaganomics guy love him yes yes he was charming isn't that a shame give caleb your money he will trickle it down to you i will trickle it down to you pretty easy i'm doing my best easy it's trickling down nicole michelle trickles are coming they're waiting their their paws are open they work for free right now but they're both on internships and so is chance all my staff is on internships currently but once you guys getting class credit right yes yes everyone um speaking of i'm a little bit pissed that chance isn't even here to see me or anything he didn't want to he he actually uh he called in sick this morning okay yeah he said somebody's trying yes he threw up god i said he said nico what i said carney he said let me google him and he said i'm not feeling well this morning i said what he said that's giving gross to me yeah he's giving gross yeah no he's in los angeles on his other job got another job i know you you can't buy loyalty you can't buy loyalty these days let alone for a class credit i mean i give this guy a job i've known him since we were teenagers and he goes and gets another job in los angeles of all devious cities he can be in at all things comedy you're gonna go work for bill burr a guy you don't even know sick disgusting chance okay from boston jesus christ and leave this in imagine working for some guy from boston when you could be working with your buddy i once saw bill burr at this uh netflix is a joke event where he was clearly paid to be there and he was just pacing and the bodyguard was like following him and i was like oh my god i wonder how much their money they're giving you to like just pace in the corner of this pool right now he did not look happy to be there but god i would i would love to get paid to be miserable that's one of those that's that's one of those things that he wasn't his team wasn't able to strike from the contract i know like they struck they struck six things that he didn't want to do and they're like they need you at the pool there you gotta walk back and forth by this gotta walk back this is sticking point for them bill it's really important to them that all the netflix executives have a good time and see you in person they need to see you at the pool yeah god it is like that it's so fucking funny that it's like well i'm gonna not have fun when i go do that like it doesn't matter yeah they're like it's not about that they just need to see that you exist in as a person five minutes contractually we'll start the timer as soon as you step in the door and then if and then at four minutes and 59 seconds you're breaking for the door it's like bill they got him bill bill you got to talk to the developments of animation oh my god no you need to talk to these execs yeah oh man what a dumb industry they're bored i know yeah well and the the number of people that are on the board are the ones that are on the board the number of things that um in this career path that we've chosen the number of things that revolve around somebody hey it chose me but that's fine it chose you well i had to choose it just so you know it the number of things that revolve around this really simple fact that there are a bunch of people that are deeply incurably terminally uncool and they need to feel like that's not true yes so much of this industry spins around that i agree i agree that they have no talent so they became uh somebody near the talent and we have to make them feel cool or else everyone's gonna die oh my god yeah how do we get on to that anyway um do you believe in god is that like a big part of your do you feel that's a big part of your life not a big part of my life i do i go back and forth i've talked about a lot on the show it actually probably depending on how many years i do this show i imagine it'll be pretty interesting to watch all the times i've talked about god and see how it evolves but because i feel like it changes all the time um i believe in i think there's a power in the universe that generally pushes us all towards good i think people are fundamentally good yeah and uh i think that yeah i think that we're mostly good i think we want to be good i think we know when we're doing bad and we feel bad about it how that comes out is different for different people but i think we are predisposed to be good to each other and i think that having that belief means that something must be going on that's bigger than individual like actors yeah and yeah i think that i i struggled for a long time with putting god to it and it's so funny my friend tara was just making fun of me recently because she was like i'm doing a prayer zine and i was like i don't pray and she was like what are you doing and i was like i'm doing a prayer zine and i was like i don't pray do a prayer scene a prayer zine zine like a zine about prayer she's like i'm asking a bunch of people about um prayer and what they think about prayer and what they pray for and i'm gonna do a zine about it and i was like that's cool but i don't pray and she and we had this like really kind of intense back and forth where i was like yeah i mean i i i am a part of the universe i think about the universe i try to contribute to the universe i try to put good into the universe i think the universe gives me good back but i specifically wouldn't call that prayer on purpose because it has such religious um like rewarding behavior kind of uh energy and i don't believe that yeah and she was just making fun of me because she was like for all intents and purposes you are a spiritual person but you fight it so much was kind of the energy and i'm like yeah i guess so but i yeah i think i think god is um certainly not a person certainly not raining down like blessings on people yeah that doesn't make any sense that makes that would account for that would not there's no way to me that we can say that god rewards people for being a part of the universe being good when there's so many good people suffering that just makes no sense to me and the most vile people are at the top of the most vile people in the prosperity gospel i mean yeah the idea that you get good things because you're a good person or even that you just i struggle when people when something is going well for me and like even fans of mine will be like oh my god caleb deserves this i'm like no one there's no such thing yeah there's no such thing as that yeah i am very very lucky but there's no to say that i deserve to make money in such a frivolous way is inherently to say that i deserve to make money in such a frivolous way is inherently to say that people who are working really really really hard and barely making ends meet didn't deserve better right you can't have one without the other right uh and that's fucked up yeah and then you get into the whole headspace i don't know at least i will get into this whole guilt of like and does a comedian deserve to have anything like as compared to like you know doctors and nurses and all these people who like really are actually helping people and other i mean not no whatever there's ways that we are helpful too but i i get in that space too but do you feel that god like god is something that like comes up in your head and you're like oh my god i don't know what to do i don't know what to do up in your like do you feel that that's like a constant like an anxiety or something you're thinking about like all the time like it's like do you feel like any like religious from like as a child like a child like any religious oppression kind of stuff like does that feel like it's still part of you? Not in day to day like I think like when I am moving through the world day to day when I'm like should I do this or should I do this like when I come to like a moral decision it really doesn't even get to God for me that I'm like this is just there's almost always a clearly right thing to do even if there's like personal consequences and I generally try my best to just be like despite what it means for me this is the right thing to do and I try my best to just do that because I would want someone to do that if they were in my position so it doesn't usually get to God but when I get to God like when I get anxiety from growing up and being around the church it's always about death and what happens afterwards it's really not about what I'm doing here I'm pretty clear on what I'm doing here it's death and what happens afterwards that really makes me ill that makes you anxious makes me completely sick dude the way I've been talking about this so much lately but the way I can't watch this fucking dinosaur documentary there's this dinosaur show on Netflix narrated beautifully by Morgan Freeman of course it's they start ticking back the time clock on Earth and it's like Earth 300 million years ago I could throw up yeah the idea that Earth is 300 million years old the idea that truly the fact that someday humanity writ large is not guaranteed is not going to exist like I what the fuck are you talking about yeah I hate that yeah I hate that okay yeah and also yeah I mean I got really I was of course stoned but I got really really high the other night and was thinking about like the way that we sit here and speculate about like what it was like on Earth 300 million years ago when like you know I don't know tadpoles ran the fucking world or whatever people are going to be they were running around with their little legs hello and now they've got legs what the fuck did that come from what are you talking about well that's the thing that always gets me when they're like evolution they're like and then at one point then they grew legs and they walked on the ground and it's like like overnight like one guy like what not overnight over a million years like right but there's like what do you mean like how like smaller legs that became bigger legs that could walk or like one day it's what legs like what I don't I don't know was it born with legs how did it develop the legs it's I guess it reigned for a million years at one point yeah like and I fully believe in evolution so don't come for me but I just am like I want to see it I want to see it I want to see it show me I want to see it get legs a lot of it's guessing like they'll be like they'll be like this dinosaur was six stories tall and I'm like you don't know that you were not here sorry they're like we have the bones we didn't have stories back then what are you talking about baby I'm not look I'm not a denier I believe in evolution but I would like to see it yeah I wish I was there yeah I want to know when they went from from sea to land that part that jump is just pretty seismic and I want to know how we got here and I'm really really worried about that and I think I think yeah someday we're not even going to exist at all and all of this will it's just so you literally can't think about it day to day because when I think there are times that I'm about to respond to an email for some stupid thing I don't give a fuck about that someone needs to hear from me sorry Michelle someone needs to hear from me about that I if I just for a second think like humanity won't exist someday it unravels me for a week I'm like I can't what do you mean what do you mean I'm responding to this email Haribo really needs to hear back about shut the fuck up we're not going to exist I just it's really tough you know what will though is a Haribo gummy those things are indestructible that thing will be it'll be that and the cockroaches it'll be them and the remnants of this podcast yeah the so true deal the so true deal so true we'll live forever well obviously this is all you know it's not it's you know not radioactive any of that I'm not sure what's the word I'm even looking for cut this out cut it keep it quote fact check keep it okay keep it fine keep it people should know I'm a human being too you're a human being I say that all the time yeah that stuff trips me out okay that's when I get to God okay mostly because I don't really like so my girlfriend and I have talked about this a lot because she was raised like with no religion in the house her parents were both raised Catholic but kind of like didn't care for that and didn't want to raise her that way of course and then I was raised Catholic because my parents were afraid and I feel like there are things about it that like of course are negative there's like definitely I deal with a lot of guilt and shame and all those things that Catholic people do but I think I have like this like kind of I don't know I just believe everything's gonna be fine and if this ends and nothing else it's not whatever like I don't know I guess I just don't it just like doesn't bother me that much but my girlfriend like she because she wasn't raised with any religion I think she just doesn't have like a road map or just like a this thing in the back of her head that's like something is there and it will be okay because she wasn't given that as like a child for framework for how to think about these things but she is a lot more anxious about like death and afterlife and these types of things whereas I'm just kind of like whatever I don't know yeah I guess it depends on the day yeah you know sometimes I'm like I don't ever want the party to end and other times I'm like this has not been a party yeah we can go whenever we need to no totally totally I mean sometimes I'll have this thought of like I God am I stuck in this perspective for the whole time yeah I gotta have this outlook on life for the entirety of it like I really wish I could snap and be somebody else sometimes this has been my biggest source of depression throughout the years I've really it's the reason that loving myself was such a cure to my depression is that I really had to fall in love with the life I got and I'm like this is the perspective I get I will always be from where I'm from I can change my mind I can learn new things I can have new experiences but I will always fundamentally be the son of the people I'm the son of from the place I'm from that is just who I am and the thing that depressed me the most in my early 20s when I was like super depressed was I was just like God I'll never get to be all these other people I'll never get to understand the world the way they do and that really fucking it still stresses me out I'll like meet someone and I'm like God you have such a cool or even like I'm unable to understand the way that you view the world even sometimes when I meet someone that I'm like I fundamentally disagree with the way you view the world but I would be fascinated to live as you for a little bit I'm like I'm just so like kind of sad that I can't be like I want to be I want a chance to be everyone and I just get to be me and I think the thing I'm also like responding to myself to get back to what we were talking about earlier is like this this constant self narrative or whatever this is that I'm doing that I'm like thinking about and obsessing about and it's like oh you know if I was in another I would be doing the same fucking thing I'd be doing the little human thing of like am I okay and is everybody like me and it's like it'd be the same if I was anybody it's like that part's not going anywhere so like I don't even I'd be running from the same thing over and over again yeah and the real truth that again I can't spend too much like day to day time with but it's just that there is really like sorry sue me I'm a hippie or whatever but there is no me there is no you there is no like there really is just like we're like I don't know I'm just like there's just one big energy and we're all playing out that energy in different ways but like it's senseless to even worry about the self that way and thinking about the self too much is so destructive to being like a productive and loving part of this whole project when you get obsessed with the self so I don't know I go back and forth I know it's tough though I'm so fascinated by it though and I'm just fascinated by like all of our relationships to the idea of the self and to bring back up what I was saying earlier like with like social media and stuff like that I'm so fascinated by people the way that they like put themselves out there in all kinds of ways and just like what that means for how they see themselves and I don't know I just find it such a fascinating relationship that we all have because to your point it's like it doesn't exist we're all just sort of making up this idea of the self myth and like what we are constructing of ourselves and like everyday make being like this is real and this is a thing but it's like it totally isn't it's just like we're all just a way to pass time yeah really truly yeah the creation of self is just a way to pass time while we're here it's like it's nice to be like my family my house my job my life my it's like we're just we're truly just killing time and it's the most fun way to do it I love it I think it's the it's the best it's probably some sort of like evolutionary thing that like this is our brains decided this is the best way to spend this time is to just be like me and I things and how I did it here and I'm like okay rock on so then I need I need a new pair of Uggs really badly I need to be a consumer it's the same part of us that was like I'm here so don't let the lion eat me and now it's like I'm here I should get some Uggs and a coffee I'm a guy who gets Uggs now I'm a guy who gets Uggs that's me for the next couple years you know they're comfy I like the trim on those that's really nice you know they're really comfy I put that trim on there myself I went down to the factory I said can I put trim on these they said we only have kids working here but sure get in there yeah and they that was true that was true you said hey get out of there I said hey go take a break take a smoke break here's a candy cigarette get out there yeah yeah yeah I gave them a real cigarette they're working for God's sakes I mean they deserve it more than we I know you're seven but you're working go smoke this real cigarette those little nimble fingers yeah I didn't actually I didn't give him a real cigarette I gave him tobacco and papers give a man a fish yeah exactly exactly give a child some some loosies and then and now you're leaving teach a child how to roll exactly correct that's so fucking funny Nico what's so true to you so what's so true to me is we all need to be reading more books whoa what kind of books are you reading right now I'm reading a book called Valencia that's a novel about a woman a lesbian living in the 90s in San Francisco it's total lesbian romp it's very fun my girlfriend read it and gave it to me and I really enjoy it but I just I've been reading a lot more recently I grew up reading I liked you know I read a lot as a kid but I find that I'm really trying to take my attention span back and I think that like phones are just have fucked us up so maybe irreparably but like definitely in a direction and so I'm trying to take back some of that like mental energy and like I find that reading is one of the few things I can do that makes me actually sit somewhere and be like I can't I literally can't do anything else but hold this book and read these words I find it very grounding I think it actually like lowers my cortisol levels and like gets me more calm and I also think too like I don't know I just read so much stuff on the internet or the way people post and I know like there's a vernacular to the internet but I'm like we are losing language so badly. People are speaking in this like new age internet speak that I just don't find very exciting, interesting, attractive, boundary pushing, really. I find it's a lot of like sort of memetic speech that's just like repeating other people's things, which is like what humans do. But anyway, I like to read and I like to read things from different time periods and just like look at the words that they would have used. And I don't know, it feels like it's connecting to this like sort of human language that's, I don't know. Anyway, so for all those reasons, I think more people should be reading books. I think so too. It really is obvious. Like I have been thinking a lot the last couple of years about how like even in the downfall of like the conservative movement and how bad it's gotten that I'm like conservatives used to be, even though hateful and I disagree with their worldview, smart. Like they used to be like, they used to like have like theoretical frameworks and like they used to like write, like they would write really beautifully about their hatred at least. And now that's completely devolved. Like our dumb people used to be like the least educated people used to. At least like speak beautifully and be able to like articulate thoughts a little more like easily, I guess. And now, I don't know, our dumb people just sound so dumb and our smart people even sound kind of dumb. Myself included. I catch myself saying things. I'm like, for all intents and purposes, I should kind of be one of our smart people. I've like gone to school. I've read books. I'm like, people are listening to me talk and I find myself saying things and I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? And I don't mean like ideas. I mean, the way I say them, I'm like, it's giving fascism. I'm like, why are you talking like that? I know. It's like you say around enough gay people for a long time and you're like, we all got to go back to school. Now. We got to go back to school. And stop hanging out. Today. Break up the gay guy friend groups. Yeah. Break up specifically gay guy friend groups, but gay people in general. It's giving, it's giving, it's giving go back to school. It's giving go back to school. Yeah. Yeah. I, no, I totally, yeah, no, it's, it's, it's pretty wild. And it's like, to your point, it's like, yeah, like conservatives now, they're like, you know, eating Tucker Carlson out of a trough. And it's like, you used to read a memoir about Andrew Jackson, you dumb fucks. Yeah. At least get back in there and read a 400 page book about the destruction of the universe. Yeah. Yeah. Used to be like, well, whereas the founders intended for marital relations to occur between a man and a woman. Now it's, it's like so disgusting. It's like, no boys in the locker room for the girls. It's like, okay, we have lost, we have lost our touch on this bare minimum. It doesn't make any fucking sense. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't make any sense at all. But I, I just, I'm like, like reaching for more activities in general that I can put my phone away and like, not feel like I'm doing screen time or all that kind of stuff. Cause I just. I just think that that's a rotting my brain, even though I'm trying actively not to let it. It's so rotting our brains. It really is the phones. There's no way around it. There's no way. We've gotten so used to the conveniences, the lies I tell myself where I'm, I just, I've got to stop. I've got to, I have to get back to the dumb phone. I know. Do you have a, do you have like a, like a, a dumb phone like app or is it like a full other phone? Here's the deal. I've recently learned that the reason I can't. Okay. So at one point I had, I kept my smartphone and I got a dumb phone, separate dumb phone, different number. I was using the dumb phone. I've said it a lot on here. I was treated like a leper and a pariah. I was border. I was almost stoned in the streets by my loved ones. Everyone was trying to kill me. Of course they were outside my house with pitchforks and molotov cocktails. Okay. That the dumb phone was not accepted by my community. I was cast out green messages. I was cast out. They hated it. They, they were like, can I text you this picture? I'm like, you're going to have to email it to me. Like it was really, really tough for everyone involved. Email they have on their phones. Of course you have it on your phone. Just email it to me. I'll check it later on the computer. Like, I don't know. Um, lightsaber it to me or whatever the fuck you guys still do. I'm off. That's not me. Yeah. Thing like that. So now I'm like, okay, I want to get a dumb phone again and I want to just switch my SIM card back and forth. Like when there's days. Sure. Cause like when I'm traveling, there are things I need. Like I do need to be able to order an Uber sometimes. I do like that is the reality of my life. Yeah. But there are plenty of days where I can just be on the dumb phone. And if I could just put the SIM card with the same phone number in the dumb phone, everyone else can deal with the green text messages. They can call me. I'll be fine. I can, I think I can get my community to embrace me while I have dumb phone. Yeah. But I have a fucking eSIM in my current iPhone. So I have to go, I have to make time to go to the phone store. And go, I want an iPhone with a SIM card and I want the SIM card to be able to, and then I want you to sell me a dumb phone. And I want to be able to move the SIM card back and forth. And I don't want to hear anything about it. But right now I have an eSIM. It's a whole thing. I know I have an eSIM too. And then by the way, you go into these fucking phone stores and you ask them for help. I went into a phone store recently. I was murderous. I said, can I please do this? They said, oh, we can't do that in the store. You have to do it online. Then why the fuck do we have a store? Yeah. Why is there a brick and mortar if I can't get everything damn done here? This has come. In New York City of all places. Nothing makes me angrier than when I can't get something done in person in New York. It's like, why do I live here? Why do I live in New York? I have to call someone? Why the fuck are you here? What do you do? I walked by a pizza store the other day. Pizza place? In my neighborhood the other day. It was Venture Capital. Probably. Wednesday at 8.50, they're shutting down shop already. They can't be. I looked around. I was like, am I in Vermont? I'm in Toledo. Like, what the fuck? This is New York City. Nico, can I say something? Nobody wants to work anymore. I mean, I'll say it. It might have been a queer-owned business. I'll say that. Hello. Hello. I'll say that. What, do you have sober bingo to get to? Keep the pizza shop open. Well, you got to get the polycule on the tandem bike to get over to sober bingo. Give me a break. Stop it. Give me a break. Make me another slice. Stop it. I couldn't believe it. You're doing mocktails at pottery? Open the pizza shop. It's terrible. I'm also trying to get on a dumb phone vibe, though. That's my goal as well. Do it together? To get off. If enough of us powerful in the community kind of came together and did dumb phone, we might be able to make a real change. I think so. I think so. Because I'm trying to get, like, a little flip phone or something. I think we should have stopped with the BlackBerry. That's my hot take on it. Nico. Nico, I've been saying this. I think that's the perfect, I think it's the bell curve. Because it's like, it was like, it was the best version. That was it. We did it with the BlackBerry. Why do we keep going? I know. I want to go back in time and tell everyone, you don't know how good you have it. Stop now. Yes. That's the most you're going to want. Turn back. You got email. You got internet. You got maps if we need it. You got the little rolly ball. The little rolly ball. Not a screen that made you want to look at it all day. No. You felt like a cool business person. Yeah. I remember when I got a BlackBerry. I got a BlackBerry when I was like, I don't know, like 13, 14 or something. And I felt like I was a publicist. Go for Caleb. I was like, yeah, go for Caleb. It's Caleb here. You've got Caleb. Oh, no. Oh, you need Caleb? Just a second. Hey, it's Caleb. Hey, it's Caleb. 10 million or I don't get out of bed. Goodbye. That was me with my BlackBerry. You didn't hang it up at all. It was awesome. Slam it down. You could slam it down and it wouldn't do anything because it was indestructible. It didn't matter because it was made out of titanium, I think. Yeah. God. You want to play a game? Let's do it. Okay. Nico, I'm going to read you 15 statements. You're going to tell me as quickly as you can if what I just said was true or false. Brother, if you get 10 or more correct, we're going to give you 50 US dollars. You ready? This is the highest paying podcast in the world. It actually is. Denver is one mile above sea level. True. True. Hot Wheels came out in 1968. False. True. Dell Computers is older than Apple Computers. False. False. Otters hold hands when they sleep. True. True. Savannah George's nickname is the hostess city of the South. Sure is true. True. Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Paris. False. False. Corsica. The currency of Japan is the yen. True. True. There were three theatrically released Jimmy Neutron movies. True. False. Just one. There is zero gravity on the moon. True. False. False. Wake Forest University's newspaper is old, gold, and black. True. True. Penguins live at the North Pole. False. False. Only the South Pole. White travels faster than sound. True. True. The Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989. False. True. Fuck. Australia is the smallest continent. True. True. The first FIFA World Cup took place in 1908. False. False. 1930. How'd he do? Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. I appreciate the tailored questions. Thank you. Dude, you were locked in. I was ready. I was chance. Even though he didn't show up today, he did still think of you. All right. Well, you know, he got some surface level questions about my hometown. Yeah. Whatever. You're taking it back. Like, actually, I don't care anymore. Obviously, it's the host of City. Yeah. Ask me the zip code next time. Jesus Christ. You were so excited when you thought it was Michelle. You found out it was Chance. You were like, whatever. It was the fucking. It was just stupid. Yeah. Yeah. Nico, thanks so much for being on, brother. I appreciate it. Tell people where they can find you, please. Yeah. You can find me. I'm on Instagram at Nico O'Carney. I'm also on Substack, which is where I prefer. So check me out there. Do you know when this is coming out? I don't. I bet we know. But say whatever you need to say. Anyway, I'm on tour, so check me out on tour, tickets at nicocarney.com, and I have a movie coming out in June called She's the He. Check that out. Really funny, trans, coming-of-age high school movie. So check that out. Hell yeah. Yeah. We did it. Apple Pay is more secure than a physical card because you authenticate your purchases, with Face ID, before you pay, and your actual card number is never shared with merchants. Simple, secure, fast. That's Apple Pay. Terms apply. Play leveled-up arcade games. Beat the heat. Tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college. That's why she shops at BJ's Wholesale Club, saving up to 25% off grocery store prices. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods, even they can't screw up. Have you met my kids? And with BJ's gas, she gets there for less. They call me the road warrior. This is your home, road warrior mom. Home of the save. 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