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Cracking the Whip: Conversation & Jacques Ze Whipper | OPE Unscripted Ep. 1
1 Playsin 2 hours
Welcome to the very first episode of OPE Unscripted — where there’s no script, no playbook, and absolutely no clue where the conversation is headed.
To kick things off, we’re joined by the one and only Jacques Ze Whipper for a wild conversation that goes completely off the rails in the best way possible. From performance stories and larger-than-life moments to random rabbit holes, laughs, and everything in between, this episode sets the tone for what OPE Unscripted is all about.
No sports agenda. No limits. Just real conversations with interesting people.
Grab a drink, turn it up, and welcome to the chaos.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Ope Unscripted' and the Guest
00:00:55
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Ohana Packers Edition podcast. We are Ope. I am Iowa Joe. This is episode one of the newly renamed from off season and off topic to op Unscripted.
00:01:09
Speaker
This is the episodes where i just find the most random people you can think of, invite them on have a conversation. Basically it's anything opposite of the Green Bay Packers because we are in that time of year where Content is very limited and I don't want to keep rehashing the same stuff as every other podcast. We have a great episode today. We have a gentleman joining me who <unk>ve I've been a fan of his TikTok for a while now. And, you know, like I always tell people, I'm a persistent asshole. If I find an email, I will send an email. Worst they can do is tell me to leave them the hell alone. So, you know,
00:01:51
Speaker
It is what it is, but he is a true Renaissance man, not only because he goes to Renaissance Fair and performs at Renaissance Fair, but now he will correct me if I've missed anything.
00:02:05
Speaker
He plays on a men's league baseball team, flag football, former newscaster. ah Let's see, I have a list here. Streamer, tabletop role player, cat dad.
00:02:19
Speaker
comedy shows, and of course the most famous one is a whipcracker. Jack the Whipper, or Jacques the Whipper, thank you for joining me on this first episode.
00:02:31
Speaker
It's my pleasure to be here. i'll I'll correct one thing. It's former flag football. I'm not allowed to play flag football anymore because I get injured ah when I play flag football. I get injured when I play a lot of sports, but flag football had the highest percentage of injuries despite being completely non-contact somehow.
Jacques' Early Life and Circus Influence
00:02:49
Speaker
So basically what you're saying is we're not going to see in the Olympic Games for flag football anytime soon. No, no. I think, you know, I was, mean, one, I'm um i'm going to be 38 pretty soon. And two, even when I was in my 20s, was, you know, I was not, I was never the greatest. ah where Where I got by was, so I showed up, I got just like signed up to join a team that a couple of friends of mine from dodgeball were playing. I used to play in a dodgeball league as well. There we go. There's another one I missed. There there you go. Yeah. And so i I showed up to this team and we were playing outdoors on turf and I hate playing on turf because it just tears up your legs. So I wore baseball pants ah to it. I was like baseball pants and football pants are kind of similar. um And so I showed up there like, oh, well, you look like you know how to throw then if you're wearing baseball pants or you're our quarterback. I was like, oh, that's a bold decision. um But as it turned out, I was, I mean, like I wasn't an amazing quarterback, but I, i you know, I kind of, the ball would go where I wanted it to go pretty regularly. And so I settled into basically being a quarterback only. And I don't do cardio. So I couldn't like, I couldn't run, you know, I'm i'm fast, but I'm fast for 90 feet as you know, from all yeah all my years playing baseball instead.
00:04:08
Speaker
But you know, really, like I said, that's a true Renaissance type guy because you you do a little bit of everything. And I guess the, the name Jack fits you perfectly because of the Jack of all trades type yeah moniker, but you know, the, what I know you most from is your whip cracking, your whip performing on, on Tik TOK and all the other stuff. Now,
00:04:30
Speaker
One thing I also did forget to mention was that you have been performing in circuses since you you say on one of your things before you could tie your shoes. Yes. And how where where did that come about? I know you said your parents are kind of are into it, but where did your interest come from? Well, so technically I wasn't on stage before I could tie my shoes. I learned to tie my shoes. I i want to say like three months before I started going on stage with my dad. Now, if you were going to say three months ago, I was going to yeah question something. um No, I started performing with my dad when I was six and my dad was a circus performer, still is a circus performer. um And when he, so he was with the Big Apple Circus when I was born, which is mostly a Northeast circus. And then when he left that circus to do his own show, he did the Renaissance Fair circuit for a little bit.
00:05:17
Speaker
um And so I did a lot of shows with him at various Renaissance Fairs, Scarborough Renaissance Fair, King Richard's Fair near me here in Boston, ah the Pennsylvania Renaissance Fair, New York Renaissance Fair. So we did a bunch of shows um over those years. I didn't start cracking whips until about a year later, which is still...
00:05:36
Speaker
Like seven years old is too young to be teaching a kid how to crack a whip. But nevertheless, I did it. And ah so that was the gist. My father was ah was a circus performer, still is a circus performer. And I think it was easier to just put me on stage with him than hire a babysitter.
Career Balance: News and Circus Performance
00:05:53
Speaker
And so here we are. Now, like I mentioned, you were a newscaster, news anchor, i think it was for NPR. yeah Where do you go from going to school and doing stuff for being the newscaster to forget that I'm going to go and just start doing ah whip cracking?
00:06:14
Speaker
So i I had these like kind of dual paths all through college of, you know, do I do circus? Do I do, you know, ah do I get a real job? And my mom was very, very, my mom was a college professor, PhD, first in her family to go to college. So she was very, very big on me getting a proper normal education um and not just being, you know, kind of like the circus kid whose only option is to stay in the circus.
00:06:36
Speaker
So um she was big that I, you know, went to school, got a normal job. My dad was on board with this. My dad also wanted me to have, you know, to have. options, as it were. um And all through college, I was doing things like I was street performing. I was doing renaissance fairs, and those helped pay the bills when I was in college. um But I was also working at my college radio station and and basically getting the resume that I would need um because I was in college during the 2008 recession, and I was looking at... yeah yeah You know, the class right before me graduating in the spring of 09 and none of them could find jobs. So I was like, all right, well, if I want to get a job out of this, I need to, you know, really work hard. So I was working hard on that. I was working hard on the hard on the circus and I got a part time job at WBUR, the station that I ended up working for for 13 years. um after I interned there the spring of my senior year, which was all part of the plan. The plan was intern for them, they like me, they hire me. um But even when I was part-time, I was making $16.50 an hour was my first salary. And that was part-time. And it was only as a fill-in role. So if someone called in sick or someone went on vacation, then I got work. But I was you know one of... three backups they had. So I wasn't always the first person they called. I usually wasn't the first person they called. So ah the circus helped pay the bills. And then by the time I got a full-time job, I was like, well, you know, the circus is still there.
00:08:01
Speaker
um And it makes solid it makes better money than anything else I can do right now. um So if I work an extra eight weekends out of the year, take a couple you know couple of days off for vacation time here and there um to just give myself breaks during the the brunt of circus season,
00:08:17
Speaker
It makes a lot of sense. I can i can pay down my student loans. you know I can pay off my car loan. And that was kind of, you know I just stuck with it. um And i I enjoyed it as well. Because i you know i was even all through college, I was kind of thinking about it. um Had I not gotten a job at WBUR, I probably would have... tried to do circus full-time instead.
00:08:36
Speaker
um And i even there were even times in my early career WBUR where I was really thinking about you know making the circus full-time. And then I would get promoted BUR and I'd be like, all right, well, I'll give them another couple of years.
00:08:47
Speaker
um And then it got to the point where I really liked the radio work. I was a reporter. I was an anchor. I was getting to do all these really fun, interesting things. And then around, I want to say around 20, basically amid the pandemic when I was working full-time you know in office every single day I kind of just sort of hit a wall and got a little burned out and I was kind of just sick of it I was bored of it um and I was kind of i was already looking for something else to do a way to like kind of just give myself a change uh and then i suddenly you know over the course of like three months got two million followers on TikTok and I was like all right well
00:09:25
Speaker
this might be an option. Let's you know let's not rush into anything. um And i you know I kind of just kept posting regularly for about a year. And then I finally did some shows again for the first time in like nine months.
00:09:38
Speaker
And the shows were so incredibly crowded. I was like, all right, okay, I got to just, let's let's let's line up enough work that I can safely quit my job and then quit my job.
Addressing Misconceptions About Jacques' Shows
00:09:49
Speaker
Yeah, I kind of hope this happens with with the podcast one of these days. and Yeah. um But ah I, so like i said i've been following your tick tock for a couple of years now and and really got into it but i when i invite people on i always try to do a little bit of a deep dive just to you know see what people are saying about said person and so i just happened to go on the old reddit machine today just to punch you know and popped your name in and of course the first one that pops up is a thread that says or that asks what exactly is jock's z whipper Now, I thought that was the perfect. Now, this guy did or this person, I shouldn't say guy, person yeah didn't quite understand the whole, you know, the whole TikTok videos of you. But just to give an inner general idea to people, what exactly is Jacques Z. Whippert? Yeah, I think there's an assumption out there that my show is just the musical whipping that I put on the internet. So ah anyone who's seen a video of mine, it has probably been me cracking whips to make a beat and then singing a song while changing the lyrics of like, you know, whatever popular song ah that you like. And I think there there is an assumption
00:11:04
Speaker
even among a lot of my fans, that that is the entire show. That is not. That is about five to ten minutes of the show. um the The rest of the show is whip tricks, stand-up comedy, stunts, a whole bunch of other things. I just don't put that on the internet because ah like scripted material like that, is that takes time to put together. yeah like that's That's the like, hey, okay, you've seen it on the internet, come see the show and see everything else that I do that is not just, you know,
00:11:34
Speaker
s singing songs right right yeah and you're not the first one to do that i mean most comedians i'll try to do that and and you know not that i've been to a lot but i i don't know probably about 10 years ago i went to see gabriel iglesias at one of our local casinos and it was the same thing no recording no nothing like that you know we're gonna go on as long as you know you're the crowds into it but So yeah, i completely understood on that. but And that was the gist of what this this gentleman's or person's question was. was like Well, all I see is him whipping to music you know and I don't understand it. and so
00:12:16
Speaker
um But that's like any good performer, that's the draw. That's the thing you show people to come see you wherever you're at.
00:12:29
Speaker
at wherever you're at and you know, people just don't understand
Humorous Sports Injury Stories
00:12:34
Speaker
that. they They want the media right then and they want all that stuff. So, but you you you've been in the business for years, so that that's pretty, you know, that that's smart business. Yeah. um Now, speaking of the flag football, when I first messaged you about coming on, you said you had a story that you specifically wanted to talk about.
00:12:59
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So when I, my that flag football team, I told you that I joined, um, so i i mentioned before how you know i showed up in baseball pants so they made me the quarterback and uh i also mentioned that i was not really a great quarterback but on this team i realized we had a guy who had played wide receiver in college uh and so all i needed to do was just put this ball kind of near him and he would catch it and he was better than anyone else on the field easily and so That became the go-to strategy. um And if he wasn't open or if you know one of the check down options wasn't open, then I would scram.
00:13:37
Speaker
Because i'm so I am fast and I can sprint in short bursts. And so I decided that it was basically like, look for this guy, look for the two other people that I trust to catch the ball, sprint. um And that was that was our play calling. Unfortunately, um I got a little excited in game number two And I i tried to, i do try and it wasn't a juke, I tried to do a spin move on someone, um planted my right foot, went to spin around, and ah felt everything crack, just everything.
00:14:10
Speaker
Broke my ankle, um ah let out and a string of obscenities. And ah there were there there are a couple of couple of fun things about this story. Number one was that i I knew something was wrong, but I wasn't actually in that much pain.
00:14:26
Speaker
So I didn't actually go to the hospital immediately. um Instead, what I did was I went back to the radio station where I had i had had been working earlier in the day.
00:14:38
Speaker
And I had put together a story, but I still needed to voice that story. So I went back to the radio station. you know, did my recorded my tracks for this story. the ah The audio engineer there mixed it all together.
00:14:50
Speaker
Then I went to the hospital and I was kind of on the fence and I called my dad. I was like, you know, honestly, like this might just be a sprain, like it doesn't hurt at all. and I was like, yeah, I should I probably should really go check it out. Go to the hospital. um And they take an x ray. And the thing about the x ray techs, they don't there, I guess the x ray techs in the room aren't allowed to a show you the x ray or be tell you if you have a break. um And I said, the x ray, I didn't know this. so I said the x ray tech, I'm like, Hey, can I see it? what What does it look like? He goes, I'm not allowed to.
00:15:23
Speaker
But I think it's safe to say you're not going to be playing any football anytime soon.
00:15:29
Speaker
And so, yeah, yeah No, I was just gonna say that's that's funny. I have a similar story with my knee when I was in high school. um i i was you know It was the one year that I decided, okay, I am going to go out and I'm going to try playing football. And it was my junior year.
00:15:47
Speaker
And we were in summer camp. And we were doing um you know ah offense versus defense. And I'm on the defensive line. and in the middle of trying to get through the block and the guy beside me gets pushed around and falls right on the back of my knee. Well, you could hear the, you could hear the audible pop.
00:16:09
Speaker
And i I didn't feel pain, but I knew something was wrong with it. And I, I tried to get up and I immediately fell down, but then I was able to get back up and I was like, okay, well maybe, you know, we're good. We're good. We're good.
00:16:25
Speaker
So I'm hobbling around, hobbling around. Next day, our so-called team manager, whatever, medical guy, who is just an EMT that volunteered for the team, goes, okay, well, let's check you out. Let's do this. So he does whatever he thinks he's doing. And, oh, well, it's just a sprain, you know, just ice it and, you know, and and you know wrap it up. So, okay, well, I went through the whole frigging year just wrapping my knee up, icing it after everything. And so it gets to be about a month or two after the end of the season and I'm still, my knee's giving out on me. I'm i'm still kind
Whip-Cracking Records and Techniques
00:17:05
Speaker
of hobbling. And so my mom takes me up to the University of Iowa to their um med facilities and
00:17:13
Speaker
head of the the the sports medicine who works on all the friggin hawkeye players and everything else comes in he's an older doctor dr john albright trifocal lenses everything else and comes in does the examination sits down at the desk writes some notes turns to me he goes how the hell are you still walking yeah i was gonna say which c l slash meniscus was it It was my ACL and and I ah kind of tore the meniscus with it.
00:17:46
Speaker
yeah But he goes, i really don't understand it because I cannot feel it in there at all. And so they go through the whole procedure, you know, MRIs, everything else, put me in a brace and all that. And then we get to the surgery and they go and do the surgery and all that. and when All done. He comes in, checks, and goes, there was nothing there.
00:18:06
Speaker
They had to completely reconstruct my ACL. He goes, I have no idea how you were able to do it. The only thing at the time, you know, I was still a bigger guy, but at the time I was lifting weights and all that stuff. And I was really good with my lower body more than my upper body. And he said, the only thing I can think of is you've built your quads up so much that it it's...
00:18:28
Speaker
it's compensating for the lack of acl and yeah so yeah yeah i i feel you on that yeah i learned on that trip if you if you go to the emergency room and you suspect that you have a break you should tell them you should not downplay the pain that you are in yeah because i waited in that waiting room for about five hours uh before i finally got treated yeah lovely yeah Now, Grant, I mean, like i went to i went to the hospital in downtown Boston, so they probably had, you know, bigger things going on. But but still, I was like, it I think it was like three hours just to get the x-ray.
00:19:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, even here in my small town area, the it's still long wait times, but that's the wonders of our beautiful medical, uh, uh, system. But anyway, that's a topic for a whole nother. Um, so back to your whipping. Now you are a world record whipper.
00:19:32
Speaker
I was trying to figure out which ones you were. So I did a quick Google search and this is what the Google AI tells me. Most crack whip, ah crack whip cracks with one hand and 60 seconds at 260.
00:19:48
Speaker
However, it says in 2015, initially claimed, but later found slightly short of the mark. yeah Most whip cracks in one minute with one hand at 278, then there's 289 298.
00:20:01
Speaker
Okay. All right. well google Google AI wasn't terribly off. So ah this is why you should not trust the Google search results or the AI search results. So like, yeah, that most of that's correct. the The important clarification there, it is not with one hand. A lot of people think it's with one hand. So it is most bullwhip cracks ah in one minute. And that that's important with with one whip, I guess. But that's not... the the The official Guinness title for it is Most Bull Whip Cracks in One Minute, period. ok um And that's important because there is most bull whip cracks or most stock whip cracks in one minute. Most ah bull whip cracks with two whips in one minute. There's a whole bunch. Basically, like, mine is most most whip cracks with the whip that you think of from Indiana Jones in one minute. But I switched hands halfway through.
00:20:53
Speaker
right And that was that was part of you know part of the strategy. So the strategy was ah go as long as you can on your right hand, switch to your left, and then for me, switch back to the right hand. The last time I did it when I got 298, that was me working out enough to get strong enough that I didn't need to switch back to the right hand.
00:21:13
Speaker
Now, when it asks for, or when it says most whips, is that every time it cracks or is that actual legit whip? So basically you can go back, crack, forward, crack, and that would count as Yeah, that counts as two. So the tech you have to use a technique called the volley, where you basically, if you think if you're standing up straight and you hold your your arm out at like an L shape in front of you, though you just kind of rotate your hand, you know, back and forth, pronate it, whatever the opposite of pronate is, you know, back and forth, back and forth. And each time the whip it you know moves to either side of you, it's going to crack. So it it sounds like ch-ch-ch-ch. Yep, yep, ch-ch.
00:21:53
Speaker
So you're going back and forth like that. um And every time the whip cracks, counts as one crack. However, ah when you're going as fast as you are, chances are you're going to miss a few cracks. So, you know, the 298 one, I think I swung the whip back and forth probably something more like 305, 306 times. um But, you know, had seven or eight times where it just didn't count.
Fan Encounters and Performance Stories
00:22:21
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, got to admit, the only experience I have with any kind of whip cracking is when you're a kid and you tie the rope to the end of a pole and and and stuff like that. And, you know, even then that's, that's quite the jaunt on on on the arm. So I can just imagine how, how tiring it is just to do that in that amount of time. So it is the best forearm workout you will ever find.
00:22:47
Speaker
So pretty soon you're going to up Popeye-like and just have them massive. I have a muscle, and I'll show it to you on on the video, a muscle in this forearm that if I just, it looks like a tumor. It just pops up. I've had that. It's not a tumor. Yeah, it's not a tumor. No, it's just there's this muscle in the top of my forearm where if I just lift my my hand, it is just like this, like,
00:23:12
Speaker
bubble that pops up and that is that is the whip muscle um every every whip crack I remember a friend of mine ah Aaron Bonk posted a video of him like holding his whips and know like he he he was in such a way that you could see that his muscles were were sticking out i was like hey I see those forearms nice whip muscles buddy it goes game recognizes game um so I'm gonna I I've got a video now to be fair with you i did find well let me let me start over with this so you have a very famous stalker let's so say yes and he's uh you know tends to follow you around every once in a while and you have dubbed him slayer man yes
00:24:03
Speaker
Now, I did find his information. I was legit going to send him a message and have him send the video in and just to interrupt. Oh, that would be great. I did not get the chance to just because I found it like two or three days ago, and i was like, well, hopefully, you know maybe. But next anyway, ah Slayer Man.
00:24:25
Speaker
Yes. Can you tell the story of Slayer Man real quick while I get it? Yeah, Slayer man is, is he's a ah fan of mine who's been coming to my shows since well before I ever blew up on the internet. um I want to say he's been coming to my shows probably since about 2013, and he is known for being really, really loud and yelling for me to sing Slayer as a whip song.
00:24:49
Speaker
um And even back in the day when I used to, add yeah I used to just say like, who's got a a song request? Shout him out, and I would pick the song that I liked the most. um he was He was notable for being louder than the entire crowd when he yelled Slayer. um And finally, I learned like a little bit of Slayer for him. ah ah But now he started following me to the various shows. So he started following me to the Maryland Renaissance Festival, New Jersey Ren Fair. And now he's shown up at Colorado. He's shown up at comedy clubs. He just he just showed up at Tennessee ah last weekend, about a week ago.
00:25:24
Speaker
So yeah, he, he has his own, he has, his he gets recognized on his own now, which is hilarious. Yeah. He's got a very interesting, um, YouTube channel. Yeah. And that's how I found him. So, uh,
00:25:38
Speaker
yeah and that's how i found them so ah But yeah, the the couple that I remember is, and he finds different ways of trying to get in. um And then there's been times that you've you've thought you've seen him and it ended up not being him. And then he still shows up, manages to show up somewhere in there. But I guess the most famous one as of right now is him in the Minecraft Jacques Z. Whimper outfit. Yeah, yeah. He collaborated with my wife on that one.
00:26:09
Speaker
they They conspired against me. So I'm going to bring this back to Packers because we are obviously a ah Packers oriented show. And I dare to say you got out whipped by a Packer fan.
Passion for Tabletop RPGs
00:26:24
Speaker
Now you came close to it, but I still, got to give them props. So i I will show the video. Oh, I know which one you're talking about. Yeah.
00:26:39
Speaker
Come on, buddy. You can do it.
00:26:48
Speaker
I'm trying to use the force of my bent knees and that'll work.
00:26:54
Speaker
Use whatever joints of yours don't hurt. That's actually most of them. i'm and I'm in pretty solid shape nowadays.
00:27:15
Speaker
Bum bum bum bum
00:27:22
Speaker
bump bu bump bu but bump bump bu f up pra for Yeah, so here's the thing. So yeah I may have gotten that whipped by a Packers fan, but Adam's record is the one that I broke when I got my world record. So you know what? I guess, i guess you know, turnabout's fair play. But also, like, Adam is a friend of mine. that was I was using his roller bolla to film that. He's the one telling me to use the force. So I am i welcome the the silliness. we do a We do a show together anytime we're we're at the same fair together. And ah we the way I've described it is it is it is two brothers ah just just bullying each other, like subtly bullying each other through the entire show.
00:28:07
Speaker
And it's a lot of fun every so every time to do. But like I said, he's wearing a Packers cheese head. He's wearing a Packers jersey. He couldn't tell you a single player on that team.
00:28:18
Speaker
Well, you know, that that's that's casual the Packer fan. Yeah. But, you know, harmonica and, you know, all that. Of course, we didn't get to see the setup either. So he could have probably struggled as much setting up. No, no. He does that live in our in our show.
00:28:34
Speaker
So he we do a whole bit about it in in in the show we do together where he demonstrates the trick and then I try to do it. And then we do it in a we find a way to, like, combine our talents and do it together.
00:28:45
Speaker
ah where he he'll be on the harmonica, I'll be on the whips, and he's helping me balance on the roller bolla a little more steadily than that. um he has Because saw the green and gold in there, I had to throw it in there. Oh, yeah. No, he he has a running joke about that. He says that video, I think, got something like 20 million views for him last year. And he said, and it got about 17,000 comments, 16,000 of which were people saying, where's Jacques Z. Whipper?
00:29:13
Speaker
Much to his chagrin. Yeah. Yeah. And I bet the other part was just go pack go because that that's typical Packer fandom. If they see the green and gold, that that's just what they do in there. But um and as for the subtle bullying, it's not a it's not a good friendship if you can't subtly bully your your friends. so So just a little jab here and there.
00:29:36
Speaker
um So I want to kind of go away from the whipping a little bit, even though that's what you do. in tabletop role play games. yeah You are on top of being sports enthusiast and all that else, you are a nerd, I'm a fellow nerd, i you know I'm big into the tabletop RPGs, I am a gamer ah through and through. You are in in a current of video game
00:30:11
Speaker
how to uh uh not montage but series for called min max yes and i i have watched up to episode three i don't think they've done you guys have released four we're up to six uh oh are you just came out today episode six just came out today okay so then i'm a little bit behind line it's okay work i tell you that if i know it's tough with a two-week release schedule like if it were up to me if i were looking at this i'd be like i'll i'll give it some time i'm just to like, like have be able to binge it a little bit.
00:30:44
Speaker
Well, and you like I said, if I didn't have a job, I would be able to catch up on a lot of other things. But you know, you got to make that money somehow. But when did you start getting into tabletop RPGs?
00:30:56
Speaker
um I mean, like, I've had ah an interest in them since I was a kid. um I read, you know, the Dungeon Master, or not the, the Player's Handbook for ah a D&D, second edition D&D, way back in, when I was a kid backstage at Renaissance Fairs. um The thing is that i didn't have I didn't know anyone who played D&D. So I never got to play it until ah someone moved into my building.
00:31:21
Speaker
I want to say 2021, 2020-ish. I forget exactly when. um and Maybe it might have been 2019. I forget. ah Time is illusory and a construct. ah But basically, like someone moved into my building who was a DM, and she made ah a game. And so we started playing together.
00:31:38
Speaker
um We did ah an entire campaign from level one all the way to level 20. Very fast progression, but you know we did it nonetheless. um And then I just basically took any opportunity I could to play D&D. I worked with a friend of mine, Paolo Garbanzo, another Renfair performer on his Twitch channel, which is Nat21Adventures, where ah they have 20-sided die that goes up to instead now just a little extra Um, just that it's, uh, spinal tap.
00:32:13
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah. Bring it up to 11. Um, um got got to perform with uh 20-sided tavern the like live dnd improv show and and now we've got min maxed as well uh which i was filming actually at the same time as 20-sided tavern down in dallas so i would basically you know we do 10 hours of dnd with min maxed and then i drive and do another three hours of dnd with 20-sided tavern Hey, it's it.
00:32:44
Speaker
People don't understand what it takes to be to play a tabletop RPG. They just think, oh, well, that's just some nerd stuff, you know, whatever. But it takes a lot. It really does. Imagination, ah math.
00:32:59
Speaker
all this other stuff time and people just don't get that and i got into it when i was living in the dorms in college there was a group of guys that were playing it um course you get a little drunk and you'd sit there and play for 10 12 hours or whatever and then when i got out of college i i met a guy when i was working at one of the gas stations i worked at and been part of his group for a long time and and you know my very first moment getting into that group and this is where the imagination stuff takes place people so just bar with me with the story here we get in there i'm playing a rogue gnome because i love playing a rogue gnome for some reason
00:33:44
Speaker
I can't remember what his character was, but there's a group of five of us and we get into this cave and I think it was a bat or something landed on.
00:33:55
Speaker
No, we were fighting orcs. We were fighting orcs. So one of the guys in the group had cleave and he swung and crit missed.
00:34:07
Speaker
I see where this is going. And cleaved. my friend in half so here i am new to this group in real life and in in in game and i immediately see one of the party cleave the other guy in half and i mean split them right down the middle from that point on i was in
Exploring Various RPG Systems
00:34:26
Speaker
the group i was hooked and i was like okay we're gonna go chaos yeah that's not that's not the response you're supposed to have to to watching one party member kill the other No, no, but I was my um rogue gnome was trying to go into ah
00:34:44
Speaker
assassins. So, you know, death is death, whatever. You know, I was. What's a little death between friends? but And like i said, I didn't know I was new to that group in game. So it was like, OK, well, maybe they didn't like each other and he just a little too far or whatever. But now, other than D&D, have you got into any other of the tabletop RPGs?
00:35:08
Speaker
I've tried a few here and there. um I got to play a Daggerheart game um ah when I was at PAX Unplugged. ah Really like Daggerheart. It's it's it's. It's D&D, but with less rules and more vibes. So you you know like if you're the dungeon master, you have a lot more freedom to just kind of like make this story make a little bit more sense and make things flow a little bit faster, especially combat.
00:35:32
Speaker
um I just did an episode i did and ah ah ah with some friends. They have a podcast where we did Draw Steel. We did a one shot. um I will say Draw Steel, holy smokes, is that combat slower than molasses.
00:35:46
Speaker
um so i i left draw steel feeling like it could use a little bit of work um and then have i done any i don't know if i've i haven't done any pathfinder yet um i'm familiar with call of cthulhu i mean five five e and now 5.5 e is my is my bread and butter Pathfinder is very similar to D&D, very much the same structure and all that stuff. um If you can, and this is a suggestion for you. So if you can find somebody who has the OG books, not not Savage World, Deadlands is a very good tabletop RPG. It's an old west style, but it's a ah weird west style. And you know you've got like vampires, werewolves, walking dead,
00:36:34
Speaker
ah You know, all that good stuff. That's one of the ones that my friends and I tend to play more often. not And it's a very old school style of dice game where it's not a D20 system. It's like a D6 system. and But if you don't like slow combat, it is a very slow combat.
00:36:56
Speaker
See, I usually don't mind slow combat. I just play with so many people who are just so very ADHD that it's I'm just like, i'm like, guys, I need you. I need you to pick up the pace so that I i don't yeah like lose, lose interest here is also like for me, like d like combat is actually one of my favorite parts about D&D.
00:37:15
Speaker
um because i like I see it as a like as a puzzle to solve. I played games like Shining Force back in the day, or you know the the modern equivalent would be something like Fire Emblem or Triangle Strategy.
00:37:28
Speaker
um where like I played these games where you like move pieces around the board and they get one attack and then the other you know the enemy gets an attack. and it is like For me, D&D combat is the exact same of like, okay, how do I win this combat by expending the fewest resources and taking the least damage?
Gaming Hobbies Beyond Tabletop RPGs
00:37:44
Speaker
like you know That's a fun equation for me. um And so because of that, like that is what I focus on. And like it can immediately be like, okay, do this, do this, do this. And then someone will do something suboptimal. And I'm like, I'm just filled with rage at it.
00:38:00
Speaker
Yeah. ah My tactics anymore is I hit as hard as I can for one and then I run. Yeah, yeah. we yeah We've been doing a group Baldur's Gate 3 run with some of the guys from MinMaxed and our fighter. Boy, boy, is he being a himbo.
00:38:16
Speaker
um ah he has He has yet to meet a cloud of daggers cast by me that he did not want to run into. Now, the other game that we really love is ah ah the Star Wars D20 system, the the the Saga Edition. I've heard things about that. I have run that as a DM a couple different times, and and it can be a really fun system to play. And, of course, I'm a Star Wars nerd, so it just it goes to... There's one that I'm trying to find the books on because I'm also a big Ghostbusters fan, and they have a Ghostbusters RPG. I just haven't...
00:38:52
Speaker
had the time to sit down and read it and get anybody interested interested and run it but speaking of video games i happen to see go on your twitch channel and see that you play a game that i just happened to be playing last night when i was prepping to come on this one and that's seven days to die oh yeah oh yeah got about a thousand hours in that game yeah i'm i'm probably looking ah at that same way i just started back because you get those moments where what do i want to play what scratches the edge in forever and you know ah obviously i've played madden and ncaa football and um we were playing arc uh uh
00:39:40
Speaker
I can't remember which version of it is, but you'd tame dinosaurs. The dinosaur one. Yeah. yeah um Yeah. when we have a big ah group of four, we do Phasmophobia.
00:39:55
Speaker
that That
Sports Fan Journeys and Allegiances
00:39:56
Speaker
one's a pretty good one. but ah So i got one of these days, we were going to have to get together and and run a seven days to die world. Yeah.
00:40:07
Speaker
i run it so i I run a server for my ah my Discord server um that I will probably... It's like defunct to right now because like everyone's kind of lost interest until 3.0 comes out. But I think once 3.0 comes out this summer, which I think is going to be this summer, I will probably clean that up and and put it back up.
00:40:26
Speaker
So... Yeah, yeah. um I don't get a chance to play as often as I used to just because of work schedules and that, but yeah I try to play a little bit and you know I got a couple of friends that,
00:40:39
Speaker
oh you know, we, or what's the other one that no man's sky is the other one that we've been kind of playing a little bit more of. And I just built the Ebon Hawk and no man's skies. So nice I'm pretty good with that. My my wife and i have been doing a ton of runescape dragon wilds, ah which is little, little survival crafty and a little souls like oddly.
00:41:02
Speaker
Yeah, which she has not done well with. She's never touched a Souls-like game. um I've played a few. i i am familiar enough with the the the the the calculus of like, hey, don't just mash the attack button. Remember where your dodge and parry buttons are.
00:41:19
Speaker
that's my big problem with the jedi survivor games is it's very much similar and you've got to make sure because you can't hold a block constantly because you've got a certain amount and yeah yeah yep my kitty cat has decided to be a little bit of a pain in the butt so yeah i think i woke mine up by by rubbing you too much so We'll move it back to a little bit to sports. yeah You live in Boston now, but I'm going to put my my
00:41:49
Speaker
ah sightseer hat on, my my my prognostications. I want to say I remember that you're a Mets fan.
00:42:01
Speaker
No, God, no. no Yankees. Okay, so I was wrong on Which is like, whatever, worse. But, you know, but better for me, worse for everyone else. Well, i just, I remember that there was a show that you did and that you lived in Boston and you were doing the show in Boston. And I thought you said that, don't worry, I'm not a Yankees fan. So I could have misunderstood. I might have, I might've just lied.
00:42:30
Speaker
It's, I don't You know, i'm i'm I know better than to say go Yankees on stage in a Boston crowd. Well, see, I'm glad you're not a Mets fan because that would have been one strike against you because I happen to be... You Phillies?
00:42:45
Speaker
A Braves fan. Oh, Braves fan. Oh, okay. The Yankees aren't worse in that equation? I mean, like, I know division rivalries, but... Well, I still harbor ah strong feelings against the Yankees because of 96, And but...
00:43:03
Speaker
ah at ninety nine but um because of the division rivalry and the constant between the two teams. yeah And it seems like no matter where I go, Mets fans are always trying to say this and that about the Braves, even though, hey, Mets fans, the Braves have won the World Series a lot more recent than than the Mets have. ah But yeah maybe it's just like i maybe it's the Mets fans I know. I feel like no one knows that their team is a joke more than Mets fans.
00:43:33
Speaker
um Like I remember seeing some some Instagram reel of someone being like, what's the best thing about being a Mets fan? And he's like, oh, you know, just teaches you you know a lot of character, you know, teach you how to have pride in your team. and What's the worst thing about being a Mets fan? Probably May to October.
00:43:50
Speaker
That's Lions fans for us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Bears fans. Bears fans, really. But Lions lions were that way for the longest time, too. yeah. So my other guess was, but now it's thrown me off because you're not a Mets fan. I was going to say you're probably also ah Giants fan. Actually, no. So I've had this weird long run of football fanhoods. So this is going to take a minute. So um my dad is a Red Sox. My dad is a Red Sox fan.
00:44:23
Speaker
um My dad, for some reason, never tried to make me a Red Sox fan and just allowed me to become a Yankee fan. And I honestly like I had no interest in football growing up.
00:44:33
Speaker
um Absolutely none. I think the first Super Bowl I ever watched was 2002 Patriots Rams. And because it was whatever it was, four months after 9-11, I was like, hey, my dad is a Red Sox fan.
00:44:48
Speaker
um and they're the Patriots and they're from Boston too so i you know like it's patriotic to support the Patriots and i'll be I'll be with my dad so I decided I was going to become a Patriots fan which means that I am the absolute worst bandwagon Patriots fan ever um and i accept that and i i understand it uh i do not continue to maintain a patriot's loyalty i stopped before their so like before their success ended i was like i can't really enjoy rooting for this team i supported them basically
00:45:21
Speaker
um so like i moved up here in 2006 I was a big Patriots fan from basically 06 until probably, honestly, until 2008, because I interned for them for for a semester.
00:45:39
Speaker
Interned for the Patriots, completely lost my fanhood for about a year, came back, and I was like, okay, all right. Which I know is making me sound even worse, because that's the year that Brady was injured. um And then was a huge Patriots fan up until about the moment after they beat the Falcons in the Super Bowl.
00:45:55
Speaker
And I realized, I said, no victory by this team will ever be as satisfying as that was. there no No success will ever be great. And I i i was i didn't i came to that conclusion. i didn't really kind of, i think, understand it until I think it was the next year they lost to the ah to the Eagles.
00:46:17
Speaker
And I was a reporter. My job was to talk to Patriots fan. And the way these Boston fans were crying about losing the Super Bowl, I was like, you all are the most spoiled little brats I have ever met in my life. These, you know, these 20 year old college kids. I'm like, you all need to come.
00:46:37
Speaker
calm the heck down and i don't mean heck so like after that i was like no i take i take more joy in seeing boston fans lose than i do in seeing the teams that i i still like like i like the bruins i still like the patriots but like i take much more joy in bostonian tears after that and like obviously the red sox i will forever hate We get the same thing from fans of the Packers from like the 70s and the 80s because that's when they weren't good. Yeah. So when we, you know, i I'm a couple years older than you. I will be 40 this year.
00:47:14
Speaker
um So my very first memories are like 90, 91 for Packers. So that's when you start getting into the Mike Holmgren, Brett Favre, Reggie White eras. 96 they want?
00:47:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And then they went back in 97 and that's a whole nother issue with the Denver Broncos that can be a whole nother. um ah But before that they weren't good. So I don't remember that era of them not being good.
00:47:47
Speaker
So when we start having like down years or off off seasons or whatever, well, you guys would never would have survived it in the 70s or in the 80s. Like, eh, I wasn't thought of, so leave me alone. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean it's like, it's it's what it really comes down to for me is there is no sport that I really, really enjoy um besides baseball. Like, I'll watch, I enjoy a good football game here and there, um but i I have been a Yankee fan. I could tell you, you know,
00:48:21
Speaker
I tell you most of the Yankees 25, I can tell you, I mean, back in the day i could tell you most of the Yankees 40 man roster, not as much anymore. um But yeah aside from, aside from the Yankees, I'm not really clued into pretty much any, any team with any regularity.
00:48:37
Speaker
I'm having a hard time keeping track of people on, our ah players on teams when I start feeling like I'm old enough to be their dad. Yeah. And it's like, no, I can't. So what was it? the ah A friend of mine who's, he's I want to say he's mid-40s and a Lions fan.
00:48:57
Speaker
ah But he was, so so a very humble, humble Michigander. So he was explaining to me, he's like, you know you're old when there is no one in your preferred sports league who is as old as you are. That's the final step. Once you reach that point. When the coaches start being your age.
00:49:14
Speaker
Well, I mean, i mean, like there's always like a coach who's like 33, you know, that's that's fine. But like when when you are when no one in the league, everyone in the league is younger than you are, then you have reached that point.
00:49:26
Speaker
the my co-host mike and i often talk because we're big ah this is a big nfl draft show uh so we just came off of all our nfl draft stuff when we start seeing juniors and the thirds of players that we watched when we were kids that's our old moment so yeah um uh Bring up quick, you were on America's Got Talent.
00:49:52
Speaker
Unfortunately, I don't follow the show. I know that you were on it, but how far did you get with it?
Experience on America's Got Talent
00:49:59
Speaker
And how did it how how was that compared to what you'd normally do?
00:50:05
Speaker
um so it was it was a lot more obviously produced um and you know because i like to have a lot of room for improv in my show to go off script and there was not a lot of that there um that was one of those things where it was like basically give us three minutes you're gonna do those three minutes um i made it so i made it through the first round but not through the first round it was one of those complicated things of like they when they do auditions uh they They take more people than they can actually move on to the next round. You never know who's going have scheduling issues. And my schedule was a hot mess because they were going to be filming them right in the middle of like my busy fall tour season.
00:50:46
Speaker
um And the other thing is i'll I'll be upfront. So they asked for, like what are three more things that you can do? And I had like. one and a half more good ideas, maybe two more good ideas. I did not have three more good ideas. And ah and like i I gave them a third idea, but it wasn't great. And so they were probably looking at that and saying, like, and that third one's not great. So you know as far as I'm concerned, I went on national TV.
00:51:12
Speaker
All four of the judges ah said yes to me. ah And i I get to put that on my resume forever. And honestly, that's that's fine. i don't want I didn't want to go. You know, like anytime you go on national TV, you are rolling the dice, you know, because something could go horribly wrong. And I didn't really want to roll those dice again.
00:51:32
Speaker
i will i will I will take the note on my resume and move on.
Making a Living as an Entertainer
00:51:37
Speaker
Yeah, like I said, it's it's not a show that I typically follow. I mean, I'll be honest with a lot of people. I don't watch a lot of TV shows. Same. um I do watch, you know, when they do come out with Star Wars shows, I do try to watch them. There are a handful of things that I try to stream, but...
00:51:56
Speaker
You know, life gets in the way. i do a lot of the stuff for the podcast and work and all that stuff that it's just like, i don't want to watch anything. Let me play my game a little bit and then I'm going to bed. But um I did see you were on that, so I did want to bring that up a little bit. And honestly, it it's one of those shows that you don't really see whatever happens to people who win it anyway.
00:52:22
Speaker
I think they do have a modicum of success for a while, but you really don't hear. It's not like American Idol was back in the day where, you know, obviously like Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood and all that, you you know who they are. they They went on, had great success and that. But and some of the things that they do on there, just how Yours I can understand, but others it's like, how do you make a living touring doing that?
00:52:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's there's there's a whole, you know, i think i think that I think the winner gets a show in Vegas or a residency in Vegas. um And you can, make you know, there are tons of people who are, you know,
00:53:05
Speaker
basically like performers entertainers just like myself who are just as talented as I am, if not more talented than I am, um who are not famous, but make a solid living doing this. My father is one of them. You know, have you ever heard of the super scientific circus?
00:53:22
Speaker
I can't say I've heard of any circus. I wouldn't expect that you had. um that So that's that's the show that my dad has done since the 90s. He has toured around the world. He has achieved very little fame, and he put three kids through college ah with that.
00:53:37
Speaker
So that's the kind of thing of like the the the like, you know, you can make a good, solid middle class, even upper middle class income, um doing you know just circus entertainment, variety, magic, ah as as a living, as your full-time job, no other job. My my hat my dad has had no other job since he was, I wanna say like 25 years old um and he's 75 now.
00:54:03
Speaker
So you can make a real solid income. So what I'm saying is i think that's I think that's where a lot of the folks from AGT end up, where they end up as, you know, some of them already are at that level of like kind of like mid-level touring magician, performer, entertainer, stand-up comedian, singer, whatever it may be, and their their career continues.
00:54:25
Speaker
ah And because they get to say they were on AGT, they make a little more money. Yeah, yeah. I guess I just, I'm in Iowa. We don't have, I'm in small town Iowa, so we don't get a lot of of that stuff around here. we My small town of like 900 people, we have the county fair held here. They had a Renaissance Fair last year. i was
Traveling for Performances
00:54:46
Speaker
so psyched. I was wanting to go ended up getting coven and couldn't go for i was out for like five days so i didn't get to go to it but um i'm hoping that it was a big enough draw that they will be back this year at some point and i can get over there but um yeah otherwise you know you got to travel to like des moines or iowa city and that's a good hour and a half two hour trip from where i'm at and it's like okay so i gotta spend this time to go up there i get maybe this much time there and then i gotta drive all the way home with it and
00:55:18
Speaker
Like I said, getting older, it's a pain to travel, which brings me to my last thing with you. You drive everywhere. i don't i don't drive everywhere. I drive a lot. I drive i do a lot more long-haul driving than most people, but I do a lot less long-haul driving now. So my rule is if it's not within eight hours drive,
00:55:40
Speaker
ah or it's not ah if it's not more than two weekends in a place, i am not driving there. I'm flying and and in and out and um i'm I'm quoting that price to ah to the festival. I had this realization of like last year, we spent something like $10,000 on car repairs. um And like most of it, it wasn't like apocalyptic stuff.
00:56:05
Speaker
ah It was just kind of routine maintenance, keeping up with stuff. But we you know we're putting 30,000 miles a year on one car. We're putting 20,000 a year on the other car. um It was the kind of thing of like, yeah, I can't do that. So um and these are not these are not old cars. ah The old, you know, one of them is that I think 50,000 miles um and the other ones at something like I think just past 100 ah But so we were we were driving but basically like the long drives we do now.
00:56:34
Speaker
We'll drive out to Colorado because we're in Colorado for six weeks. And then we'll drive from Colorado to Seattle where we're there for three weeks. And then we drive back home from Seattle. So that's, you know, those are the long haul drives. I used to do the, you know, I'll drive down to Florida for two weekends, drive back. I'll drive to Texas for two weekends, drive back. I'm not doing that anymore. i'm ah i I'm flying those.
00:56:59
Speaker
Now, did you do that because it was saving money or was that because of what you would have to lug onto a plane? So part of it was ah it's easier to carry stuff in the car as
00:57:15
Speaker
opposed to care As opposed to flying, one is... ah yeah like Early on, it's fun. It's fun to do those drives. like you know I get to see parts of the country I've never seen. um i get to you know go places I've never you know gone. It's partially because of that that I have now been to all 50 states. um And I do have criteria for that. Your feet have to touch the ground. ah You have to use the bathroom in said state. So I have...
00:57:38
Speaker
I have used the bathroom in every state, which by my account my my terms means I have been to every state. I haven't spent a whole lot of time in all the states, but yeah. But it's it's one of those where you know i get i get to see more of the country, which i which I like a lot, in you know not just treat the flyover states like flyover states, actually spend a little bit of time in there. you know I haven't spent the night in Iowa yet, I don't think, though. I i couldn't tell you if you i don't know if I would suggest doing that or not. I think I was in that space where it's it usually doesn't make sense with the way I drive, because I drive my general like if I'm if I'm driving solo, I'm driving probably about 13, 11 to 13 hours a day. Yeah. If I'm driving with my wife and my cat, it might be more like nine or 10 hours. But even still, like I've pushed that up to 12, 13, 14, even times.
00:58:30
Speaker
fifteen couple times Yeah, we're, we're the middle of the country. So we're usually the bypass state, you know, like you said, the flyover state and stuff like that. But have you done a performance here in Iowa or was it just a strict drive?
00:58:44
Speaker
I think so. The closest I have come to you guys would be St. Louis. Um, no, Kansas city. Um, okay. Which is like, I know not especially close, but that's, that's the closest I've about three hours from Kansas city's about three eight and a half. Uh, St. Louis is about five.
00:59:01
Speaker
Yeah, I've been I've been saying to my to my agent who, you know, books that like kind of like theater shows for me of like the the whole basically the whole stretch of Ohio all the way to the Dakotas. ah That whole stretch is, i think, just ah a whole area where I have not done a ton of work. Um, I've done a show in Indianapolis before. I've done, I think one or two shows in St. Louis.
00:59:25
Speaker
I've done a couple shows in Chicago, uh, but I've never done anything in Minnesota. I've never done anything in Wisconsin, Iowa. Um, you know there's there's a there's some space and it's not like you know it's not like no one lives there there are people who will come to the show almost almost trust me almost yeah um but i told you we were going to keep you about an hour we we're getting close to that mark so i don't want to keep you over anymore but we will have to get you back on at some point um whether it's during the season or next year when i do these episodes again
00:59:59
Speaker
Why don't you tell the people where they can find you and what you're up to right now and and we'll get you going. So I'm on a little bit of break for May. I do have some shows, um one at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, one at ah the New Jersey Renaissance Fair. That's towards the end of the month. That's Memorial.
01:00:16
Speaker
And after that is the big summer tour. I'll be in Colorado, ah Seattle and Maryland and then Ohio and then Boston. We're hitting it all over the next few months, except Iowa. ah But. You can find ah my full schedule is always on my website. I always have it pinned to the top of all my social media. But it's also on my website, jackthewipper.com or jackthewipper.com. Or if you want to use my real name, jacklepillars.com because none of you know how to spell any of those things. So I made all three of them.
01:00:48
Speaker
That's where you can find me. yeah and see i'm the type of guy that i i love to mess around with names and the reason i can remember jock is because i always remembered his jock hughes jock hughes oh that's good yeah maybe that's what i'll tell people It's Jock Hughes. But yeah, you can find us, Ohana Packers, on anywhere you find it. Ohana underscore Packers on Twitter. Ohana Packers Edition on Facebook, Instagram.
01:01:19
Speaker
We don't have a blue sky yet. I have a personal blue sky. You can follow that, iowajo.bsk.whatever their long handle is over there. But make sure you like, subscribe, tune in for more next week unless schedule changes. I have a former...
01:01:37
Speaker
minor league baseball player going to be on and then i've got a couple other big shows coming up but if you have a recommendation for a guest i am looking for it to throw this out there jack if you know somebody that'd be great too i'm looking for somebody to talk paranormal with on one of these episodes i'm a big paranormal person I'm what I like to call a skeptic believer. I do believe that it's possible, but I don't know if what you see on the internet is the truth.
01:02:08
Speaker
So if anybody knows somebody who's got a podcast or does content creation or whatever that would like to be on one of these episodes, send me the information. Again, I'm a persistent asshole. I will email till I can't email anymore.
01:02:21
Speaker
But as Mike would say, pack, go and aloha.