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Ep. 166 – Warning: Chef Ron Jeremy’s Ambrosia Salad May Contain Nut w/ Comedian Imani
409 Plays9 months ago
This week we’re joined by an absolutely hilarious comedian, Imani (interview begins at 33:30)! Imani spent her early years in Fort Hood, TX, where her family attended what you might classify as a typical Evangelical mega church. However, when they moved back to Oregon and joined here grandfather’s more traditional, conservative, predominantly-black church, her home life took a drastic turn that no one could have predicted (I’ll leave it at that so as not to spoil the story)… We were really excited to talk to Imani after sharing so many of her comedy clips back and forth! Follow her on Instagram & YouTube (@imanidenae_), TikTok & X (@_wierdhoe), and if you’re in the Portland area, keep an eye out for upcoming dates!
But first, Casey and April Gloria (@_aprilgloria) take a second look at the Game Genie of all dating books: “Marriable: Taking the Desperate Out of Dating” by Hayley and Michael DiMarco. We’re focusing in on a chapter titled “Nice Guys Really Do Finish Last” in which Hayley and Michael give us the nuanced explanation of male and female psyches we’ve all been waiting for. You’re going to want to take notes…
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Transcript
Childhood Memories and Superstitions
00:00:00
Speaker
I always felt a little claustrophobic to have that many bunk beds in a room. Yeah, there's no room for stuff. Did you have stuff? In my bed. My bed just became like where everything stays. I like little tuck things underneath the bed. I used to keep my Bible under my pillow because superstitious as a child and I thought that's how you got good dreams.
00:00:25
Speaker
As if you sleep on the pile. That's an understandable theory. Yeah, that one works. I mean, if you sleep Old Testament up, it could go really far the other way. You're now just like getting slaughtered or doing some slaughtering. I'm getting even more scared. I had a dream I was eating shrimp cocktail and someone threw rocks at me until I was dead.
Introduction to 'Growing Up Christian'
00:01:12
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of Growing Up Christian. I'm Casey. And I'm April, filling in for Sam yet again. Yeah, Sam's at a concert tonight. He's in a concert phase right now. I feel like he goes to a concert every two weeks. Yeah, it's only bands that everyone's heard of.
00:01:34
Speaker
Don't be mean. What? You and I had a big fight off mic. Not a fight, but it was like me and Sam and Jeremiah and we were arguing over bands because he says bands as if they're like, like he says a band that I've never heard of with the same like confidence and stuff is like, like, Oh yeah, Lincoln Park. Be like,
00:02:00
Speaker
Uh, the, you know, Groundhog's Day. And I'm like, I, yeah, I've never heard of them. And he's like, oh, they're really blowing up right now. And I'm like, I don't think they are. He's like, yeah, dude, they're everywhere. They're everywhere right now. And then we look them up on Spotify and they have like a hundred thousand plays, which is not nothing, but it's not blowing up. So we went round and round and round and Jeremiah had to, uh, had to be the referee.
00:02:29
Speaker
Sounds like a fun job. Oh, man. So, yeah, with Sam being out, I asked April to join me. And we thought we might jump into this book. We've actually talked about this book before with April. Yes.
Humorous Critique of 'Marriable'
00:02:50
Speaker
It's called Marriable. It's the sequel to Dateable.
00:02:55
Speaker
I guess. That's like a foundational text for April's life. It was. I think on the episode, I said that my parents bought it for me, but I looked at my old diaries because I never, I can't ever not write things down and keep records of things. So I looked back on my diaries and apparently I bought it for myself. So I have only myself to blame. No, I wasn't allowed to eat candy.
00:03:24
Speaker
Come on. It was my juice box money. This would have been for squeezes, but instead it's for emotional damage. Yes.
00:03:36
Speaker
So this book is written, so Dateable is, do you remember who wrote the first one? Yes, it was Haley DeMarco slash, she was Morgan back then. I don't think she was married to this guy. Apparently she became Marielle between Dateable and this book. She read her own book. Yes. And was able to snag a man. Yes, it was, so it was her and a guy, his name was Justin Lookadoo, which that has to be his real name, right? That was like the biggest factor stacking against him. Yeah.
00:04:04
Speaker
I remember in the book, I think he had the kind of like a Guy Fieri thing going on, I think, because I remember him in the book referencing his like spiky blonde hair or something, which is very 2000s of him. But so those two wrote Dateable, which was like a guidebook to landing a dating partner. And this, I guess Haley took her advice.
00:04:26
Speaker
found a man, um, tamped herself down enough to land a man, apparently. Michael DeMarco. Yes. And Michael is in the picture now. And it just so happened that he was a competent writer. And so they authored this book, Marable together. The subtext is taking the desperate out of dating. Yes. And there's a picture of a person on the cover with a, uh, what is that kind of phone called? A cordless
00:04:56
Speaker
Yes. Well, there's no code, so you are correct. I'm old. Do you remember getting your first one of these at your house? Yes. Oh my gosh, the caller ID. See, you could just never answer the phone ever. That was my favorite thing that's ever been invented.
00:05:19
Speaker
It would be fun to make a Pixar movie that's almost like Toy Story, but instead it's like a cordless phone. He's the bell of the ball and just everybody's favorite device until the mid 2000s and he starts getting used less and less. Yeah, when the little flip phones come out and stuff. Yeah, he sees him playing with smartphones and he gets a little pixelated sad face.
00:05:50
Speaker
Slowly gets relegated to the dustbin of history. Oh, he has been every goodwill. It's fun. Right next to the power tools with no batteries. He makes a lot of friends. It's kind of like island of misfit toys. Yeah, exactly. So I'll read this summary on the back of the book here, just just so you got an idea of what this is with the tone. Okay.
00:06:16
Speaker
At the top it says, Oh, great. Another book about being single and finding quote, the one, right? Wrong. This isn't a typical dating guidebook. The type of book you're thinking about offers a 15 step program, a scientific formula, or tries to spiritualize the process, but doesn't have chapter titles like these. Oh man, get ready. How being just friends is a waste of time.
00:06:44
Speaker
Desperate lies, women tell themselves, men lie to get what they want. I mean, nice guys really do finish last. And the best one, my favorite, don't marry your best friend unless you're gay. And it's not because they approve of the gays. Definitely not.
00:07:08
Speaker
Oh, perfect in in marriable newlyweds Haley and Michael to market their newlyweds. That's what that explains everything. Oh my god, this is like young youth pastor energy. If they're youth pastors, that would be the least surprising thing I've ever heard.
00:07:29
Speaker
Young newlyweds, Hailey and Michael DeMarco offer practical wisdom for surviving singleness in the trenches. Writing from their experiences of doing it all wrong so you can do it right, Hailey and Michael set fire to the so-called rules for dating success and give you real dating advice that won't send a potential date running in the opposite direction. Oh no. Oh, hello there fellow kids.
00:07:58
Speaker
Here's the most accurate statement here. With a witty, he said, she said style, which we'll get to, just you wait. Marryable will help you expose and eliminate your desperate dating habits by helping you understand yourself and the opposite sex. Whether you're in a new relationship or haven't dated in years, this revolutionary book will show you how to turn desperate into Marryable.
00:08:27
Speaker
Can we? Haley and Michael DeMarco have more than 40 years of dating desperation between them. After meeting online, they have found wedded bliss or something like it and a passion to write and creatively package relevant books through their company, Hungry Planet. They live in Nashville, Tennessee, and she's wearing a
00:08:55
Speaker
The Newsboy Cap. It's like the Hilary Duff circa 1999 train engineer. That would be the Metamorphosis album, which came out in 2002. I don't know. I don't remember. If that paints a clear enough picture of the era for you. Yes, 2000s, you know. So we took a little sneak peek at this just to kind of get some context. And the chapter that we started looking at
00:09:24
Speaker
was nice guys really do finish last. And in it, they kind of give some advice about how, as a male, they use the words male and female a lot, which is how you know it's scientific advice. The females. The female brain. The male brain.
00:09:49
Speaker
about how men shouldn't be like emotional. You shouldn't showcase your emotions or forecast your feelings, especially not too early and about how like girls like the bad boy. It's not stereotypical at all. So this is we're kind of jumping in like midway through the chapter here after they've, you know, clearly laid out a case for some of this stuff.
00:10:14
Speaker
And we thought we'd start here. Okay, this is a section that says the bad boy versus the nice guy on a date. And around the text box, they have a leather bomber jacket on one side and then a sport coat on the other. And clearly, bad boys like the leather bomber jacket. Oh, I think when you were showing that to me earlier, I thought you
00:10:40
Speaker
I thought sport coat meant like a varsity jacket. That's why I was like, which one's which? So only nice boys wear suits. The guy that wears this bomber jacket, I see him. Maybe this is just drawing from personal experience too closely. But like, I feel like a pair of fingerless gloves is a big part of his work. Yeah, the really skinny like he's like a like a wish matrix costume. Yeah.
00:11:10
Speaker
He's got the skinny little glasses, and he has spiked hair. He thinks he's Neo or something like that. Dorphius. Which actually, yeah. Okay, so it says bad boy extremes and nice guy extremes. And we'll just contrast these back and forth. So starting with bad boy extremes, it says overly masculine. Nice guy extremes, overly feminine.
00:11:41
Speaker
silent, talkative, too early, cocky, more emotional than her. What does that mean? He has feelings and lets her know that he has feelings, he's not a rock. He doesn't spit on her enough. Yeah, he doesn't show up to the date like, okay. Here's a good contrast because this is two ends of the polar
00:12:08
Speaker
scale that clearly define like nice and or bad boys and nice guys. It says checking out the waitress versus too loving too soon. Oh my gosh. I don't even know. They're like, I guess for reference in the previous sections, they were they're saying that you should be more like the bad boy.
00:12:32
Speaker
Yeah, you want to channel the bad boy early on in the relationship. And then after you and that you've led her along with like as little emotional support and like, you know, mutual feeling of adoration as possible, then you spring I love you on her. Yeah, you manipulate her into becoming attached to you.
00:13:00
Speaker
And then you are the one that says I love you. She says I love you first. You say that's nice. And then you say it the next night or something like that. I think it was like, it was like the guy has to say I love you first. Yeah, that was a huge thing. Like apparently this list the sentence is a critical moment.
00:13:22
Speaker
You have to get the female to the point where they're just dying to say, I love you. And only then can you say it. But if she says it first, you got to reset because she can't say it first. No. So you have to say something like, you either have to like kind of not respond or you have to say something like, thank you. I think we got something special going on here. Let's keep it going. That's great.
00:13:51
Speaker
anyone seen always sending it's like the Christian Dennis system. It really is. That's like exactly what it's laying out here. There was a there was a long discourse on like, when and who should say I love you first. Yeah, it was like a big part. Maybe I should just jump back to
Discussion on Gender Stereotypes in 'Marriable'
00:14:11
Speaker
that real quick. Yeah, there's a couple blurbs they do like some back and forth like little instant messenger things because the 2000s
00:14:19
Speaker
and cyber things. Yeah, it looks like little text boxes, like they're sending messages back and forth to each other. Oh, man, what is this? Nice guy says, I love you before the girl is ready equals turn off. Girl says, I love you before guy is ready equals still in the game.
00:14:42
Speaker
Guys, you can rescue your almost loved one with this response. Never say it back if she's the first one to say it. If you think you're never going to feel it, you need to use this opportunity to let her know. But if you do love her, somewhere along the line, you miss the signs of her love. You'll need to recreate the event so you can say it first, in quotes, showing her you are able to read and lead her emotionally.
00:15:11
Speaker
Things will be awkward, which is the understatement of the century. Things will be awkward, but be patient. Cover your tracks with, we've got something special here. Let's keep it going and regroup. Okay, manipulate. Think of how you're going to manipulate her into thinking, oh, no. And then you are the one who says, no, I love you later.
00:15:39
Speaker
the next paragraph starts with, she'll most likely be crushed. Maybe, you know. Or at the very least, embarrassed with your non-response, but she'll never have to wonder if you just said it because she said it.
00:15:59
Speaker
How was, okay, I guess it doesn't matter if she says it because he said it first. It's special because I created so much self-hatred in you first. Now you're just like, oh, he does love me. It says you need to understand the important fact that the bad in the bad boy isn't what really ultimately attracts the female. Female.
00:16:32
Speaker
The male in the bad boy is what attracts her. The bad boy lacks overtly female characteristics. So early on, he is an easier place for the female psyche to find what she craves in a man. Maleness. The nice guy's maleness might be hidden behind his quote feminine side. Oh, gross. Oh, yeah. Get out of here. Feelings? Who needs that?
00:17:01
Speaker
I bet this guy watches the notebook. Oh my god. Dude, that was every youth pastor's favorite joke about that sort of thing for a while. I was like, oh, you know, you might, you know, your wife wants you to watch the notebook. They had like a pool of five jokes between all past pastors ever. Yeah. You know, one thing about women is they like chocolate every time.
00:17:30
Speaker
It doesn't mention chocolate in here, which is concerning. They're newlyweds though. That's true. Maybe he hasn't discovered that part of the female psyche yet. All right, so jumping back to our bad boy extremes and nice guy extremes, it says disinterested, overly interested, unimpressed, nervous, overly physical,
00:17:57
Speaker
overly emotional. What is overly physical? Trying to grab the lady's body parts. Body parts? I guess so. Like trying to like, oh, look at my place. If you get groped, you should be like, yeah. You need to tame your bad boy. Bad boy. You're turning off my female psyche. I know the bad boy supposed to turn on the female psyche. There's a line in there, though, that somewhere around groping,
00:18:27
Speaker
Yeah, right before it. It starts to counter, it starts to be counterproductive. You're supposed to wonder, he might grope me. That's supposed to be intriguing, apparently. A sense of danger. Yeah. Like, I should, did I, on a good first day, you, as the female, you should think to yourself, did I tell anybody where I was going tonight? This is giving Hunter prey. Hunter prey, yeah.
00:18:56
Speaker
Yeah, what now I know what now I know what they're doing. Yeah, it is tapping the primal, the primal prey side. Yeah. So there's a note at the bottom, and maybe this kind of expands upon it, I say says what bad boys
00:19:12
Speaker
and girls, which I think that's the first mention of bad girls. Wow, I didn't think that was the thing that should exist in their universe. Yeah, throw them away. What bad boys and girls have learned is that the bad boy extremes win out over the nice guy extremes every time. Sorry. While the nice guy extremes are less harmful, most women would rather have the bad boy
00:19:38
Speaker
Any of you ladies who might have been reading this and saying, oh, I'd take the nice guy over the bad boy any day, consider this. Are you looking for a man or a lap dog? What? Oh my god. Seriously, if you want a guy who is at your beck and call, aren't you essentially looking for a loyal follower? I've got those. That's not all it's cracked up to be.
00:20:09
Speaker
JK, JK, JK, JK. JK, give him money. JK, that's five star feet. One who would cater to all your needs. In this kind of position, the female is bound to lead an unbalanced relationship that will turn a nice guy into a quietly angry guy. Ah, bliss. What? My female brain is confused.
00:20:36
Speaker
That's a, yeah, that's a very disjointed paragraph. Yeah. Um, okay. So, okay. So then it goes into a portion that says steps toward never hearing again. You're a nice guy, but if you, the male of the relationship, have ever said something like, how come you act more like a man than a girl? What? Wait.
00:21:07
Speaker
Is he telling the woman that she's acting like a man? I guess. If you, the male of the relationship, have ever said something like, how come you act more like a man than a girl? Sorry, female brain again, I guess. Then you've just diagnosed yourself as the nice guy. And I don't know that that's true.
00:21:31
Speaker
If you're asking your date how much how can you act more like a man than a girl like you're off to Okay, first of all it the the man okay man and girl is an interesting sort of word choice Instead of man and woman or boy and girl man. Okay. All right. Well Well, he's looking for a girl. Yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah, and certainly not a man. No, I guess not, you know, I
00:22:00
Speaker
So what do you do now? How do you make sure that your next dating adventure doesn't end in friendship alone? Here are some steps to help you become less of a nice guy and more and more a guy she wants. And then it goes and we got numerical order. Let's see. There's five steps. Okay. Get your pen ready. Can't wait. Oh my gosh. We guys can't wait. Number one, don't tell her you love her too early on.
00:22:30
Speaker
Make sure she is dying to hear you say it before you ever do. There's something to that. We were kind of talking about this like earlier is that there's some like actual decent like principles in here masked in the worst possible. Yeah, there's like a chapter of nonsense. And then like the last sentence is like, Oh, well, that's, you know,
00:22:57
Speaker
That's reasonable, I think. But then the rest of the things surrounding it or the rationale behind it is very, very odd. Yeah, like there's probably not words you should just throw around, at least in that, you know, romantic context, I guess. But yeah, it's like there's some ideas in there that
00:23:18
Speaker
have also have helped me like when I was reading the datable book, maybe. But like, you know, I probably absorbed a lot of not great ideas as well. Yeah, it's like, I feel like that one. Maybe it's more like, it's more of a question of like, well, do you actually like love this person that you want to say this to? Or are you just like kind of desperate for validation? Yeah.
00:23:46
Speaker
A desperate is bad. Yeah, apparently. Also an underlying theme of the book. And only women can be, well, no, no, no, no. Women are, I guess that's, you know, digging in too deep. Okay, let's go. Number two, don't get too far ahead of her emotionally. Women love a guy who knows how to lead. Guys should define the relationship. What? When the time comes, say, I love you first and keep the relationship on track.
00:24:15
Speaker
But part of this is knowing your timing. Get too far ahead of her emotionally, and you lose. It's all a game, fellas. Yeah. It's not a relationship. It's going to make it harder for you to trigger if you get too far over emotional.
00:24:33
Speaker
Yeah. You got to learn the manipulation tactics so that you can read where she is. Not if you feel it, but if you know where she is, then you can pretend to be one step ahead at all times. Yeah. Think of yourself as kind of like a, you're an angler fish waiting on the bottom of the reef and you have this little lure on your forehead in the shape of a, I love you Valentine's heart. Yeah.
00:25:02
Speaker
and you're wiggling it, and you're wiggling it, and the primal prey is getting close. The female. But if you just rattle that thing around too much and then lunge, you're going to scare her off. Yeah. Don't let her know you're excited about it. Because the primal prey is going to be like, oh, it's so feminine. Oh! And then run away.
Mocking Dating Tips in 'Marriable'
00:25:26
Speaker
Number three, don't talk more than she does. Oh my gosh.
00:25:33
Speaker
Sure, girls love a guy who talks with her, but she also likes to be heard. So don't try to compete with her in the area of talking. Always lag a bit behind to keep her guessing. It's like don't have conversations, you know. Just sit there.
00:25:56
Speaker
This is another one where it's like, everybody's sat at dinner with someone that like is so anxious to talk about themselves that they like don't even hear what you're saying. Yeah. Or worse to be in a group setting where like, it's like passing a spoon where it's like, oh, it's your turn to talk about you. It's round robin with fun facts about yourself the whole time. But then when it gets to you, they skip over because they want to talk about themselves again. It's like nobody hears or interacts with anything that anyone else says they just kind of like,
00:26:25
Speaker
Oh, my, my turn. My turn. Let me tell you about me. Yeah. But apparently this is saying don't do that. Just let her do it herself. Just let her talk about herself over and over again. And don't offer anything of value in return. A good tricker doesn't talk too much. No, that's the point. Yeah, don't be an idiot. Number four, have a life. Okay, well that I guess we'll see what it says about that. But
00:26:53
Speaker
Guys who suddenly make the girl their entire life are boring. Girls want to see you with your friends, playing sports, working on cars. Working on cars. Whatever. Just have a life so she doesn't feel like she has to support you emotionally. That's your job for her, not hers for you, at least early on in the dating relationship. So like if you're a girl,
00:27:18
Speaker
have a life. No, don't have a life. He's your life now. Yeah, he supports you emotionally. His life. Oh, wait, no, you support him emotionally. Wait. Yeah, you support him emotionally. He leads you emotionally distant and reclusive. Yes, you are a shell of a human being chasing after this, this man who acts and disinterested
00:27:44
Speaker
in you. Well, he's mysterious. Same thing, right? Note, as the relationship progresses toward and into marriage. Big jump. Okay. The relationship grows and matures and all of these things change. But you're making a mistake if you take the relationship there too quickly. That only makes you just another nice guy. We are talking about getting you married
00:28:14
Speaker
And this puts you in a better position. Okay. Okay. I don't know. Like the it's like the thing that we said it's like the principle like yes have a life have hobbies. Don't make that like the other person your entire being when you're dating. But it's surrounded by nonsense. Yeah, I feel like like it's
00:28:39
Speaker
You need to have things going on. Yeah. Like you have to have hobbies. You have to have things that you're interested in that you can talk about. Like contrary to this person's belief, it is good to be able to talk about things that you're interested in on dates. That's a good idea. Yeah. Like have things to talk about. I don't know. What do I know?
00:29:05
Speaker
It says, attention men, women want to feel feminine. And the quickest way to help them feel feminine is to be masculine. Grope them. Just grope them. Grope them. Yes. Yes. I mean, nothing makes you feel more like a woman than walking down the street and having somebody grope you, I guess. So, sure. Sure.
00:29:29
Speaker
So yeah, there's a summary here at the end of the chapter, which, you know, we only looked at one small part of it here, but it says, turning desperate into marriable. In review, nice guys are desperate to share too much too soon, and bad boys are desperate to bury their softer side as flawed weakness. Meanwhile, back on the estrogen ranch, girls who take it
00:29:57
Speaker
That is a direct quote. That's clever. He's really good at writing. He is. He's a genius. Meanwhile, back on the estrogen ranch, is that the one from Yellowstone? Estrogen ranch, yes, probably. I mean, I'd put that on a dish towel. Estradutton.
00:30:20
Speaker
uh girls who date bad boys are desperate to believe they can change them and girls who date nice guys are soon freaked out when the nices share too much too soon reversing these habits and patterns in your dating life will not only increase your mariability but also help you choose more marriable people to date uh okay
00:30:45
Speaker
Remember, nice guys finish last and bad boys aren't far behind. At least they have a leather jacket. Yeah, you know. Well, uh, okay. I hope everybody learned something from, uh, this passage in Marable, taking the desperate out of dating by Haley DeMarco and Michael DeMarco.
00:31:10
Speaker
And, you know, you can find this at your local Goodwill, if you want to read more. That's where we found it. It is, yeah.
Introducing Imani Denae
00:31:20
Speaker
So go ahead and introduce our guest for this week. It's not Hailey DiMarco. Maybe someday. I would love to talk to her, though. Anyway. I should see if I can find her. But our guest this week is comedian Imani Dine.
00:31:40
Speaker
And we kind of stumbled across Imani on, I think, TikTok. But she's kind of got a pretty good following on Instagram as well. But she's a young comedian from Portland and is kind of making a big splash. She's got some really funny bits and stuff that are on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram. And she grew up in a pretty fundamentalist Christian environment for at least a portion of her life.
00:32:09
Speaker
She is a very strange story that you will not see the curve coming. I certainly did. I was blown away. But just a cool person to talk to and a really great comedian. She's headed towards big things. So it was cool to talk to her. I'll put all of her info and stuff down in the bio so you can follow her on all the things. But if you search Imani Denae, then you'll find them.
00:32:39
Speaker
So yeah, if you like the show, share it with friends. Leave us a review wherever you listen to it. And don't forget that we have a Discord server where Coolfell is like April. Yes, I lurk in there and sometimes talk. My divine feminine. Not more than the males, though. I got to pace myself. Once in a while, I have to give her a disciplinary grope and say, hey, it's too much. Stop yacking. Too much talking. Let the men lead.
00:33:09
Speaker
on Discord. Yeah. It's a great time. Yeah. But join us. Joe, if you can find it in the, we've got like a link in our Instagram bio where you can, you can jump in there and yeah, enjoy our conversation with Imani Denae. Hey everybody. We are back with our guest Imani. Hey Imani, what's going on?
00:33:37
Speaker
Not much just sitting here. Yeah. No, I feel like your name is perfect for like Reverend as a prefix. Like the Reverend Imani today would be great. Yeah. That would work. Almost worth pursuing a Bible degree. Ooh.
00:34:00
Speaker
Some of us made that mistake. At least one of us on this podcast made that mistake. Imani, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. It's like we were saying before, we kick this off, big fans of your comedy. I feel like I'm pretty recent to it. So I'm very glad that we're able to get this together. It's been, I think, TikTok. I feel like TikTok is where
00:34:29
Speaker
I might've seen it first. That's where I've been finding a lot of things lately, which I didn't think I'd be saying because I denigrated TikTok relentlessly for a long time. But here we are. TikTok is a great teacher. Yeah. I love it. It tells you what you like, which is cool because sometimes I don't know anymore. I feel like it's confusing. So when TikTok is just like, this is probably what you'd like. I'm like, well,
00:34:58
Speaker
at least somebody knows, because I didn't get awesome Christmas gifts, you know? The people who love me don't know what I like, but TikTok's delivering, so it's sick. TikTok knows that you like stand-up comedy and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Thanks. It's like really, like I discovered, I like to call it anthropology. TikTok, where I just have been typing in businesses and saying employee, and then seeing people at their jobs
00:35:27
Speaker
and like the things that they have wrong with their jobs and like all of that. Yeah. People just posting like vent videos about their content. That's awesome. You know what I've never done is searched. I kind of didn't think of that as a function. I've never searched for anything on TikTok. I just let it deliver. I love that idea. I found out how to fold my laundry in a very efficient way from TikTok.
00:35:55
Speaker
Did you save an Amazon cardboard box and the right size? No, there's this three-second fold where you pinch your shirt a certain way and then you can just flip it and fold it to itself. You're almost like a magician. I need that. Yeah. It takes me a long time to fold anything, but shirts are definitely the worst.
00:36:19
Speaker
Yeah. Like that's where those really suck up my time. And then they still get all, I'm not good at it. They still do all wrinkly and stuff. The hard part is like, I, I own like, I don't even know how many t-shirts probably like 55, just regular like t-shirts. And I, I have to fold them in a certain way in order for them to fit on my shoe rack. Cause I have nowhere else to put them. So there's just 50 t-shirts on a shoe rack in my closet.
00:36:46
Speaker
And every time I have to watch something and put it back, I have to figure out a way.
00:36:51
Speaker
I don't know, they're stacked on top of each other in two rows. And so if I want a shirt on the bottom, there's no way of not fucking up all the shirts on the top. Hang them. I feel like people who hang t-shirts sets a lane. I think about doing that. And then they always end up, I don't have enough places to hang things, but yeah, there's always people who like hang there because they don't want them to get creased and shit.
00:37:19
Speaker
Okay, well, here's a very pedestrian question for you then. Do you organize, okay, like you're, you got like your hang clothes and then you got your folded stuff. Do you, by what like quality do you organize them? Do you organize them by color or do you organize them by like type or, because my wife organized it by this normal person. I just put it on a hanger and show it in the closet.
00:37:50
Speaker
Yeah. Maybe I'm overthinking it too much. There used to be, there used to be, I just, in the last few years have given up on my closet. It's just, it's such a small closet that I don't care. I'm just shoving it in there. When it was bigger, like in my old place, it had a much larger closet. So everything was kind of organized into a particular place. It wasn't necessarily organized in those places, but
00:38:18
Speaker
They're just like, oh, all my jackets are gonna go over here, all the long sleeves here, t-shirts here. But no, it's not like that anymore. It's just shove it in the closet. A lot of things I'm too lazy to hang up, so they're just folded on my shoe rack, and I moved all my shoes a row lower, so I had some space to put.
00:38:36
Speaker
Some more clothes. Casey's, that's the only time that there's like any, any real like DV calls on him and his family is like when she, when his wife puts his like shirts in the wrong order, he loses his mind. I'm like, this should be filed under mauve. I used to work at a Goodwill and we had to color coordinate all of the clothing when we hang it up, which is like what led me to have an organized closet.
00:39:06
Speaker
because I knew the color coordination of Goodwill. It's so close. You get that perfect rainbow gradient across the rack. It is satisfying to see. I've never walked into a Goodwill and felt like they organized it at all in any way. The ones in Oregon do. They're all color coded. It's so silly. I hated that aspect of the job. What difference does it make?
00:39:34
Speaker
If TikTok was around, you could have put your event videos on it. That's gonna stop. Things I hate about working at Goodwill. First of all, the customer base. It's like a bunch of hipsters that are trying to find old shit to look cool, getting mad at poor people for standing in their way. That does make me angry. In a weird amount of people who steal, it is crazy how many people steal from Goodwill. Oh, what? From Goodwill?
00:40:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's like so cheap a lot. That's what department stores are for. I know, you steal from the person who provided the clothing in the first place, like the manufacturer, H&M. Exactly. H&M, these fast fashion motherfuckers, steal from them. Goodwill, come on. I actually used to work at H&M too. Clothing retails the bane of my existence I can't do ever again.
00:40:29
Speaker
Yeah. Did they tell you not to tell you about all the slaves that made their clothes when people asked? Because I worked in telemarketing for a while. And when you were asked certain questions, you followed a very specific script in regards to how much of the money actually went to the organization you were like, raising money for, quote, unquote.
00:40:54
Speaker
H&M, I know they were one of the, like they're pretty big culprit for fast fashion and cheap clothes, which clothes don't get that cheap without the person on the front end really losing out. So was there ever, did that ever come up or? Well H&M, I don't work there anymore, but I remember that we had, they were practicing sustainable fashion. And if you like brought in clothing, they said they'd get recycled. If you brought in jeans, they'll be recycled into new jeans for H&M.
00:41:23
Speaker
Which I don't know how true any of that is. I filed those under compost discount for bringing in a bag of clothing into the H&M store. Whoa. All kinds of clothes to H&M when I worked there and get like a little coupon. Did you ever have to wash your hands after handling those clothes? I wash my hands so much when I worked in clothing. You took this part of your hand will turn like black from touching those hangers all day long.
00:41:51
Speaker
Oh yeah, the guy. It's just disgusting. I thought you were going to say they got into like biodegradable clothing, you know. I mean, that could be an interesting, H.M. Sims was something that would do that. Like they seem like a corporation that would, for our biodegradable clothing.
00:42:13
Speaker
It only lasts six months and before it starts disintegrating, they sell it as a great idea, but really it's just a, it is a little $50 or $80. I think my first suit came from H&M. I gotta say, I'm not proud of that, but. You know, like my first time ever having a corporate job, all I did was shop at H&M, get those blazers galore.
00:42:42
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it covers all of your, uh, I work, um, uh, I've worked as just like a corporate cog needs that worked for me, uh, out of that world now myself, but it. That was like girl Blush blazer depot for a while. Sorry, there's like a truck outside and it's so loud. I'm just like, maybe I can cover them up. It's not coming through much. Okay.
00:43:11
Speaker
Dude,
Imani's Upbringing in Texas and Oregon
00:43:12
Speaker
so you're a lifelong resident of Portland, right? For the most part, I was born in Portland, and then when I was two, my dad got stationed in Fort Hood, Texas. And so we lived in Fort Hood, Texas until I was 13, and then we moved back to Oregon. And I lived in Portland, then we moved to Beaverton, and then moved back to Portland.
00:43:39
Speaker
What's, where's, uh, where's Bieber? Justin Bieber. It's just like the suburbs. It's just like literally right outside of Portland, like 10 minutes drive away. Okay. It's like less burning cars. Yeah. Like the zip code still says Portland for a lot of places that you would consider like suburban. So you're like, Oh, this is, that's not that's beaver.
00:44:07
Speaker
We have to thank the residents of Portland for entertaining our parents with Midwest disaster porn for the last six years. Portland seems very scary if you watch it only on TV. The entire city was on fire.
00:44:32
Speaker
I mean, it really was on fire. It got to the point where I was like, I'm not going outside anymore. It's scaring me. It's too much. Oh yeah. Man, pretty wild, huh? Yeah. It's like, I think it's kind of maybe getting cleaned up now, but there's a huge fentanyl problem in like downtown Portland and tons of people on drugs who are attacking people. Like it wasn't just like.
00:44:55
Speaker
You could just be like, just be a drug addict. That's fine. Don't hit people and attack people randomly. And it's not like they were stealing. They were just attacking random strangers. We walk on the street. It happened so many times. I was like, I'm not going down there anymore. I'm just going to save myself the scare.
00:45:17
Speaker
That's great. I thought that should only happen when people did bath salts. I remember that. I feel like that because Fox News is always where we all have, you know, I think most of us have Fox News families, at least listeners I know do. And it was like, there's always a new scare.
00:45:36
Speaker
I mean, obviously rounding every October, they come up with some cool new shit that's in your Halloween candy. But in general, there's always like a new scare and bath salts. I remember really coming on strong at one point because it turned people into like zombies. Oh, you just like turn into a crazy person.
00:45:54
Speaker
And you just start eating people. There's like stories of people like biting other people and acting like, I don't know, they made it sound like we were like, which is, they made it sound like the zombie apocalypse was coming, which is what most of them have been preparing for and couldn't be more excited about. I didn't know Fennel. It might make a, it might make a comeback. It went out of fashion pretty quick, but I don't know, like,
00:46:20
Speaker
2010's is coming back soon, right? It'll be like studded belts, blazers. And that's the hallmarks of our college years. That was my high school year. I entered high school in 2010, so it's going to be me seeing people pretend to be me in my freshman year of high school. OK. It sounds disgusting, doesn't it? It sounds weird to think about like, oh, everyone's going to start wearing like
00:46:50
Speaker
leggings with those high brown boots basic bitch autumn package is coming back with the high brown boots the big hat and then you need like the brunch girl poncho yeah it's either like a flannel
00:47:10
Speaker
Or a knit poncho. Or like a knit, like sweater poncho thing. It's kimonos. Can I come back? Kamono. They're coming back. They're coming back again. Tight, tight. I feel like those are already on their eyes. Wait, what's on their eyes? Did you say skinny jeans? Yeah, they started to die down, but I think this new generation is going to bring them back. They were making fun of people for wearing.
00:47:40
Speaker
skinny teens. I don't know. I'm part of this Gen Z generation. Oh, I just lost your mic there. Yeah, I think I accidentally tapped them. I don't know how that happened. I wasn't even touching the computer. You were saying you're part of the Gen Z what?
00:48:00
Speaker
generation. No, I know it, Gen Z. I'm not that old. But like, I don't know. There's like certain things that we were trying to get rid of. I think getting rid of skinny jeans, that culture was great. I'm like, I'm all for us. Stopping the skinny jeans. I hate wearing skinny jeans and tight clothing, but I think that in the next year, everyone's going to start wearing skinny jeans and tight clothing again.
00:48:24
Speaker
I'm always behind on Casey's probably more up on like what at least female fashion trends are because Your your wife keeps in that world. I'm behind his shit on it and Also, my wife starts like, you know, I guess like that like the I don't know if you even call them bell-bottoms but like basically that like all that's coming back at two varying degrees of flair and I was just like I
00:48:49
Speaker
She starts buying up new stuff. I was like, what is this? And she's like, this is what people wear now. I was like, is it? And she's like, it's definitely what people wear now. You haven't changed in 20 years. I was like, I guess that's probably true, but I don't. I mean, I respect somebody who's like.
00:49:07
Speaker
consistent all the time, you know, like a cartoon character just always in the scene. I should have been like Dexter from Dexter's lab. Yeah. I like to think of myself as a Hey Arnold character.
00:49:24
Speaker
I love it. There's nothing wrong with that. It's simple and it makes your life is what changes every day. Knocked you're out. That's gone through more changes than the average person, too, I think. Yeah, it was the way we did. There definitely was a while there when I was a kid where it seemed like the message was like, hey, it doesn't matter what you wear, like you are not your clothing. It's what's on the inside that counts. And then it seems like every year we get closer and closer to being like,
00:49:54
Speaker
You are your shirt. Your shirt needs to sum you up in its entirety. I totally understand that. My mom used to pick out my clothes and she would hang them on the side of my bunk bed every morning before school. That's very much like this is how you're going to dress yourself. And like it was very modest clothing up until I came to Oregon and I realized
00:50:21
Speaker
people a little bit more free about how they just move through life here. And I was like, Oh, you guys show your chest. I can't even imagine wearing a shirt that doesn't cover the majority of my neck. Covers your Adam's apple or where I guess, where mine would be but Steve Jobs, turtleneck. Yeah, like shorts, you had to put your arm down to your like
00:50:47
Speaker
side and like your shorts had to be longer than where your middle finger was or whatever. So like very long shorts. I don't know. I felt like my mom had like a self image that she wanted to make sure our family upheld. And so she was like, I'm going to make sure that my kids dress clean. That sucked for girls with long arms too.
00:51:12
Speaker
Yeah, dude, I got these T-Rex arms. I could have been real slutty. Your shorts would have been so hot. A little cheek hanging out. Yeah, yeah. You see across the butt. That crease at the bottom. I think it was pretty wide arms. I was like, well, who's that? Yeah, your shorts are down here. It's fine.
00:51:33
Speaker
So okay, so let's so give us kind of a rundown on like, how did you end up in church? And what kind of church? I'm assuming that was in Texas, where you really remember that picking up? Yeah, I believe I went to church when I was like, a baby, my parents are like, they've been together, well, they're not together anymore. But they got together when they're like 12 and 13. They met in church. They're like, super,
00:52:01
Speaker
They were both very super Christian young people.
00:52:05
Speaker
Um, started family young, like that kind of, if they started dating at 12 and 13, I'm guessing they were like, did someone's parents have to sign off on their marriage? It's weird. They started dating and they broke up and dated and broke up and like that kind of stuff. Um, I have four or half siblings because of the dating and breaking up. Yeah. Had me at 22 and 23. So.
00:52:36
Speaker
That's a respectable age. They already had five kids. My dad has five kids, four kids already. And then I was the fifth. And then my mom and him had two more kids together.
00:52:52
Speaker
Damn. Yeah. So one of seven. That's a big family. Very big family. We didn't all move to Texas because I have half siblings, but there were times where we all, seven of us lived in a house in Texas together. The bunk beds were pretty essential. Yeah. We had three bunk beds in the girls' room, and then there was like two in the boys' room. Wow. That's a barracks at that point. Yeah. It really is.
00:53:22
Speaker
Is that where you got it? I mean, you said your dad was in the military. You said he was stationed somewhere. He got the inspiration for how to decorate a child's bedroom from being in the military. Yeah. It was, I always felt a little claustrophobic to have that many bunk beds in a room. Yeah. There's no room for stuff. Did you have stuff?
00:53:43
Speaker
in my bed. My bed just became like where everything stays. I like little tuck things underneath the bed. I used to keep my Bible under my pillow because superstitious as a child and I thought that's how you got good dreams.
00:54:00
Speaker
As if you sleep on the pile. That's an understandable theory. Yeah, that one works. I mean, if you sleep Old Testament up, it could go really far the other way. You're now just like getting slaughtered or doing some slaughtering. I was keeping even more scared. I had a dream I was eating shrimp cocktail and someone threw rocks at me until I was dead.
00:54:36
Speaker
So, okay. So for you growing up, uh, it was. You guys see what Bible being under your pillow clearly, uh, that, that, yeah. I think my mom and dad at one point were using church as childcare services. We were at church like four days a week. Uh, my mom was like in child teach, like did childcare at the church that we went to.
00:55:01
Speaker
And so she was always there for whatever it was, like Bible study groups, the choir rehearsals, the services. She was always at church because she had to be there to watch other people's kids. And so we were always there with her being there with all these other kids with parents involved in the church. So it was like a tight-knit friend group that I would have that were just
00:55:30
Speaker
other kids whose parents worked at the church. Probably got a lot of animal crackers though, huh? A lot of goldfish, a cup of goldfish and some juice or something. What was the juice? The standard juice of choice. What were you mostly working with? Was it thought like apple juice? Or it would be like
00:55:54
Speaker
those containers that look like a little barrel. Yeah. Hugs. Hugs. No. Hugs are diapers. Hugs is the. Is that what they are? Yeah. Yeah. Or the ones that you twist off the top and there's a tiny little. Oh. Squeeze it. Squeeze it still. I mean, we dig those two things. A lot of goldfish though. I remember goldfish were like a staple thing that we would have for our snack. And we watch a lot of movies.
00:56:20
Speaker
Wallace and Gromit, I think was one of the ones. Oh, yeah. I think Chicken Run is a movie I've seen so many times. Is that a Christian movie? I don't know. Mel Gibson's in it. So, yeah, I guess. Maybe. That was Boris Johnson's first break. They're making a second one. I was like, I might have to see it just because of the nostalgia of Chicken Run in general. Yeah. Chicken Run is who? Is Mel back?
00:56:51
Speaker
He needs to be back. He needs the money. He's going to reprise that role. I know he spent it all on lawyers when he said a lot of hateful things about a lot of people. It sucks to leave bad voicemails. Maybe people should stop doing that. But this is what this is. Mel Gibson. Yeah. Was he the voice of the chicken or what? Yeah, he was the chick. Wasn't he the chick? He was like the rooster in Chicken Run, I think.
00:57:19
Speaker
I haven't seen that movie in so long. You'd be like, I didn't even know who Mel Gibson was at that point in my life. That's true, because I didn't know he was in it until you said something. Wouldn't it be funny to find out that he really phoned it in on Passion of the Christ because he was so excited about Chicken Run? Once I get this movie done, I get to do it. Which is kind of a cult classic in a way. Passion of the Christ or Chicken Run?
00:57:48
Speaker
of both of them. Giving out who you ask, one of them is a lot cooler than the other.
00:57:59
Speaker
actually the Christ was like when people like when Christians I want to say I might get my times mixed up here but I want to say it was competing with a lot of the like you know saw hostile like the brutal horror films that were really starting to drop that people were getting all up in arms about that Christians had a huge problem with and then they're just like
00:58:24
Speaker
But we still, like everybody else, do need a little bit of gratuitous violence, so then- Say to eroticism. Passion of the Christ. I wasn't allowed to watch it. My mom was like, oh, that's not really for kids. I was like, okay, well, I guess I want to watch it. It's probably a good choice. It was
The Megachurch Experience
00:58:43
Speaker
horrific. It was very awkward to in the theater because we went to it with the group for it too. That was the fun part.
00:58:52
Speaker
Yeah, so I was at church because my mom did child care. Just in the back like this against the wall. We were just in a whole separate room and all the parents could smell the popcorn. Because I went to a mega church in Texas. It has a new name now. What was the mega church? What was the name of it when you were there? It is called Grace Christian Center.
00:59:19
Speaker
Oh, I don't think I know that one. Did they change the name because like the mega church pastor had a fall from grace or something? Or? Um, he died. Not a fall from grace. Him and his constituents all died. The ultimate disgrace. Brutal car accident. Oh shit. Really? Mangled. Okay. Yeah, how dare he? What a loser.
00:59:49
Speaker
No, I wasn't sure if there was like a sex scandal and they were like, we should rebrand, you know, I could have been because they didn't change the name, like right away. I just know that like the last time I tried to look him up, I was like, why can't I find this church? And I was like, oh, maybe I'll just look on Google instead of Facebook. And then as soon as I saw Google,
01:00:10
Speaker
I was like, Oh, same location, completely different name. So there was a pretty big church. There was like three campuses, the children's like little kids campus. I think it went all the way from like babies all the way to like fifth graders. And then there was like the high school, middle school campus. And that was their own campus.
01:00:36
Speaker
Yeah, it was like huge churches for each of these groups. And there was a basketball court inside of the teenage kids' church. And there was a skate park, but then they changed it to an arcade. It was a construction of an arcade. Both cool things. Both cool things. What kind of games were in the arcade? Not Street Fighter. Like, the Noah video game. It was like console games, like PlayStation games.
01:01:07
Speaker
I remember they had Lego Lord of the Rings. That was one of the eight. There we go. Lego Lord of the Rings. They did have Guitar Hero. That was a church favorite. Yeah, it was like required at youth group. Yeah. Sometimes you had to glorify God through the fire and the flame.
01:01:29
Speaker
It's just like a bunch of really awkward kids in their super high jeans just standing there with the Guitar Hero controller and their tongue out. Like unnaturally good at it because they have no friends at home. There would be lines for Guitar Hero at church. Guitar Hero like was like the next generation's
01:01:53
Speaker
Dance Dance Revolution, which we actually had Dance Dance Revolution too, but it wasn't. Unfortunately, it was only on the controller. They didn't have the little pad that you would step on. So you had to hold the controller in your hand and push like the upper side or push the two side buttons on the same time. I would do a way to play that game of all things. Yeah, I would do a Barcade.
01:02:17
Speaker
maybe like, I don't know, almost a year ago. It's, uh, you know, well past dance dance revolution era, but they have it there. And I was like, there was a kid on it just fucking tearing it apart. I couldn't, I was shy and he had to be close to my age. He was at definitely thirties and I was like, this is nuts. There's a 30 year old in the world that can like rip this hard.
01:02:47
Speaker
See one of those guys that like leans against the bar and then you just got to do like a like an airstrike with your feet
01:03:03
Speaker
That's just so difficult to me. My hand-eye coordination, it's not aligned. So same reason why, I don't know if I can do multitasking with my body. I can't do the Tar Hero. That was impossible. I tried. The Tar Hero just didn't work for me. It's just, I couldn't put those two things, those two actions together of like turning the thing, push the button, turn the thing, push the button. It was tough. It was very, very tough.
01:03:31
Speaker
Rock hard would be like a semester of bad grades in college when somebody on the door, Tim, Tim Cyphers got a guitar hero. And I think most of us failed our classes that year.
01:03:44
Speaker
Rock Band was the other one that killed because it introduced drums and sold a lot more equipment. I mean, the equipment for Rock Band filled college dorm rooms. It was excessive. Everyone argued over playing the drums. Nobody was good. It was Rock Band. That was a weird sell.
01:04:06
Speaker
But anyway, so your church, the campus thing is still kind of blowing my mind. So when you say the middle and high school had their own campus, did they go independently to church? Did they independently go without their parents? The kids had their own campus and there was a youth pastor for them and shit like that. Yeah, so they had like, I don't know, my parents would drop me off there and then they'd go to their little campus and then
01:04:37
Speaker
go be at the big adult people church. As far as you know. As far as I know, like I said, they may have been using it for childcare a few times. They emptied out the conversion van and then just went and got drunk. Swingers Club. No, you drop the kids off at church and go to a Swingers Club. Honestly, that is not that far from the potential truth.
01:05:08
Speaker
Now, did you go to school there too, or was it just church? I didn't go to school at like the church. I did just go to a public school in the area. They didn't have like school, which is cool. Oh, okay. And crazy because that's another, that's a, you know, if you get a good campus and you get the space for it, that's just some, that's just more revenue, you know, that's free money, essentially. Why ruin 10% of a kid's life when you can ruin 60%?
01:05:38
Speaker
The nice thing is like, I don't know. I just remember we watched a lot of stuff versus, we guess we did get preached to a lot, but our youth pastor seemed like a cool youth pastor. They all do. Before they have sex with someone in the youth group. That took me a scandal. I know somebody like the youth pastor cheated on his wife, but I don't know if it was. They kept the who under wraps.
01:06:08
Speaker
Yeah, the who was under wraps. He wasn't giving anybody a ride to the airport or anything when he the last time he saw him, was he? He wasn't it was he in the was he in the car when they crash? No, no. Oh, OK. He like was a pretty much one of the only two pastors who was OK. It was basically all the pastors who did the adult church. They all died.
01:06:36
Speaker
It's crazy that they're all in a car together. And that was just back from another church in Austin back to Colleen and their car had a semi truck or something or semi truck hit their car and all three of them died. And then everybody else had to like kind of step up and get involved. And that was after you were done. You said you found that online, right? Or was that why I found that out?
01:07:04
Speaker
when it happened, but I didn't live in Oregon or in Texas at the time I lived in Oregon. I was a senior in high school when they all passed, which was kind of sad for me because I was like, I want to go back and like show them I made it. I graduated high school.
01:07:20
Speaker
then they were all gone. There's no one left to impress. Exactly. I was like, do you still want to go back? I'm like, I don't really have a reason now. All the people I wanted to stick it to are gone. Because I don't really have like first family, like actual family in Texas. It was all just people we knew from like my dad being in the military and like my family being involved in church. So it was not really
01:07:49
Speaker
anybody who was like related to me who's there. So having a real reason of being there. Plus, I haven't seen the church people I went to church with since I was like 13. So I don't know. Yeah. A lot of reasons to go back. No, there's no no earthly family. Yeah. Just spiritual. Just the body of Christ. Yeah, sometimes they like say happy birthday on Facebook. So.
01:08:18
Speaker
They still love me. Whoa, I love that. Nothing cooler than people in their 60s you haven't talked to in 20 years being like
01:08:27
Speaker
happy birthday and that's usually like I get some every year before I took my whatever I get some it's always like have they'll like they'll like type a little prayer blessing and you're like what what are we doing my favorite is now Facebook is for like Christian moms that's it there's no other reason
01:08:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's 100% where I get all my daily Christian content is my mom posting random like scriptures on her Facebook or Instagram. Hey, that means you're still reading scripture. So she's kind of winning if you think about it. Now I know what it says in James. That book sucks. No, James was actually, I think James, is it James who's just like,
01:09:20
Speaker
I don't give a fuck what you say, just show me that you do shit that matters and I'll believe you. I respect that message. I'll respect the book of James a little bit still. I figured you were more of a Timothy fan. Timothy. The pastoral pistols can get fucked if you ask me.
01:09:40
Speaker
We did a we did a whole episode where we made fun of one of them. Yeah, because it's ridiculous. Like I feel like I've read the Bible Morse doing this show than I ever did as a kid. And now, like some of it is so funny because like the Timothy ones that we read, it starts off and it's like I, Paul, who is definitely me, for sure, 100 percent Paul and not somebody else. Right to you, Timothy.
01:10:09
Speaker
And it's the strangest introduction. So he's lying. That's not clearly not him. He's running it 200 years later. Just some random hack that had a point to make. You're you were the cool guy. Was he did he dress like a teenager? Yeah, jeans. He definitely did. There was like this thing.
01:10:39
Speaker
that, um, like lock-ins. Hell yeah. Did you ever make out with the person of interest at a lock-in? That was like the only reason anyone attended them. I brought my Nintendo DS to a lock-in, so I didn't have to talk to anybody. Hell yeah. He's playing like Cooking Mama while I just sit in the corner.
01:11:07
Speaker
I also had a three-foot teddy bear that I brought to the walk-in. Oh, sick. So you were definitely trying not to make out, for sure. Yeah, I was like, I'm just here with God and my Nintendo DS.
01:11:21
Speaker
We called it, my youth pastor when I was in high school, it was, we did a lock in, it was, we had scheduled tag time, which is time alone with God, we just omitted the W. At two in the morning. Yeah. Nothing takes the wind out of your sails quite like. You have to like go sit in the corner and like pray or just like be silent.
01:11:46
Speaker
Yeah, you all went to like a quiet a place by yourself. Now, here's how I here's how I did that too. There was there was a girl that I was interested in. So I just found I made sure I like sat near where she was sitting so she could see me being like really spiritual and shit.
01:12:06
Speaker
She could overhear him, like repenting for watching Fast and the Furious or something. You pick the one series that I've seen no movies of, but sure. I remember my pastor being like, like teaching us about speaking in tongues. And he was like, when you don't know what to say.
01:12:25
Speaker
You just speak in tongues. I'd just be sitting in the corner of the church, just saying all kinds of mumbo jumble out of my mouth, because I had no idea what to be praying for. And I'm like, God knows. God can understand this. God knows exactly what I want. It's just a nice show thing and some corn lyrics. Yeah. Christian scatting is what it is, right? Yeah.
01:12:54
Speaker
So what we did do, we grew up in like real conservative like pie. There's no, there was no speaking in tongues. Like we were, we were told that like, you gotta be real careful with that. And I wasn't sure that that was even okay. So like, I've no, I, one of the things I've come to realize is how prevalent that was, uh, in probably most Christian circles. And, um,
01:13:21
Speaker
I, yeah, never heard it.
Cultural Practices in Worship
01:13:23
Speaker
Never thought about it as a child. So when I hear about all like, when I learned of more and more people who were like, had that experience, I'm like, I mean, I just, it hardly computes. I can't, but I kind of love it. I love the shortcut where it's just like, cause I remember stressing over like what to pray. You're just like, especially in a group, you're like, all right, how do I knock this one on the park? So I look like a real good Christian guy right now. And, uh,
01:13:50
Speaker
You come up short with words, you just interject a couple of father gods and you just work your way through it. But speaking of tongues would have been one hell of a shortcut for me. I could have used that. Yeah, I think it was strange. I remember being like, what is this thing? Because like the story that I was told is that like our pastor was like in a foreign country and he wanted to pray over the people
01:14:19
Speaker
but he didn't speak their language. So instead he just started speaking gibberish, like speaking in tongues. And they all got saved. People understood what he was saying miraculously because somehow the Holy Spirit made him speak this foreign language.
01:14:38
Speaker
And they all got saved and I was like, bullshit. He stole that story from the book of acts. It's called the day of Pentecost and totally ripped it off. So like, I don't think that's real. So I, I never done it before, but it was weird because I went to what I would consider a white church when I lived in Texas.
01:15:02
Speaker
It was very, the only kind they have there, right? Yeah. I mean, unless I'm going to see TD Jakes or something like that, but I don't even think he has a person in Texas. But yeah, it was very much a white church. And then when I came to Oregon, my grandpa's a pastor. So we went to like an old school black church and it was the first time I ever really witnessed a large group of people who were into the Holy Spirit aspect of.
01:15:28
Speaker
Christianity, because I've never really seen a lot of people talk about being filled with the Holy Spirit and what the Holy Spirit will do. People are dancing down the aisles. And I was like, this is the Holy Spirit does this? Like acts like this? I don't know if I want the Holy Spirit in me because you guys look crazy. At least that's what I would think. I was a teenager, though, when I started to see this. So if I was still young and impressionable, it could have been me. But
01:15:56
Speaker
Yeah, going from like you move, you said 13 to be like 13, 14, 15 and start seeing people like wiling out in the aisles is like. Yeah. And the whole, they're not pretending when they say that like black churches last a lot longer.
01:16:13
Speaker
And why churches would be points for me and my brother would be like, I have to use the bathroom and we would sit outside of the bathroom. So we didn't have to walk back inside of the church. We were so tired of listening to the pastor talking or singing praise and worship that we're just like.
01:16:31
Speaker
Let's just sit in the bathroom all the time. I don't want to crush the mosh pit. Every Sunday, it's like, I don't know. I just have diarrhea every Sunday. I don't know. Well, for my grandpa's church, it was like hem, hemules or whatever. So you'd pick the book out of like the pews and it have all these songs that you, but they didn't play music. Oh, it's all a cappella. It's all a cappella. And you just leave these.
01:17:00
Speaker
And there'd be like some sort of tune that people would keep, but it was like, post a little pitch thing. We're like, yeah, they match it. Very, very, like, I don't know. I hated it. I did not like going to church when I was going to that church. It was kind of, did you feel any, so going to a mostly white church in Texas and then going to a mostly black church.
01:17:29
Speaker
Was there any racial components to being in a white church where you felt like an outsider and then you didn't feel that way at black church? How would that dynamic work? Was there any pressure to shift there? It should feel more at home. I did feel like it should feel more at home, but it didn't. I noticed that difference right away. This is not the same vibe that I grew up experiencing.
01:17:59
Speaker
There's definitely a completely different, imagine going to a concert and then ended up going to a bar and seeing similar shows, but the bar seemed a little bit less exciting than the concert because there's less people there. Fewer pyrotechnics. It's like going to Emo Night Brooklyn instead of actually going to see your old favorite Emo band. Exactly.
01:18:27
Speaker
I don't know. There was a lot more production in the white church. It made it fun. That's how they get you, those crafty whites. The one thing that was nice about Black churches is they do serve food afterwards, so we always ate food. That was always nice. Potlucks are fun. Potlucks are one of the bright spots of church.
01:18:48
Speaker
Yes, I feel like that's a question we've gotten away from in a while. But like, what was your go to dish at the potluck? Like if you saw it on the table, what you getting? Well, there was always fried chicken, which always there was just always fried chicken side. I eat that and like mashed potatoes.
01:19:08
Speaker
For some reason I was obsessed with mashed potatoes when I was younger. I think I just pretend to be old and just eat mashed potatoes. No, mashed potatoes was fucking ripped. I was like one of my favorite foods my entire life. So I love mashed potatoes a lot. And then what else would I eat that was like, I don't know. They would have, um, cake. Like somebody would make some sort of cake. Like it would be like a pound cake or something. Sometimes it would be that one with the pineapple.
01:19:39
Speaker
Upside down cake. Upside down cake. I liked those cakes a lot. Yeah. That's pretty good stuff. There was always like a plate of like real dense brownies around too. I feel like I'd go for those. I stayed away from the salads.
01:19:56
Speaker
Like anything with a, like a mayonnaise or a cold pasta base. Like that's not okay. Also, also if it's a, if it's a marshmallow based salad, I'm not into it.
01:20:11
Speaker
that shit's fucked up that I every holiday my wife's grandmother used to make the what the fuck they call it it's like pink panther insulation yeah it's like a whip it's like a cool whip with just like a bunch of fruit mix into it and they it's just ambrosia yeah that shit is so fuck I hate it
01:20:35
Speaker
It's not great, but it's not bad. It's like a fruit cocktail mixed with whipped cream. Yeah, it's like pineapple, maraschino cherries. It's like nothing. Yeah. To call it salad, that's when I learned that salad just means you put a bunch of shit in a bowl. Oh, that's salad. Salad is cold casserole. Salad is at least two ingredients mixed together in a bowl. I mean potato salad.
01:21:04
Speaker
Do you think that you've never imagined together too? Have you ever thought about putting pecans on your marshmallow fluff? It's like, not once. It's like, well, here's a bowl of it. There's two gallons. Somebody had to do it and then tell everybody it tasted good. That's how the trend started.
01:21:27
Speaker
Yeah, but the Ambrosia salad lives on till this day. Like everyone, someone has to make it every year. My kids like it, so I don't know. Ambrosia salad is going to go the way of like, uh, crabs. Like they say crabs have died out because everybody shaves their pubes now. Ambrosia salad goes with the boomers. As soon as they're dead, we'll never eat it again. I mean, people aren't really buying fruit cake anymore or eating fruit cake.
01:21:57
Speaker
Yeah, no, they always have like a wall of them at the supermarket and at Christmas time. And I don't know who's eating that.
Disillusionment with Religion
01:22:04
Speaker
They just have a freak out session every like December when sales are down. They just keep it doesn't ever work. It's so dense like you ever pick one of those up. It's heavy.
01:22:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's like it's like a tungsten brick made of old fruit. So the whole time you were in high school, so it sounds like you started like getting bored with churches like as a teenager. But as far as like the idea, the beliefs,
01:22:37
Speaker
How all in were you? Was it just something you did because it was just normal and that's what you knew? Or were you like, yeah, I'm about this and it's important and people got to know about it? So I don't think that I ever was like, people need to know about it. I think that when I came to Oregon, I felt a lot of shame for even being
01:22:58
Speaker
somebody who enjoyed church. Culturally, way different. Everyone probably in the Texas area was at least marginally connected to a church and that was a huge shift in Portland. In Portland, it was a huge, huge shift where everyone around me did not go to church.
01:23:17
Speaker
Everyone around me, if you said God, I'd be like, ew, what? That guy, like, people just instantly. Boo. I actually had a joke about God and someone just booed me straight up when I said I grew up Christian. Boo. And I was like, damn, let me get the joke out. Wow.
01:23:37
Speaker
Get the people. I can't not. If I'm at a comedy show and someone's like mentions their religious upbringing, you get it. You'll get a drunken cheer from me immediately. Because I'm like, at least say, yeah, like, hey, you also did to like, no, they just straight up like, no, fuck you growing up Christian. But it was a big, huge culture shock for me to come here because there's so many things that are like
01:24:04
Speaker
not talked about in Texas, or at least where I grew up, like LGBTQ people are not talked about.
Shift from Conservative to Progressive Views
01:24:11
Speaker
There's no sort of talking about, like, I remember seeing a homeless person before I came to Oregon. I don't think I came back to Oregon. I don't think I had ever seen anyone who was homeless in my life. And then I came over again. Oh, wow. People camp outside. I had no I didn't even correlate those two things. I'm like, they let you sleep out here.
01:24:35
Speaker
That's crazy. It's a difference in policy. South of the Mason-Dixon, we just paved right over the top of them. I was literally so surprised that I moved to Portland during Occupy Wall Street, so in the middle of a very big protest. Oh, wow. With a very big protest was happening, and I was like, why didn't you have weeks out here? That's crazy.
01:25:00
Speaker
That was a crazy time. I was in college when Occupy Wall Street.
01:25:06
Speaker
was going on, and that was my shift. Around that time of my life, I was shifting out of conservative, evangelical Christianity into, I was still very much in traditional Christianity at that time, but started picking up on some more progressive values, hanging out with some more progressive Christians, and was getting into the, everyone that I knew from back home was just like,
Family Dynamics and Non-Monogamy
01:25:35
Speaker
get a job loser like that kind of stuff and then like I'm like well actually maybe this is kind of interesting but the occupy thing that was like I feel like that was the first protest I knew about and was aware of where I was like you just all hoped it would go somewhere and it was like the first of many where you're just like
01:25:55
Speaker
No, we're just we're cogs and we do this shit till we're dead and we're we have to be miserable because rich people own everything and they don't care how many of us die. So, you know, it was like the start of my we can do it. And then like the real beginning of my we're all fucked and it's all useless. Yeah, that's when I moved here to Portland in that that time was everybody was kind of like on edge. I don't know. It was just
01:26:25
Speaker
An interesting time to move to Portland. I was still kind of religious and Christian into high school. In high school is where I first was like, what the fuck is happening? Like, I realized the difference is so much. My parents actually did come out as non-monogamous polyamorous people. Oh, they're in it. There was some truth to that, Slinger's Club. Slinger's statement is my dad actually- Actually non-monogamous.
01:26:54
Speaker
Yes, ethically non-monogamous, they moved this other woman into her home that they were seeing. And I was in high school, I was like, what the, literally everything I knew about God and Christianity came crashing down. Whoa, on a Tumblr page? Yeah, I put it on my Tumblr. What is this? I remember having a really bad reaction to that happening.
01:27:20
Speaker
And it made me who I wasn't really going to church prior to that, that much, but it made me go to church way more. And I started to go to church every single Sunday because I wanted to make sure we got to heaven because somebody has to pray for us because clearly there's something wrong here. That is an enormous shift.
01:27:44
Speaker
It was very like, it was basically my world felt like it crumbled down. Like I went to church so often, I thought I had this understanding of what was wrong and what was right. And that just seems super, super wrong. Like that seemed like it crossed the line of like what was okay and what not okay is to be non-monogamous.
01:28:05
Speaker
Well, here's what's funny about non-monogamy, and this is probably the least progressive thing I might say, but we'll go for it. I feel like it starts with that, you go, maybe wear this, and then it often ends in divorce.
01:28:25
Speaker
It's like, I'm not saying you can't make it work. I'm just saying most people can't make it work because someone eventually gets tired of it or wants to move on or find someone else that they have a stronger connection to. It's, it's a big time risk opening your life up to multiple partners like that. And especially with kids, like, yeah, that's so wild to make that choice with kids is like,
01:28:54
Speaker
Yeah, we were all teenagers. I think my youngest sisters were like maybe 12. So they're like in seventh grade. And I was like maybe 11th or sophomore in high school. Did she ever try to tell you what to do and act like your mom? And you're like, fuck off. No. Surprisingly, I see why she was afraid to like
01:29:22
Speaker
parent us. It's weird. She was like this white woman who came in to live with these seven black kids. Were they trying to get their own TLC show or what? We should have got one. It would have been interesting. Was there a conversation? That is a wild dynamic. Did your parents sit you down? There was a conversation. I actually have a video on my TikTok about this conversation.
01:29:50
Speaker
where they sat us all down in the kitchen. And at this time, my stepmom had already lived with us for a little bit. And I was under this notion. That likes to get his dick sucked by more than one person. Oh, thanks, Dad. Guys, that would have made it worse if they said it like that. I was like, no, sugarcoat it next time. But no, they had her living with us for a little bit. And in my head,
01:30:18
Speaker
According to the living situation, I was sharing a room with my sister. My two younger sisters were sharing a room, and my brother had his own room. And then they were splitting the living room slash room, because my stepmom had a kid as well. So there was another child in the mix.
01:30:41
Speaker
And so it started like that. And I was under this impression that we were being good Christians and opening our home to somebody who needed a place to stay. And so that was what was going on in my brain. And then when they sat us down and they were like, we love her, I was like, I know God, you're supposed to love God's love. Love your neighbor. Got it, dad. Check. Yeah. I was like, yes. And he's like, no, we are in love with her.
01:31:09
Speaker
And my dad was like, I love your mom and I love her. And I remember my older siblings started laughing hysterically. They thought it was the funniest thing in the world, but they're like from Portland for the most part, like they spend a lot more time in Portland.
01:31:26
Speaker
This is kind of like maybe funnier to them. I did it. So I was like, what the fuck? And I was like, no, that's wrong. I just remember saying that blankly like, nope, that's wrong. Nope, you can't do that. Was there any context, like pretext of like, I feel like I've heard some.
01:31:51
Speaker
people with kids when they make like some major decision like that, they'll almost kind of like tell the kids as if it's like, we want to make sure you're okay with this. It almost seemed like they said it like that, but my parents also don't seem to care about how we feel about anything. They never really did ever in life. So it was kind of like, this is what's happening.
01:32:13
Speaker
Cool. You're going to stay living here. Don't try to leave. That was kind of their impression that they gave the whole time. It's like, yeah, this is what's going to happen. This woman is now going to move into our bedroom. We're going to have three people in one bedroom. And then one of you guys are going to share a room with the other kid. So figure out which one it is. It would be crazy enough to try to process that as a kid.
01:32:40
Speaker
Just if, if, if all it was was like they were telling you they were in a relationship with somebody, but to then be like, and they're moving in with us, we live with this person now. Like that, I don't know. I don't know how, I mean, is that, do you feel like that was ever even a thing that you thought of as a possibility, like that type of relationship? I wanted to know about something like that prior to that happening. I had never even heard.
01:33:06
Speaker
anyone doing that, that even being a thing. I was just pretty ready. Maybe no, right. It was around then. Right. It was like 2012. Oh, yeah. Right. It was 2011 when this is happening. Fedora's were in. So I remember there was a lot of other things happening at the same time. My sister was pregnant, teenage pregnancy. And then I had a brother who
01:33:30
Speaker
It's getting arrested a lot for just petty crimes and stuff. So I was like, we already have too much shit going on. I don't know why you guys want to add this freaking situation to the mix.
Questioning Faith and Family Changes
01:33:43
Speaker
You're like, look, we're stressed. If somebody could do something like maybe one thing to make my life easier and smoother, that would be cool. Cause I am the kid here.
01:33:58
Speaker
What a why. I can't even imagine what that would feel like to have a new partner like as a kid with no concept of that growing up in the Christian world that we did to like have a new partner introduced was your were your parents still going to church around that time? And was there like no chance church people were cool with it? Yeah, they were not. I remember my dad, he used to like kind of like volunteer for this
01:34:27
Speaker
pop-up church that this main church used to do in the Portland, Beaverton area. So they had like a pop-up church that they would do at a high school so that that small community around that high school could have like a church to go to. And he just stopped doing that. And so I was like, okay, maybe this is a sign. And I remember the day that my parents kind of were like,
01:34:52
Speaker
I'm done with this church is because the pastor had did this whole spiel about 50 shades of gray and how like terrible and how bad that is. And I remember my mom, she's an avid reader and she was reading that book at the time that this was all happening. And my mom's a very passionate person to the point where if she doesn't like something, she'll verbally say it out loud and she might even cause a scene.
01:35:22
Speaker
And I think that like, she might've said something to the pastor about how like, it's just a book, like chill. And that was like the last time they went to church is like, my mom shows 50 shades of gray over God. Don't you have joint custody of your husband? Oh my God. Oh, that is, uh, that is so much like.
01:35:51
Speaker
That is so much change at like a bedrock level. After growing up in like a conservative, like, you know, somewhat charismatic type of environment before that. That is. Did you have any idea like what spurred that change for your parents? Part of me felt like they were going through a midlife crisis. And then part of me also thinks that like,
01:36:20
Speaker
Fifty Shades of Grey really had an effect on my mom. Your pastor was right. And here's the thing. It was even worse than like just her reading the book. She started to make whips out of duct tape. And she started. Oh, wow. My mom loves writing. So she's like writing fan fiction on wet pad or whatever that fan fiction writing app is for Fifty Shades of Grey.
01:36:47
Speaker
So imagine someone tells you, that's not a God. And then you're like, well, then I won't go to church anymore. That was my take. That was my logic. Is there a erotic fanfic? Is it pretty good? Have you read it? I don't know. God no, I'm not reading that. I don't want to know what my mom thinks about sex.
01:37:09
Speaker
like the one that's the one constant amongst all of humanity is like nobody wants to know what their parents think of sex and we we're all like everyone who doesn't want to know becomes people whose kids don't want to know it's just the one constant that everyone can you I'd like to say it's the last bipartisan issue
01:37:34
Speaker
of parents. What do your parents do during sex? I don't care. You don't need to know. Also, parents don't need to know or want to really know what their kids are doing. I need my parents to know everything. I should come out as someone that likes to do X, Y, and Z. I'm not talking your traditional LGBTQ. I'm talking
01:37:56
Speaker
I can only get hard if someone with high heels stumps on my wiener. It's like, your parents don't need to know that. They don't want to know that. And it's not coming out to tell them. It's like, keep that shit private, motherfucker. You don't need to draft a press release. Yeah.
01:38:14
Speaker
Some shit can stay private. I feel like that's what we've lost in the past few years is everyone thinks that every private thing that you used to just do shit in private and be like, this is my community of private people doing private shit. Now it's like as public as a bowling league in the seventies. You just, everyone needs to know your score and your shirts. You wear shirts for it. Everyone doesn't need to know that shit.
01:38:39
Speaker
I remember the private times. They definitely do feel bedding. Sometimes I wish that I didn't know certain things. That's your personal business. That has nothing to do with me. And I'm not going to interfere or help you do your personal business. So maybe don't tell me it. So one time you got it worse out there too. There is a there is a person that
Impact of '50 Shades of Grey' on Family
01:39:08
Speaker
not somebody that I knew, it was like an acquaintance of like, our friend group at the time. And this, we found out that this person wrote, like erotic fiction and posted it on some website. And so I remember one time we had a party and it's not very nice. But we read one of these stories as a group. And it was about a
01:39:37
Speaker
want to say it was like a vampire lady meets a lizard man in a cave and it was like this and dude it was it was so insane and I just remember like seeing that person afterwards just being like
01:39:54
Speaker
I can't keep a straight face. I literally read your paragraph about plucking a scale off of your penis and putting it for the person. It made me so embarrassed to read any of the things that my mom's written books. I've never even bothered reading them. She has a book on Amazon.
01:40:18
Speaker
My boyfriend's like, I'm going to buy it. I'm like, you better not. Are you going to plug it? I think it has the word pineapple in it. I think that. So it's one of those call back to why you were talking about upside down cake. This is clearly deeply embedded drama. Yeah, it's hereditary. What kind of like.
01:40:48
Speaker
You as a teenager moving back to Portland and stuff, we were like wannabe scene kids that went to metal shows and stuff like that. Did you have a personality archetype that you subscribed to in that time period? During that time, I remember I had some friends who had the scene hair cut, whereas big and poofy,
01:41:16
Speaker
Like, oh, like dyed, um, pink or something pink or green. Tons of bracelets with like all up and down their arms. Heavy scene kid, like Myspace era. Myspace tumblr era. Big time. I think I was kind of like falling in there, but I also have like a basic bitch era as well, where it was like uggs and yoga pants. I had like.
01:41:46
Speaker
those vests, the puffy vests that wear clothes all the time. I would wear those all the time. I dress like a soccer mom. I had children, but I didn't have any kids. You drove a van, too, that show up to talk to them. That Dodge Caravan drip. Yes. I definitely look like I was going to go pick up the kids from someplace. I have a cup that actually has wine in it the whole time.
01:42:16
Speaker
And it has like a funny joke on it, like it's wine o'clock or something.
Conflict with Church Teachings
01:42:22
Speaker
What was, so like, when you found this out about your parents, you start like doubling down on church. But what was like, what led to your like, this is an it moment. Yeah.
01:42:36
Speaker
Was it your parents still? It looks like it came full circle. No, it's weird. I remember I went to church and gone to this church like every Sunday, all the time since finding out or whatever. And I was 19. I had moved away from my parents, but I had just moved back home because I heard of these rumors of a divorce potentially happening. And so I moved home temporarily. The divorce didn't happen at that moment, so I moved back out.
01:43:06
Speaker
You were trying to save your parents marriage. Well, my dad was like, your mom won't make it without me. She needs me in her life and she wants to get divorced. So please move back home. So at least I know she's okay. And I was like, uh, okay. And I moved back for the summer for like three months and then they were like not getting divorced. So I was like, well, I'm not staying. So I left.
01:43:31
Speaker
and moved in with my sister. But at that time, I was going to church a lot and I went to church one day and I was feeling really depressed about my home situation. And the pastor, they had that moment where they're like, if you need some prayer, come up to the front of the church and somebody will put their hands on you and pray for you. And so I went up there. It was really emotional. And I remember the pastor saying to me that if I don't
01:44:01
Speaker
convince my parents not to be sinners, then I'm just as guilty in the sin that they're committing as well. And I was like, nope, that's not true. And I just was like, I'm not going to church anymore. I'm like, if that's the truth, then I'm not going. I am not responsible for anybody else's sins. No one can tell me differently. I don't believe in that. That is
01:44:24
Speaker
whatever somebody else got going on, it has nothing to do with me. I'm just telling you, cause maybe you can make me be better about accepting him. Like I just need one adult in my life that doesn't put the weight of the world on my shoulder. He said it was like some, something in the Bible about like eating at the same, like eating at the same place.
01:44:50
Speaker
as sinners and not telling them about their sin and not condemning their sin. Just like Jesus did when he invited a bunch of people to have dinner with him and didn't say anything about it. Exactly. Got it, Pastor. I got really upset. I was like, no, nope. I don't know. In that moment, I truly was just like, church shut off in my brain. And I was like, yeah, that's not what I wanted to hear. I didn't want to hear that I was just going to go to hell because my parents sleep with someone else.
01:45:20
Speaker
together. And I'm like, I'm not. I didn't want to hear that. So I stopped going all together and I have not gone back since. That's so wild. That's such a crazy thing to say. That's such a crazy thing to say, especially to like a young person to be like the fate of your family and your elders and the people who are technically supposed to be responsible for you is now your responsibility.
Ongoing Family Changes
01:45:44
Speaker
You need to clean this up. I was responsible for their salvation in this one moment. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. I don't think that's my responsibility. I really don't think as a person I'm responsible for anybody else's life, really, unless I gave birth to them, which I didn't. So I'm not going to put that weight on myself. And I don't think God requires it. So I was just kind of like, nope, that's true.
01:46:15
Speaker
I didn't read the Bible. I'm not going to feel a liar and say I read it a bunch. But I'm like, if this is what the pastor says is what's in the Bible, I don't like the Bible anymore. So I make a clean exit. When when you moved home, was the other lady still part of their relationship? Yeah, my dad ended up marrying her when my parents got divorced. And now they're separated and he has a new girlfriend. So he's like,
01:46:43
Speaker
I think my dad just has player vibes in him. And he just, he just, he went back to his old ways. Like he had four kids before my mom and him got married. So it's like, he just went back to a lot of relationships. I think that's really what he wanted. He just wanted to be in a lot of relationships. I feel like you need a new outlet for these, these impulses, maybe like writing. Yeah.
01:47:12
Speaker
erotic fan fiction, perhaps. There you go. Well, he works at a sex club, so he's got access to- Okay. Those are like signs. There were signs that led into me finding out my parents were potentially on this weird road, and one of those signs is my dad started working for Ron Jeremy, and I didn't know who Ron Jeremy was. Super Mario?
01:47:38
Speaker
Yeah, I have pictures of them. I used to post it every Father's Day. I'd be like, look, my dad and his best friend, Ron.
01:47:47
Speaker
Once all the scandal stuff came out in like 2016 or something, my dad told me to stop doing that. Oh yeah, you're right. You might be embarrassed by your past associations. Sorry you don't want me to posting pictures of your choices. That's unreal. So you started with Ron. Ron Drury had a sex club in Portland that I think it's called Sesso.
01:48:17
Speaker
Club Sesso, and my dad was the chef at that club, so he cooked all the food because they serve food at the Sesso Club. That's the last place I'd want to order food, but sure. Do they have ambrosia? No, I don't think my dad would eat that. They only have post-fucked ambrosia.
01:48:42
Speaker
It's an interesting club. I've been in it now. Ron Jeremy doesn't own it anymore. It's still a sex club, but new
Father's Work at a Sex Club
01:48:48
Speaker
owners. My dad still works there.
01:48:50
Speaker
Okay, I'm I guess I'm more naive than I would have thought on this category. I guess I don't know why I would think I wouldn't be because I've never even been inside of a strip club. But what is like, what's a sex club? I mean, you literally go and you I mean, sex work isn't legal. I didn't think so. How do you have it as a club? It's a consensual
01:49:14
Speaker
situation, um, getting paid for it. No, I mean, the club is getting paid for membership fees. So you can come and experience the club at a membership. Um, but the people, yeah, this is Portland. It's positive sex work for profit, sex worker positive in Portland. But I went to that club for an art show.
01:49:42
Speaker
Thank God it was not a actual event. My dad won't even let me, like, if he's working and I'm in the area and I need something from him, he'll just be like, stand outside. He won't let me go in, even though I'm an adult. He's just like, no, stand outside, I'll bring whatever it is to you.
01:49:58
Speaker
Things will change. It's like you think of that moment when they sat you down and said this woman's moving in with us and sleeping in our bed like and how much that changed. I think even as an adult walking in there, just knowing that that's that I feel like that would just kind of rock my world still as an adult. If I if my dad worked in a place like that, it's like. If I walked in and saw it, it's like they're seeing it and not like you can know and have the idea, but then like seeing it with your eyes and you go,
01:50:27
Speaker
Well, this changes things a little bit. Yeah. Like when I went for the art show, it was like this artist, you took a bunch of like, kind of like sports cards, images of strippers. And so you like saw all of these like
01:50:42
Speaker
sports cards for all of these different strippers in Portland, which is kind of cool to look at those. Um, but there was also naked pictures of my, my dad in the back. And so that was another, my dad told me, do not go back there. Is it a holographic card? It was just like my dad covering his private parts with like a pan and like spatula, like cooking equipment.
01:51:11
Speaker
Whoa. Oh, you've done found the place that you feel like you are. Think Bed, Bath, and Beyond, but with a naked man behind each, each utensil. It was very, very, like, I just remember being like, you know what, my life is just outrageous. I just gonna have to accept that it is outrageous. And it is what
Maintaining Cultural Christian Identity
01:51:29
Speaker
it is. Like, I don't even consider myself super Christian anymore. I just, like, I was raised that way. And culturally, I understand a ton of Christian
01:51:38
Speaker
cultural references, culture, phenomenons, whatever. But I wouldn't say I practice. I've experienced so much of it that it's weird to be like, no, it's not a part of me. I'm like, well, it is. It is a part of me. I grew up in it. I've been in church more than I've been not in church at this point in my life. And I'm only 27, so I spent not that much time as a non-church growing person.
01:52:08
Speaker
Yeah, and I think when you grow up like that, whether you want to admit it or not, it's part of your worldview. It's part of the lens by which you view the world around you. And there's just not really any getting away from that completely. So I think sometimes it's better just to kind of make peace with it and establish what part of it you accept and what part you don't.
01:52:38
Speaker
You know, and it's what it's more it's I think more of the problem with Christianity for most people is environment. It's environment based rather than like.
01:52:50
Speaker
you know, worldview so much. I feel like I'm rambling now. I went down a hole and I don't know how to get out. Well, it's like you because I well, I even still notice myself like you have like base reactions to things and I like you have to delineate like, oh, am I reacting to this or thinking this way because I have a real thought about it all or is it just like a
01:53:13
Speaker
like a predisposed response due to like cultural conditioning in the environment that I grew up in. So then you have to like, you kind of have to examine a lot more of your thoughts than you want to. I feel like, at least for me, like, I don't want to think this much about the things I think I want to just be a regular person, but I can't be because I spent too much of my life being conditioned to think that like any misstep is like, yeah, the biggest of to be yourself.
01:53:38
Speaker
because of religion. At least for me, I think that's what I realized as I got older and spent more time away from church and really developed myself as a person. I was like, well, I'm responsible for my own morality and my own moral compass. So what I think is okay is okay. And what I don't think is okay is not okay, just in my head.
01:54:01
Speaker
It's like, I don't need to push that. It's like shame. The shame that comes in Christianity and the shame that's in religion is disgusting to me. It's like, it's not, why are we doing that? Like leave them alone. Let people have their life. Has nothing to do with it. Not our circus, not our monkeys. Like get over it. Let's just move on.
Comedy Career Inspired by Personal Experiences
01:54:25
Speaker
Obviously, one of the things that stuck out, I mean, I listened to a fair amount of comedy, but I'll never not have my ears perk up when someone starts talking about their experiences that are similar to mine regarding Christianity because it's just an instant point of connection, I feel like.
01:54:47
Speaker
When did you start wanting to get into comedy? And I'm also curious as to like, did you always incorporate like the Christian element or like your experience with Christianity as part of the humor? Or did that come later when you kind of like were more comfortable being outside of it? So I started comedy in 2021. I like just
01:55:17
Speaker
came out of the pandemic. First time I ever got on stage was 2019, but there's so much going on in my life at that time. I moved out of my old roommate's place, had to move back with my mom. It was like a clusterfuck. I barely went out and did comedy. And then the pandemic happened. And when I came back to comedy, it was the perfect time, kind of, because there were no Black women in Portland comedy at the time.
01:55:42
Speaker
And so I was just like the only thing there. So of course I got booked a lot because I was like fitting this diversity quota that Portland has to meet in every single show. So I was there doing a ton of comedy, being forced into 15-minute sets, knowing damn well I don't have like three minutes of material. So I was just kind of like thrusted upon the
01:56:10
Speaker
seen in a really fast way. I don't know if I really wanted to be a comedian when I was younger, but
01:56:22
Speaker
I knew I wanted to be in front of people or a performer of some sort. I did enjoy watching the pastor preach. I thought that was always like fun and moving. So I knew that that was something that I was interested in as a child. But I don't know, I wasn't thinking about comedy. Comedy just kind of happened to me.
01:56:43
Speaker
because a boy told me to do it. And I was like, okay. That's really what happened. The boy told me you'd be good at comedy. I'm like, okay, I'll do it. That's so funny. Okay, your first open mic, was it like, I mean, do you either feel like you did all right or people bombed? That's such a good defining moment, I feel like. And a lot of people talk about,
01:57:10
Speaker
You know, they killed for like an open mic and it wasn't until a little bit later that they really when you come out with like five minutes of material and you come out swinging, it goes well. But then all of a sudden, like you bomb a little bit later. And that's kind of like what was your experience with that? Yeah, I remember doing an open my first open mic and I did really well. And then on my like second, third or whatever, once I got into twenty twenty one, took that year off and came back in.
01:57:39
Speaker
Um, it didn't go super well one of the times because we had to do comedy outside because of COVID. I remember we were doing comedy outside and there's like homeless people walking back and forth in front of me because it's standing literally outside of a bar. And so the sidewalk is like the stage and people walk around you while you have a microphone in your hand.
01:58:00
Speaker
I remember I had such a bad set that these people in the audience were like, it's okay, girl. It's okay. You've got this. And it made me feel so fucked up inside. Oh my God. When my stat was over, I left and I cried and I called both my parents separately. And I was like, I don't know if I could do this. This is too difficult.
01:58:22
Speaker
I'm not doing good at this. I want this so badly to work and it's not working. And like my parents were like, people live in their cars when they're comedians, so you need to get over it. Whoa, tough love. Yeah, my parents have like a lot of tough love. They're just like, yeah, well, this is going to happen. This is life. This is comedy. You're going to fail a lot more than you succeed. They'll just keep your head on straight. And I'm like, OK. And then I think that week,
01:58:50
Speaker
I got booked on my first show ever. So then like two months of me doing comedy, it got booked on my first show. And then after that, I won a contest two months later for comedy. And then the rest kind of just all started doing boom, boom, boom, really fast. After that really, it's just a forced into like a really fast role. I don't know.
01:59:15
Speaker
Comedy's fun, but it could be depressing. It was just too much too fast for someone who didn't know much to begin with. Yeah. I have a feeling like, cause I work in sales and like you spend a lot of your time making these like minute gains that like build up over the course of time. And before you know it, if you've been keeping your head down, like boom, you've got like a lot of progress underneath you, you know?
01:59:43
Speaker
But then once in a while, like you hit a home run and you land something really big. And like, even though like the, the numbers are like amazing and from the outside, you know, it feels like everybody, everybody sees it and they're in awe of it and stuff, but like you kind of feel yourself like this happened too quick and I feel nervous about this. What if this falls apart? Like, did I do this right? Did I deserve for this to happen?
Blending Faith and Comedy
02:00:11
Speaker
And you know,
02:00:13
Speaker
I don't know. I imagine there's probably moments like that too in comedy. Yeah. I found myself changing my material a lot upfront because if it didn't work immediately, then I would just not say it ever again. I did talk about God randomly throughout comedy because I just like, I don't know, there's certain parts of it that I do find as parts of my identity a little bit.
02:00:39
Speaker
One of my jokes where I'm like talking about dicks, I just said, God, I won't give you what you can't handle. I just remember that. I remember hearing and I know that it kind of is funny that it aligns in.
02:00:52
Speaker
this weird way into, I've had some comment blasphemy underneath that joke and I'm like, whatever. I don't care. What a good compliment. That's the best compliment. Those are great ones. I love being told. There's no footnotes in the Bible. There's nobody saying that's not what he was talking about. Exactly. He said that you're perfect. That's what you should take from that. You didn't mess up on you. Okay.
02:01:19
Speaker
I feel like the West Coast, because you talked about like that COVID era is when you started and I think Portland and the West Coast, it kind of has like a specific brand of like performative white allyship.
02:01:38
Speaker
Yes. And at first I kind of started to get like this imposter syndrome, like they're only booking me because I'm black. They're only booking me because I'm a woman because they need these things. But then I realized I'm like, no, let me just not think that that way and just be the funniest woman or the funniest person of color on your show. And like, let's leave it at that. You're looking booked because I'm funny. I could not. I did not want to be labeled as like only there to fit that.
02:02:06
Speaker
And so I had to change my own mentality to be like, I'm not only here to fit this like, I mean, nobody wants to get canceled in Portland. That's really what it is. Like joining comedy in the pandemic right after this long, long Black Lives Matter movement. And then like, it just seemed like everybody wanted to make sure that like,
02:02:28
Speaker
they didn't look bad and I was the face of not looking bad. I was like, it made me insecure, but at the same time, I'm like, fuck it, you know? If that's how I get my stage time, I guess that's how I get my stage time.
02:02:44
Speaker
Like at the end of the day, like if it's, uh, if you're not funny and it's not working, you're not going to move. He's not going to elevate. You're just going to, it'll fizzle out and they'll find another person to fill their quota. Like, so I don't know if that's a shitty way to say it, but I feel like, I mean, you still like it to stand on your own merit at that point, you know? Well, like you're in Portland, it's like this shows have to have a woman or.
02:03:11
Speaker
person of color or someone LGBTQ or it then it just gets labeled like a toxic male show if it doesn't have one of those three things so it's getting pretty expensive it's just like something they're gonna start having like comedy weight classes to you know you gotta weigh in before the show
02:03:34
Speaker
They do it all here. I saw a fat show. They were just like, we're going to book all the fat people. If you're fat, hit me up. We can get booked on this fat show.
Future Aspirations in Comedy
02:03:45
Speaker
I mean, hey, if you want to make a space for somebody, make space, but also stop being corny. That's a good way to put it. I just want to be like, tone it down. Yeah. We all believe you're a good person.
02:04:03
Speaker
tone it down a little bit. I like that phrasing, make space to stop being corny. I love that. I think that sums up real well. Wow. Dude, so what's on the horizon for you? Like, what are you working towards right now? Right now, I kind of, like, because I'm from here, I've lived here for like 15 years consecutively. I just kind of want to get out before, I don't know, I've never really been anywhere else. So I just want to
02:04:33
Speaker
make that move into a different state and try comedy somewhere else, try this comedy career somewhere else. It's nice that like social media has gone really well. So that means maybe I can get my foot in the door a little easier, but it would be like starting over because I've never looked far away from my family before. So it would be an interesting little next step. But I plan on this year, this year being my last year in Portland and like
02:05:02
Speaker
going to find that new place. If you want to explore being in a throuple, I'm sure you can find a nice couple that'll take you in for free. Well, I mean, I've been, I've been propositioned at shows before by couples. More than such an interesting place, things will happen. You're like, well, only here, only here. Yeah, right. What's, uh, okay. So.
02:05:30
Speaker
you know, Sam and I listened to so many comedy podcasts, you know, you just hear people talk over and over about like, these different clubs that seem to occupy like this space and the scene is like, Oh man, that's a legendary place to perform. Like, what is there any place on your list that you're like, that's, I just want to stand on stage there. Um,
02:05:59
Speaker
They're not in Portland, but like the comedy store or the comedy seller, I would love to like perform in one of those two places. Like the laugh factory would be a really cool place to perform. But like locally, we only have one club. And yeah, I've done the open mic there. I've done a show there before. So it's like kind of already have done something on that stage before.
02:06:29
Speaker
But I know I thought like I really wanted to do Seattle International Competition. I did it and I didn't do well. And so I'm like, I don't know if I want to ever do this again. So I've done the theaters and those are really fun too.
02:06:45
Speaker
They're just very different than local comedy shows for sure. Yeah. Theaters versus clubs and stuff as, uh, yeah, I can imagine that being different. Comedy shows, I mean, uh, competitions, like you said, are funny too. Cause you said you mentioned doing one in, in winning, but it's like, it's like the subjective nature of comedy makes it turning into a competition. Such a goofy. Yeah. It's a kind of an uncomfortable feeling to be in a competition. Cause like.
02:07:15
Speaker
I think we put a lot of value into our own jokes. And then for someone else to just completely take all that value away is hurtful. Even if you're like, I'm a strong person. I don't care what people think about my comedy. Yes, you do. That's why we go on stage and perform. If we didn't care, then we would shut up and keep our feelings to ourselves. Be a writer or something. If you don't care what people have to say. We're standup comics. Of course we care. And that's why it hurts your feelings when people are like, nah.
02:07:42
Speaker
I think you were six tonight. You weren't a nine, you were a six. Your performance was a six. Or when people who aren't comics, like fans, just any idiot in the audience tells you after a show how you could make a joke better, that must feel fun.
02:08:03
Speaker
I'm like, sure, OK. I always suggest people do comedy. I don't care. I'm like, just you do it. That's a good joke for you. You do it. Yeah. Well, and thank you so much for for coming on. I know you for having me. Yeah, I know we had to switch things around a little bit because of.
02:08:29
Speaker
scheduling stuff and whatnot. But I'm glad we got to meet you. And yeah, again, Sam and I are just like, big fans of your comedy. And like, especially when you see so many, you know, you see so many clips come across TikTok or Instagram nowadays and stuff. And like, I feel like watching your, your sets,
02:08:52
Speaker
There's like kind of a spark in the ideas that you have about things that makes me think like, Dan, you got nowhere to go but up in this. You're doing a great job. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Where can people find you? Instagram, Imani, Denae underscore.
02:09:14
Speaker
TikTok would be underscore weird hoe. I know that's a weird name. That's been my name since I was like a teenager. Start with AOL instant messenger. Yeah. Um, yeah. Imani Dine on Facebook.
02:09:30
Speaker
So yeah, those are the places I'm not all over the place, but I'm on those places. Imani Dine on YouTube. Sounds good. Well, I'll put a link to the description to all of those in a, or a link in the description for all of those. But, uh, yeah, thanks again for joining us. Thank you guys for listening and we will see you next time.