Speaker 1: Hey, six degrees listeners, Kevin becon here, I got a
Speaker 1: treat for you this episode. This is the one and
Speaker 1: only hilarious Patton oswaldt joins me for a conversation that
Speaker 1: is funny, funny, funny, funny, but also extremely insightful. As
Speaker 1: you probably know, this guy knows how to make you laugh.
Speaker 1: What here is a little teaser. Patton may have ended
Speaker 1: up on a different career path if not for his
Speaker 1: very blunt dad. I think we got to thank them though,
Speaker 1: because you know, the world needs this dude doing his
Speaker 1: comedy thing and it's stick around. Also because we shine
Speaker 1: a spotlight on a grassroots organization doing amazing work supporting
Speaker 1: students throughout the entire year, not just in the back
Speaker 1: to school sessions. Yeah, I haven't really been looking forward
Speaker 1: to this one. I'm a big fan, so lean in.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're here. Patton Oswald, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for being here with me.
Speaker 2: Ken, thank you fix having me on.
Speaker 1: Man. Hey, you know it's one of those weird like
Speaker 1: I don't know I've are well. Of course, you know,
Speaker 1: I play this dumb game where I try to figure
Speaker 1: out connections between people. But I don't think that our
Speaker 1: paths have crossed as far as I know, I don't
Speaker 1: think we've been in the same thing, which is kind
Speaker 1: of shocking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is weird. We've never crossed directly. I'm sure
Speaker 3: there is no more than a two or three person
Speaker 3: gap between you and I. Apparently my wife was telling me.
Speaker 3: My wife, Meredith Salinger, said that she this is back
Speaker 3: in eighty six, so if you don't remember this, don't
Speaker 3: even worry about it. She had just done a movie
Speaker 3: called A Night in the Life at Jimmy Reared, and
Speaker 3: she met you somewhere, either at a dinner or something,
Speaker 3: and you were joking and like, oh, you just did
Speaker 3: that movie with River Phoenix. I'm probably gonna play his
Speaker 3: big brothers day.
Speaker 1: That's probably I mean, I'm sure she's not lying. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure she's not making it up, and that would
Speaker 1: be something that I would have thought of. In fact,
Speaker 1: you know, it's you know, that was such a you know,
Speaker 1: sad thing I was. I loved her. I thought he
Speaker 1: was great and yeah, and definitely you know, when he
Speaker 1: was younger, he definitely, you know, we look like we
Speaker 1: could have been brothers for sure. Absolutely, yes, But the
Speaker 1: fact that you have been I mean, I think you've
Speaker 1: been in like two hundred movies or something like that.
Speaker 1: It's great, it's it just blows my mind, and it
Speaker 1: makes it even even weirder that we haven't been in
Speaker 1: the same thing together. Well, but you know, life is long,
Speaker 1: so we'll we'll get to do that.
Speaker 2: Life is long, and show business is weirdly small, so
Speaker 2: eventually everybody coides with each other.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely, thank you, thank you so much for being
Speaker 1: here with me. You know, I want to I want
Speaker 1: to first off say, I don't know why I have
Speaker 1: this obsession with this. The people that listening to this podcast.
Speaker 1: I've heard me mention this many times. But how do
Speaker 1: you feel about your name? And can we talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about it? About the genesis of that name.
Speaker 3: Well, Daddy was a marine and he my mom wanted
Speaker 3: to call me either Andy or Chris, and he thought
Speaker 3: those names were kind of bland and forgettable, so he
Speaker 3: proposed Patton as a first name. I haven't met a
Speaker 3: lot of first name patents out there, but weirdly, you know,
Speaker 3: he had been he had done three tours in Vietnam.
Speaker 3: So even though he named me after a World War
Speaker 3: Two general, he was always very vocal about I don't
Speaker 3: want you ever.
Speaker 2: Going to war or joining the military.
Speaker 3: I know because I've seen the worst of it, and
Speaker 3: I do not want that for you. So what I
Speaker 3: went into being a comedian, he could not have been happier.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, yeah, that is a very I think that's
Speaker 1: a very unusual, unusual story. I would think. I mean
Speaker 1: because because you know, listen, I often have said, I
Speaker 1: think I've played four Marines in my life. I get
Speaker 1: I get them, I get the marine gigs, and the
Speaker 1: one thing, oh yeah, absolutely sure that I could never
Speaker 1: do is become a marine. I mean, I wouldn't last
Speaker 1: five minutes through any of those you know of boot
Speaker 1: camp or those procedures. But I do know that a
Speaker 1: lot of the Marines that I've I've been with have
Speaker 1: had sort of the opposite reaction, you know, they kind
Speaker 1: of they they want to pass that on to their sons.
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm I'm wow, I'm not surprised, but I
Speaker 1: think it's but I think it's interesting, and I think
Speaker 1: it says a lot about your dad that he's like, no,
Speaker 1: I've seen it and it's not for you.
Speaker 3: I I don't think he was down on the Marines.
Speaker 3: He was down on the idea of us being sent
Speaker 3: to war. You know, he had been doing. He came
Speaker 3: from a I come from a long line of war
Speaker 3: veterans and warriors. So but my dad saw I think
Speaker 3: he saw some really bad stuff during those three years
Speaker 3: and he got shot in the leg. He's still alive,
Speaker 3: but you know, he just saw a lot of really
Speaker 3: dark stuff and he was like, yeah, war is not
Speaker 3: what I I thought it was going to be.
Speaker 1: And did he talk to you about that stuff?
Speaker 3: He talks about it, but he does it in that
Speaker 3: oblique way where it actually the stuff he doesn't talk
Speaker 3: about weirdly speaks louder than the stuff he can talk
Speaker 3: about directly. That the stuff that he that he clearly
Speaker 3: is deflecting from and can't face head on, you can
Speaker 3: infer what it is he's talking about.
Speaker 2: And it's pretty dark.
Speaker 3: So and I've learned to like, what is the point
Speaker 3: in me dredging it up? I think he's so much
Speaker 3: more happy to be with his sons now alive, rather
Speaker 3: than let's go revisit this as he called it one time,
Speaker 3: he just said war is brutal and completely pointless. And again,
Speaker 3: that's a guy that was did three years of it,
Speaker 3: So you know, I kind of that was my way
Speaker 3: of going, Yeah, let's not push too we don't need
Speaker 3: to push too deep here.
Speaker 1: Sure sure, yeah, sure. So you said you have brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters, got.
Speaker 2: A younger other.
Speaker 3: Also very funny, comedy writer, great on threads and online,
Speaker 3: great writer. And also just like he was actually flirting
Speaker 3: with joining the Air Force. My dad was like, listen,
Speaker 3: I love you. You are not.
Speaker 2: Going to do well in the Army. Go do something else.
Speaker 3: And he wasn't saying it like oh you little whip.
Speaker 3: He was just like, I know how your mind works,
Speaker 3: and this ain't for you.
Speaker 1: Uh huh uh huh Yeah. What were what were you were?
Speaker 1: An army brought it? Did you move around a bunch
Speaker 1: of a bunch?
Speaker 2: And yeah, a little.
Speaker 3: We moved on it when we were really really young.
Speaker 3: But then when we got to just before high school.
Speaker 3: And I remember this very clearly because my dad grew
Speaker 3: up his dad was an Air Force pilot and they
Speaker 3: moved constantly. He went to four different high schools. He
Speaker 3: just was and moved all over the world, Morocco and
Speaker 3: Germany and Spain and then all over the United States.
Speaker 3: And he said, as adventurous as that was. I never
Speaker 3: had like a home base. I never was had like
Speaker 3: a place I could build rep or build my roots,
Speaker 3: and I want that for you guys. You know, because
Speaker 3: my dad also really loved sports, and a lot of
Speaker 3: times he would suddenly move to a new town and
Speaker 3: the coach was like, you're doing really good work, but
Speaker 3: this kid's been here since freshman year, and he's like,
Speaker 3: he's you know, it's his time, and I don't know
Speaker 3: what to tell you, you know, So he's like, I
Speaker 3: don't want that.
Speaker 2: So he took a desk.
Speaker 3: He was like a test pilot for a while, and
Speaker 3: then he took a desk job in the Marines in
Speaker 3: DC testing just so that he could. He was like,
Speaker 3: I don't want that experience for you guys.
Speaker 1: So when you say sports, you and your brother were
Speaker 1: playing sports, or your dad was coaching, or.
Speaker 3: My dad my dad played sports in high school. He
Speaker 3: saw very very early that, oh, I have not given
Speaker 3: birth to jocks, given birth to movie nerds and D
Speaker 3: and D players and possible filmmakers. These guys are not
Speaker 3: going to be I mean, I tried every sport. I
Speaker 3: tried football, I tried soccer, I tried baseball. I was
Speaker 3: just absolutely awful in all of them.
Speaker 1: Well we share that, we share that.
Speaker 2: Really did you try them all and they'd just nothing?
Speaker 1: Really well, well I didn't, you know. It's like when
Speaker 1: I say I tried them, we didn't. I didn't really
Speaker 1: go to a high school that had We didn't have
Speaker 1: a foot There was no football. I mean it was
Speaker 1: a kind of an inner city Philadelphia high school, so
Speaker 1: that we didn't have any room to play football. We
Speaker 1: played football on the street, but it was just touch football.
Speaker 1: Or we would play like, you know, half ball, stickball,
Speaker 1: you know, oh yeah, stuff like that, street hockey. But
Speaker 1: I was never really good, never good at any sports.
Speaker 1: I actually feel, you know, kind of lucky that for
Speaker 1: the most part, I haven't been asked to do anything
Speaker 1: that is specifically ball athletic. I mean I've been asked
Speaker 1: to do things and involved you know, movement and dance
Speaker 1: and fighting, yes, you know, all those kinds of things.
Speaker 1: But the one, the one time that I did a
Speaker 1: sports based movie was this pretty forgettable movie called The
Speaker 1: Air up there where I patted it. Yeah, I played
Speaker 1: a trust me when I say it doesn't really hold up.
Speaker 1: I play a guy who goes I'm a recruiter. I
Speaker 1: go to Africa and the great NBA great Bob McAdoo,
Speaker 1: who was was our technical advisor on on that on
Speaker 1: that movie, and you know, was tasked with, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to uh, you know, get everybody to kind of
Speaker 1: choreograph the games and you know, cast the players that
Speaker 1: could play and stuff like that. And he he once
Speaker 1: did an interview and said that one of the hardest
Speaker 1: things he ever had to do in his career was
Speaker 1: make Kevin Bacon look like a basketball player.
Speaker 3: So and make make you look like someone who knew
Speaker 3: how to tell people how to play basketball.
Speaker 1: Like that was the easy part. But there was a
Speaker 1: scene where I come in and actually, you know, save
Speaker 1: the day, you know with my outside shooting, you know.
Speaker 2: So, but that's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. It was, But you know, listen, I
Speaker 1: think it's really again. I think that I like your
Speaker 1: dad without having met him, for those two reasons, one
Speaker 1: saying you know, I don't want you to go to war,
Speaker 1: and to saying, hey, I see something else in both
Speaker 1: of you. That edit eight you know, football and go
Speaker 1: and do your thing. I mean I think that's I
Speaker 1: think that's fantastic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I've actually carried that on because I'm not
Speaker 3: going to be the jock version of a nerd dad
Speaker 3: to my daughter. Like I remember, I showed her Star
Speaker 3: Wars and she was like meh, And I wasn't, like
Speaker 3: you are going to sit down and you're a good wall,
Speaker 3: you know, I said, Oh, I didn't land with her.
Speaker 2: That's fine.
Speaker 3: Like, I'm not gonna force her into something that she's not.
Speaker 3: That's a I think that's a crucial thing that parents
Speaker 3: need to learn and from my dad, and I'm doing
Speaker 3: it now.
Speaker 1: I agree. I totally agree. I don't. I don't try
Speaker 1: to force them into something that they don't that they
Speaker 1: don't want to do, you know, other than you know,
Speaker 1: trying to lead by example, to be a good person
Speaker 1: and you know, try to whatever, have some empathy, but
Speaker 1: try other than that. I mean, I totally agree. Well,
Speaker 1: so you mentioned that you had a great love and
Speaker 1: you mentioned Star Wars with your brother. You and your
Speaker 1: brother were kind of movie nerds. You like to watch.
Speaker 3: I was way more of a movie nerd than my brother.
Speaker 3: He got into movies a little older. He did like
Speaker 3: watching sports, he wasn't big on playing them, even though
Speaker 3: he's very kind of fit and he takes good care
Speaker 3: of himself, but he wasn't into like the team sports up.
Speaker 3: I was just from a very early age, just hooked
Speaker 3: on the whole.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you it sounds like you grew
Speaker 3: up in Philly in the seventies, sixties and seventies. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so you probably had your version of the Saturday morning
Speaker 3: horror movie.
Speaker 2: Host that there.
Speaker 3: I said, there was a monster movie and then an
Speaker 3: Abbot Costello movie, totally, and I just devoured all of them.
Speaker 3: And then me too, eight years old, Star Wars came
Speaker 3: out and that was it. It just kicked the side
Speaker 3: of my head in and I was completely, Oh, that's
Speaker 3: what I want to be doing. I want I want
Speaker 3: to get on the other side of that and be
Speaker 3: in that world somehow.
Speaker 1: Right, right, But how does that how does that walk
Speaker 1: its way to comedy? I was or was that not?
Speaker 1: Even the impetus at the jump?
Speaker 2: At the jump?
Speaker 3: It was, well, I wish I had a deeper, more
Speaker 3: artistic story to tell you, but it really did get
Speaker 3: to the point where it was that summer between freshman
Speaker 3: and sophomore year of high school, Well that's the no, no,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. The summer between freshman and sophomore year of college.
Speaker 3: That was the summer of nineteen eighty eight. I was okay,
Speaker 3: I just completed my first year of college, and that's
Speaker 3: the first time in your life when you really start
Speaker 3: to feel like, I better start figuring out what I'm
Speaker 3: going to do because in three years this is over
Speaker 3: and I'm out in the real world. And I did
Speaker 3: a bunch of different jobs that summer. I did everything.
Speaker 3: I was working at a law firm, and I was
Speaker 3: DJing weddings on weekends and it was just and I
Speaker 3: started doing open mics in DC and that's what stuck.
Speaker 3: It just and I was getting no positive reinforcement. Nobody
Speaker 3: was like what I was doing. But I loved the
Speaker 3: hang and I loved the life, and that's what I
Speaker 3: wanted to be doing. And it just clicked, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: that's what I should be doing. I just I knew it.
Speaker 3: I knew it without being able to really articulate it.
Speaker 3: I knew that's what I should be doing.
Speaker 1: Well, it's so interesting that you say that you love
Speaker 1: the life, and I'll have to tell you why, because
Speaker 1: I I it. When I think about comics, first off,
Speaker 1: I think that dollar for dollar, going to a comedy
Speaker 1: show might be my favorite kind of form of entertainment.
Speaker 1: I absolutely loved movies. I love it. I love to
Speaker 1: go to the theater, Yeah, But when I look at
Speaker 1: what I get from a from a comedy show, a special,
Speaker 1: you know, a single comic special. Oh yes, I'm talking
Speaker 1: about it. You know when people get up do you
Speaker 1: know ten minutes or seven minutes or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: you know you're going to see people do really well
Speaker 1: and do really badly. So there's this kind of like
Speaker 1: electric sort of edge that happens that and and when
Speaker 1: it's when it's really great, as a collective group, you
Speaker 1: all feel this tremendous sense of just you get so
Speaker 1: thrilled to be laughing that hard, and you get so
Speaker 1: thrilled for somebody when they're when they're doing well, and
Speaker 1: you feel so bad when they're not. And whenever you
Speaker 1: go to a comedy show, you're going to see that
Speaker 1: you know, and you're gonna be jokes that are gonna
Speaker 1: land and aren' gonna land, And there's a kind of
Speaker 1: danger to it that I really love. But the thing
Speaker 1: that blows my mind is that you went one day
Speaker 1: having never done this and you just walk up to
Speaker 1: a microphone. Yeah, I mean did you had you had
Speaker 1: you written it down, or had you stood in the
Speaker 1: mirror like what like like like like doing it, or
Speaker 1: I've done it for your friends, or.
Speaker 3: I wrote stuff down on a piece of paper at
Speaker 3: the law firm I was working at and I lost
Speaker 3: that piece of paper. I had that for the longest
Speaker 3: tumm and I don't have it anymore, which is just
Speaker 3: as good, because the material was terrible. I wrote what
Speaker 3: I thought where it sounded like jokes based on what
Speaker 3: I've been watching on TV, on the cable shows and
Speaker 3: stuff like that, and so I just kind of went up, yes, exactly.
Speaker 3: But it was also that classic like I'm so not
Speaker 3: speaking in my own voice.
Speaker 2: Yet I'm not comfortable enough on stage to just go, hey,
Speaker 2: here's what's going on. I was trying to do the
Speaker 2: rhythms of stuff I'd seen on TV. I mean, what's
Speaker 2: you know?
Speaker 3: And so it was almost like stand up karaoke in
Speaker 3: a weird way. And what you realize is, and I'm
Speaker 3: sure you experienced this as an actor too. Starting out,
Speaker 3: one of the first jobs you have to do is
Speaker 3: to get over the fact that going on stage is
Speaker 3: a big deal. You have to get to the point
Speaker 3: where you don't think about that anymore, and that's when
Speaker 3: you can really start to cook. I'm sure the first
Speaker 3: time that you had an acting gig, you're like, Okay,
Speaker 3: where do I put my feet? Where? What do I
Speaker 3: I'm gonna walk in here? Like that has got to
Speaker 3: become second nature and then you can really be present
Speaker 3: in what it makes you're doing, you know. Yeah, So,
Speaker 3: I mean so I had to I had to get
Speaker 3: over that first.
Speaker 2: That took some time.
Speaker 1: And so is it the type of thing where like
Speaker 1: you go and you do one open mic and like
Speaker 1: a couple of things work, and then you try it
Speaker 1: again and a couple more work or or or or
Speaker 1: am I romanticizing it?
Speaker 3: You're romanticizing because I went up and nothing worked, okay,
Speaker 3: But what I loved was the two hours before I
Speaker 3: was able to go on stage, sitting watching the other comedians,
Speaker 3: watching people riffing off of each other, and just that
Speaker 3: whole energy of it. And then you just keep going
Speaker 3: up over and over and it gets a little bit
Speaker 3: better each time, and again you get over the oh
Speaker 3: I got to think about going on stage, and then
Speaker 3: you're more and you can be more real. I mean,
Speaker 3: if you go to comedy shows, I'm sure you've seen
Speaker 3: those nights where someone does a joke and it doesn't
Speaker 3: land and then they make a joke about it not
Speaker 3: landing because they're so present in the moment and that
Speaker 3: gets a laugh. So when you can get to that
Speaker 3: point where you're like, here's this you're so present on stage,
Speaker 3: But that just comes from repetition. And yeah, there's a
Speaker 3: lot of there were a lot of open mics where
Speaker 3: oh boy.
Speaker 2: It was. But you know what, here's what's great.
Speaker 3: When you completely fail, I mean completely turf out.
Speaker 2: There's nothing better than waking up the next day and going, oh,
Speaker 2: the world didn't end. It didn't matter. I could just
Speaker 2: keep doing this over and over and you get over
Speaker 2: that fear. And that's the best.
Speaker 1: I have a buddy who's a comic and you talk
Speaker 1: about the you liked the world and seeing the energy,
Speaker 1: and I really like I would go sometimes with him
Speaker 1: and you know, just kind of hang not not go
Speaker 1: to not necessarily go to the show, but kind of
Speaker 1: what the process was of the hang it and it
Speaker 1: it is really amazing. Well, for one thing, there is
Speaker 1: probably not always and I might be romanticizing this as well,
Speaker 1: but that there's kind of a sense of community. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: people that are you know at one point, you know,
Speaker 1: everyone is obviously competitive with each other, but also I
Speaker 1: get the sense that that people are also happy when
Speaker 1: somebody else, you know, kind of does well because it
Speaker 1: means that you have a chance of getting far ahead.
Speaker 1: And if somebody nobody's getting paid, that's the other thing
Speaker 1: that's like amazing, No, it's getting paid.
Speaker 3: I did a show two nights ago here in the valley,
Speaker 3: right like five minutes from my house on Ventura, and
Speaker 3: for some reason, I guess they didn't promote it very well.
Speaker 3: A lot of just kind of old people sitting in
Speaker 3: this room that were not really tuned in. And it
Speaker 3: was other friends of mine on the show, and we
Speaker 3: were all the backstage was that weird camaraderie of like
Speaker 3: we are at an AARP conventions and I don't know
Speaker 3: what is happening out there, And that actually made it
Speaker 3: kind of fun that each of us was gonna go
Speaker 3: out and just support the and then you would come
Speaker 3: off stage to nothing.
Speaker 2: This audience was so awful, But then.
Speaker 3: That kind of became the event is watching the comedians
Speaker 3: kind of talk to each other even when they're on stage,
Speaker 3: like hey, Alonso, you were right, this is oh my god,
Speaker 3: what is happening?
Speaker 2: Like that stuff? Then that kind of made it an
Speaker 2: event and I love stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, well now you have done the multiple multiple specials. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're they're amazing. And when you do those, how
Speaker 1: does that work? Is that? Is that a Is that
Speaker 1: a routine that you have toured around for a while
Speaker 1: before you actually do a special on it? Is that?
Speaker 1: Is that the way?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you tour with it, you get the hour together
Speaker 3: and then you you know, nowadays, actually because there's so
Speaker 3: many streaming platforms, you go to Netflix or Amazon or
Speaker 3: Hulu or HBO Max or whoever wants to Hey, I've
Speaker 3: got this hour. A lot of times, you know, if
Speaker 3: you're new, you shoot it yourself. You invest a little
Speaker 3: bit of money and shoot it yourself and then see
Speaker 3: who wants to buy it from you and and broadcast it.
Speaker 3: Other times, if you're lucky, if you are enough of
Speaker 3: a name, a platform will go, we'd like to do
Speaker 3: a special with you, and they'll promote it and stuff
Speaker 3: like that. But it is right now, there is that
Speaker 3: kind of nineteen sixties American International Pictures drive in thing
Speaker 3: of like we shot it, who wants to pick it up.
Speaker 2: And buy it?
Speaker 1: Kiddn't know that?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah yeah, because so who finance is it?
Speaker 1: Who actually puts the money up? You get an independent
Speaker 1: investor or the comedian themselves.
Speaker 3: Or get an independent investor the comedian themselves, They go
Speaker 3: to their friends, they do a kickstarter campaign and a
Speaker 3: lot of it. Like, you can really make something kind
Speaker 3: of captivating and and charming if you do do it
Speaker 3: super low budget, and it's like, oh, this isn't a
Speaker 3: rather and there's nothing wrong with these beautiful specials that
Speaker 3: are shot in like Madison Square Garden or you know,
Speaker 3: but there's something about like a.
Speaker 2: Small the corner of a club.
Speaker 3: And it's tightly packed, and you like some of those
Speaker 3: actually can feel way more immediate.
Speaker 4: It.
Speaker 3: It's the difference between like a late Zeppelin album versus
Speaker 3: an early Ramones album. You know, they both have their value,
Speaker 3: but that Ramones album really hits when you hear It's
Speaker 3: like these dudes carried their own equipment and I don't
Speaker 3: think they had more than a day in the studio,
Speaker 3: and this feels really raw and really amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, and I think, I mean,
Speaker 1: how do you feel do you feel that that the
Speaker 1: possibilities of you know, we're just coming out of the strike,
Speaker 1: so it's like, you know, kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: I almost hesitate to say, hey, streaming is awesome, but
Speaker 1: there's a lot of there's a lot of in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways it is. But I think that for
Speaker 1: comedy it's been really good. I mean, it just seems like, yes,
Speaker 1: so many people are getting so much more exposure to uh,
Speaker 1: to so many more interesting comics. And I think that
Speaker 1: I talk to a lot of people that have just
Speaker 1: watched you know, one one special after another, and I've
Speaker 1: discovered people that I just were not on my radar
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 4: It's it.
Speaker 2: There's there's good and bad to it.
Speaker 3: The good thing is, yes, newer voices can get themselves
Speaker 3: seen way easier. They you know, there's there's more production
Speaker 3: and post production ability in this thing than Orson Wells
Speaker 3: had when he did Citizen K. Like that's the level we're.
Speaker 2: At right now.
Speaker 3: But the problem, the only drawback is one of the
Speaker 3: advantages I had coming up in the I started in
Speaker 3: eighty eight was I had my time in the wilderness.
Speaker 3: I had my time getting to work on my craft
Speaker 3: with no one watching me, and I could figure out
Speaker 3: who I was before I made my debut. Now people
Speaker 3: are literally filming and posting their first open mind on TikTok,
Speaker 3: and sometimes early on you can find a voice that
Speaker 3: works for you early on, but then you evolve beyond it.
Speaker 3: But if you establish that that's your voice and that's
Speaker 3: what's getting you to go viral and get a million clicks,
Speaker 3: it's hard sometimes to break out of some of.
Speaker 2: Your first choices.
Speaker 3: And I do wish that there were certain young especially
Speaker 3: young feens coming up there I think are really brilliant.
Speaker 3: But it's like, oh, if you had just stayed in
Speaker 3: the wilderness for one more year, you would have really
Speaker 3: solidified who it is you are, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: But like I wish that for them. I don't wish
Speaker 3: them to be obscure forever. I just want the time
Speaker 3: for them to develop on their own terms and at
Speaker 3: their own pace.
Speaker 1: Right. Well, it's the ten thousand hours thing, right and then.
Speaker 3: You absolutely why were the Beatles so great because they
Speaker 3: did eight hours sets in strip clubs in Germany where
Speaker 3: the audience wanted to murder them, so they learned to
Speaker 3: get really good, really quick.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever have you ever been to
Speaker 1: the Reaper Bomb? No, yeah I have. Yeah. I went
Speaker 1: there actually with my son. We we took a father
Speaker 1: son trip a few years ago. Uh you know he
Speaker 1: my my uh his cousin. His cousin's dad said to me,
Speaker 1: you know, I took a trip with with Whitney. We
Speaker 1: just did like, you know, a father son thing. And
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I want to do that. So
Speaker 1: I asked my son, thinking that he would never say yes,
Speaker 1: and he was like, yeah, sure, I'll go. I was like,
Speaker 1: where do you want to go? And that was one
Speaker 1: of the places he wanted to go, was Homburg. Not
Speaker 1: not specifically to the Reaper Bomb, but just he just
Speaker 1: wanted to get for some reason. I think maybe having
Speaker 1: knowing something about the Beatles in those in those days
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. He's a musician, and uh it was.
Speaker 1: It was interesting. I mean it's still you know, you
Speaker 1: can it still has enough of the the feel that
Speaker 1: you can picture you can kind of fantasize about these
Speaker 1: young dudes being here and playing these you know, crappy
Speaker 1: little clubs and doing eight shows a day. As you've
Speaker 1: pointed out.
Speaker 2: Well, that's okay.
Speaker 3: So you're a musician too when you go into a
Speaker 3: space like that, because as a musician you play all
Speaker 3: different spaces, Graham theaters.
Speaker 2: Smaller clubs.
Speaker 3: When you go into the Reaper Bond, was there also
Speaker 3: that leftover vibe of like, oh, I here's how I
Speaker 3: would have adjusted what it is that I do to
Speaker 3: slay in this room, because sometimes you have to make adjustments,
Speaker 3: oh hundred rooms. So did you get that feeling like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is where the Beatles sound came out of because
Speaker 3: they adjusted to this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that that And yeah, I mean if
Speaker 1: they had grown up, you know, playing in you know,
Speaker 1: concert halls, it would be right, be different. I mean,
Speaker 1: be a different man, for sure. I mean, and I
Speaker 1: think that also. You know, there's a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: I don't want to get too deep in the in
Speaker 1: the into the but there was a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: For instance, the the how they learned to be able
Speaker 1: to hear each other and to be able to harmonize
Speaker 1: and be that tight in loud clubs with terrible, terrible sound,
Speaker 1: and oh my god, you know they monitors. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's kind of it's kind of remarkable.
Speaker 1: But so I want to ask you one more comedy
Speaker 1: question and then I want to talk about some other stuff.
Speaker 1: But I you know, there's a lot of kind of
Speaker 1: back and forth when it comes to talking about comedy
Speaker 1: and pain and painful experiences which you know, I know
Speaker 1: you have, and and and the use there's a lot
Speaker 1: of talk about the use of UH comedy to help
Speaker 1: other people deal with pain, right, But my question is like,
Speaker 1: how what does it do for you? And is it
Speaker 1: when when you can take something that is UH. And
Speaker 1: by the way, I come to this also thinking about
Speaker 1: the comics that I know, they often seem like they're
Speaker 1: coming a lot of them through difficult times or you know,
Speaker 1: painful experiences, And I wonder if there's a if turning
Speaker 1: something that is UH, you know, tragic or hard in
Speaker 1: one's life and turning it around and making people laugh
Speaker 1: is also has its own level of therapy for you.
Speaker 1: That's That's what I'm curious about it.
Speaker 3: Yes, it absolutely. I mean even before I was doing comedy,
Speaker 3: I was using comedy. Maybe I wasn't necessarily writing it,
Speaker 3: but I was very awkward in middle school, early years
Speaker 3: of high school were kind of awkward. I would turn
Speaker 3: to Monty Python to embrace the absurdity of the world,
Speaker 3: or Richard Pryor and George Carlin to vet my rage,
Speaker 3: and there was all kinds of ways that that was
Speaker 3: a release, much same way as music and movies. I
Speaker 3: just realized that I could, I guess I could emit
Speaker 3: it in a way that could make other people laugh.
Speaker 3: And when you make other people laugh, not only do
Speaker 3: they are like, oh, I'm not the only one going
Speaker 3: through this, but it's this nice little reassurance that, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm not the only one going through this.
Speaker 2: Like we are all.
Speaker 3: We all encounter the kind of weirdness, and I mean,
Speaker 3: life is about loss and that could be really scary,
Speaker 3: but you can't turn away from that. You have to
Speaker 3: somehow embrace it. And one of the ways I guess
Speaker 3: to soften the blow of things being stripped away is
Speaker 3: to make a joke about it. And because I have
Speaker 3: a friend named Todd Glass who says, if you can
Speaker 3: mock it, you can manage it. And I've always believed
Speaker 3: in that, like that is what comedy is. I'm mocking it,
Speaker 3: you know, That's what like if you read something wicked
Speaker 3: This way comes by Ray Bradberry that the devil, the thing.
Speaker 3: The devil cannot stand in that book because people making
Speaker 3: jokes about him. It's like, no, no, I'm scary and
Speaker 3: I'm the one thing you can't make jokes. And then
Speaker 3: when the guy starts making jokes at it, starts to
Speaker 3: lessen his power. And I think that's such a great
Speaker 3: metaphor for the things in your life that are trying
Speaker 3: to get you down. If you start making jokes about him,
Speaker 3: they're like, well he doesn't like then you have you have.
Speaker 2: Power over it.
Speaker 1: Ah yeah yeah, so by so bye bye bye. But
Speaker 1: by making other people laugh at things that are are,
Speaker 1: you know, traditionally thought of as sad or or that
Speaker 1: would normally be thought of his sess, you're you're able
Speaker 1: to just to kind of confront things for yourself. By
Speaker 1: I love that. If you can mock it, that I
Speaker 1: I you can make it, you can manage it. If
Speaker 1: you can mack it, you can manage it. Let me
Speaker 1: write that.
Speaker 2: Down exactly, seriously, write that down, so.
Speaker 1: That but here you are. I mean, it's not just
Speaker 1: you're acting. You're doing a tremendous amount of voice acting.
Speaker 1: Grammy nominations, Emmy nominations. I think you've written a book
Speaker 1: or two couple.
Speaker 2: Written two memoirs.
Speaker 1: Two memoirs. I mean that you are a busy guy.
Speaker 1: Now now have you have you? Do you have a podcast?
Speaker 3: I actually I had a podcast briefly during the pandemic.
Speaker 2: My wife and I did one. But we got to
Speaker 2: the point where it's I mean, doing a podcast, you know,
Speaker 2: it's a lot of work. People think that, oh, you
Speaker 2: just go and you blap. No, there's work.
Speaker 3: Involved in doing the podcast, really, and it was just
Speaker 3: getting to the point where it's like we're fighting a lot,
Speaker 3: Like we're actually fighting on this podcast that was meant
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 2: So said, We did tip to two episodes. We're good.
Speaker 3: I mean, I will eventually do a podcast again when
Speaker 3: there's something I really want to connect about, you know,
Speaker 3: like this what you're doing here, this feels very organic
Speaker 3: and very like, oh here's what.
Speaker 2: But I have to wait. You have to wait to
Speaker 2: let that happen organically.
Speaker 1: You know. So that you mentioned you mentioned your wife
Speaker 1: doing a podcast with her. I just had my wife
Speaker 1: as a guest on this podcast. Really was Yeah, which
Speaker 1: was interesting because I don't I don't I don't tend
Speaker 1: to interview her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels like an interrogation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like an interrogation. Uh. And and you know
Speaker 1: what was funny about it is that it was I thought, well,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be kind of goofy and fun. We'll
Speaker 1: just you know. It was actually one of the more
Speaker 1: serious kind of ones that that we I mean, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: which was kind of interesting. Plus we were also in
Speaker 1: the same house in different rooms.
Speaker 2: That's how we did it. We Oh my god, we'd
Speaker 2: be in different rooms.
Speaker 3: Yeah, god, yeah, that's hilarious.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: But you guys is you guys Instagram videos during the
Speaker 3: strike where you were cut pair of goofballs when you
Speaker 3: were doing Saturday in the Park with Kazoo and you
Speaker 3: have to don't step in. That was like there was
Speaker 3: so much going on in that little clip.
Speaker 1: It was great. Yet you know, we you know, I
Speaker 1: realized about that doing that kind of stuff during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: And the whole Instagram social media thing is that, you know,
Speaker 1: long before social media, I'd love to make little movies.
Speaker 1: I would send them to because you know, I'm on
Speaker 1: the road or she's on the road out of town.
Speaker 1: You know, I would always buy a video camera and
Speaker 1: send little things home to the kids. Or or to her,
Speaker 1: you know that, so that like that's sort of just
Speaker 1: a natural extension that the social media thing of what
Speaker 1: we already do to try to kind of. But it's
Speaker 1: also you know, I got it. I'm a little bit
Speaker 1: of a work a hawk. I gotta stay busy, create something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's what that that that's what we were able
Speaker 1: to do during the pandemic, and it was fun to
Speaker 1: make it. But the reason I bring up having a
Speaker 1: podcast is that I you know, first, yes, you're right,
Speaker 1: it is more work than they tell you. And being
Speaker 1: on the other side of it, you know, having done
Speaker 1: you know, you know, for forty five years I've been
Speaker 1: doing interviews or something like that. To be on the
Speaker 1: other side of it is a completely different thing and
Speaker 1: one that you know, I haven't put in my ten
Speaker 1: thousand hours, but I'm you know, I'm trying. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I always think is there's
Speaker 1: certain questions that I get time and time again, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not going to ask those questions. And
Speaker 1: then here we are and I'm just about to ask
Speaker 1: you the same fucking question that I was hoping, you know,
Speaker 1: never to never to get asked of all these things
Speaker 1: that you do, between writing and comedy and acting and
Speaker 1: voice acting, what is the one that you can't do without.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's the one that brought me to the
Speaker 3: dance at stand up comedy, and I'm not there are
Speaker 3: certain people that do stand up comedy to get out
Speaker 3: of stand up comedy and move to movies and TV shows.
Speaker 3: I do movies and TV shows to keep my visibility
Speaker 3: up there so I can do more stand up. I
Speaker 3: will always do stand up movies and TV. Writing that
Speaker 3: comes and goes, and I'm always grateful when it comes,
Speaker 3: but I will in the end, I'll still be doing
Speaker 3: stand up. It'll always be so I can keep doing
Speaker 3: stand up.
Speaker 2: That's okay, that's my focus.
Speaker 1: That's a great that's a that's a perfect answer. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And do you feel that Is it something that you
Speaker 1: feel you are constantly trying to get better at or
Speaker 1: is it just that you really love doing it and
Speaker 1: you want to keep doing it? Is it? Do you
Speaker 1: walk away from a you know, say, a special. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know how many how many specials have you done?
Speaker 2: I mean full like eight at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's that's a that's a true I
Speaker 1: don't think there's a lot of people that have done
Speaker 1: eight specials, have they? I mean, that's a tremendous amount.
Speaker 2: Of it's a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot.
Speaker 3: The thing with the here's any comedian will tell you this,
Speaker 3: And I'm sure you've experienced this as a musician. When
Speaker 3: I record a special, like a week to two weeks after,
Speaker 3: I suddenly think of, oh, if I had cut this
Speaker 3: one part out of the bit, it would have been
Speaker 3: better if I had done this one thing. So I'm
Speaker 3: sure you've laid down an album and then a week
Speaker 3: later you're like if we oh dead like and it
Speaker 3: drives you crazy.
Speaker 1: I don't do it all the time. And you know,
Speaker 1: part of the part of the reason that you realize
Speaker 1: that is because you start playing the songs out yes,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden you go, you know,
Speaker 1: this actually should be like two or three bpm faster,
Speaker 1: and then the song grooves like in a way that
Speaker 1: it never did, or you think one hundred percent yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, I mean it's also I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: I bet that think it applies to acting too. I
Speaker 1: like to say that, you know, I figure out scenes
Speaker 1: when I'm in the van on the way home.
Speaker 2: You know, I go, that's got to drive you crazy.
Speaker 1: It does.
Speaker 2: We're like that, why didn't I own my it totally does?
Speaker 1: It totally does. But that's that's part of the process,
Speaker 1: you know. You can't Oh yeah, yeah, but you apply.
Speaker 3: I mean again, I want to keep doing stand up, yes,
Speaker 3: because I love doing it, And yes, I want to
Speaker 3: get better that there's people coming up that no one
Speaker 3: knows about yet that are amazing, that keep inspiring me.
Speaker 3: I want to keep getting better at what it is
Speaker 3: I do. And what can I talk about that that
Speaker 3: shouldn't be funny that I can make funny? How can
Speaker 3: I what can I get away with? I mean, I
Speaker 3: just I'm a big believer in that. Be wary of
Speaker 3: someone who goes, I've been doing this for thirty years,
Speaker 3: when in actuality, they've done it for one year and
Speaker 3: they repeated that year twenty nine times. Like I want
Speaker 3: to actually do thirty different, constantly growing, evolving years. And
Speaker 3: I'm sure we know people that are like, you've done
Speaker 3: this one year and you kind of repeated that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, You're absolutely right.
Speaker 3: We've met that kind of person, you know, But especially again,
Speaker 3: I'm a big movie buff you take weird lefts and writes.
Speaker 3: With your acting career, you are always like, oh, this
Speaker 3: might not work.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do this. Let's see what this does.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? I for better or for worse?
Speaker 1: That is something that I do. That's it true?
Speaker 2: Hey, same with me.
Speaker 3: There's been times I'm like, I'm gonna try. Oh good
Speaker 3: lord God, why did I sig you for that?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: But that's what the people makes it exciting.
Speaker 1: Is there anything else that isn't entertainment related that you
Speaker 1: do in your spare time? And are what's your other?
Speaker 1: Or is this all where it gets your relaxation?
Speaker 3: It feels relaxing doing it. It's not that I don't
Speaker 3: have a life. I still hang out with my daughter,
Speaker 3: my wife, I read a lot, I hang out with
Speaker 3: my friends. But it's still it's all revolves around creating stuff.
Speaker 3: To me, it just feels fun. I'm not like, oh God,
Speaker 3: I gotta go do this. It's like, let me relax by.
Speaker 2: Going on stage and doing ten minutes. That is relaxing
Speaker 2: to me.
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Speaker 1: You know you also have a I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people have noticed and completely respect your you know,
Speaker 1: your activism and use your platform try a light on
Speaker 1: all kinds of really important things that it just demonstrates
Speaker 1: a lot of compassion and understanding and caring about about
Speaker 1: the world. But where do you think that comes from?
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm still very very aware and very much
Speaker 2: remember everyone that helped me out coming up, all the
Speaker 2: little moments of grace and when someone else like stepped
Speaker 2: up to help me out when they didn't need to.
Speaker 3: You know, I always say, and this is a paraphrase
Speaker 3: of what Roger Ebert always said, I never cry in
Speaker 3: movies when things are sad. What makes me cry is
Speaker 3: when someone decides to step up and help someone else out.
Speaker 3: That is like to me because it happens so rarely
Speaker 3: in our real lives. A lot at least it seems
Speaker 3: to be these days. So when someone's like, no, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna step up and help people out, that always really.
Speaker 2: Lands with me. So why not pass that on?
Speaker 3: If anything, do it for the selfish reason of it
Speaker 3: makes it a better world for me to live in.
Speaker 3: If you're totally self centered, then do it for that reason.
Speaker 3: But I mean, it just feels like you didn't do
Speaker 3: this by yourself. Give a little bit back, Yes, nothing
Speaker 3: wrong with making money and being successful. Give a little
Speaker 3: bit of it back. Just put it back out circulation.
Speaker 3: Why do you want to sit on your pile and
Speaker 3: just stare at it? It doesn't make sense, all right?
Speaker 1: Right, well listen, I think that's a perfect segue to
Speaker 1: bring on Ron Fitzsimmons from Alice's Kids, which is this
Speaker 1: nonprofit that you have, you know, decided to highlight here today. Yes, yes, Ron,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming to the show. I
Speaker 1: know that you've met Stacey from six degrees dot org.
Speaker 1: You are based out of Alexandria, correct or somewhere in that.
Speaker 4: Area, Mount Vernon, Techno, Vernon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, right, and and and I've read some stuff
Speaker 1: about what Alice's Kids is, But maybe you could just
Speaker 1: give us a give us a you know, a thumbnail
Speaker 1: on on what it is and how you started it
Speaker 1: and where the name comes from.
Speaker 4: Sure well, first of all, Alice was my mother who
Speaker 4: has passed. The idea came basically from my childhood. We
Speaker 4: had a very rough childhood living up in West Islip,
Speaker 4: New York, and my father abandoned us in nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 4: I believe, and we were forced to go on the
Speaker 4: welfare state system up in New York, bringing in two
Speaker 4: hundred dollars a month. My mother wanted to stay in
Speaker 4: the same neighborhood. It was in middle class town. She
Speaker 4: wouldn't move to what was then called the projects, I think,
Speaker 4: and so right away we started to stick out like
Speaker 4: a short thumb. We became the welfare kids in West isslife.
Speaker 2: We would go to.
Speaker 4: School wearing the same shirt every day, not being able
Speaker 4: to participate in field trips things like that. Every once
Speaker 4: in a while my mother would I'm assuming illegally go
Speaker 4: out and pick up a few extra dollars washing clothes,
Speaker 4: ironing clothes, and she'd come home very excited to announce
Speaker 4: that we were going shopping. Forget these these days when
Speaker 4: she would say, let's go to EJ. Corvette's and get
Speaker 4: that baseball blood, or to my sister, let's go get
Speaker 4: I'll ever forget this. Let's go get that new record
Speaker 4: by those kids in England. So it's funny you were
Speaker 4: talking about the Beatles that lifted us, and it made
Speaker 4: us proud. And the next day I couldn't wait to
Speaker 4: go to school with my new Converse sneakers with a
Speaker 4: new Dy Crockett chirp. Jump ahead many years and I
Speaker 4: was between careers or pondering careers, And one day I
Speaker 4: was substitute teaching at Mount Ernan High School and a
Speaker 4: kid was crying in the corner and I asked one
Speaker 4: of her friends what was happening. She said, well, Latrice
Speaker 4: can't go to the prom. And I said oh, and
Speaker 4: she said yeah, she can't afford it. My mother doesn't
Speaker 4: work and she doesn't have the fifty dollars. I went
Speaker 4: down and pay for the ticket. But then I had
Speaker 4: a thought, uh, And I started walking around to teachers
Speaker 4: in the school and I started asking them do you
Speaker 4: pay for things like this all the time? And they said,
Speaker 4: of course, we pay for books, we pay for art supplies,
Speaker 4: we pay for field trips, yearbooks, whatever it is. So
Speaker 4: this start, the thoughts started to evolve about creating charity
Speaker 4: that does that for children. I went to all the
Speaker 4: other charities in the area and I asked them if
Speaker 4: they do things like that, like do you put out
Speaker 4: fifty dollars for a back to school uniform? And they
Speaker 4: all said no. One person said they don't have petty
Speaker 4: cash drawers. So we created Alice's Kids with the thought
Speaker 4: that we would be the petty cash drawer for these
Speaker 4: kids who just needed a little bit of a lift.
Speaker 4: It started off very slow. This was about twelve years ago,
Speaker 4: and the big issue was how do you find the kids?
Speaker 4: Where are these kids who indeed this kind of help.
Speaker 4: So we started to establish a network of teachers in
Speaker 4: the Moulverne area who would refer to us kids that
Speaker 4: needed some help, and we would give them gift cards.
Speaker 4: Everything exploded three years later when a columnist named Teresa
Speaker 4: Vargas of the Washington Post heard about us, and she
Speaker 4: wrote a column and overnight we exploded nationally.
Speaker 1: The media helping out, the media doing something good, positive exactly.
Speaker 4: It's crazy what happened that weekend. I think we raised
Speaker 4: about three hundred thousand dollars our budget at that point
Speaker 4: was about twenty five thousand dollars. Wowow money Cake kept.
Speaker 4: And so immediately we became a national charity because we
Speaker 4: started getting money from across the country and and we
Speaker 4: started getting increase from people in Iowa and Nebraska, teachers
Speaker 4: and social workers saying, hey, can I send you a request?
Speaker 4: M So we started fulfilling them.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So that's basically how it started. And shortly thereafter after
Speaker 4: we started, I got an email that said a guy
Speaker 4: named Patton Oswell had.
Speaker 2: Donated that was gonna be my next amount of money.
Speaker 1: Okay, no, it's fine, no, no go, let's hear. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I was hauling and every time we get a donation,
Speaker 4: I get an email, and I saw a donation from
Speaker 4: Patton Oswell, and I knew the name. I'm going Pat Malls.
Speaker 4: Of course, my age, our first thing is Lee Harvey.
Speaker 4: You think of Lee Harvey for some reason, which I'm
Speaker 4: sure you get that bad. Yeah, but I'm thinking, thinking, think,
Speaker 4: And of course I didn't google it, but I recall
Speaker 4: asking my son, one of my sons. You know Patton Oswald.
Speaker 4: I know that name. He's the voice of Remy in
Speaker 4: Ratiituey he's this, and he's this. So I flipped out.
Speaker 4: I emailed him and thanked him profusely, and much to
Speaker 4: my shock, within like an hour, he responded, and I'm
Speaker 4: going Holy hell, and he said, no problem, man, like
Speaker 4: what you do and then he said the magic word.
Speaker 4: He said, let me know if there's anything else I
Speaker 4: can do. And so we went from there, and because
Speaker 4: of Patton, Steve Carrell learned about us, and so Steve
Speaker 4: is now a big supporter. Eric Roberts, you know, Alan Toodick.
Speaker 4: I mean, we've got a lot of good support out
Speaker 4: there because Pat kind of started that train.
Speaker 1: Though, Patton, what was it about this one or maybe
Speaker 1: it's one of many, many, many causes that you decide
Speaker 1: to support, But was it something specific that you read
Speaker 1: or what was that moment?
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, the thing that really really landed with me.
Speaker 3: And it's something that because I was never really able
Speaker 3: to articulate this, but it's very disturbing how in this
Speaker 3: country and you don't really see this in other countries
Speaker 3: as much. There's there's a weird level of poverty shaming
Speaker 3: that goes on almost we treat poverty like it's some
Speaker 3: kind of infectious disease. That it will you'll somehow catch
Speaker 3: poverty by you know, so you you you point it out,
Speaker 3: you make fun of it to like almost drive it
Speaker 3: away from you. And I think that that causes it
Speaker 3: causes a lot of problems later on in life. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think that it causes a lot of people that
Speaker 3: you see a lot of people now that there's a
Speaker 3: lot of millionaires that I think did experience some poverty
Speaker 3: early on and now are vengeful about it and are about, like,
Speaker 3: I want to get rid of social services because I
Speaker 3: had to use them, and I bet I could have
Speaker 3: made it without him, but I never got the chance.
Speaker 2: So I've got to feel.
Speaker 3: Like they're all trying to erase whatever shame was heaped
Speaker 3: on them by other people. And if we could get
Speaker 3: so this whole idea of doing it anonymously so that
Speaker 3: these kids, so that these kids can have a childhood,
Speaker 3: so they can just have a childhood and some dignity.
Speaker 3: I don't think he realized the astronomical dividends that pays
Speaker 3: off later in terms of just the mental and psychological
Speaker 3: health of the population.
Speaker 2: So that the fact that Ron and his organization were really.
Speaker 3: Able to pinpoint that, and also that Ron faced a
Speaker 3: lot of the stuff that he was just describing that
Speaker 3: he grew up with, and he remembered it. Rather than
Speaker 3: trying to tamp it down or attack it. He was like, no,
Speaker 3: we're going to this happens, and we're going to actually
Speaker 3: fix this problem. And it just the amount of empathy
Speaker 3: and that really struck me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's interesting too because as you point out,
Speaker 1: you know, you could go, you could go in the
Speaker 1: other direction, but clearly ron you you having having taken
Speaker 1: taken that experience of yours. Now I'm actually struck with
Speaker 1: a lot of people that I do connect with, uh
Speaker 1: on the on the on this podcast, who were who
Speaker 1: were involved with those causes and and they do have
Speaker 1: a personal connection like like yours to this thing literally
Speaker 1: being that kid you know, on welfare with a with
Speaker 1: a single mom who just you know, really could use
Speaker 1: a baseball glove or whatever it is. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's amazing that you've taken that and and turned
Speaker 1: it into this this thing. Alice's kids, what would you
Speaker 1: say elaborate that kind of yes, please, please please explain.
Speaker 4: When we were kids, we did get a lot of
Speaker 4: well intentioned charities coming to our doorstep giving those boxes
Speaker 4: of clothes and food and stuff. But honestly, but while
Speaker 4: we appreciate it, it was embarrassing, especially when they take your
Speaker 4: picture and put in the newslettersh Like Patton said, there's
Speaker 4: a lot of shaming. So what we do is we
Speaker 4: get a request from the teacher, let's say in Des Moines,
Speaker 4: asking for us to for a dick Sporting Goods card
Speaker 4: gift card for you know, for shoes, for soccer shoes.
Speaker 4: We get the request and within twenty four hours we
Speaker 4: send a gift card to the teacher. The teacher points
Speaker 4: out the gift card, gives it to the parent. Avery
Speaker 4: can then turn around to the child to say, hey, Johnny,
Speaker 4: let's go to Dick's Sporting Goods this weekend and get
Speaker 4: those soccer cleats or get those sneakers. The kid doesn't know,
Speaker 4: like Patten said, that they're getting charity. Yeah, they look
Speaker 4: at mom and say, oh my gosh, Mom, thanks so much.
Speaker 4: The teacher has a chance to shine. The kid goes shopping.
Speaker 4: You know how many of these kids would never see
Speaker 4: a Dick's Sporting Goods if it wasn't for that gift card.
Speaker 3: So it doesn't interest and the parents get to have
Speaker 3: some dignity, right, Like everyone.
Speaker 2: Wins in this. It's so it just again the payoff
Speaker 2: is exponential.
Speaker 1: What are the types of things that the kids are
Speaker 1: most in need of that you're seeing are most in
Speaker 1: need of these days? Curious about that.
Speaker 4: Well, it's it's clothes. Kids always need clothes. You know,
Speaker 4: there was growing out of clothes. Or we see a
Speaker 4: lot of school uniforms. A lot of schools are requiring
Speaker 4: school uniforms and kids are staying home because they can't
Speaker 4: afford school uniforms. We just got a request the other
Speaker 4: day for a kid who got accepted into a competition
Speaker 4: for future educators, but they required a certain dress mode
Speaker 4: and her power was unemployed and she couldn't afford the
Speaker 4: dress code uniform. So he paid I think it was
Speaker 4: fifty dollars we paid for that uniform. It could be
Speaker 4: a band outfit. Yeah, yesterday it was a girl who's
Speaker 4: growing too quickly and she she's very embarrassed by her
Speaker 4: large chest. When she goes to physical education. She has
Speaker 4: a horrible bra and she's you know, she's very embarrassed
Speaker 4: when she asked to do jumping jacks. This is an
Speaker 4: actual request that we got we paid for two bras
Speaker 4: was seventy five dollars. It was nothing to us, but
Speaker 4: it's a it's a it's a game changer. And you know,
Speaker 4: people talk about kids want new sneakers and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: What people don't understand is that these kids who were
Speaker 4: already stigmatized, they don't they don't want to stand out.
Speaker 4: They want to blend in. So when they go to school,
Speaker 4: they're not going around showing off their new shirt necessarily.
Speaker 4: They just want to blend in. They don't want to
Speaker 4: be stigmatized by the bully in that school.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and also you were pointing out these there are
Speaker 3: some exceptionally talented kids who get opportunities academically athletically, but
Speaker 3: then that opportunity gets stimy because they can't afford the equipment.
Speaker 3: They have the ability, and then that ability gets thwarted
Speaker 3: and nipped in the bud because then they can't afford it.
Speaker 2: So especially when.
Speaker 3: Like this person made the national marching band but cannot well,
Speaker 3: it definitely paid for that stuff because that's a talent
Speaker 3: that's just going to feed their self esteem and help
Speaker 3: them see the world. You know, like that those really
Speaker 3: really land.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing that is amazing. Well, Ron, what would
Speaker 1: you what would be the what would be the best
Speaker 1: way for I mean, I'm sure that there's a we
Speaker 1: can talk about where people can go to donate. Is
Speaker 1: there also opportunities for volunteerism or are you also on
Speaker 1: the UH website looking for people, because I bet you
Speaker 1: you're gonna get flooded with people calling and saying I
Speaker 1: know a kid that needs this, and how can people
Speaker 1: help out? Give us the This is the call to action?
Speaker 4: Okay, many ways. Our website is Alice's Kids dot Org.
Speaker 4: You go to the website and clear as day, there's
Speaker 4: a donate button. Every dollar that we raise, you know,
Speaker 4: will go into that one pot. The more money we raised,
Speaker 4: the more kids we can help.
Speaker 2: It's that simple.
Speaker 4: And we've done very well in the past years because
Speaker 4: of Patten and others. You know, a budget a few
Speaker 4: years ago was about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: Now it's one point two million dollars. In fact, I'd
Speaker 4: have to say that big chunk of that was at
Speaker 4: one two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for us on
Speaker 4: Celebrity Jeopardy.
Speaker 1: Early Awesome, Wow, Wow, Kira just went on Celebrity Jeopardy, Patent.
Speaker 2: Well what women she did?
Speaker 1: She did yet it was like just her worst nightmare.
Speaker 1: She hasn't trying to think anyway. Yeah, she was it hard.
Speaker 3: It's it is so I don't want to take away
Speaker 3: from run. It's nerve wracking. And what's the worst part
Speaker 3: is the easiest questions are the ones that you think
Speaker 3: twice on because you're like, wait, it cannot be that obvious,
Speaker 3: and then you freeze up and then someone else gets it.
Speaker 2: That's what, by the way, crazy.
Speaker 1: By the way, I think it's great the highlights Celebrity
Speaker 1: Jeopardy because now we're seeing the where it actually goes
Speaker 1: and we're talking to the receiver two of this. So
Speaker 1: when you watch Celebrity Jeopardy ladies and gentlemen and you
Speaker 1: see Pat and Oswalt sweating it out, you literally know
Speaker 1: that this is that this is time and possible embarrassment.
Speaker 1: Well spent, but two hundred and fifty grand that's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were all sweating it out. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and Adam got a commendation from the Virginia House
Speaker 4: of Delegates. Were doing that because he went to William
Speaker 4: and Merritta, which I think I sent it to you. Pat, Oh,
Speaker 4: I have it.
Speaker 2: Don't think I don't have it.
Speaker 3: And by the way, you if they go to and
Speaker 3: I'm just I don't mean to speak for you, Kevin,
Speaker 3: but if you go to al is it Alice's Kids
Speaker 3: dot org. Yes, if you go to Alice's Kids dot
Speaker 3: org and donate because you listen to this podcast, technically
Speaker 3: you are one degree.
Speaker 2: Away from Kevin Bacon. Kevin, there, you are now connected
Speaker 2: to Kevin Bacon.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm not I am not above selling degrees of separation.
Speaker 1: It's for a good cause. If it's for a good cause.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And Kevin, I want to reiterate that what you
Speaker 4: do and what Panda it really does have an effect,
Speaker 4: you know that Teresa Vargas column. Like you said, media
Speaker 4: really has an impact, particularly when that's why Panda. Hate
Speaker 4: to say it, but Twitter is so powerful for us.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And Pat, so I was retweeting our stuff or re
Speaker 4: exing our stuff. But what you all are doing for
Speaker 4: other charities, yeah, but particularly it is very very commendable.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Well, what you're doing is very much
Speaker 1: in line with what we're trying to highlight here, both
Speaker 1: on this podcast but also at sixty degrees dot org
Speaker 1: and that you know, we we like the fresh ideas,
Speaker 1: the cool ideas, you know what I mean, the new
Speaker 1: things that you just kind of come up with something
Speaker 1: you see a need and you figure out a way
Speaker 1: to help in their grassroots organizations. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: of really really giant charities that are doing great work
Speaker 1: and have great exposure and have very very lavish, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of events and stuff like that. But we also
Speaker 1: want to give a voice in a microphone to people
Speaker 1: like you Ron who have this you know, this idea
Speaker 1: and it's it's growing and it's helping kids. And I
Speaker 1: just want to say thank you and thank you guys
Speaker 1: so much for being here today.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you seriously. Nice seeing it again, Paton, great,
Speaker 2: seeing you again.
Speaker 4: Kevin.
Speaker 3: I've again don't want to be a movie nerd. Been
Speaker 3: a fan since Animal House, you all, and one of
Speaker 3: my favorite of many movies you're in. You're scene in
Speaker 3: Tremors with Fred Ward when you realize, oh my god,
Speaker 3: we can't make fun of that guy's lifestyle anymore, the
Speaker 3: crazy right wing gunnut who actually kills one of the worms,
Speaker 3: and your look on your face, you look genuinely concerned that, oh,
Speaker 3: we can't make fun of him anymore, and that was like.
Speaker 2: A big part of our lives. One of the best
Speaker 2: line readings.
Speaker 1: I love that. Thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Yep, sorry, I had to run that in there.
Speaker 1: Sorry, just doing what I can with what I've got.
Speaker 1: There you mentioning that, all right, fellas, Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for being here. Hey, thanks for listening to another
Speaker 1: episode of Six Degrees with Kevin Big. To learn more
Speaker 1: about Alice's Kids and all the special work that they
Speaker 1: are up to, all you gotta do is head to
Speaker 1: their website Alice's Kids dot org. You can find all
Speaker 1: those links in our show notes listen. If you've been
Speaker 1: following along all season. I just got to say special
Speaker 1: thank you for supporting these stories and all the great
Speaker 1: work that these organizations are doing, just to try to
Speaker 1: make this world of ours a little brighter. As always,
Speaker 1: if you like what you hear, you can subscribe to
Speaker 1: the show. You can tune into the rest of our episodes.
Speaker 1: Trust me, there're some good ones. You can find Six
Speaker 1: Degrees with Kevin Bacon on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and see you next time