September 19, 2025 • 35 mins
Bill sits down one-on-one with Jon Wellington, better known as The Dadbod Veteran, to uncover his journey from everyday dad of five to viral TikTok sensation. Jon shares how life as a father and now an empty nester sparked his hilarious online content, leading to millions of views and the launch of the Gen X Takeover Comedy Tour alongside creators like The Real Slim Sherry and Professor Nick Harris.
Discover how this powerhouse team is already booked well into 2026 and 2027, proving that Gen X is far from forgotten. Bill and Jon dive into the rise of Gen X voices in comedy, the power of authenticity in social media, and why fans can’t get enough of relatable, real-life humor.
Plus, Bill shares his unfiltered thoughts on free speech, silenced voices, and what it means to speak up in today’s world.
If you’re a fan of comedy, social media success stories, or Gen X energy, this is an episode you won’t want to miss!
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/billified-the-bill-moran-podcast--5738193/support.
Discover how this powerhouse team is already booked well into 2026 and 2027, proving that Gen X is far from forgotten. Bill and Jon dive into the rise of Gen X voices in comedy, the power of authenticity in social media, and why fans can’t get enough of relatable, real-life humor.
Plus, Bill shares his unfiltered thoughts on free speech, silenced voices, and what it means to speak up in today’s world.
If you’re a fan of comedy, social media success stories, or Gen X energy, this is an episode you won’t want to miss!
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/billified-the-bill-moran-podcast--5738193/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
When your old career gives you lemons throwing some ice.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Mix in some vodka. Call it a podcast from the
Mac of All Trade Studio in Fairport and driven by
Victor Chrysler Dots Jim Ram.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
It's Billified, the Bill Moran Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Oil. Hello and welcome. Thanks for getting your pod on,
Thanks for telling a friend. That's how we spread the
word about the BIRS ship. I got an email about
some radio segments we had done and somebody said they
enjoyed listening to it. And oh, by the way, I
represent this guy known as the Dadbod veteran. I had
(00:52):
seen the Dad Bod Veteran on TikTok. His name is
John Wellington, and I I didn't realize he had an
Instagram and a YouTube and a Facebook and all this stuff.
But this is a former Navy guy and he's now
part of a gen X Takeover comedy tour. And just
because of this device right here, this dumb little phone,
(01:16):
he's become a star because he knew how to use
it right. And I love these kind of conversations. And
he is a gen X guy, and I think that
being a gen X guy myself, we probably have a
few things in common.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I don't know, maybe maybe just a few things.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well, I think I'm probably older than you are.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I don't know. The beard gives me a little bit
of grace, but maybe.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I am fifty four. I was born in Si Yeah,
you just.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Got me by a couple forty six. I'm a baby
gen X.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, my brother is uh then would be around your
age as well. But talk to me about this because
I always think it's it's funny when people have real
job and then they go into entertainment because you were
Do you understand what I'm saying like this.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
No, no, no, I am a firm believer in everything
you're saying.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Right, It's like they you were probably putting shells into
I don't know, artillery somewhere right on a ship, making
sure shit, but the shit could blow up. Who knews
what sticky situation you were going to be in. And oh,
by the way, now you're on a comedy tour and
(02:29):
I go to me, that's the greatest thing in the world.
It's the one of the reasons our country is great
is because you can do, or be or have anything
you really want. And yet at the same time, I
think it makes you appreciate probably where you are now
more than anybody could imagine.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
God, yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, First of all, this
is the dumbest thing in the world. To the fact
that you can take this and turn your life around
because you spend too much time on it and you
have too much free time is insane. I mean, growing
up from our generation that that not possible, right, But
yet here we are, and it's exactly that. You know,
I did my time in the Navy, and I was
(03:06):
in New York Harbor in nine to eleven, and then
I went into the corporate world and I've been in
the corporate world for twenty years now. And then all
of a sudden, because I was at home and board
and I started making videos on my porch, it turned
into this and now I'm doing a stand up comedy career,
which I've been doing stand up comedy for a total
of one year.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
First time that I did it was with these guys.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Okay, So it's insane, all right. I feel like we're
jumping a little ahead, but that's okay, because I want
to talk about how that kind of came to be.
And for someone who's never done stand up, like I
will say to me, stand up. Comedy is the ultimate
art form. And I say that because when you have
(03:49):
a band and somebody fucks up, I can play. You know,
somebody can cover a note, somebody can cover somebody's pitchiness.
Right when it's stand up, it's you a microphone and
you know what I'm saying, And that's whoom right. And
so I remember being in New York City walking through
Soho and you know, people trying to make it in
(04:13):
the comedy world are just looking for stage time all
the time. Well, they were literally pulling people off the
street and putting them in the audience. And some of
the people were writers for the Chris Rock Show, the
HBO show at the time and all this stuff. So
you had talented people. I gotta tell you, man, no
one was laughing. People were walking out. They weren't there
to see comedy. So right there, that's the toughest. And
(04:35):
I go, if you could get them to laugh, you're
gonna be great. You're gonna be fine. And so I think,
for you, I go, what was that like the first
time you step on stage? And obviously it's an audience
that's already familiar with you, which really does help.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, Yeah, that definitely helps. We first of all, we
never intended to have this happen. We recited as no,
we didn't. We were four creators who didn't know each
other in person, and we just said, let's go to
Nashville and let's go hang out together. So we thought
we were gonna, you know, run an Airbnb, eat Bond Bonds,
watch rom Comms, paint or toenails, and then you know,
(05:10):
go walk the street and hang out with some of
our people. That was the intent of it all. But
our wives got involved and they were like, no, no, no,
we're not going to pay for this, so we're gonna
pimp you out. So they called the local comedy club.
And one of us, Nick had done comedy before.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Right, Yes, he does a lot of music stuff, music
related stuff on and.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
His lifelong dream has always been to be a stand
up comedian. That's always been his thing, okay, and so
he was experienced in it, and the other three of
us had never done it before. And you know, they
came back and they said, hey, we booked a comedy
club and you're going to do stand up comedy. And
the three of us are like, what the what does
that mean?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
So who's who whose wife do you blame for this?
Was it? I'm thinking it's yours?
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Uh, It's it's mostly Nick and Nick's next wife and
then Sherry's wife are really the head honchos who are
to blame. Luckily, mine's kind of passive in this whole situation.
She comes in later at the in the in the
conversation about the tour, but she was not really involved
in all that. She was a supporting spouse at that point.
(06:18):
And so we booked a comedy club. We go online
and just the four of us, we promote it and
it's a small hundred seater and poof, we sell it
out in an hour. They were like, oh okay. So
we call the comedy club. We say, hey, can we
do another one the same day? And they're like, sure,
we got yours the whole afternoon. So we book another
one and we sold that one out in a day.
(06:39):
So at this point we have two sold out comedy
shows at a small venue in Nashville for a bunch
of people who don't know what the hell are doing
except for one. And then we decide we say, well,
let's have an after party on top of that. So
we rent out this place called Pins mechanical in Nashville.
Cool place. It's like arcades and bowling and all that stuff.
(07:00):
And we sell tickets to that separately, and six hundred
people buy tickets. Wow, and we're like, what the hell?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Yeah, this is crazy.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah no, but it's how amazing, how what a what
a cool validation of all the stuff that you're doing,
you know what I mean. Yeah, you talk into a camera,
you think you're alone, and nobody gives a flying crap
about you, and then all of a sudden, six hundred
people in a just throw a dart at a map
in a city, right, and we'll say it's Nashville. And yeah,
(07:32):
by the way, Nashville's a lot of shit to do,
you know what I'm saying. There's a lot of stuff
to do. There's a lot of choices for your entertainment dollar.
The fact that they want to spend it with you,
I think, speaks volumes that should make you, all of
you feel so great about what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
It validates or invalidates the imposter syndrome because we all
have it. Sure, you know, we all come from different
backgrounds and different histories of life. And you know, me
a veteran and Sharry a business person, and Kelly is
the person that she's been in a radio talent and Nick,
of course, with everything that he's done, it definitely invalidates
that imposter senior. But you know it started there and
(08:13):
that first time that we did it, we were all
going to throw up on each other in the back.
I mean that's for the three of us. We were
just like, oh my god, I can't believe I'm doing this,
had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Went up.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I threw a set out that I thought was good,
you know flashbacks. It wasn't good, but they laughed, and
you know, we decided to do another one up in Cleveland.
We sold that out at a dueling piano bar. This
is great. Two hundred and fifty people.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Where's let me interrupt real quick, Where's home for you?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Charleston, South Carolina? Which is actually our next show coming
up October twenty sixth. Well, we got a Seattle show
and then we got a Charleston show. But we're doing
twenty three hundred seat venues now in less than a year.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
That's incredible because you know, theaters having done stand up.
I always prefer to watch stand up in like tight rooms. Yeah,
you know what I mean. So if you've ever been
to like the comedy Seller in New York is a
great room to see, right, but those other places are great.
And if you're selling it out, I am blown away.
(09:19):
I think that's amazing and it's got to feel really
good for you. Talk to me about the in the Evolution.
I'll always say, one of the greatest things in life
is reps. Right, the more reps you do at something,
the better you get at it. So you know, for
you with comedy, have you had people writing for you? You're
doing all your own writing. You're doing it all.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
I do all my own writing. It's all life experience.
It's a lot of self deprecation on my side. I mean,
I know I have watched comedians forever, sure, and I
resonate towards the storytellers like Berg Kreischer and those folks
that tell stories that aren't just a one liner. So
most of my content is, you know, story based. A
lot of it is picking on my kids, and you know,
(10:00):
they all know that they're all set up for that.
And then it's a lot of self deprecation. I write
my own stuff. I have a little karaoke machine and
the Missus and I. Before every show, we sit in
the living room and she listens to my whole set.
She times me, she gives me feedback. Cut this out,
do that, do that, and then when we get to
you know, showtime, it's it's game time and we just
walk out on the field and throw a touchdown.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
How much How much time are you doing?
Speaker 1 (10:23):
We're just doing twenty minutes sets. Yeah, before it was
get a twenty minute set.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
But that's a lot, right, And especially for someone who
hasn't done comedy, I mean you build up to that.
You know, it's usually ten fifteen and then twenty is
a middle act in most comedy clubs. I think that's
really rough. Talk to me about the character voice. Do
you use that on stage or you talk like I
was surprised when I heard your voice, and I wanted
(10:48):
to see so I sought you out on another podcast
and I was listening for a little bit and you
have popped on and I was like, oh, wow, you
have a really pleasant speaking voice. By that other voice,
I would never have associated I actually have watched your
videos at one point tried to see if you were
dubbing it in some way, like with your lip syncing
(11:09):
to somebody else's vook. I couldn't. I go, that's an
amazing like it. That voice I just never expected to
come out of you.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
It's hilarious because when I started doing ads for sponsors
and stuff like that, and they would want me to
do it in my natural voice because they wanted me
to be serious. And when I did that, people would
send them to me and be like, look, they're doing
an AI version of you with this voice. I'm reporting
it and I'm like, no, no, no, that's actually me.
And it's over the past probably the past year, that
(11:38):
I've been trying to massage it two different because I
have a lot of voices in my head. I'm just
gonna put it out there now. It's always been a
thing that I've done since I'm a kid. Is I
love to imitate voices of different accents, et cetera. This
one just happened to stick with everybody, and I've tried
to change it. I've tried to introduce new voices in
my content and people are like, no, I don't like it,
(11:59):
so I go back to what works. But in the show,
up until the last show, I did not do the
voice at all. But we now have a bit that
I do with Kelly that I do a narration for
part of her comedy skit, and so I kind of
just step on stage and narrate something that's going.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
On in Oh Okay. The voice is.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Kind of a David Attenborough style.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
The audience, it's just.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
All they they went wild. They went wild because it's
absolutely hilarious. I'm not going to give it away, but
it is an absolutely hilarious bit on its own, and
then you throw it, throw me on top of it,
and the voice on top of it. It is just
a beautiful cake beautiful Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
How fun is that too? Yeah? You know, everything in
life has started with an idea that somebody had in
their head, right, whether it be a building or a road
or whatever. But for a guy who has had his
first kid at eighteen, that had to grow up real fast.
And then and on top of that, I would even
(13:05):
say doing some military service is another You're gonna grow
up real fast. I mean, there's no bullshit here.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
It's the same time.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
It's like it's it's like holy, I mean, your life.
You just think about this several months prior to all
that you were in high school.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
I would assume no, two weeks okay, two weeks after
I graduate high school?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
This is what I mean. Okay, so a couple, right,
and then and when did you know that you were
having the kid while you were still in high school?
Speaker 1 (13:33):
When I was in boot camp? First phone call, hall, okay,
I it was a graduation present. Yeah, to say it
that way, so graduation, you know. Yeah, and then, uh,
we didn't know until after I got to boot camp.
And I mean my first phone call home, she was crying.
I was like, what are you crying about? She goes, oh,
by the way, and I go ooh, that's cool.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
You said that.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
No, I seriously, I was like, I was like totally
because you know, I've always been a kind of a
fu and so here here I am. And you know,
she wasn't exactly happy about it, but we had a
good twelve year marriage out of it and we're still
best friends.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
And yeah, how was how were your parents and her parents?
I'm trying to think back to, like, you know, my parents,
my parents.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
My dad had already passed, but my mom was like
totally a static because she's like, I got grandkids.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Fine, yeah, yeah, I was the.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
First one to have grandkids. Out of me and my siblings.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Her mom.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Her mom believes and still believes that all things are
meant to happen. Okay, you know, whatever happens is meant
to happen, right, So with that, you can be happy
about the situation, right because that was something that was
supposed to happen. So they both took it very positively.
And again we're still friends of this day. And you
know you grew up I did Charleston, South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
There is no accent.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
I mean there can be. There gonna be an accent
if I want to, I can turn it on off.
It just depends on who I'm talking to.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
I think there was a radio station down there. Is
there something called the twin something or the duel or
like two frequencies because it's maybe they were more out
on the coasts. I don't know. I was on a
bunch of their stations for iHeart back in the day,
and I just remember reading you. They would send you
(15:19):
liners and stuff, and so you have to talk about
these towns like you live there, you know what I mean.
And I always thought this is this is the death
of radio right here, This is the death. You cannot
homogenize this shit, and you know, just all of it.
And then of course the other stuff is I'll seek
out my entertainment the way I like it. And I
(15:39):
love that people from the gen X have found you guys.
And I don't know, man, you got such a cool,
calming way about you that it doesn't seem like you're easy,
easily flustered at all.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
No, I've been accused of being the adultiest one in
our group.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Yeah, I'm the one who plans everything out and make
sure sure all the things are laid out. Yeah, it's
just it's just the way I am. Maybe it's the Navy,
Maybe it's just you know, having so many damn kids.
Is I got to make sure everything's laid out?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
De risk Yeah, and de risked. So how did this
come together for the the gen X takeover? Right with
the Professor and the real was it the real Slim Kelly? Yes? Sorry,
I'm sorry, but the real I won't tell her, Please
don't do that. But I'm such a fan. I how
(16:35):
does that come together? Right? Because here again is people
from different parts of the country normally when right and
you all come together and you've built this mini empire.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, so Sherry's in Atlanta. Kelly's in Saint Louis. Nick
is in New Orleans. Uh. Sherry and Nick had gone
to the Cheer Choice Awards the year before, which is
like the Emmys if you will, for so media Creators.
It's in Vegas. They had gone to that. I didn't
go to that, and I guess they had a discussion about,
you know, we should do some type of event creator event,
(17:08):
et cetera. And so Sherry and I have never met
before this point, but we have very parallel pass We
started out almost exactly the same time. Our growth was
almost the same trajectory where Nick and Kelly had been
in the social media for a lot longer than we had.
So we had DMed back and forth a couple of
times just to chat it up. And then one day
(17:29):
she sent me a thing and said, hey, you want
to do this, And I'm like, sure. I'm in the
business of not saying no to anything right now, because
I believe right now, at this point that the world
will say no for me if it's not supposed to
be done, like either I won't have enough money or
I won't have time, So I'd just say yes. I
said yes, and you know, then you know, between the
time that I said yes and the time that we
(17:50):
actually got to Nashville, all the wives got involved in
that transpired. It didn't really turn into this huge thing
until after Cleveland, because that after Cleveland we realized we
had something we legitimately. Now now we've gone to two states,
completely separate, completely different demos, and people were raving about it.
And also we started to get some people calling us
(18:12):
that would not normally contact us, and so we said, okay,
let's make a tour and let's just do a couple
of cities just to try it out. So we tried
Atlanta next, and in Atlanta was when we brought on
probably one of the biggest catalysts to this thing growing,
which is our tour manager, Reuben Buck out of Seattle.
Ruben is very very intimate in the comedy scene. In fact,
(18:36):
him and Donald Rawlings and Dave Chappelle are actually very
tight together. He's every time I talk about a comedian,
he pulls out his phone and he goes, oh, you
mean this guy, and it's his phone number, and I'm like,
like neighbor Gatzi and Bert, and you know, I was like, Oh,
how does this dude know all these people? And so
he jumped on board because he had heard about it
(18:56):
up in Seattle and he's he's he's a very early
gen xer, you know, he's almost you know, sixty one now,
Oh my god, and so he wanted to be part
of it. Yeah, because he's you know, he's on his downslope.
He's like, let me do one last cool thing that
I think has legs. And so as soon as he
went in there, he came in and grabbed that and
he's like, Okay, we need to do this, this, this
and this, and we're all like, I don't know what
(19:16):
you're doing, but let's do it. So he brought in
Justin Rupple, the Millennial, who is our host, who was
a voice actor for How to Train a Dragon. Then
we've also got Jojo Malagar who's now our musical component,
who's on stage with us the whole time. You know,
he does all the sound cues, et cetera. And it
turned it into a production. He also got a relationship
(19:38):
with our booking agent who has brought all the venues
that we've got casinos and things, the same guys that
do Vanilla Ice and Lodacris and the Isle of Nineties tour.
So there's some future potential integrations with Vanilla Ice and
some things coming up that you know would be really awesome.
And yeah, it's it's just like we've already got twenty
(19:59):
twenty seven or twenty twenty six almost booked out, and
there's a potential twenty twenty seven talk. I mean, this
is the dumbest thing I've ever been a part of,
but I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
I gotta think it's it's probably one of the coolest things.
And I think your attitude of just say yes and
I'll call it the universe, you call it the world,
We'll let you know. And I think that that is
the way you need to live. I think we should
all sort of live that way. We can't, right, especially
(20:30):
when you know you had five kids, in the navy
career and corporate career, whatever, But the uh, I think
you open yourself up to possibilities and sometimes you know,
I always go, there's two things in the world. It's fear, right, anxiety.
All this shit is all fear based. All that stuff
is just fear, and the other is love. And so
(20:52):
where are you gonna go? And when it's just going
I love it. I love entertaining. I love telling the
stories this had. I mean, it's like mind boggling and
I got it. Well it has to be, because I look,
I did thirty years on the radio, I write, I
did all this stuff. I did a lot of FM
talk I was around. This is to me the coolest.
I love that it's organic. You've made a connection with people.
(21:16):
All people want is a connection and to feel like
they matter, and you've built something cool and I got
I think that's amazing. My question for you is five kids,
how do they react to this?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
So initially they were like, what are you doing? In fact,
it's kind of funny. Is the youngest kid, the one
who went to boot camp, knew nothing about this whole
thing while he was in boot camp. And there was
a huge trajectory that occurred while he was in boot camp.
And then when he got out of boot camp and
I went up to his graduation, he said I told
him about it. He says, yeah, yeah, whatever, You're not anybody.
(21:52):
I was like, okay, but just hold on a second.
And so I went outside and he was getting out
released from his little boot camp thing to come spend
the after I'm in with us and I'm sitting there
waiting outside of the front gate, and it was I
just remember the look on his eyes. He got out
and we're hugging and we're saying our thing. We were
about to walk to the car. One of his drill
(22:12):
sergeants walks up to me and says, are you the Dadbod?
And he shakes my hand, and but I look on
my son's face was hilarious. He went, I'm not kidding
this true story. He went white and he says a
drill sergeant and he's like, hey, are you a son.
He's like yeah, he said, well you got a cool
dad here. I mean, it was just he didn't know
(22:32):
how to handle it. And then after that he goes, Dad,
what happened?
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Give me real quick? The uh the handles for people
like TikTok Instagram, if you don't mind, they want to
look you up. I know. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
So it's the Dadbod veteran on all places, and you
can go to the Dadbodveteran dot com and you've got
the list and all the.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Ways all right there. Yeah, makes it really easy go
on there and watch. By the way, TikTok. I always
love when my kid tells me. I. I was on
TikTok for a little while and then I stopped posting
videos and things because it's a monster you got to keep,
you got to feed it. Oh yeah, it's one of
these things you gotta do. I mean, I would assume,
do you like batch record a bunch of things and
(23:13):
put them out every day or how many?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Well I've transitioned to most recently, I transition a little
bit away from the reaction stuff, or if I've trickled
down on the reaction stuff, and now I'm doing these
daily dad Bod videos where I'm actually writing a script
where I pick a topic whatever it is. Like this morning,
I picked a top but about taking baths and the
fact that I take a bath, and I decided to
(23:35):
do a video explaining sarcastically why I take a bath
from a gen xer's perspective, about my achy joints and
EPs and salts and you know, this is my peaceful
place and blah blah blah. And I do one of
those every day, and maybe I'll do some reaction videos
that day, maybe not, but it's just my morning thing
that I do now is I make one daily dad
Bod video and it's it's starting to catch on people
(23:56):
like I needed this every day because it always ends
in a positive note. You know, no matter how sarcastic
the video is, no matter how insulting it is to myself,
I always end it on a positive note to give
somebody to carry something to carry forward with the rest
of the day. So I'm trying new things here and
there because you know, as we all know in entertainment,
you know what you did is only going to last
for so long and then you've got to, unfortunately, reinvent
(24:19):
yourself to stay relatives.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
So why as you're talking and I'm thinking of there's
a lot of thought that goes into this. There's a
lot of I would even think, you know, especially now
that you're doing stand up, you see the power of
the words right, word right, and word economy and all
this stuff is so important in that world. Teachers you
(24:44):
tried to impress maybe along the way that have seen you,
Now have they reached out and complimented you on what
you're doing. I'm just curious.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
I haven't had any teachers, but I've had coaches, okay, okay,
coaches that are like you're the you were the big
dumb animal, like how are you doing.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
It's that That's where I'm going, because there's it's it
takes an intelligence to do this. It takes the thing,
and I go sometimes, you know, I don't know about you.
I was probably more the I like living on the edge.
I even as a kid, right, so I'd be right
on the edge of always getting in trouble, being the
smart ass or being whatever. And to have somebody who
(25:27):
you always wanted their approval as a teacher or something,
and then yeah, even to get it later in life,
I just think that's so cool because they would go,
I never never would have thought you would do this. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
And it's the same thing with all the friends from
high school. They're like, I never would have pegged you
to be the guy, yeah, And I'm like, neither would I.
So we're both in the same boat. But I was
the riddling baby. So I was the bouncing off the walls,
the riddling baby, and then the big dumb animal in
high school. But it wasn't because I was the big
dumb animal. I was very smart. It was just I
was lazy. So I don't want to do it right now.
(26:02):
I'm in a scenario where I want to do this
so it's very easy to apply yourself when it's something
that you see is valuable.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
It's something they always keep in mind. Is parenting too right?
To realize that with your own kids and not try
to beat them up too much? I guess on some
of these things.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah, it's hard. That's really hard. It's so hard. That's hard.
But they're all you know. My goal with my kids
has always been that they need to be independent first,
and then they can be successful. I don't care if
you're successful. I care more that you're independent, just in case,
you know, the world decides that my time is over.
I want you to be able to live and survive.
So every life lessons that I've ever given to them
has been all about that first, and then we'll be successful.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
It's been a pleasure talking to you. And I apologize
for the informal meandering that I did with.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
This, but no, this is this is cool. I love
doing it.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
It is fun, and I think you're probably you're very
natural at talking and stuff. And man, I hope when
you guys are in Buffalo and marched that maybe we
put together a bus and go up and see you.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Come on, man, bring it on. You'll give me a
holler before you come, and we'll take care of you.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yeah, that would be uh, that would be a lot
of fun, and it would be fun to kind of
see that you can do it.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Maybe can do a live one, get all four of
us on there.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
That would be a lot of fun. That actually would
be a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Oh listen, I tell you what. You get the four
of us in a room, and it's watching four rabid
monkeys fight. I mean we are. The dynamics between the
four of us is insane. There have been people that
have come into the group, a very small group, and
they're like, what the is going on with these guys?
And we're like, there's just four creatives who are all
kind of spastic working.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Together, right, And yeah it's magic, yep, But it's crazy
to watch content creation. I think it's uh. I love it,
and I love that it's the gen X people taking
over and doing it. I think that's fantastic. You're never
too old, right.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
We're no longer the forgotten generation. We are now the
generation that no one will forget.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Awesome, well said John Wellington. A pleasure, Thank you so
much for time, Yes, sir, thank you, appreciate it all right,
just one last thing. It's just me sitting here. So
I wanted to find a way to talk about the
Jimmy Kimmel situation maybe a little differently. I saw Dave Portnoy,
(28:20):
who I always appreciate people who have opinions that I
feel like are thought based, right, which I know that
sounds kind of dumb. Right to have an opinion, you
got to be thinking, But I feel like he may
he made a point I think some people will agree with.
He said, what happened to Jimmy Kimmel is not cancel culture,
(28:43):
because cancel culture involves digging up things from the past,
tweets and things on people and using that to make
them less popular, or get them or knock them down,
so to speak. And my answer back to that is
I disagree with that statement. I think that sure, that's
(29:03):
how certain people seemed to get canceled from past behaviors.
Probably the most notable would be Bill Cosby, and we go, well,
maybe it should have happened, right, I mean, he was
pretty disgusting in what he was accused of doing. And
(29:24):
when you have sixty women coming out and saying it
all happened to them in one or two you can
kind of goa, they're making it up this you certainly
can't so, but I don't necessarily agree with that. And
I was thinking Roseanne Barr was canceled and kicked off
her show for a tweet that she sent out a
(29:44):
social media post that she tried to say she was
on Ambient and people were highly offended by it. And
again ABC ironically decided that she shouldn't be on the
show anymore because it would possibly lose advertisers coase what
she wrote was considered so controversial. Uh. I just here's
(30:09):
the thing that I go back to, and I'm hoping
people really really see this point, because I again I
think these these situations become emotionally charged, and when we're
emotionally charged, we're not necessarily thinking logically or understanding others' points.
(30:29):
And that's why I saw the Portnoy thing and I go,
maybe your first ace full of shit. Well, no, he
has a valid argument there. I'm not going to agree
with it, because I think cancel is just being canceled
for something you said, whether it's in the present moment
or the past, especially if it's in the past and
the person has a pattern of doing better why are
(30:52):
we going to punish them for something they did a
long time ago? And Dave's right, not necessarily famous people,
but students have lost scutolarships for something they wrote. You know,
they were picked by a school the play wide receiver,
I don't know, at a D one level, and then
they're they're gone. They lose the scholarship because of something
they put out when they were fourteen fifteen years old
(31:13):
of social media. Is there a lesson in there? Yes,
the lesson would be be careful what you're putting out
on social media and words have consequences. And that was
more of Portnoy's point with Jimmy Kimmel, that what he
said had consequences. Yes, And I go back to you know,
(31:35):
and I've said this continuously now for a couple of
weeks over different situations. It's a business decision if you
start losing money as a network, and you're also on
government airwaves. But when you see headlines like the FCC
head was offended by what this person said, saying offensive
things is not illegal. Saying offensive things should not cost
(31:57):
you your job. And I'm not again he suspended, not
fired as of the moment, But can we start to
see a pattern of you know, the President did say
Colbert is just the beginning and the other two better
be blah blah blah. Sure Jimmy would go at the president,
but isn't that what we want in a free speech world?
(32:19):
And again ABC, so if it's government airwaves, I would
look for these shows to start showing up online in
some way. You know, the only thing that Late Night
really has is the personality. And you know, you can say,
I'm glad Jimmy Kimmel's gone, right, but but what about
somebody you really like? And if they said something that
(32:40):
was controversial and taken away, it comes down to sort
of this power struggle. You know. I still will say
the Charlie Kirk situation, to me is a free speech
issue that concerns me gravely over the fact that people
not express ideas that they believe to be true and
(33:03):
trying to be beneficial. And I know there are people
going do you hear the things he said? He said
things that were inflammatory, But if we got to the
root of it, I really do feel like he was
challenging people to defend their positions and think critically. I
don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing. However, I understand,
(33:27):
but I can't cheer that person being killed. And I
certainly think that other people will say less now because
somebody has died for saying that, we can say we're
going to be brave and stuff, and even Charlie apparently
I think there was a bulletproof vest on right, So
(33:50):
it's I just the whole thing is mind boggling to
me and upsetting. And then to see the Kimmel thing,
I go, Now we're on the other side right when
we're silencing another voice that was giving a different opinion
and it's one that you don't agree with, so you
get to silence it. And that's what this, in my opinion,
(34:11):
seems to look like. The argument. It can certainly be made.
We're gonna lose money if he keeps saying these things.
We don't want to support it. That's a business decision.
But when it's the head of the FCCA didn't like
what was said and it was somewhat innocuous, then now
(34:32):
we need to we're gonna shut this this person down.
That's not American. It's not American. Let me know your thoughts.
I'm always always open to hearing them. You can text
any time. The numbers right there on the bottom of
the screen five eight five two of six eighty eight
sixty six. And you can always hit me up on
email as well. And I appreciate you listening, and I'd
(34:54):
love to hear people's opinions on this. But I do
worry that this is you know, we're silencing people right
one by killing somebody and now one by a government
agency saying I was I didn't like the way you
said that. Oh that, that, to me is is not American.
I don't know. I don't know how you feel, but
(35:16):
I'm open to the discussion and I appreciate you more
than you even know. For myself and for John Wellington,
the dad bod veteran, I'm the Moran. We'll see them all.
(35:36):
We'll see Monday. I'm atter to you, Dagnet about the
un of State. See they were looking borrow cadaa with
Tennessee
When your old career gives you lemons throwing some ice.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Mix in some vodka. Call it a podcast from the
Mac of All Trade Studio in Fairport and driven by
Victor Chrysler Dots Jim Ram.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
It's Billified, the Bill Moran Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Oil. Hello and welcome. Thanks for getting your pod on,
Thanks for telling a friend. That's how we spread the
word about the BIRS ship. I got an email about
some radio segments we had done and somebody said they
enjoyed listening to it. And oh, by the way, I
represent this guy known as the Dadbod veteran. I had
(00:52):
seen the Dad Bod Veteran on TikTok. His name is
John Wellington, and I I didn't realize he had an
Instagram and a YouTube and a Facebook and all this stuff.
But this is a former Navy guy and he's now
part of a gen X Takeover comedy tour. And just
because of this device right here, this dumb little phone,
(01:16):
he's become a star because he knew how to use
it right. And I love these kind of conversations. And
he is a gen X guy, and I think that
being a gen X guy myself, we probably have a
few things in common.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I don't know, maybe maybe just a few things.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well, I think I'm probably older than you are.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I don't know. The beard gives me a little bit
of grace, but maybe.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I am fifty four. I was born in Si Yeah,
you just.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Got me by a couple forty six. I'm a baby
gen X.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, my brother is uh then would be around your
age as well. But talk to me about this because
I always think it's it's funny when people have real
job and then they go into entertainment because you were
Do you understand what I'm saying like this.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
No, no, no, I am a firm believer in everything
you're saying.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Right, It's like they you were probably putting shells into
I don't know, artillery somewhere right on a ship, making
sure shit, but the shit could blow up. Who knews
what sticky situation you were going to be in. And oh,
by the way, now you're on a comedy tour and
(02:29):
I go to me, that's the greatest thing in the world.
It's the one of the reasons our country is great
is because you can do, or be or have anything
you really want. And yet at the same time, I
think it makes you appreciate probably where you are now
more than anybody could imagine.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
God, yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, First of all, this
is the dumbest thing in the world. To the fact
that you can take this and turn your life around
because you spend too much time on it and you
have too much free time is insane. I mean, growing
up from our generation that that not possible, right, But
yet here we are, and it's exactly that. You know,
I did my time in the Navy, and I was
(03:06):
in New York Harbor in nine to eleven, and then
I went into the corporate world and I've been in
the corporate world for twenty years now. And then all
of a sudden, because I was at home and board
and I started making videos on my porch, it turned
into this and now I'm doing a stand up comedy career,
which I've been doing stand up comedy for a total
of one year.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
First time that I did it was with these guys.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Okay, So it's insane, all right. I feel like we're
jumping a little ahead, but that's okay, because I want
to talk about how that kind of came to be.
And for someone who's never done stand up, like I
will say to me, stand up. Comedy is the ultimate
art form. And I say that because when you have
(03:49):
a band and somebody fucks up, I can play. You know,
somebody can cover a note, somebody can cover somebody's pitchiness.
Right when it's stand up, it's you a microphone and
you know what I'm saying, And that's whoom right. And
so I remember being in New York City walking through
Soho and you know, people trying to make it in
(04:13):
the comedy world are just looking for stage time all
the time. Well, they were literally pulling people off the
street and putting them in the audience. And some of
the people were writers for the Chris Rock Show, the
HBO show at the time and all this stuff. So
you had talented people. I gotta tell you, man, no
one was laughing. People were walking out. They weren't there
to see comedy. So right there, that's the toughest. And
(04:35):
I go, if you could get them to laugh, you're
gonna be great. You're gonna be fine. And so I think,
for you, I go, what was that like the first
time you step on stage? And obviously it's an audience
that's already familiar with you, which really does help.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, Yeah, that definitely helps. We first of all, we
never intended to have this happen. We recited as no,
we didn't. We were four creators who didn't know each
other in person, and we just said, let's go to
Nashville and let's go hang out together. So we thought
we were gonna, you know, run an Airbnb, eat Bond Bonds,
watch rom Comms, paint or toenails, and then you know,
(05:10):
go walk the street and hang out with some of
our people. That was the intent of it all. But
our wives got involved and they were like, no, no, no,
we're not going to pay for this, so we're gonna
pimp you out. So they called the local comedy club.
And one of us, Nick had done comedy before.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Right, Yes, he does a lot of music stuff, music
related stuff on and.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
His lifelong dream has always been to be a stand
up comedian. That's always been his thing, okay, and so
he was experienced in it, and the other three of
us had never done it before. And you know, they
came back and they said, hey, we booked a comedy
club and you're going to do stand up comedy. And
the three of us are like, what the what does
that mean?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
So who's who whose wife do you blame for this?
Was it? I'm thinking it's yours?
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Uh, It's it's mostly Nick and Nick's next wife and
then Sherry's wife are really the head honchos who are
to blame. Luckily, mine's kind of passive in this whole situation.
She comes in later at the in the in the
conversation about the tour, but she was not really involved
in all that. She was a supporting spouse at that point.
(06:18):
And so we booked a comedy club. We go online
and just the four of us, we promote it and
it's a small hundred seater and poof, we sell it
out in an hour. They were like, oh okay. So
we call the comedy club. We say, hey, can we
do another one the same day? And they're like, sure,
we got yours the whole afternoon. So we book another
one and we sold that one out in a day.
(06:39):
So at this point we have two sold out comedy
shows at a small venue in Nashville for a bunch
of people who don't know what the hell are doing
except for one. And then we decide we say, well,
let's have an after party on top of that. So
we rent out this place called Pins mechanical in Nashville.
Cool place. It's like arcades and bowling and all that stuff.
(07:00):
And we sell tickets to that separately, and six hundred
people buy tickets. Wow, and we're like, what the hell?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Yeah, this is crazy.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah no, but it's how amazing, how what a what
a cool validation of all the stuff that you're doing,
you know what I mean. Yeah, you talk into a camera,
you think you're alone, and nobody gives a flying crap
about you, and then all of a sudden, six hundred
people in a just throw a dart at a map
in a city, right, and we'll say it's Nashville. And yeah,
(07:32):
by the way, Nashville's a lot of shit to do,
you know what I'm saying. There's a lot of stuff
to do. There's a lot of choices for your entertainment dollar.
The fact that they want to spend it with you,
I think, speaks volumes that should make you, all of
you feel so great about what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
It validates or invalidates the imposter syndrome because we all
have it. Sure, you know, we all come from different
backgrounds and different histories of life. And you know, me
a veteran and Sharry a business person, and Kelly is
the person that she's been in a radio talent and Nick,
of course, with everything that he's done, it definitely invalidates
that imposter senior. But you know it started there and
(08:13):
that first time that we did it, we were all
going to throw up on each other in the back.
I mean that's for the three of us. We were
just like, oh my god, I can't believe I'm doing this,
had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Went up.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I threw a set out that I thought was good,
you know flashbacks. It wasn't good, but they laughed, and
you know, we decided to do another one up in Cleveland.
We sold that out at a dueling piano bar. This
is great. Two hundred and fifty people.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Where's let me interrupt real quick, Where's home for you?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Charleston, South Carolina? Which is actually our next show coming
up October twenty sixth. Well, we got a Seattle show
and then we got a Charleston show. But we're doing
twenty three hundred seat venues now in less than a year.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
That's incredible because you know, theaters having done stand up.
I always prefer to watch stand up in like tight rooms. Yeah,
you know what I mean. So if you've ever been
to like the comedy Seller in New York is a
great room to see, right, but those other places are great.
And if you're selling it out, I am blown away.
(09:19):
I think that's amazing and it's got to feel really
good for you. Talk to me about the in the Evolution.
I'll always say, one of the greatest things in life
is reps. Right, the more reps you do at something,
the better you get at it. So you know, for
you with comedy, have you had people writing for you? You're
doing all your own writing. You're doing it all.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
I do all my own writing. It's all life experience.
It's a lot of self deprecation on my side. I mean,
I know I have watched comedians forever, sure, and I
resonate towards the storytellers like Berg Kreischer and those folks
that tell stories that aren't just a one liner. So
most of my content is, you know, story based. A
lot of it is picking on my kids, and you know,
(10:00):
they all know that they're all set up for that.
And then it's a lot of self deprecation. I write
my own stuff. I have a little karaoke machine and
the Missus and I. Before every show, we sit in
the living room and she listens to my whole set.
She times me, she gives me feedback. Cut this out,
do that, do that, and then when we get to
you know, showtime, it's it's game time and we just
walk out on the field and throw a touchdown.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
How much How much time are you doing?
Speaker 1 (10:23):
We're just doing twenty minutes sets. Yeah, before it was
get a twenty minute set.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
But that's a lot, right, And especially for someone who
hasn't done comedy, I mean you build up to that.
You know, it's usually ten fifteen and then twenty is
a middle act in most comedy clubs. I think that's
really rough. Talk to me about the character voice. Do
you use that on stage or you talk like I
was surprised when I heard your voice, and I wanted
(10:48):
to see so I sought you out on another podcast
and I was listening for a little bit and you
have popped on and I was like, oh, wow, you
have a really pleasant speaking voice. By that other voice,
I would never have associated I actually have watched your
videos at one point tried to see if you were
dubbing it in some way, like with your lip syncing
(11:09):
to somebody else's vook. I couldn't. I go, that's an
amazing like it. That voice I just never expected to
come out of you.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
It's hilarious because when I started doing ads for sponsors
and stuff like that, and they would want me to
do it in my natural voice because they wanted me
to be serious. And when I did that, people would
send them to me and be like, look, they're doing
an AI version of you with this voice. I'm reporting
it and I'm like, no, no, no, that's actually me.
And it's over the past probably the past year, that
(11:38):
I've been trying to massage it two different because I
have a lot of voices in my head. I'm just
gonna put it out there now. It's always been a
thing that I've done since I'm a kid. Is I
love to imitate voices of different accents, et cetera. This
one just happened to stick with everybody, and I've tried
to change it. I've tried to introduce new voices in
my content and people are like, no, I don't like it,
(11:59):
so I go back to what works. But in the show,
up until the last show, I did not do the
voice at all. But we now have a bit that
I do with Kelly that I do a narration for
part of her comedy skit, and so I kind of
just step on stage and narrate something that's going.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
On in Oh Okay. The voice is.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Kind of a David Attenborough style.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
The audience, it's just.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
All they they went wild. They went wild because it's
absolutely hilarious. I'm not going to give it away, but
it is an absolutely hilarious bit on its own, and
then you throw it, throw me on top of it,
and the voice on top of it. It is just
a beautiful cake beautiful Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
How fun is that too? Yeah? You know, everything in
life has started with an idea that somebody had in
their head, right, whether it be a building or a road
or whatever. But for a guy who has had his
first kid at eighteen, that had to grow up real fast.
And then and on top of that, I would even
(13:05):
say doing some military service is another You're gonna grow
up real fast. I mean, there's no bullshit here.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
It's the same time.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
It's like it's it's like holy, I mean, your life.
You just think about this several months prior to all
that you were in high school.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
I would assume no, two weeks okay, two weeks after
I graduate high school?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
This is what I mean. Okay, so a couple, right,
and then and when did you know that you were
having the kid while you were still in high school?
Speaker 1 (13:33):
When I was in boot camp? First phone call, hall, okay,
I it was a graduation present. Yeah, to say it
that way, so graduation, you know. Yeah, and then, uh,
we didn't know until after I got to boot camp.
And I mean my first phone call home, she was crying.
I was like, what are you crying about? She goes, oh,
by the way, and I go ooh, that's cool.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
You said that.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
No, I seriously, I was like, I was like totally
because you know, I've always been a kind of a
fu and so here here I am. And you know,
she wasn't exactly happy about it, but we had a
good twelve year marriage out of it and we're still
best friends.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
And yeah, how was how were your parents and her parents?
I'm trying to think back to, like, you know, my parents,
my parents.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
My dad had already passed, but my mom was like
totally a static because she's like, I got grandkids.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Fine, yeah, yeah, I was the.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
First one to have grandkids. Out of me and my siblings.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Her mom.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Her mom believes and still believes that all things are
meant to happen. Okay, you know, whatever happens is meant
to happen, right, So with that, you can be happy
about the situation, right because that was something that was
supposed to happen. So they both took it very positively.
And again we're still friends of this day. And you
know you grew up I did Charleston, South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
There is no accent.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
I mean there can be. There gonna be an accent
if I want to, I can turn it on off.
It just depends on who I'm talking to.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
I think there was a radio station down there. Is
there something called the twin something or the duel or
like two frequencies because it's maybe they were more out
on the coasts. I don't know. I was on a
bunch of their stations for iHeart back in the day,
and I just remember reading you. They would send you
(15:19):
liners and stuff, and so you have to talk about
these towns like you live there, you know what I mean.
And I always thought this is this is the death
of radio right here, This is the death. You cannot
homogenize this shit, and you know, just all of it.
And then of course the other stuff is I'll seek
out my entertainment the way I like it. And I
(15:39):
love that people from the gen X have found you guys.
And I don't know, man, you got such a cool,
calming way about you that it doesn't seem like you're easy,
easily flustered at all.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
No, I've been accused of being the adultiest one in
our group.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Yeah, I'm the one who plans everything out and make
sure sure all the things are laid out. Yeah, it's
just it's just the way I am. Maybe it's the Navy,
Maybe it's just you know, having so many damn kids.
Is I got to make sure everything's laid out?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
De risk Yeah, and de risked. So how did this
come together for the the gen X takeover? Right with
the Professor and the real was it the real Slim Kelly? Yes? Sorry,
I'm sorry, but the real I won't tell her, Please
don't do that. But I'm such a fan. I how
(16:35):
does that come together? Right? Because here again is people
from different parts of the country normally when right and
you all come together and you've built this mini empire.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, so Sherry's in Atlanta. Kelly's in Saint Louis. Nick
is in New Orleans. Uh. Sherry and Nick had gone
to the Cheer Choice Awards the year before, which is
like the Emmys if you will, for so media Creators.
It's in Vegas. They had gone to that. I didn't
go to that, and I guess they had a discussion about,
you know, we should do some type of event creator event,
(17:08):
et cetera. And so Sherry and I have never met
before this point, but we have very parallel pass We
started out almost exactly the same time. Our growth was
almost the same trajectory where Nick and Kelly had been
in the social media for a lot longer than we had.
So we had DMed back and forth a couple of
times just to chat it up. And then one day
(17:29):
she sent me a thing and said, hey, you want
to do this, And I'm like, sure. I'm in the
business of not saying no to anything right now, because
I believe right now, at this point that the world
will say no for me if it's not supposed to
be done, like either I won't have enough money or
I won't have time, So I'd just say yes. I
said yes, and you know, then you know, between the
time that I said yes and the time that we
(17:50):
actually got to Nashville, all the wives got involved in
that transpired. It didn't really turn into this huge thing
until after Cleveland, because that after Cleveland we realized we
had something we legitimately. Now now we've gone to two states,
completely separate, completely different demos, and people were raving about it.
And also we started to get some people calling us
(18:12):
that would not normally contact us, and so we said, okay,
let's make a tour and let's just do a couple
of cities just to try it out. So we tried
Atlanta next, and in Atlanta was when we brought on
probably one of the biggest catalysts to this thing growing,
which is our tour manager, Reuben Buck out of Seattle.
Ruben is very very intimate in the comedy scene. In fact,
(18:36):
him and Donald Rawlings and Dave Chappelle are actually very
tight together. He's every time I talk about a comedian,
he pulls out his phone and he goes, oh, you
mean this guy, and it's his phone number, and I'm like,
like neighbor Gatzi and Bert, and you know, I was like, Oh,
how does this dude know all these people? And so
he jumped on board because he had heard about it
(18:56):
up in Seattle and he's he's he's a very early
gen xer, you know, he's almost you know, sixty one now,
Oh my god, and so he wanted to be part
of it. Yeah, because he's you know, he's on his downslope.
He's like, let me do one last cool thing that
I think has legs. And so as soon as he
went in there, he came in and grabbed that and
he's like, Okay, we need to do this, this, this
and this, and we're all like, I don't know what
(19:16):
you're doing, but let's do it. So he brought in
Justin Rupple, the Millennial, who is our host, who was
a voice actor for How to Train a Dragon. Then
we've also got Jojo Malagar who's now our musical component,
who's on stage with us the whole time. You know,
he does all the sound cues, et cetera. And it
turned it into a production. He also got a relationship
(19:38):
with our booking agent who has brought all the venues
that we've got casinos and things, the same guys that
do Vanilla Ice and Lodacris and the Isle of Nineties tour.
So there's some future potential integrations with Vanilla Ice and
some things coming up that you know would be really awesome.
And yeah, it's it's just like we've already got twenty
(19:59):
twenty seven or twenty twenty six almost booked out, and
there's a potential twenty twenty seven talk. I mean, this
is the dumbest thing I've ever been a part of,
but I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
I gotta think it's it's probably one of the coolest things.
And I think your attitude of just say yes and
I'll call it the universe, you call it the world,
We'll let you know. And I think that that is
the way you need to live. I think we should
all sort of live that way. We can't, right, especially
(20:30):
when you know you had five kids, in the navy
career and corporate career, whatever, But the uh, I think
you open yourself up to possibilities and sometimes you know,
I always go, there's two things in the world. It's fear, right, anxiety.
All this shit is all fear based. All that stuff
is just fear, and the other is love. And so
(20:52):
where are you gonna go? And when it's just going
I love it. I love entertaining. I love telling the
stories this had. I mean, it's like mind boggling and
I got it. Well it has to be, because I look,
I did thirty years on the radio, I write, I
did all this stuff. I did a lot of FM
talk I was around. This is to me the coolest.
I love that it's organic. You've made a connection with people.
(21:16):
All people want is a connection and to feel like
they matter, and you've built something cool and I got
I think that's amazing. My question for you is five kids,
how do they react to this?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
So initially they were like, what are you doing? In fact,
it's kind of funny. Is the youngest kid, the one
who went to boot camp, knew nothing about this whole
thing while he was in boot camp. And there was
a huge trajectory that occurred while he was in boot camp.
And then when he got out of boot camp and
I went up to his graduation, he said I told
him about it. He says, yeah, yeah, whatever, You're not anybody.
(21:52):
I was like, okay, but just hold on a second.
And so I went outside and he was getting out
released from his little boot camp thing to come spend
the after I'm in with us and I'm sitting there
waiting outside of the front gate, and it was I
just remember the look on his eyes. He got out
and we're hugging and we're saying our thing. We were
about to walk to the car. One of his drill
(22:12):
sergeants walks up to me and says, are you the Dadbod?
And he shakes my hand, and but I look on
my son's face was hilarious. He went, I'm not kidding
this true story. He went white and he says a
drill sergeant and he's like, hey, are you a son.
He's like yeah, he said, well you got a cool
dad here. I mean, it was just he didn't know
(22:32):
how to handle it. And then after that he goes, Dad,
what happened?
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Give me real quick? The uh the handles for people
like TikTok Instagram, if you don't mind, they want to
look you up. I know. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
So it's the Dadbod veteran on all places, and you
can go to the Dadbodveteran dot com and you've got
the list and all the.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Ways all right there. Yeah, makes it really easy go
on there and watch. By the way, TikTok. I always
love when my kid tells me. I. I was on
TikTok for a little while and then I stopped posting
videos and things because it's a monster you got to keep,
you got to feed it. Oh yeah, it's one of
these things you gotta do. I mean, I would assume,
do you like batch record a bunch of things and
(23:13):
put them out every day or how many?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Well I've transitioned to most recently, I transition a little
bit away from the reaction stuff, or if I've trickled
down on the reaction stuff, and now I'm doing these
daily dad Bod videos where I'm actually writing a script
where I pick a topic whatever it is. Like this morning,
I picked a top but about taking baths and the
fact that I take a bath, and I decided to
(23:35):
do a video explaining sarcastically why I take a bath
from a gen xer's perspective, about my achy joints and
EPs and salts and you know, this is my peaceful
place and blah blah blah. And I do one of
those every day, and maybe I'll do some reaction videos
that day, maybe not, but it's just my morning thing
that I do now is I make one daily dad
Bod video and it's it's starting to catch on people
(23:56):
like I needed this every day because it always ends
in a positive note. You know, no matter how sarcastic
the video is, no matter how insulting it is to myself,
I always end it on a positive note to give
somebody to carry something to carry forward with the rest
of the day. So I'm trying new things here and
there because you know, as we all know in entertainment,
you know what you did is only going to last
for so long and then you've got to, unfortunately, reinvent
(24:19):
yourself to stay relatives.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
So why as you're talking and I'm thinking of there's
a lot of thought that goes into this. There's a
lot of I would even think, you know, especially now
that you're doing stand up, you see the power of
the words right, word right, and word economy and all
this stuff is so important in that world. Teachers you
(24:44):
tried to impress maybe along the way that have seen you,
Now have they reached out and complimented you on what
you're doing. I'm just curious.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
I haven't had any teachers, but I've had coaches, okay, okay,
coaches that are like you're the you were the big
dumb animal, like how are you doing.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
It's that That's where I'm going, because there's it's it
takes an intelligence to do this. It takes the thing,
and I go sometimes, you know, I don't know about you.
I was probably more the I like living on the edge.
I even as a kid, right, so I'd be right
on the edge of always getting in trouble, being the
smart ass or being whatever. And to have somebody who
(25:27):
you always wanted their approval as a teacher or something,
and then yeah, even to get it later in life,
I just think that's so cool because they would go,
I never never would have thought you would do this. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
And it's the same thing with all the friends from
high school. They're like, I never would have pegged you
to be the guy, yeah, And I'm like, neither would I.
So we're both in the same boat. But I was
the riddling baby. So I was the bouncing off the walls,
the riddling baby, and then the big dumb animal in
high school. But it wasn't because I was the big
dumb animal. I was very smart. It was just I
was lazy. So I don't want to do it right now.
(26:02):
I'm in a scenario where I want to do this
so it's very easy to apply yourself when it's something
that you see is valuable.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
It's something they always keep in mind. Is parenting too right?
To realize that with your own kids and not try
to beat them up too much? I guess on some
of these things.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah, it's hard. That's really hard. It's so hard. That's hard.
But they're all you know. My goal with my kids
has always been that they need to be independent first,
and then they can be successful. I don't care if
you're successful. I care more that you're independent, just in case,
you know, the world decides that my time is over.
I want you to be able to live and survive.
So every life lessons that I've ever given to them
has been all about that first, and then we'll be successful.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
It's been a pleasure talking to you. And I apologize
for the informal meandering that I did with.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
This, but no, this is this is cool. I love
doing it.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
It is fun, and I think you're probably you're very
natural at talking and stuff. And man, I hope when
you guys are in Buffalo and marched that maybe we
put together a bus and go up and see you.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Come on, man, bring it on. You'll give me a
holler before you come, and we'll take care of you.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yeah, that would be uh, that would be a lot
of fun, and it would be fun to kind of
see that you can do it.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Maybe can do a live one, get all four of
us on there.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
That would be a lot of fun. That actually would
be a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Oh listen, I tell you what. You get the four
of us in a room, and it's watching four rabid
monkeys fight. I mean we are. The dynamics between the
four of us is insane. There have been people that
have come into the group, a very small group, and
they're like, what the is going on with these guys?
And we're like, there's just four creatives who are all
kind of spastic working.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Together, right, And yeah it's magic, yep, But it's crazy
to watch content creation. I think it's uh. I love it,
and I love that it's the gen X people taking
over and doing it. I think that's fantastic. You're never
too old, right.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
We're no longer the forgotten generation. We are now the
generation that no one will forget.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Awesome, well said John Wellington. A pleasure, Thank you so
much for time, Yes, sir, thank you, appreciate it all right,
just one last thing. It's just me sitting here. So
I wanted to find a way to talk about the
Jimmy Kimmel situation maybe a little differently. I saw Dave Portnoy,
(28:20):
who I always appreciate people who have opinions that I
feel like are thought based, right, which I know that
sounds kind of dumb. Right to have an opinion, you
got to be thinking, But I feel like he may
he made a point I think some people will agree with.
He said, what happened to Jimmy Kimmel is not cancel culture,
(28:43):
because cancel culture involves digging up things from the past,
tweets and things on people and using that to make
them less popular, or get them or knock them down,
so to speak. And my answer back to that is
I disagree with that statement. I think that sure, that's
(29:03):
how certain people seemed to get canceled from past behaviors.
Probably the most notable would be Bill Cosby, and we go, well,
maybe it should have happened, right, I mean, he was
pretty disgusting in what he was accused of doing. And
(29:24):
when you have sixty women coming out and saying it
all happened to them in one or two you can
kind of goa, they're making it up this you certainly
can't so, but I don't necessarily agree with that. And
I was thinking Roseanne Barr was canceled and kicked off
her show for a tweet that she sent out a
(29:44):
social media post that she tried to say she was
on Ambient and people were highly offended by it. And
again ABC ironically decided that she shouldn't be on the
show anymore because it would possibly lose advertisers coase what
she wrote was considered so controversial. Uh. I just here's
(30:09):
the thing that I go back to, and I'm hoping
people really really see this point, because I again I
think these these situations become emotionally charged, and when we're
emotionally charged, we're not necessarily thinking logically or understanding others' points.
(30:29):
And that's why I saw the Portnoy thing and I go,
maybe your first ace full of shit. Well, no, he
has a valid argument there. I'm not going to agree
with it, because I think cancel is just being canceled
for something you said, whether it's in the present moment
or the past, especially if it's in the past and
the person has a pattern of doing better why are
(30:52):
we going to punish them for something they did a
long time ago? And Dave's right, not necessarily famous people,
but students have lost scutolarships for something they wrote. You know,
they were picked by a school the play wide receiver,
I don't know, at a D one level, and then
they're they're gone. They lose the scholarship because of something
they put out when they were fourteen fifteen years old
(31:13):
of social media. Is there a lesson in there? Yes,
the lesson would be be careful what you're putting out
on social media and words have consequences. And that was
more of Portnoy's point with Jimmy Kimmel, that what he
said had consequences. Yes, And I go back to you know,
(31:35):
and I've said this continuously now for a couple of
weeks over different situations. It's a business decision if you
start losing money as a network, and you're also on
government airwaves. But when you see headlines like the FCC
head was offended by what this person said, saying offensive
things is not illegal. Saying offensive things should not cost
(31:57):
you your job. And I'm not again he suspended, not
fired as of the moment, But can we start to
see a pattern of you know, the President did say
Colbert is just the beginning and the other two better
be blah blah blah. Sure Jimmy would go at the president,
but isn't that what we want in a free speech world?
(32:19):
And again ABC, so if it's government airwaves, I would
look for these shows to start showing up online in
some way. You know, the only thing that Late Night
really has is the personality. And you know, you can say,
I'm glad Jimmy Kimmel's gone, right, but but what about
somebody you really like? And if they said something that
(32:40):
was controversial and taken away, it comes down to sort
of this power struggle. You know. I still will say
the Charlie Kirk situation, to me is a free speech
issue that concerns me gravely over the fact that people
not express ideas that they believe to be true and
(33:03):
trying to be beneficial. And I know there are people
going do you hear the things he said? He said
things that were inflammatory, But if we got to the
root of it, I really do feel like he was
challenging people to defend their positions and think critically. I
don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing. However, I understand,
(33:27):
but I can't cheer that person being killed. And I
certainly think that other people will say less now because
somebody has died for saying that, we can say we're
going to be brave and stuff, and even Charlie apparently
I think there was a bulletproof vest on right, So
(33:50):
it's I just the whole thing is mind boggling to
me and upsetting. And then to see the Kimmel thing,
I go, Now we're on the other side right when
we're silencing another voice that was giving a different opinion
and it's one that you don't agree with, so you
get to silence it. And that's what this, in my opinion,
(34:11):
seems to look like. The argument. It can certainly be made.
We're gonna lose money if he keeps saying these things.
We don't want to support it. That's a business decision.
But when it's the head of the FCCA didn't like
what was said and it was somewhat innocuous, then now
(34:32):
we need to we're gonna shut this this person down.
That's not American. It's not American. Let me know your thoughts.
I'm always always open to hearing them. You can text
any time. The numbers right there on the bottom of
the screen five eight five two of six eighty eight
sixty six. And you can always hit me up on
email as well. And I appreciate you listening, and I'd
(34:54):
love to hear people's opinions on this. But I do
worry that this is you know, we're silencing people right
one by killing somebody and now one by a government
agency saying I was I didn't like the way you
said that. Oh that, that, to me is is not American.
I don't know. I don't know how you feel, but
(35:16):
I'm open to the discussion and I appreciate you more
than you even know. For myself and for John Wellington,
the dad bod veteran, I'm the Moran. We'll see them all.
(35:36):
We'll see Monday. I'm atter to you, Dagnet about the
un of State. See they were looking borrow cadaa with
Tennessee
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