Jan. 18, 2025

Guest Larry the Cable Guy - Behind the Character and His Upcoming Nebraska Road Trip Tour

Show Notes
Transcript

Guest Larry the Cable Guy talks about his current 'Larry's Nebraska Road Trip' tour involving performances at smaller venues such as high schools and theaters. The episode explores the evolution of Larry’s character, originally a political commentator, and how it became the iconic, light-hearted Larry the Cable Guy. Larry shares his experiences doing live radio shows, the joys of connecting with fans, and promoting talent from his record label. He reflects on the importance of balancing career and personal life, expressing his Christian faith, his contentment with his career, and focus on family over material success. The conversation wraps up with anecdotes, including Larry’s memories of his early days in comedy with notable peers.

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WEBVTT

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Kalaroka Shark Media.

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Hey there, I'm Johnny Mack and I am high on life.

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As I record this support of the podcast. I just

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hung up with Larry, the cable guy who is today's guest.

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He is awesome. He is doing Larry's Nebraska road trip.

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You'll hear Larry explain it. He's playing smaller venues including

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Wahoo High School, Central City High School, and some other

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small theaters. This might have been the fastest half hour

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of my life. Like I looked up and we were

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just talking. Hopefully it comes true here that I actually

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know the guy and we're friends, and suddenly it was

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twenty three minutes in and I'm like, holy cow, I

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didn't even ask him about the Tory yet. So you'll

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hear me back to back two questions because I could

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have talked to him for two more hours. It would

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have been amazing along the way here. Especially note I've

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talked about this in the past, and I talk about

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it during the interview the Dan slash Larry and this

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is really an interview with Dan Whitney. If you pay

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a lot of attention, especially vocally, he turns on the

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Larry voice a little bit, but he explains how the

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character has evolved. Anyway, let's get right to it. Here's

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Larry the cable guy. That's a nice setup you got there.

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Yeah, you know what. I when I was doing all

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my Disney stuff, all my picks are stuff, they said

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for the third one and a bunch of the toys

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and stuff. You don't have to come out here, but

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you can do it at the place in Omaha. And

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I said, oh, that's awesome. I said, well, how about this.

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Can I put a studio in my barn and do

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it from the studio? Yeah, yeah, if you got the equipment,

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we'll do it from there. I said, okay, So I

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had my buddy designed me a studio and tell me

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what I need and they came in and put this in.

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It's pretty nice.

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That's nice, and that's nice work if you can get

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it right.

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I know, absolutely, it's funny. Then I put it in

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and then we ended up doing doing all that car stuff.

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And once those projects were done, it just kind of

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sits here till I do my life show and Serious

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once Wednesday a week.

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How are you enjoying a lot of radio show?

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You know what, Joah? I like doing it. I mean

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it's fun. I do it. You know, they told me

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that I didn't have to do it anymore if I

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didn't want to. But you know, we had to do

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twenty hours of live programming between Jeff and I and

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Jeff does an interview show once a week or once

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every two weeks, whatever his twenty hours is. And I

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was just gonna do this to round out to twenty.

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But I like it. I had a good time, you know.

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And I got four other people on there with me

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that work at Morale, you know, Maral of course, so yeah,

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so Moral's there, and so I love it. We have

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a good time. So I do. I do every Wednesday

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when I'm home for two hours, and I'll love it.

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So we've been doing it a long time. I just

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want to keep it going.

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I mean, it's a great way to connect with the fans.

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It's a great way to connect with the fans. You know.

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I got that. I got a record label, and I

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try to help promote some of these guys and gals

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that are on my record label. So it's a good

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way to plug them and get them played and and

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uh so I enjoy doing that.

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Do you try out lines on the radio show?

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I do all the time I try out and I

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use it as my own personal Hey, what do you

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think of this? When I wrote this yesterday, you know,

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and I'll do I'll do a bunch of stuff like that,

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I think. You know, here's the thing I if I wish,

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I mean, Larry the Cable Guy of course is the

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name and the draw. But I don't do my show

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as Larry the Cable Guy. I mean, I got I

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talk like this, this is me. I got a little accent,

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you know, but I don't sometimes I wish, you know,

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when I was doing Cars, I wanted to use my

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real name, but you know my manager at the time,

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who I'm not mentioning live ever again, My manager at

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the time said, no, you have to play it as

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you know, Larry the Cable Guy is who's doing the voice,

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because it's a brand. You're selling a brand, and you

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got merchandised. I says, okay, I mean I don't know

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much about that stuff. So so Mater from Cars was

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performed by another character, the Cable Guy performed by Dan Whitney,

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which really didn't make much sense. So I kind of

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got it'd be cool to do a radio show Dan

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Whitney and you know, people know that I'm the voice

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of Larry the Cable Guy and Mad, but now I'm

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now it's it is what it is. Everybody calls me

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Larry the Cable Guy, whether I talk with my character

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accent or regular. So even on social media, I just

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have one Larry the Cable Guy, voice of major, voice

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of you know. So it is what it is.

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It's funny since we're peeling back the curtain. I've shared

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with people who listen to my Dope podcast. You know,

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I would sometimes be blessed to be backstage and you know,

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could tell what I was talking to Dan, and could

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tell when I was talking to Larry, depending on the

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situation and how much you ramped up the accent. Is

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there a scenario where Dan might ever perform stand up comedy?

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Maybe some things that don't fit the Larry PERSONA.

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Boy I would love to because the act that I

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did before Larry the Cable Guy. That's how Larry the

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Cable Guy became to do what he does because Larry

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the Cable Guy. When I did Larry the Cable Guy,

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I wanted to create a likable Archie Bunker because I

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thought Archie was funny, but he was a douchebag to

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his wife and you know what I mean to people.

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But he was funny. You got to admit the guy

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was hilarious. So I wanted to create a character that

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wasn't a douchebag and had good points. Obviously conservative, I'm

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a conservative guy. It's a conservative guy that doesn't quite

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know how to say things in a correct way. You

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understand what he's trying to say, but he goes about

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it entirely the wrong way. And so that's what I created.

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But Larry the Cable Guy originally was a political guy.

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Every time I was on the radio, I would do

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a social commentary on what was happening. So when I

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first went on stage and people started yelling, get her done,

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we went to here Larry. I didn't have a comedy

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show geared towards Larry the Cable Guy. My comedy show

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was upbeat, fast paced, a lot of goofy jokes, a

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lot of dumb actions, physical physicality. That's what I had.

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So when I first did it, I said, well, I'm

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just going to take the next ten minutes of material

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that I got, and I'm going to do it with

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an accent and do it. Hilario would do it, and

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so you know, that's what I did, and it killed

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and that's the so I incorporated how I used to

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do my show into Larry and that's what came about. Now,

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could I go back and be myself and do these jokes, Yeah,

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it would be hilarious, but I think now it would

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just kind of throw people off and be kind of

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weird because as well, Lait a minute, Larry's not you

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know what I mean. So I think I just leave

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it as it is. It's not you know, people like it.

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It's funny. You know, I'm not too at this point, John,

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to be honest with you, I'm not too worried about it.

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I I used to be worried about separating the two

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and making sure that people knew that. But you know what,

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if it makes people laugh, I'm all about it. I

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love it. I still love it. So I love doing it.

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Nothing making. You know, when Jeff and I get together,

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we both we don't stop talking like that. You go,

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bet Neil yesterday with the potato salad. Yeah, we was

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up here. It all spoiled, not sad, and Amanda had

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to go to doctor. You know, we talked. It's funny.

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I remember hanging out backstage in Nashville with you guys

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one time, and I really enjoyed you guys are just

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riffing jokes. And Jeff had one that just doesn't work

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for capital j Capital lef Jeff Foxworthy and over a

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year and you sent one back in the other direction.

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It was just a pleasure to watch that.

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Yeah, But he would always come up with something that

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I thought was so stinking funny. But he'd like, oh, man,

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I can never do that doesn't fit, but you can

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have that. Yeah, that's exactly right. And now I'll go, hey,

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I got one I could never get to work. Maybe

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you could get this doory. So yeah, we would swap

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jokes all the time. Unfortunately, the jokes I would swap

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him were a little too uh heady for my material.

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You know. I remember one time we swapped the joke.

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I couldn't get that joke to work about my buddy

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thinks he's visited by aliens because he went outside and

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his lawn he had three little crop circles and he

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was like, what the heck aliens came. Turns out somebody

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just stole his garbage cans. Now, I always thought that

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was funny, but I could never get it to work,

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and it confused me. So I traded it with Jeff,

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who traded me the joke called poop Lazania. Oh no way,

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So poop Lazania cast me the uh trash can bit

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with the aliens. But the poop Lazaia is disgusting, But

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you gotta laugh at it because it's just thinking funny.

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I was thinking back, you know, I've known you for

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twenty something years now, it feels like yesterday.

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I could tell you.

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I remember I was standing in the hallway of Sirius

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on the outer side, on the right side there in

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the back, and Maggie was there with Jeff and she said, hey,

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you want to talk to this other guy, Larry the

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cable guy, And we were.

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Like, oh, mar whatever, Yeah, Maggie's my manager. Now.

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It was five minutes before you like super popped and

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then you just exploded there like it happened really quickly, right.

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You know, yeah, it really did, you know. But I

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had worked hard on it. I mean, when you get

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into something like comedy, anything that's in the entertainment field

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or the athletic field, well really anything, you have to

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love it. You have to love it if you just

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kind of like it, or you just kind of love it.

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It's gonna be a hard road. But if you love it,

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if you love something, man, you want to you want

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to do it all the time. You want to. You

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live it, you breathe it, you watch it. And I

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loved it, man, I loved making people laugh. And so

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when I started doing the Larry the Cable Guy character,

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I'd busted ass at it. I made sure that I

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got radio stations and morning shows that wanted to put

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it on. And I wouldn't ask for any payment. My

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payment was just promote me when I come to the

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comedy club in the area. And I worked hard on it.

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I did radio calls every day, five days a week

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for thirteen years with that Larry the Cable Guy and

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many it just work. I started selling out comedy clubs

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and and but so I say that, John, because when

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I hit when I got on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour,

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this is this is what helped me out all those

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years of plugging away and doing those morning shows. Well,

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when I got called first audition for the Blue Collar

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Comedy Tour, I think the first one was in like

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South Carolina, Greenville. Maybe it was a place where I

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was on a morning show already and had been doing

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Larry the Cable Guy for two years, and so I

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sold a ton of tickets. You know, it was a

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huge crowd, and I knew I sold. I knew me

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being on the bill had sold a ton of tickets

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because every time I went there, I would do three shows.

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I would do a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, I would do

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five shows. So I'd do two on a Saturday, two

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on a Friday. Sometimes I'd just do with the weekend.

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I do four shows. But they were packed. So you

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know that's at least four eight twelve. That's at least

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sixteen hundred people, two thousand people that saw me for

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you know, three times at least before I got on there.

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So I was ready for it. So when I went

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on stage, I man, the crowd went crazy and I

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had a great set. So the foundation was laid a

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long time before. But definitely Jeff, who was like my

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adopted older brother, he saw what I was doing and

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he knew it would work with blue Collar and Ron Man,

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he's so funny and Bill. There was just such a

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good tight thing they had going. So when I joined it,

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you know, I already had a nice foundation laid. I

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didn't really have to introduce myself to a lot of

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the markets because I was already on them. And you're right,

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from that point on, it just it was like a

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Tesla rocket, you know, and somebody pulled the lever and

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it just exploded up in the air.

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Oh man, I love him so much. We'll be right

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back with more from Larry the Cable Guy, and I

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feel the material has aged really well. I was just

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doing a mental check in my own recollection. I don't

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feel like there's jokes from twenty years ago and we're

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going to cancel Larry the Cable Guy because of something

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that worked in two thousand and five that doesn't work now.

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I feel like it was always just like joke jokes,

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having a good time, smile on your face.

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Absolutely all my stuff is so I mean, it's it's

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just nonsense. I mean, you know, being married and had

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kids has changed a lot of my act because you know,

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now I can't make up stuff, you know. I mean

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I can I make up things, obviously, But before I

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was married, I could make up two ex wives. I

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could make up you know, I could do all that

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kind of stuff. I could be going to teddy clubs

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and I could you know what I mean, You know,

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I would make up all these things that you know

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Larry was doing. But now Larry, you know now the

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character Obviously I have kids. I have to work them

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into my act because there's so much material. So now

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I actually have actual jokes about an actual family. But

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the jokes Earl made up and stupid. But it's partially factual. Yes,

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I have two kids. The other parts aren't, you know,

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But yeah, you know, it's just all goofy, goofy stuff.

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I It's not like I don't try not to look.

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If you're offended at something I do, you're gonna Obviously,

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people that come to a comedy show are going to

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get offended something. But the way I see it right

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now is I've been around a long time. People that

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are fans of Larry the Cable Guy, God bless them.

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They know what they're going to get. They know the

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kind of material I do. They know it's set up, punch,

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set up punch, stupid gestures. They know what they're going

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to get, so nothing really surprises anybody. It's not like

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I'm up there dropping f bombs and taking the Lord's

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name in vain, and you know, I don't do any all.

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My stuff is so completely goofy and I love telling

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it and like, like, I got a joke now about

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I got a joke now where I'm in Vegas And

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Henry Winkler came up to me in Las Vegas one

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of my first times ever in Las Vegas off the

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Blue Collar Tour, and he wanted to borrow five hundred

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dollars and I'm like, what the heck, Henry? He goes, no, Larry, listen,

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I need to give me five hundred dollars, and I

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swear to you meet me here in about five hours

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and I'm will give you two thousand dollars. I just

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just can you do me that favor. I'm like, yeah, man, tag,

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I'm right, Henry Winkler. I haven't seen Henry Winkler since then,

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for fourteen years. And it turns out that I got

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caught up in a Phonsie scheme. I mean, it's the

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dumbest joke, but.

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You have the physicality. It reminds me of Bob Hope.

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That's where you would take a pause and kind of

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mug for the audience and ask them nonverbally, did you

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guys get that one.

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Did you like that one? It's so much fun?

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Yeah? And that well, that's why I loved all the

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mool guys and all the stuff they used to do.

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It's the and Carson, it's after the joke that's funny,

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Like after that joke, Normally I would do something like

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it looks like I got caught up in one of

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those Fuonsie schemes. Crowd laugh, and then I'll go, how

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have I not won a Grammy? You know, just stuff

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like that. You know, one time I did. I was

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doing a celebrity golf tournament and I was doing some jokes.

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Oh man, what's his name? Famous hockey player. I'm having

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a brain fart dog on it. But anyway, he was

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there and I said a joke and they got kind

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of a so soo laugh, and I said, hey, keep

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this up, folks. I'll bring him up talk about hockey

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for an hour. You know that, in my opinion, when

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you're doing jokes like this, it's not the joke per se.

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All these jokes are all about timing and all about

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the safe. That's what these jokes are. Now, you know,

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eighty percent of them are set up boom and a

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big laugh the other twenty percent are a funny like oh, no,

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you know one of those like ah, but the punch

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is the save, and it's planned. It's not like I

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didn't you know. They're all planned. I have a ton

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of saves that are planned for individual jokes.

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I'm already watching the clock here, So I'm gonna compound

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a question because I have a couple of big topics

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that I could see. I'm not gonna get enough time already.

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So combined with that, that was John.

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That was planned so that you didn't have to have

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big questions.

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You seem to have figured out life that it's not

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only about the money, that's also about family. You clearly

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could do two hundred and seventy theaters if you wanted to.

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You have chosen not to the last few years. And

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now you're doing this Larry's Nebraska road trip. You're playing

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high schools, which is also a choice. So let me

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fold that into one big question, and can you just

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explain to us, like what you're all about now?

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Well, look, I I grew up in Nebraska, and I

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love Nebraska. I grew up in a small town in

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Nebraska has the most small towns of any state in

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the United States under A thousand and I and all

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the time that I lived here, I have only I

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resided in the Southeast corner, and I never really went anywhere.

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I know, we maybe every now and go to Omaha,

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sometimes go to Lincoln, and I've performed in Omaha, Lincoln

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and at the Fair in Grand Island, but I've never

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been anywhere else. I think I went to Hastings one

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time for a golf tournament. I went out west and

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played golf. But want I got a brand new album

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coming out, a brand new special coming out, and instead

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of just going to a comedy club and people coming

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to me and me working out Matario, I thought it

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would be cool to travel around the state, meet people

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in other parts of the state that grew up just

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like I did, and let them all be a part

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of this process of coming up with a new act

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and jokes and do my show for people that have

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supported me over all of these years, but yet never

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get to see me and I never get to be

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out there. So I just thought it would be a fun,

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unique way to do that, and that's that's why I

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do that. And I can, you know, not to proselytize

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John to people but I and it doesn't bother me.

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It doesn't bother me going from an arena to a

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high school. It doesn't bother me not doing two hundred

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and seventy shows a year to only doing twenty four

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shows a year, because comedy is my job. It's not

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my identity. It's my job, you know, And it's not

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my identity. You know. I'm a Look, I'm a Christian.

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I'm a Jesus follower, and that's my identity. I mean,

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you know, one day I'll be gone. One day I'll

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be gone, and everything that I did, it's just like

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every other entertainer. You're oh wow, remember yeah, and then

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twenty years from then you forgot You're gone. So what

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so you got a plaque on the wall, big deal,

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you know. So I think about other things. I think

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about after I'm gone, you know. I think about those things.

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And so that's not my identity. I'm not sitting at

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home depressed because I'm not working arenas anymore. I don't

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look at the TV and go, man. I remember when

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I was doing what Napragotzi's doing now, you know, and

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being old van I used to do. I don't do

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that at all. I am completely content and completely happy

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with everything that I ever got to do in my life.

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And now that I have kids and they have careers

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that they want to start doing, it's all about being

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a dad and making sure my kids are taken care

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of and following what they want to do and helping

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them out with their dreams. And so yeah, I mean

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I don't I'm very into I don't get caught up

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in any of that stuff. Because if you put your

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entire identity into what you do for a living, once

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that starts to fade, once that starts to go, then

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you got really nothing, you know. I mean, you got

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your you got I wouldn't say you got nothing, but

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I mean all that's gone now you're not you're not

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