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The Tipping Point
About this episode
Reflecting on a recent Christmas tour, Jerry shares his experiences and challenges while on the road, including missed family moments and the grind of ensemble performances. He reminisces about the cowboy culture and contrasts it with modern portrayals, expressing a longing for authenticity. Jerry discusses the ups and downs of touring, the quirks of various venues, and the joy of connecting with audiences. He also touches on personal growth, clarity in friendships, and the excitement of upcoming opportunities, all while embracing the chaos of life.
Topics:
touring challenges
cowboy culture
family moments
personal growth
audience connection
Christmas performances
authenticity
upcoming opportunities
Cars:
Mazda RX-7
A road weary JW tells a few tales behind his recent exploits on the Christmas tour before delving off into deep analysis of the precipice in his life.
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Car
Mazda Rottie
"[2054.0s] on the Mazda Rottie this year, [2065.0s] over 100,000 miles on the way home."
The Mazda Rottie is a fun nickname for the Mazda RX‑7, a small sports car that uses a special type of engine called a rotary. It’s known for being lightweight and having a unique way of making power, which makes it popular among car lovers.
The "Mazda Rottie" is a nickname for the Mazda RX‑7, a lightweight sports car famous for its rotary engine. The RX‑7 was produced in several generations from the 1970s through the early 2000s and is prized by enthusiasts for its unique power delivery and handling.
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Steel remembers fire, Grass remembers rain, Everybody's scar tells the stoic heart out the pain. If you go dig and song, best mind what you find. The truth is the wrecking yard. I'm Jerry Wang, Longmer, Yao, Zimbley still Yao.
Welcome here in the church of internal combustion. We just asked that show up with an open heart. The gang is going to be a short one today. I apologize in advance but your boy is just wore slapped the F out. If you want to be honest. I just got home after being gone like literally pulled up in the driveway 15 minutes ago.
After a four hour drive back from Rome, Texas. On a combined maybe six hours of sleep over this past weekend, past four days. I'm a little cut. As the kids say, I'm cut. I don't think that's how they use it. It doesn't matter. I'm very happy to be home though. It's funny.
When you're home and you're in your own spot, there's all these little things that just irritate the piss out of you. The gutter, I got to bend in my gutter. I got a roof thing, I got to fix. I got work to do on the cars. It feels like there's always something to work on. The plumbing issue, I got to straighten out. I got an electrical issue, I got to straighten. There's just always, I got leaves, I need to clean up.
It's never ending. You know, you know how it is. It's never ending. My boy, man, when you're going away from it on the road, it's just the best place in the world to meet you, pull up and drive away. I was so happy to pull down my leaf covered driveway today. I just happy to be back in my own place with my people, you know, with Rachel and the children.
And I know it's only going to be even more this year, you know. And not disillusioned with the road, just a little weary. Just a little weary.
But we just, we wrapped up the Christmas tour, William Lee Martin's Christmas tour last night in Great Bind, Texas.
The Me Daring William went out to celebrate some William's friends. And there were, there was 14 people there at the little celebration afterwards at the hotel being in Great Bind, Texas. We'll fancy, fancy place.
And 14 people are all husband and wife couples. And of the seven men that were there alongside me, I was the only one not wearing cowboy hat or pair of boots.
I was in a sea of Fort Worth cowboys.
And they're all right, I reckon it.
Not all of them, but some of it feels a little performative, you know, kind of country club cowboy type stuff.
I kind of, maybe kind of long for the days is like cowboys like my father-in-law, you know, he's a steerwrestler. I mean, cowboy.
His best friend Tommy do. That means by the cowboys, anybody ever met my life. It made me long for them, you know, back when they didn't wear $600 hats and $500 boots.
It made me kind of long for those days. And the folks that grew up outside, you all got your own version of it somewhere. You know, if you grew up Ireland, you probably got some version of that type of dude.
And you probably also remember the older version. And it made me long for the older version.
You guys are just tough as nails and eat barbed wire and spit nails if they needed to.
I grew up in Texas. I was fortunate to grow around a great number of old hardened cowboys, just tougher in fence wire, you know what I mean?
Them fellas that.
Just just just tough, just full of grip, you know, not, not, don't make you see them in a place like that.
This is a different breed. Just made me think about that, maybe missing a little bit.
The Christmas tour has been a grind. It's a grind every year. It's not. It ain't like doing a.
Well, I'm tired. It ain't like doing a standup, you know, I mean, I do do standup on the show, but.
When I go out and do standup, all I have to worry about is ticket sales and my performance. That's it. You know, I got worried about the job I do, and that's it.
But when you do a show like this with the ensemble show, there's just so many moving parts.
And any, any, any five things can go wrong and throw those parts away.
And it's a lot to keep track of. It's a lot of rehearsal and the travel schedule is a grind.
We've just been going since the end of November, you know, and it feels like December has just flown by me and.
I'm pretty torn to whether I'm going to do it next year or not.
In all honesty, I do have a good time doing it. I do like being a part of something just fun and a little campy and Christmassy and just fun for the whole family, just just a little laid back goofy fun stuff, you know.
It's usually kind of a pick me up in the year, but this year was a little bit more of a grind. I'm just, I'm just a little run down and.
As a result, you know, I missed out on my oldest kids, Juni, I missed out on Juni's end of the year concert.
I had to watch it on my phone from the dressing room, which it's a privilege to be able to do that this day and age, because you know, well, technology would have me.
And boy, Juni just killed it, you know, just knocked it out of the park and everybody had wonderful things to say about it.
All right, none of our shows is bad, you know, they weren't bad. They were all, everyone of them was here, everyone of them was a banger of a show.
We're going to have a single bad show of the run.
Some of the years we've done it, you know, there's a couple of shows that takes wild to tune it up and get it working right.
This show, we had it tuned right after the first show and the first show was still good, you know.
But we had it so tuned after that first show that it was ready to rock and roll.
Oh, that is tired, yeah.
We did post-blade water last week and then.
Just played a lot of, I don't even know my days run together.
Now, last week we had, yeah, we had glade water, then we had a cancellation.
We were supposed to be in the free port and that show got canceled.
We replaced it with a show in Shawnee, Oklahoma, not knowing that was the night of the Alabama OU game, which is a very storied franchise, Alabama OU.
And it's a storied rivalry, if you will, you know, that's a big deal.
I don't, you know, I struggle, we'll get in that a little bit, actually.
So we, I left here Thursday morning, early Thursday morning about six o'clock in the morning and drove up the Rome Texas to meet Bill and Darren.
And then we immediately hopped in the truck and headed to El Reno, Oklahoma, which I promised myself the last time I was in El Reno, Oklahoma was going to be the last time I was in El Reno, Oklahoma.
And then I saw the tourist schedule and found out Bill had booked this show there, realized I was going to be in El Reno one more time.
And my feelings remain the same.
El Reno, Oklahoma, I just, you know, I can't give away tickets in that town.
I don't know what it is, but there ain't five people in that town that give two shits about seeing my show and I'm not going back.
I do my best to advertise and market for them every time and it just, it just never goes anywhere.
I do great Oklahoma City, I do great in Tulsa, I do great in other parts of Oklahoma.
I don't do work to flip in El Reno, Oklahoma.
And it's just, it's not a fight I want to keep happening. It's not a profitable fight. I lose my ass every time I go up there financially.
We did have a good show, we had, you know, we had a good 60 people there had a, had a banger of a show, you know, the people that came.
But they didn't come see me, they came see William, he has a good follow on there.
And it was a killer show.
We got done with that and we went to some little rundown dive called the Tuxedo Bar.
And I ventured to say there's never been a Tuxedo in that bar.
And most expensive dive bar ever been in my life, two rounds of drinks for three days and 75, 80 bucks to get out of there.
Oh my lord, did I have to pay extra for the cigarette smoke I've been choking on all night.
Pay extra to sit next to a cold center block wall. I'm not sure to pay extra for some of the worst karaoke I ever heard in my life, probably.
And yeah, that's just, that's a, that's a stop. I will not be making. I will not be doing that myself again.
I just, I got no interest in it.
And we got up the next morning and we didn't have a hotel room in Shawnee.
So we just drove out to Shawnee.
And one, I will tell you, here's my one, my one singular gym in El Reno, Oklahoma.
There's this little rundown, little restaurant, grill, whatever you want to call it.
Called Roberts Grill.
And Roberts Grill, just this little match book sized place that you go off into and it's mostly griddle and counter space.
You sit around counter and you order whatever you want, whatever you want. He's going to make it don't make you just order whatever you want.
He's going to make you want to chill a cheese dog in the morning. He's going to make it, baby.
You want to, you want to earn your bird. He's going to make it. But he makes something the best bacon and eggs.
It's just perfect. Every time baking eggs look toast, good hash brown, greasy hash brown, soak up some of that bad whiskey from the night before.
And so we went over and got some good breakfast. So if you do happen to find yourself stuck in El Reno, Oklahoma with no hope of escape, just know that there's Roberts Grill.
And it's a singular gym within that time.
We got next morning went over Roberts eight and caught up on a little work in the hotel lobby and some social media work before heading out to
Shawnee.
Shawnee was a trip.
It's not a long trip, but Shawnee in and of itself was a trip.
So normally the theater he plays there is called the Ritz.
And the man named Lauren that runs the Ritz for the city, but the Ritz theater was temporarily closed.
They had some kind of somebody come out there. It's in an old historic part of town.
And somebody hired a fella.
Didn't know what he was doing to tear down part of a building and he ended up knocking the whole facade off an old historic building.
That was all having to be fixed.
Two years ago, they had a fire. The place might be cursed.
Like two years ago to the day of that facade falling off, they had a fire.
And like most old theaters, it's reportedly haunted.
El Reno theaters supposed to be haunted.
I tell you the last time I was in El Reno, it's got the dressing room is down in the basement.
And it's a dungeon-y sort of place down there.
And I was sitting down there in the basement while Barry Laminek was on stage messing around my phone in front of this little mirror.
And I swear to everything that I felt somebody put a hand on my neck.
And I about jumped out of my skin.
I grabbed everything I had in that dressing room, took it upstairs.
And I just sat behind stage rest of the night. I didn't go back down that dressing room.
Most of these old theaters got some stories. Most of these old theaters reportedly got some hints running around them.
The Ritz and Johnny, no exceptions, pulling these stories about that place.
But because that theater, we couldn't use that theater.
They took us out to a place called Sarkey's Performance Arts Center.
And it's a part of an old Catholic school, really, really large Catholic school.
It's probably a university, that one time I think it's called Abbey University, something along the line.
And at some point, Abbey University closed down.
And the story is so convoluted, they sold it to the owner of the Hobby Lobby.
The guy that owns Hobby Lobby, the main dude, he bought this old university and all its land.
Except the museum, there's a museum on site.
And he owned everything except the museum.
And he gave that Oklahoma Baptist University.
And Oklahoma Baptist University coming there and stripped everything they could out of them buildings that was worth the flip.
And took it and put it in their building.
And then just left this place to sit.
Or they brought a bunch of their old junk over and left it in there.
And they used it as storage, the old theater and their things.
It was just tons of antique junk theater lighting, non-digital stuff.
Not much call for anymore.
And kind of looked like a theater graveyard in there a little bit.
We got there, we had to sweep up and clean the theater.
It was a mess. The floor was a mess, crap all over the floor.
The bill gets there, I feel like the little rascals. Let's put it on a show.
You know, we're out there sweeping the floor and cleaning stuff up.
Anyways, the story now, so on that property, there's a bunch of Benedictine monks
that still own parts of that property.
And I guess at some point the monks had some other land in Oklahoma that they traded back for the rest of the college.
Now, they have control over the game.
Now, mind you, the whole time they're telling me all this information about the monks,
I'm not that familiar with Catholicism.
And the whole time they're giving us this information about the monks,
the...
All that's running through my mind is, I was thinking about Tibetan Buddhist monks.
You know, the guys on top mountain, the shave head, all the guys that are like marching across America
in protest right now.
I was thinking to the Buddhist Tibetan monks and I was like, how in the hell did they end up owning a Catholic school in Oklahoma?
It wasn't until much later in the day that it dawned on me that Catholics also have monks.
And these were Benedictine Catholic monks.
Right next, right to attach to the theaters of museum.
And for whatever reason, I don't, is the Garib Museum, the Garib Museum of Art, something like that.
For whatever reason, this museum has the only mummies in Oklahoma, the only mummies in Oklahoma.
Oh, there's a... I wish I put my fives smelling a weird smell out here.
Might be me. I've literally just got out of the car.
So they got three mummies in there. They got shrunken heads.
They've had a mummified cat in various displays.
They also have one of the only portraits of a pope that is allowed outside of the Vatican.
And this portrait was done by somebody who studied the Mona Lisa, a great deal, and learned how to paint it.
And it's really, really old. I don't remember which pope it is.
You know, I could probably look it up and tell you all that. You go look it up yourself.
I don't suppose it really matters. But this painting of this pope and his chair, it follows you everywhere you go through the room.
That dude's staring at you. He's very creepy, very creepy.
Remind me of... Is it bigo from Ghostbusters 2?
You know, that painting is just looking at everybody.
That painting has its eyes on you everywhere you go in that room.
It's a little much, it's a little much. I didn't like giving me the heavy jeepies or the fan.
I love a good museum.
But sometimes when it comes to old things and bodies and stuff like that,
I don't, you know, I just, I don't, I ain't got no truck with that.
That's not, it's not my type of thing.
My people don't put bodies on display.
You know, I remember there was this big exhibit traveling around for a while.
I think it was called Body Art, where they had taken human bodies that were donated to the project,
you know, by the owners, by the human before they died.
Made all these art exhibits of like the, the vascular system and all that.
That's why I couldn't, I mean, I wasn't smart enough, but I couldn't have been a doctor working a mortgage and like that,
because that stuff just creeps me smooth out.
My wife won't go that. I said, there ain't no way in hell I'm going that.
I love you. I ain't going.
And she went and checked it out and had a great time, but it just didn't move.
We all got her limits. That's mine.
And so I go in this room with these mummies.
One of them's a lady named Tutu, and she's all covered up.
She's got the shrouded mask and all that good stuff.
But you can kind of tell them rags and bindings that there's a little bit of old body under there.
You know, and that, you know, a little about that.
I don't know about that.
And then there's another one called Horace.
He was named Horace after Horace.
And he's still in its sarcophagus.
You can't see nothing Horace.
It's just a little sarcophagus laying there inside a display.
And then they had another one that didn't have a name.
And it was apparently a person who didn't have much money.
And they had that sarcophagus open so that you can see the mummified body inside.
And I'm sure this people won't want to see that, you know,
but you just, you can see the teeth.
And that was whoop.
Nope.
Nope.
That's how you end up carrying a spirit on with you.
I ain't doing it, you know.
I looked at this long enough to get real good and creeped out
and then spent the rest of my time walking through the rest of that museum.
And they had some neat stuff.
There's some paintings and what I have here.
But more seeing them peat through their mummified rags just,
I don't know.
Didn't do it for me.
It was time to get the hell out of that place.
And we went over and we toured the chapel.
You know them Catholic folks, they sure know how to build a church.
Boy, they put some money in the church.
Beautiful stained glass windows.
Just glorious, glorious chapel.
Just beautiful floors.
Beautiful artwork everywhere.
I grew up Pentecostal.
We didn't have all that.
We just had a, you know, little old building in a drummer.
Put a bunch of highfalutin artwork and such.
We just need a good sound system in a drummer and some carpeted altars.
And that was pretty good for the Pentecostals.
This is weird that we toured.
It's a beautiful campus, you know.
Oklahoma, a great deal of Oklahoma is very beautiful.
Went, did that show that show.
Everything that should have went wrong,
that could have went wrong, went wrong before that show.
We didn't get to actually rehearse until five minutes after the doors were supposed to open
because the sound guide just disappeared.
In the middle of sound check, the sound guide decided to go get his girlfriend some food.
And they're all volunteers.
I don't know what you do.
You can't really raise hell with a volunteer.
It's all a nonprofit, but.
And the, and the light guy disappeared.
He went off, go get some food to somewhere in the middle of us,
trying to set up all the lights and get everything going in that place.
And, of course, Bill,
who's, who's toured this is, wasn't happy with none of that.
And there's a lot of stress right before the show.
Not getting to rehearse, not getting to really go over all our sand cues with the,
what you call it, the sound guy who didn't show it up again,
but Madden refused to do the job.
So we had to get somebody who wouldn't have sound guy to run all the cues.
And that, of course,
starts you off in a rocky place.
And we managed to pull it together.
We got together, Bill, we pulled it together before we went out there
and put on a hell of a good show in China.
I made a woman in the front left row, laughed so hard.
I honestly thought she might was going to have a stroke.
That woman was snorting and cackling so hard.
I thought she was done for for a minute there.
She doubled over.
Of course, the meet and greet had some friends come out and see
while my old buddy Philip Barnhardt,
the heart throb, he's old wrestler.
He come out to see us.
And we just had one of the Benedictine monks come and watch the show
and come up to his afterwards and think this for the work we were doing,
the joy we were spreading and the message of Christmas
and gave us a little blessing.
And that felt nice, you know.
That was the night of the Alabama OU game.
So you got the stop beat out of him
and a lot of unhappy people in Oklahoma about that.
And I made a little joke.
I said, well, we got to get back to Texas for that flood of tears
and Norman Oklahoma washes out the road.
The boys of Oklahoma's got mad.
You fact some of them come out and call me names and stuff
and I was making a little joke.
It's probably because I have a hard time related that.
I have a hard time relating to the sports thing.
I do anything like that.
I don't mean that in a bad way.
I'm not trying to take away from you if you are into it.
I just don't get it.
I didn't grow up a sports guy though.
And I didn't go to college.
I didn't grow up with that raw, raw, our team kind of stuff.
I remember it from high school, but it was always like,
oh, if we win, great, if we don't, whatever.
That's where I struggle with it.
Is that people see something like, oh, we won.
You didn't win shit.
They won.
But you didn't win.
We lost.
You didn't lose a damn thing.
It's not going to affect unless you work for the organization.
It's probably not going to affect your life tomorrow.
I don't understand.
Tying your mood to other people's accomplishments.
I guess I've always just been too worried.
Maybe I'm just too self-centered.
That might be the problem.
I'm just not a team guy.
My mood has always been directly tied to my own accomplishments
and my own failures.
But not others.
I just don't get into it.
I like automotive racing.
I got a few favorite drivers out there.
If they lose, they lose.
If they win, they win.
And I'm happy for them.
But I take no ownership over that
and place none of that into myself.
I love David Gravel's one of my favorite outlaw sprint drivers.
I love David Gravel.
I love watching at man race.
But if he don't win a championship,
it ain't going to affect my day to day.
If he does win the championship,
it don't affect my day to day.
Even with professional sports,
that stuff just wild.
I live in Houston.
The Houston Astros had a couple of good years there.
The only thing I really appreciate,
I was happy for them that they won.
But I didn't feel like I won nothing.
The one thing I will say that I do appreciate about it
is that when they do win,
the morale in the city is high.
Everybody's proud to be a Houstonian.
And I like that feeling.
I like to see people walk around their head up high.
I don't agree with the reason.
My wife explained me that's why it was when she was in college.
When Texas Tech was doing good,
everybody on campus was in a good mood.
Happy walk around high-five.
And likewise, when they were not doing well,
everybody on campus was brung down a little bit.
Maybe it's just because I didn't have that experience.
I don't fault anybody for doing that stuff.
I have a hard time relating to it.
I really do.
I've really been trying to open my perspective on it
and understand it.
And I just have a real difficult time
getting my brain to connect with those dots.
And I met some people in my life
that don't seem to have much in the way
of hopes and dreams and ambitions for themselves.
They just want a nice life.
But they're not trying to grab no ring.
They're not trying to get nowhere.
They're just trying to have some peace
and enjoy their life.
I'm not saying all sports fans are like that
or people that are fan-minded mentality
when it comes to that kind of stuff or like that.
I've been saying,
with that type of person,
I kind of understand,
like this is your thing.
This is your thing you're locked into.
And I get it a little bit.
If you don't have specific goals
you're trying to achieve for yourself.
I can kind of understand that.
I mean, I can't understand not having
ambition and dreams
because I just been a little dreamer boy
since I was a kid in the record yard.
I always wanted to be something.
I didn't know what it was yet.
But there was always something burning inside of me
that wanted a little more out of life.
That's always puzzling me.
I struggle to understand why people get so upset
or so worked up about that stuff.
And I probably shouldn't made the joke.
The joke was mean-spirited.
But I didn't really think it was at the time
but the more I've reflected on it,
it probably was.
I had to do better in the future.
I ain't looking to anger people.
I was just being silly.
We got it.
We made it.
We drove from SHINee straight back to Decatur, Texas.
I got in about one, two in the morning.
I finally got to sleep three or four in the morning.
And we got up at 80 o'clock.
We got ready and hit the road over the grapevine
to get in the theater and start rehearsing
at about 10.30 a.m.
We had two shows in grapevine.
We had a 3 p.m. matinee show
and then those were always sketchy.
You know, matinee shows are hit or miss.
Stand up don't always work in daylight.
And then we had a 7 p.m. show.
And I'm a little superstitious on two show days.
I really, especially when there's a matinee show
because it almost always seems to me
one of them shows is not going to go well.
And the matinee show, we blew it out.
We blew the doors off at place.
I had something 370 people there.
And literally just rock and roll blew the doors off at place.
And folks that came out to see it
look like they had a good time.
We did a little meet and greet afterwards.
Everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves.
You get an hour or two to chill out backstage
but we're still working on, you know,
we're still getting things right, tweaking things on the show
because you never stop working on the show.
And so by the time the second show rolls around,
we've just been going all day.
And the back of my head, I was like,
boy, if that matinee show was that good,
this show is about to eat it.
This show is going to be the worst show of the tour.
There's a little cynicism that sits around in my brain pan.
Lo and behold, that 7PM show was a banger to it.
We took that trajectory from that 3PM show
and then turned it to a, you know,
every single hairier is when they land,
and my hairier get, they cocked that face and not the hairier.
What's that jet?
They come in F14, F14 when they come in
and they took that nose up.
We did with the altitude on that thing.
We just took it pointed it straight up
and sent it through the roof.
And it was a banger show.
We had over 400 people in that show.
All in all, we entertained about 800 people.
And everybody seemed real happy
and seemed like they enjoyed the hell out of it.
And it's, you're doing something like that.
You're spent, you know,
like I said, we went out and had a few drinks
that were celebrated, but I was cooked.
And the time we got back to Bill's house,
it was very two in the morning.
I went and talked to my wife a little bit
and we talked on the phone about 233 o'clock in the morning.
And then I tossed and turned and tried to sleep.
It's hard to sleep after all the energy of a show like that.
It's just, it's hard to just turn that off and go to bed.
It's fine, so many comics end up doing drugs
and having addiction issues.
It's hard to turn that energy off.
It's too wired up to go to sleep,
but too tired to ride or do anything productive.
It's too wired up to go to sleep,
but too tired to ride or do anything productive.
Hmm, sorry about that.
The time we got done with it anyways,
I just, I tossed and turned and didn't sleep or to flip
and then got up at about eight
and put myself together
and get my check from Bill
and get on the road and head back to Houston.
Whew.
And now, what the good news is,
I'm off.
I am off until,
at least from the road,
not from podcast and social media
that I got to keep all that up,
but I'm taking a break from the road.
It dawned on me that I had put 25,000 miles
on the Mazda Rottie this year,
mostly schlepping my ass by myself back and forth,
twin gigs.
And the old Mazda Rottie hit
over 100,000 miles on the way home.
And I just, I need a minute to be still.
I need a,
just, I just got to hit the pause button
for about a month.
And so I'm taking off the rest of Christmas
and I'm going to sit here
and join my time with my family
with a little bit of the Christmas season I got left
and have a quiet new year's here at the house.
Just take a month.
Right towards the middle of February
it gets busy again.
I'm doing a big show in Nacodotus
at the Lamplett Theatre in Nacodotus, Texas.
And then scored a man,
Rachel scored me a hell of a gig
at the Balkan gas company in Austin, Texas.
It's a really nice place.
I worked there last year with Sam Miller
as his feature act.
And they, Rachel and them been going back forward.
They gave me a headline and date on the weekend.
So I'm going there in March.
And Rachel's working the whole time I got home
because she has done,
cooked me up a tour of Ireland in July.
We're going to do some shows in Ireland.
Karen, you hear that?
Where are you at, Karen?
There's Ken Sella.
I'm coming your way.
I don't know exactly where you're at.
I can't remember right off the top of my head right now,
but we're trying to...
I think she told me they're trying to put a six-show run
together in Ireland right now,
so it's looking like.
There's going to be at least a few,
but I think they're trying to add some shows.
This building might get to go over to Belgium
and do some shows in Belgium.
And that would be a treat to my grandfather's twin brother
who was killed in World War II.
He's one of the American soldiers that was buried
in a cemetery in Belgium.
And nobody in my family has ever seen that gravesite.
We're not exactly going to Belgium money kind of folks.
My grandfather never even got to see his brother's grave.
But I have the coordinates to exactly where it is.
And a friend of mine there in Belgium
has offered to take me out there to the cemetery
and help me find my great uncle Carl's grave,
which would just be fantastic.
Would it be my great uncle?
I don't know.
It's my grandfather's brother.
I don't know if that's great uncle or not.
I can never remember how that crap lines out.
So it'd be something.
It'd be the first long-mired goal there to set eyes on it.
I don't know what something would be.
I'm not a big graveyard person, but it'd be something.
But at least it won't be out in a clay pot
with teeth sticking out of the rags.
You know, my folks didn't do much of that.
So I'm psyched about that, man.
I'm psyched.
I've never been to Ireland.
And I'm just tickled pink.
The Rachel has put all that together.
And we're trying to go a little crazy this year.
We're trying to, one of my bucket lists
is to perform at the French festival in Scotland.
And honestly, the craziest part about it
is I can buy a plane ticket
to Ireland cheaper than I can buy a plane ticket to Louisville, Kentucky,
which is just wild to me.
I can get tickets to go to Ireland $600.
I'm going to spend $800 trying to get to Louisville.
Good Lord, don't try to fly the Colorado Springs.
You spend the grand if you spend the dime.
So I'm really psyched about that.
That's been working on the new special.
And was working part of the new special
was within my Christmas set I was doing.
And I felt good to work some of that out.
You can't work on a lot during the Christmas show.
Most of the comedy needs to be Christmas theme.
Kind of lighthearted.
We got to keep it pretty clean, you know,
because all ages show and not all ages,
but pretty close to you.
And so this shows it's hard for me to work on new stuff
or hard for me to work on the special.
But I've been doing a lot of writing.
So the special is I want to call it the tipping point
because I feel like that's kind of where I'm at in life.
I feel like I've reached a place
where not only is my career at a tipping point,
but I feel like I'm at a tipping point in my life.
Like where I know who I can count on two hands,
number of friends I got.
Honestly, I can count on one hand the ones I keep up with.
I feel like I know who I am at this point in my life.
I love it's been because of this podcast.
I feel like I know what I'll tolerate,
what I won't have other human beings.
I feel like I understand my place in the world.
And so I've been trying to write around those ideas
and really drill it down in my head
and I can get to the material that I'm looking for.
But my Lord, I am a cooked goose right now.
I can tell because every time I try to think of something
my brain takes about 15 extra minutes getting there.
It wasn't a bad drive back from Rome.
Four hours behind the wheels,
four hours behind the wheels, especially when you run it on low sleep
and maybe a marginal hangover.
I did drink some fine bourbon last night.
I had a little buffalo trace.
I'm not the biggest buffalo trace fan, but it's good stuff.
But the best thing in four days is to pull down my driveway
and get out of my car and kiss that pretty lady I'm married to
and go over there.
I walked in the door and my oldest was running and jumped on me.
And my youngest allowed me to hug him,
which you don't always do.
A lot of neurodivergent people don't like to be touched.
And you kind of have to wait for their signal for when it's okay.
But he gave me a big hug and that always feels good for him
because you know you had to earn it.
And I look forward to imagine while I'm sitting out here chatting
with y'all while the podcast is going,
I'll be sitting on the porch, smoking some fine green,
and trying to, I think I'm going to try to power through.
I was thinking I was going to take a nap, but honestly,
it's only three o'clock now.
I'm recording this thing.
If I get it rendered and uploaded in time for 530,
it'll be a frickin' miracle.
Anyways, I really appreciate you guys tidying in there, boy.
I'm sorry during this tour and stuff.
I know some of these episodes haven't been top-notch,
but I'm looking forward to having some weeks off,
so I can focus a little harder on what we're doing here.
Also, I took the last donation of all the,
I got no more hot wheels left in the garage.
I've taken all the die-cast cars and I've donated them.
I took the last bunch of them over to Ponto Clause.
Ponto Clause is a bit of a hero here in Houston.
He's been his mission for the last 40 years,
been making sure children that go without get toys
at Christmas and stuff.
And Ponto helps the kids that really just got it the worst.
You know, the kids that kind of get forgotten by all the agencies
and the big charities.
Ponto is a boots on the ground, community worker.
And he's made it throughout his own.
He's had heart attacks and health struggles.
And the man don't make no money.
You know, he's a charitable man.
He's done a lot of, does a lot of counseling in the jail house
and all that kind of stuff.
And he's just a fantastic human being that truly cares about his mission.
And in another world, they'd called him father.
You know what I mean?
Like he's just a real good human being.
And I was just so honored to be able to be a messenger
of y'all's kindness and y'all's grace in sending all these toys
and taking them to him, knowing they're going to a good place.
And then Ponto invited me to come, Chris Macieve,
and help him hand out toys to the children.
And as tired as I am, I'm going to make sure I'm there to do that.
I'm looking forward to that opportunity.
I'm going to put on my Santa hat and I'm going to go over there
and help Ponto, be Ponto clauses, help her
and try to bring just a little more joy to the world
right before Christmas.
And that's all thanks to y'all's grace and kindness.
And I'm damn appreciative of it.
More than I'm probably properly expressed right now
because I'm a little war out, but I just want you to really know.
I'm damn appreciative.
I'm going to go ahead and wrap this thing up here.
Let's do some testimonials.
These are comments from last week's show.
Let's see what we got.
There we go at Jay Chappy Dad.
I saw your show in Great Bind last night.
I was hoping to see more of your immense talent on display.
While your material was pretty good,
the other stuff you were asked to perform was simply awful.
You're much better than that.
I've seen you on your videos and podcasts.
Best of luck on your upcoming European tour.
I hope that you get a chance to do something more insightful, funny,
and inspirational material.
Merry Christmas and God bless.
Well, Baba, you know,
you can please some of the people, some of the time,
and hell none of the people the rest of the time.
I don't know how it's saying goes.
Sorry that you didn't have a good experience,
but the Christmas show is not the place to be provocative
and it just isn't.
It's a fun for everybody type thing,
and may not be for you,
but we sure had a good time doing it.
The band that wrote that show has been entertaining people
for nearly 50 years and making a good living doing it,
so I suspect he's got a good eye on what works for him,
and it was his show.
And I have certainly enjoyed being a part of it for the last three years,
but not the best place to go if you're looking for just me.
You know, I can't be just me,
and part of an ensemble like that.
I have to be a team player,
and be a part of everything that's going on.
But I had a good time doing it, you know,
but it ain't for everybody, ain't everybody's cup of tea.
I get that.
So I'm sorry you didn't have a good experience.
Hope you come see me the next time I'm in town when it's just my show.
Maybe you'll have a better one.
And also I can't do my hard hitting material.
Yeah, it's just a different type of situation.
That's not the show to go watch if you just want to see a good stand-up show,
like a thought-provoking, interesting stand-up show.
You're not going to see that.
Not when we're having to entertain blue hairs to babies.
And though, I don't necessarily always like everything that we perform,
part of being a team player sometimes is supporting the team.
So I apologize that you did not have the experience you were looking for.
I hope you have Merry Christmas too.
At Jake of all trades, master of fun, or old buddy Jake.
My back has been out this whole week,
so bad the wife has had to put my socks on.
Couple that with this morning's temperature negative four.
Let me tell you this, our drive to work has been hell,
even in my wife's time.
But aside from that, everyone is healthy,
and I won two grand on slots.
So I'd say I still got a lot to be grateful for.
Boy, I could stand to win two grand on a slot machine right now,
except I wouldn't play it in the game with it because I hate to gamble.
But I'm proud for you, Bubba.
That's a win right there.
A little extra 2K in your pocket right before Christmas time.
I sure hope your back starts giving me some relief
and time to enjoy the rest of the Christmas season.
Let me see.
At cue ball 1971.
Love the Nutcracker Show in Gladewater.
Was row F seat four, and it definitely was cozy there,
but the show was great.
See what I mean?
You know, cue ball had a good time at the show.
I'm glad you did.
That Gladewater show was fire start to finish.
We had a good time on that stinking show.
I'll tell you that.
And hell of a good time hanging out with all Jackson
after the show for sure.
Good to be back home for a little bit.
Even if it's real brief.
I don't know.
The other 700-something people in Great Bind had a great time.
But I can't please everyone all the time.
Everybody's got a different view on what art should and should not be
and what entertainment should and should not be.
That's a...
Let's close this thing out.
It was a little piece I've been working on.
I worked on till late in the night.
It's just I don't know if you've ever...
If you've ever had a year where it feels like...
Whatever it is you believe in, but me is God.
But if you ever have a year where it feels like God took a crowbar
to your life and just started prying up the floorboards.
You know, see what was going on underneath.
And that's been me lately.
It feels like every part of my life
is sitting right on the edge of something.
Not falling apart, just kind of teetering.
Well, my career's changing.
Friendships are changing.
And some of them got louder, some of them went silent.
Some of that's my fault.
Somewhere in there I finally learned there's peace in knowing
which ones you ain't got to chase anymore.
I used to think peace meant calm.
Now I think it just means clarity.
Knowing what you'll put up with, what you won't.
Knowing who you are, who you ain't going to be anymore.
Knowing how to say no without writing a damn essay about it.
I know who my people are now.
And a lot of that's because of this podcast.
I know the shape of my voice.
I know what matters to me.
It ain't applause or likes.
Or even friendships that disappear in the second
you stop being useful.
You know, you get to a certain age
and you start running out of room for bullshit.
I don't have space in my life anymore for folks
who make me shrink just to stay in the room.
People want me to be less than.
I want truth.
I want laughter.
I want people who let me take my boots off
without feeling like I'm on trial.
And in the wild part, all that clarity, all that peace,
it showed up right when things started working.
Right when I finally got the shot I prayed for.
But that's also when the real fear crept in.
Not what if I fell.
It's more what if I succeed?
What if I get everything I thought I wanted?
I mean, really.
What if I get everything I think I want?
And I still feel like that scared little kid
from the wrecking yard watching the world
behind the pile of scrap metal and half finished dreams
and hopes.
And that's where I'm at.
This is the season of my life right now.
This exact moment.
It's a tipping point.
And I don't mean to fall.
I mean the moment where you stop holding back.
I failed enough to know it won't kill you.
I've been broke.
I've been scared.
I've buried people.
I've buried parts of myself.
But I'm finally at a point where I ain't scared of losing.
I'm scared of actually being seen a little bit.
Because if you really see me and I still ain't enough,
then I ain't got nothing left to hide behind.
But I'm leaning into it anyway.
I'm stepping into it.
Not because I'm ready.
But because I finally want it more than I'm afraid of it.
This is where I'm at.
This is my tipping point.
If I go over, that's cool.
But let it be loud.
Let it be honest as hell and let it be mine.
And if you're on the edge of something too right now,
I'm rooting for you.
Sometimes you guys want something bad enough
to chase the fear away.
And I think you probably do.
So lean hard.
Just go.
Worst thing that can happen is you dump over.
You got to write yourself again.
I'm rooting for you.
I'm JW.
And I love you.
Oh, I'm locked.
I don't know how long that water has been sitting out in this garage,
but I suspect a minute.
I don't know how water can taste old,
but that water do taste old.
I really do love you guys.
Thank you.
I'm sorry it's a short one.
We'll be back at it next week.
Thank you.
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