Kellen Erskine Interview: TikTok, Gambling, and Appendicitis
In this episode of the Babylon Bee Podcast, Kyle and Ethan talk to Kellen Erskine. Kellen Erskine is a professional stand-up comedian and a current writer on the upcoming Tuttle Twins Television series. Kellen is a repeat guest that provided one of the more hilarious interviews and somehow makes this one even better. Kellen talks about the reason he despises Tik Tok, his first time gambling, and how his wife made his Appendicitis worse. Be sure to check out The Babylon Bee YouTube Channel for more podcasts, podcast shorts, animation, and more. To watch or listen to the full podcast, become a subscriber at https://babylonbee.com/plans. Topics Discussed Passive-aggressive Leaf Blowers Virtual Comedy shows Why Kellen had to pay for someone to break into his house The delicacy of Stand up Comedy Selfishness of Christmas songs Writing on the Tuttle Twins Performing at a Masonic Temple The torture of the Berenstain Bears Books Brave Ollie Possum Gambling in Atlantic City Kellen's wife making his appendicitis worse Why Kellen despises TikTok Subscriber Portion More on FreeMasons Dry Bar Comedy Howie Mandel Story Lunacy of Highschool Mascots 10 Questions Good fight story
I just have to say that I object strenuously to your use of the word hilarious.
Hard-hitting questions.
What do you think about feminism?
Do you like it?
Taking you to the cutting edge of truth.
Yeah, well, Last Jedi is one of the worst movies ever made, and it was very clear that Ryan Johnson doesn't like Star Wars.
Kyle pulls no punches.
I want to ask how you're able to sleep at night.
Ethan brings bone-shattering common sense from the top rope.
If I may, how double dare you?
This is the Babylon B interview show.
All right, everybody.
Hey, it's me, Ethan.
There's Kyle right there.
Our faces hurt from laughing for like an hour and a half because we just had Kellen Erskine, the stand-up comic, and he returned.
If you've been listening for a while, he was on audio back when we were just an audio show.
We got to have him in live.
And we forgot to tell him it was a video show or he didn't read the email carefully because he came in and he's like, hey, oh, he didn't look that bad.
You guys are videotaping us?
He looked like Jesse Pinkman, which is what he always looks like.
That was the smart thing about him just shaving his hair off is he doesn't have to worry about that kind of thing.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know if they have like a certain length of hair you can have in the Mormon religion.
We'll find out.
We'll find out.
We ask him a lot of questions about what it means to be a clean Mormon comic.
But yes, I mean, I highly recommend looking Kellen up.
He's drybar comedy.
He has a comedy special on Prime.
He has a bunch of it.
He has Comedy Central video.
He's a hardworking, hilarious comic, clean comic.
Me and Kyle saw him live.
It was really funny.
Yeah, it was great.
And he's launching a podcast.
Launching a brand new podcast will be out as soon as this comes out right around the time.
It's called The Book Pile.
And he summarizes non-fiction books.
Summarizes it with another comedian.
In a funny way.
I would assume so.
I wonder.
We'll find out.
It'd be funny if he was just totally like, this book is about the fall of the Third Reich.
That's just completely dead serious.
We'll find out.
I don't know.
It's going to launch.
It'll be launched by the time this comes out.
Is what it sounds like?
Yeah, that's what he said.
Okay, yeah.
So this is definitely one of the most laugh-filled episodes.
The most.
I would say the most.
Definitely.
I couldn't.
Yeah.
At one point, I collapsed under the table.
Yeah.
My ears are hurting.
I couldn't hear the talking because we were everybody laughing so hard.
This is funny.
Enjoy it.
Enjoy.
You've just joined us for this conversation that we've been naturally having for a while here.
I'm Kyle.
I'm Ethan.
And this is Kellen.
Hi, Kellen.
Hey, guys.
This is our quiet.
This is a little starting.
Yeah, this is the real start.
This is the real start.
I like how good we are at interviews that people go, was that, did you just start the interview?
This is our quiet friend that we have to introduce because he didn't want me.
Yeah, and this over here is killing.
Actually, I always do have a note for me before a podcast.
I said a reminder for myself to talk louder because it's something I've noticed about myself.
It's the same thing before I've done any TV.
I said a reminder on my phone that says lift eyebrows because I have naturally very low eyebrows.
Like if I lean my head back, it looks normal because they just sort of creep underneath.
I have deep-set eyes.
But if I, when I think I'm looking like surprised, I just look normal.
Like if I put them up like that, I look like a regular person.
So I have to do that like during shows and stuff too.
I'm going to have so many wrinkles up here on my forehead just because I'm constantly trying to look like a regular person.
I realized one time I've been doing tons of comic conventions and, you know, smiling at everybody.
And then I got this review one day.
This kid said, he's such a D-word.
Blah, blah, blah.
He's so mean.
Like, I feel like I love everybody.
I'm a nice guy.
And then I looked in the mirror to see what my smile looked like.
And I realized it was nuts.
I wasn't smiling at all.
I was like, oh, yeah.
Like, I didn't put my eyes into it at all.
Twitching your mouth.
I think it's so much worse to say D-word because I thought of like seven things.
Yeah, there's so many options.
Like, Dumbledore?
Is that donkey something?
Yeah, we bleep all cuss words on this podcast, and it makes it so much worse.
Oh, for sure.
Your imagination just goes wild.
Well, not mine.
Someone who has more impure thoughts than me, might their imagination.
Sinful people.
Wild.
Sinful.
Sinful.
So.
Can you guys hear when you listen to the podcast?
Do you hear the laugh?
Yeah, it's like a laugh track.
That's great.
I said, I tweeted at one point: like that the podcast producer laughing unmic'd in the background is the new studio audience.
Yeah, and it actually does help.
Yeah.
At some point, I'm going to tell a sad story, and just one guy in the corner is going to be like, oh, weeping quietly in the corner.
We got some interesting emails about our friend Patrick that laughs.
People were upset about it.
Really?
Mostly we get happy, but there's a few people like it.
A few people are like, what does he think?
Everything you say is funny.
Literally?
He does laugh pretty hard.
It makes you feel good about yourself.
You want, yeah.
Yeah, it eggs us on.
Usually a podcast is just like two dudes in a garage, so this helps.
That's how we started.
That's how we started.
When we interviewed you the first time, we had upgraded to better digs.
We had a real office.
But the first time we felt cool then, we were doing our podcast, and it was like 100 degrees in Southern California.
And then we had to keep the garage closed.
We closed the garage, startup, and by the end, we're like melting.
Every once in a while, there's this creepy laugh because a mailman has his ear on the garage panel.
Well, no, there'd be people walking by with leaf blowers and weed eaters right outside with trucks driving by.
Yeah.
So humble beginnings, you know.
Have you guys ever worked as a guy who blows leaves?
I always speak about that.
Yeah, my roommate did.
I was walking my kids the other day and I was like, I've had some bad jobs, but that guy has a gasoline engine.
He's moving on his shoulder blades.
Yeah.
Like, I can't stand the smell of it from 100 feet away.
And that guy, he's like wearing a mask like that does anything.
But I think I would prefer that.
I think it's the mowing and the weed eating that I hate more.
Oh, yeah.
Because when you're a leaf blower, it's just like you have magical powers.
Yeah.
And it looks like a kind of a gun.
Like, you know, pretend that you're blasting aliens or something.
You have to have an imagination.
I love how put out they are when they see you and they have to turn it off so you can walk by.
I'm like, I'm sorry that I'm on a sidewalk.
They just stand there.
I'll wait.
They just passive-aggressively have it idling.
Yeah.
They're like, it's okay.
Gas is cheap.
Well, that's all we got.
Yeah, that's it.
Thank you for joining us today.
So, speaking of having one guy laughing in the background, I'm sure you've had shows like that.
What are some of your stand-up comic if people don't know that?
We've had you on in the past.
You were one of our favorite guests of all time.
Mostly because you just talk about funny stuff and not politics constantly.
And so, yeah, tell us about that.
So, what do you think about Trump?
Answer those simultaneously.
Every other word.
Hmm.
So which one?
Ignore the Trump one.
I think both of these are going to lose me followers.
Talk about how unfunny I was once.
Yeah, tell us about your worst.
Well, you got to convince people.
You can be funny, but you got to build.
Did we ask him this last time?
Did he tell us your worst bomb story?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, he told us on Kimmel.
I think you told us about it.
You went out and read your phone for and then we went and watched it and it wasn't nearly as bad as you made it sound.
Okay.
Well, I'm hard on myself, which is why I'm so good.
Did I tell you about how I bombed in front of Robin Williams?
Yeah.
He did.
Okay.
You might have to do it.
I guess I've only bombed twice.
And I already talked about the two times.
I'm not talking about bombing.
I mean, like, you get a gig and you're like, oh no, what is this?
Oh, yeah.
One time I did a, well, one time I didn't know that it was a bad gig.
I went in thinking that it was different.
I get asked to do corporate stuff.
In fact, I've done a few like virtual corporate shows that have been okay.
They've been great action.
Virtual, really?
Yeah.
For any corporations out there who want me.
They've been fantastic.
If Microsoft is watching or it's even better than live.
Yeah.
There's a good way to do it.
But I went to this one place and I had been told that it was for auto mechanics that I was going to be performing in front of a hundred mechanics.
And so I was like, I don't know anything about cars, but I'm waving their wrenches in the air.
I have a couple stories about how my car broke down.
And so I go in there and I'm telling these stories about how my car is broken down.
And I don't know how to work on cars, but you guys do.
And, you know, all this stuff.
I'm always the idiot that comes in and I'm like, could you look at my thing?
And it turns out, you know, it's just, you know, I need to put air in my tire.
I'm telling these stories and nothing is really hitting.
But also nobody is saying anything to me.
Until then, afterwards, I walk over, I get the check from the person, and she goes, yeah, we just paint cars.
Thanks for that clarification.
Yeah, that helps.
I had this, I think I mentioned this earlier.
We had a couple dings in our car and a guy showed up in a filthy van with his two kids.
And he was like, hey, I got the pain here.
I'm a body guy.
I can fix your car up.
And he offered this amazing price.
So I'm like, yeah, sure, we'll go for it.
Why not?
And it just wrecked it.
There's like paint on our windows.
Just like, well, why even do anything?
I guess for money, but like, why not just take the money and run or something?
It's just.
He spent forever to make it look just awful.
He seemed legit.
I mean, he had a van.
He had a dirty van.
He had nice kids.
His kids are funny.
But then I'm like, oh, his kids are in on this con.
Like, this is a whole thing they do together.
Going house to house.
Yeah.
What's like when they ask for money, but they've got the kids standing next to them.
Yeah, it makes it more.
And he made the kids sit around and just the whole time he did it.
I locked my keys out of my car one time in front of my house and it was really embarrassing.
And so I called a guy, just a local guy, come over.
And it was really shady, though.
I didn't know, this was years ago.
I didn't know how much he charged or anything.
I just, I really needed this done because I had to go.
So he starts putting the stuff in the window, this inflatable thing to sort of ease the window down.
And he shoves something in it.
And I was like, how much is this going to be, by the way?
Because it just said like $75 for the initial for him to get there.
He goes, well, you know, it's a $75 and then it's another $75.
And I was like, I'm not going to, I can't do that.
And he goes, okay.
And he starts to take his thing out.
And I was like, never mind, do it.
Like, you know where I live.
And you've clearly just shown me you have all the tools to break into things.
So here's my money.
And now I have like seven extra car keys.
So that never happens again.
I locked my keys in my car while it was running in the pouring rain one time.
Is it still there?
I spent, it was a convertible and like a cloth top.
And the window was kind of cracked, luckily.
And the way those windows, like, I basically shoved and shoved and like cranked my elbow through the hole.
Like the window bends.
Surprised it didn't like snap or something.
I did it.
I got out.
I got it.
That was going to be such a better story if the top was down the whole time.
It was a convertible.
I thought that was fun.
That would be so great.
You lock your keys and you call the locksmith and you're like, man, do you have something for this?
And he's like, like an arm?
That was an Oregon, the worst car.
You don't want to own one of those in Oregon because it pours rain all the time and they just leak.
And the water drips in such a fashion that it constantly falls right between your legs the entire time you're driving.
So you get out of the car and it looks like you've wet yourself.
Oh man.
Yeah.
My buddy's dad had a convertible and I thought it was the coolest thing until like you drive in the back and it's cool for like two minutes.
And then you're like, oh man, this is a bad design.
It's like being assaulted by a guy with a leaf blower.
The guy who doesn't respect you on the sidewalk.
Write your face.
So these virtual events that you do, do you like set up a whole stage in your house and then like there's a camera?
That's so weird to get it.
Do you have the mic, the mic to like cling to?
I'm imagining it's tough without like the immediate audience feedback.
Can you like hear people laughing?
So the way that I do it now, the optimum position is to set up is to have, because I did one with like 100 people.
The optimum is to have like six people.
Like in little boxes?
Just six, what's his name?
The guy who laughs?
Patrick.
To have like six Patricks.
And you find the Patricks of the company.
They don't know what you're saying if you say, can you find me six Patricks?
Yeah.
It tends to confuse.
So you just have them.
They are unmuted.
Okay.
It's like.
So it's like doing a show for the Brady Bunch.
They're all watching and you just do jokes and they're looking at each other.
That was a good one.
I like that one, you.
That is the weird thing about it is that usually when you're doing comedy, like you guys have been to a show, they'll like dim the lights.
So usually if the lighting is good enough on the comic, you can really only see the first row of people or so and everyone else is in the black.
That's the best setup in a country.
But when you're doing a Zoom show, like I said, 100 people.
So it's like you can see at least 60 of them on one screen.
Oh, yeah.
And I'm not used to seeing like every single person's reaction, like right up close.
And then my own face, it's really unsettling.
Yeah.
I think it so, so I just, I just sort of sit there because I think it is weird.
It takes a little, it's already an unusual situation, but it's also weird to like hold a wooden spoon in front of your mouth and be like, I'm doing comedy.
So I try to more casual.
I'll still like do my, do my bits, but then I'll have a Q ⁇ A at the end.
So because it's, it's more to me like a funny Zoom meeting than it is a stand-up comedy show is how I like to treat it.
Do you ever not get any questions?
No, I always get questions.
They're just usually the same question.
I've had that happen.
How do you come up with your jokes?
Where do you get all your ideas?
Have you ever locked your keys in your car?
Nobody likes the answer, too, because my answer to like, how do you get your ideas is just coming up with a lot of ideas.
You guys know that.
That's the only thing.
The only thing that's good.
The only way to come up with good ideas is to come up with even more bad ones.
That's it.
But people want to know.
People want to think, what is it?
Do you have like a leatherbound notebook?
Is there a certain Trouble schedule?
They should make an app where they superimpose, or you know however that works, like face transplanting online.
You know how they do that?
They have the apps.
So they just make an audience and it just puts all the Zoom people's faces right onto the heads and it just looks like an audience again.
Virtual audience.
See?
That's the one tough thing that the thing that you can't recreate is the timing because there is with the delay that just comes with Zoom meetings.
There's like stand-up is already so delicate in that you come in right at the end of a certain laugh or if nobody laughs, there's a way around that, like all these things.
And all of that just goes out the window.
Like there's a reason why Zoom comedy didn't exist before.
It wasn't technological.
But again, if anyone at Microsoft is watching, it's still there.
It's still the best option in this hellscape that we're in right now.
So what's happening to like comedians, comedy clubs?
I mean, have you done anything?
I've been destroyed or I mean unemployment.
You don't need masked hazmat shows or anything like that?
No, I did one at the Irvine Improv.
They've rented out the entire like top floor of the parking garage to the top level and they have this 50-foot inflatable projector.
They can fit like 200 cars in, which is about how many of their when I went.
But everyone in front, if you own a truck, you can back it into the front row and you can sit in the back.
So that helps.
So there at least were some laughs, even though they're whatever, you know, and they're spraying COVID at you.
Is there a rule that you have to laugh quieter than you speak?
That's one of the guidelines for Thanksgiving.
If you sing, you must sing quieter than you speak.
Wall mask.
Tall mask.
I love Thanksgiving.
It's funny.
Are they Thanksgiving songs?
That's what we were trying to figure out.
Sweet little diddy.
We figured out Jingle Bells was written as Thanksgiving.
It's exactly a Thanksgiving song, yeah.
But nobody sings it on Thanksgiving.
It's probably a song like, turkey, turkey, turkey, turkey, turkey, turkey, turkey, turkey.
We got to write some.
It is funny that like Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving and Christmas, technically, like one of them is selfless.
Thanksgiving is selfless and Christmas is selfish.
Like we've written 20,000 songs about the holiday where we get crap.
But the one where we have to spend 10 seconds thinking about something that we're grateful for, we're like, pass.
Started playing Christmas carols two weeks ago.
Are you kidding?
I'm just ready to eat something.
I'm going to eat some turkey.
Yeah, the songwriters are like, gratitude?
I can't do anything with that.
I don't know a good subject for music or art, really.
So COVID is killing you.
So what are you doing?
All your spare time.
You got no works.
Oh, COVID's bad.
You got hobbies?
What are you doing?
No, literally, you didn't get it.
Did you get it?
If we would have done this during the first four months of COVID, I would have walked away so depressed because that's exactly what happens.
So COVID, what do you do?
Just you just not make money is there unemployment comedians?
Yeah, I don't really know.
No, it's uh I've luckily I've been writing, I've been writing on the new Tuttle Twins cartoon that's coming out next year.
So that's been that's been a good project to work on.
Yeah, and I have to say, if you have to, so the Tuttle Twins is like a book series for those that don't know.
We had him on.
Yeah, Connor.
Nah, the Twins.
Okay, so one of only two LDS to come on our show.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
So I don't know who the other one was.
That we know of.
That we know.
They're very secretive.
They are very secretive.
They're like Masonic Temple or something.
In case you didn't know, Kellen is the clean Mormon comic.
Yes.
That's how he builds himself.
I did.
The CMC.
What the?
Donkey.
Is that how you swear?
I can't believe it.
It's going to be even worse.
So I'm working on this children's cartoon.
Actually, before we get to that real quick, you brought up the Masonic Temple.
I did a show at a...
Yes.
Speaking of...
I did a show at a Masonic Temple last year, yeah, in Santa Fe.
And the green room was like this room where they just had their costumes and stuff.
It's probably blasphemous for me to say that.
Yeah, there's certain things.
Like the robes, certain things of the robes that they wear rituals and stuff.
I'm just imagining on it.
Yeah, there is this guy, and I'm like a good listener.
I ask questions.
I'm very introverted.
So I meet someone for the first time.
I'm scared.
So I was talking to this guy, and he got the, who was, he was looking over the temple that day while we were having this comedy show in there.
It's like the Temple Guard.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's probably, yeah.
He had like a sword or something.
So I'm just asking because I'm curious about these things.
You know, I've read the Da Vinci Code.
I was like, I wonder what Michelangelo hid in this place.
So I'm asking about it, and he's like telling me more and more.
And he thinks that I'm interested to become one of them.
And he's starting to silently, like his voice, he started talking quieter with me because there were other people in the room.
And I was like, this is making me uneasy and excited at the same time.
What was the, did he start giving you the steps to get out?
I can't tell you.
I used to have breakfast with an old man and he would always tell me, you know, the Masonic Temple, at the highest levels, you must deny Christ and drink blood.
He swears.
He swears.
He swears at the highest levels of the Masonic Temple.
Nope.
I deny Jesus.
Spoiler alert.
Spoiler alert.
Now that you've dated all the way.
Did he mention that 20 years?
Have you seen any blood problems?
Confirm or deny.
So the Tuttle Twins.
Speaking of drinking blood, goblets of blood.
Dirty Masonic Temple.
I will say, Connor Boyak, he's the author of the guy that you guys had on.
He's one of the smartest people I've ever met.
Like the way you eat.
And the books.
The books are so great for teaching those principles.
But it's also been fun because he's come in on some of the writing sessions to just sort of consult.
And it's been we're making them funny.
I guess that's just the blunt way to say it.
His books are so good.
And I will say that if you like the books, if you like the books now, you're going to love the cartoon even more because we're injecting humor and personality and lots of fart jokes.
Other things.
Sorry.
You know what's missing from these books?
You got it up on the whiteboard.
I keep coming back to fart jokes.
I had a script that they like I found out later they had it punched up by professional comedy writers, not me.
And they just added a bunch of fart jokes.
And it wasn't even that kind of show.
Yeah.
What was it?
What's the GTL thing?
No, it was a pilot that I made with some people.
It was like an action space animals thing.
Okay.
Yeah.
Something I don't appreciate is when I see a joke in a movie that is like, I can tell that it's been written to make a child laugh.
Right.
Like I love most Pixar stuff is just written.
It's just funny.
You know what I mean?
And it's like children laughing.
If the kids laugh, that's like, it's great.
But you can tell that the writers are just trying to, it's just good writing.
And that's what we're striving for in this Tuttle Twins thing: is that we're, it is a kid show, but there's also going to be a lot of stuff that's like, that's going to be over their heads.
But there's still going to be, I want it to be fun for absolutely everyone.
The same way that it's like, it's fun to read Harry Potter to your kids.
It's excruciating to read the Bernstein Bears.
You know what I mean?
Like there's.
It's terrible.
Oh, kill me.
And I'm sorry.
I know that you also write books about bears, but the Bernstein Bear books are.
They were fun as a kid, but like, even like, I'm over even the nostalgia because I'm like, I don't even think some of these lessons are good.
I liked them as a kid.
That was the option.
When your kid wants you to keep reading you a Bernstein Bears book, it is like it's a circle of hell.
It works.
Which I learned about at that Mason temple.
Did you?
Which level are you talking?
Yeah.
What are all the rooms in there?
I want to go back to this temple.
One of the details.
I want to think more about the costumes.
The Berenstain Bears, it's like...
The dad is such an idiot.
Yeah.
The moment you get that pointed out to you guys, the dad's always a complete idiot.
Always.
Yeah.
I was like, these parents need to read, like, they need to go to.
There needs to be a Bernstein Bear book where mama and papa go to couples therapy.
Well, they seem fine.
They're always happy.
They never fight.
Yeah, but it's because the dad's.
He's just dominated.
Yeah, because the mom will be like, we're not watching TV for a week.
And the dad's like, that's right.
Where's the remote control?
And Mama's like, that means you too, you stupid idiot.
He like learns the lesson with the kids.
Exactly.
Do they not know that dads are reading these?
Like, who is this for?
So Masonic Temple.
He's going to get back on the phone with the Total Twins guys and do that.
I want another gig there, man.
Come on.
Did you promote the show?
We mostly talked about the Masonic Temple.
Hey, it kept us.
We should have an episode.
It kept us off Mormonism.
That's my whole mission.
The Tuttle Twins, it is going to be fun.
I know that there are going to be like 1% of the Tuttle Twins fan base is going to be like, this isn't canon.
Like, man, you're into some boring canon.
Because the books are fantastic.
Connor's great.
He knows that.
He knows that I tell the truth.
No, he knows a good relationship.
And he appreciates what's happening to it.
And I'm excited for it too.
And the fact that it's a children's show that's teaching principles, but it's also supposed to feel like it's not really teaching.
It's like joke, joke, teaching thing, 10 more jokes, you know, it's very...
And then like subtle Mormon message.
We did find one in the book that they have the Book of Mormon on the shelf behind it.
It's like hanging in there.
Easter.
Girl and Connor on it.
Easter eggs.
So they're telling jokes.
The evils of caffeine.
It's like in the Veggie Tales, this guy writes, they're telling jokes, and they're like, that reminds me of something in Proverbs.
So you do that, but it's like, oh, yeah.
That reminds me of something Ron Paul seen.
Yeah.
It's a little more subtle.
The Ron Paul thing, you're joking, but like at the end of the Tuttle Twins book, The Golden Rule, you flip the page and it's this giant just picture and it's literally Ron Paul and he says, hi, kids, I'm Ron Paul.
That needs to be a running gag in the show that he keeps popping up out of windows like an apparition or is it really him?
Like they painted him?
No, it's like a drawing of him.
But in the story, is he appearing like is it an apparition or is it like the physical story?
There's this there's a camp counselor whose name is Ron.
And then I guess that's the big M. Night Shyamalon twist at the end is that it was Ron Paul the whole time.
The mustache and the glasses.
Ron Paul the whole time.
Which I think is the end of one of them.
Okay.
I think it was the happening.
Spoiler alert.
You could do some funny, like creepy stuff with it because in the books, they go to their neighbor's house, like the old man neighbor or whatever, who's like the crazy libertarian neighbor.
They go there and he's like, hey, kids, I want to tell you about the free market.
That's inherently funny.
You want some of my homemade apple cider?
Talk about it?
We brought that up.
Never mind the hair in it.
Moonshine in the bathtub.
With some edibles, kids.
They should be legal all over the country.
Not just in Oregon.
So that book, that's the example, the pilot episode is technically that book, but it's so different because we have the kids go with their grandma.
She has like this time machine wheelchair that can go through other dimensions and stuff so we can go to places.
And one of the reasons why we were brainstorming ideas to have some sort of vehicle that would make it exciting and fun is also so we could skip the part when their old neighbor invites them into his backyard.
I love the idea of taking your wheelchair time machine and ending up back before handicap stuff was invented.
So she can't get anywhere.
She just stuck.
That's a really funny idea, actually.
She has rocket boosters.
But yeah, in the old West, she's like, I can't get up these stairs now.
Where's the ramp?
It's not ADA compliant.
Yeah.
And that we gave a villain who's like the government guy who's like, the government installs those ramps by our laws.
Ah, you're screwed.
That's the villain.
The evil government guy.
Public services.
Then she calls him one of those D words you were talking about earlier.
She's like, will you push my wheelchair for me?
And then she turns on the rockets and turns into a disintegrated skeleton.
Do you have any writer positions available?
Ideas for you.
We brought you here for this.
He's a fan of my work.
Kellen bought my book.
I am.
Yeah.
Bravely possum.
It was great.
You read it with my kid.
Yeah.
Continue.
It's Christmas time.
I need people to buy it.
They need money.
It helps kids be more brave.
Yeah.
So now that's what I do.
At midnight, I just take him outside.
I drive him like five miles away.
And I'm like, you find your way back.
And I drive home.
It's that book.
It works.
Yeah, that's what happened in the book.
It's true.
No, it really is.
It's a good book.
Thank you.
So you got any cool stories about gambling?
Yeah.
It's like doing morning radio.
That's the only thing that I don't miss because of COVID.
Like every other town that I go to, they have you do radio.
They want you to be funny at five in the morning.
And so they'll ask you for a list of like jokes beforehand.
Some of them don't, but then some of them do, but none of them have good segues.
Yeah, so I like that.
Thanks.
Yeah.
So you just flew in from LA?
Yeah.
So man, why do you hate bacon?
It's funny you say that.
I have five minutes on how bacon sucks.
Do you hate bacon?
No, I'm just improvising.
He's a comedian.
He does this for a living.
Me and Kyle went to the show.
We did.
You may have seen us there.
It was awesome.
Yeah, could you see us past the lights?
Because we were like in the second, second or third row.
He doesn't even remember.
No, I do.
I remember there weren't a lot of people at that show, so I probably said something to you guys afterward about usually it sounds a lot louder.
You guys just came on a bad night.
But I mean, there's definitely a distinct difference between you and the other comics.
Like you just have this, you're like, oh, okay, this guy's a pro.
He knows what he's doing.
Do you want to talk about how bad the other comics were?
Yeah, you wanted that one.
Who's the worst comedian?
Yeah, all those other non-Mason comics.
They suck.
I feel like we were talking about something else.
Oh, yeah, gambling.
I asked him about gambling.
We weren't talking about gambling.
We were talking about the Berenstein Bears for 40 minutes and then drinking blood.
Gambling.
So I went to Atlantic City last year.
I did all of my stories were last year or any time before that.
All of your stories?
Okay, they're old.
Because I haven't worked since March.
But yeah, I went to Atlantic City for the first time.
And as you guys well know, it's full of casinos.
Yeah, obviously.
I don't know.
I don't even know where that is.
Where is it?
It's on the East Coast.
It's in New Jersey.
I like that.
I like that you're trying to sound smart, but added like half a question mark.
And it was a very broad answer anyway.
I'm guessing it's near the Atlantic Ocean.
Come on, man.
You know, it's on the East Coast.
It's somewhere in this 3,000-mile stretch.
It's on Earth somewhere on land.
I always hear them talk about it in TV shows that are set in New York.
Like, hey, we're going to Atlantic City.
I just assume it was a real place.
That's a, yeah, yeah.
It's a city.
It's a gambling town.
There's like a two-mile strip of casinos, and most of them are shut down at this point.
But I went to the hard rock one, hard rock casino, and the other comic was a guy who gambled.
And I've never gambled in my life.
And I even make fun of it.
Like, I have a joke about the powerball and how the odds are literally one in 300 million.
And that's like the same as if they're like, hey, you want to win a billion dollars?
We've hidden it in a random house in the United States.
You just guess the address.
That's the whole joke.
I haven't told it for nine months.
I remember you telling anyone.
It's so rusty.
Just imagine our audience laughing.
It's the virtual audience.
So never got it.
It always seems silly to me.
Obviously, it's everything stacked against you because they, you know, it's just funny they built this like a 60s story casino.
And they're like, oh no, sometimes we lose.
No.
Like, have you seen my house?
It's smaller than this place.
So, but this guy, he went, he's like, yeah, but if you go to like, if you've never gone to a casino or any casino in that chain, they'll usually give you something, a voucher or something if you've never been as you know to get you to free money incentive, like free money, yeah.
So he went down and sure enough, I got like $10 to use any of the slot machines.
So I was like, sure, like, I don't know.
I've always wanted to use, like, since I was a kid, I always thought that they were like games, you know, and disappointed that my parents told me, like, these are adult games.
I was like, wow.
Is it legal?
Really complicated.
Is it legal for Mormons to do?
I don't think there's a log.
I don't know the rules.
It's frowned upon.
Okay.
Yeah, for sure.
But if I think it's frowned upon unless you get free money.
Okay.
And they're like, okay, that was.
Yeah.
So that's what I make.
I may walk out of here and get excommunicated.
Do Mormons say a God thing?
Did they ever say that?
Oh, that was a God thing.
It was a real God thing.
Something that Christians say that.
I don't know.
I mean, no, we're all Christians, right?
That's what you guys say.
I didn't want to offend you.
So real Christians say that, but we don't know if Mormons say it or not.
You don't know.
You have no idea how many of your listeners right now are giving you a standing ovation.
Because I don't read comments anymore, but several months ago, I was going over some tweets.
Somebody mentioned me and they're like, hey, this guy's great.
I heard him on the Babylon B. Here's his dry bar.
Yeah.
And then he and this other guy start talking.
And the other guy's like, yeah, I mean, but he's a Mormon.
So he doesn't have everything right.
And the other guy was like, yeah, I know what you mean.
And they just got in this conversation.
I was like, I'm, you mentioned me.
I'm seeing all of this.
We all believe in Christ.
Let's just leave it at that.
They summon you into the room and say, we're going to talk about you.
Yeah, that's exactly what Twitter is.
Yeah, it's every scene in Arrested Development invented the scene where two people are talking about someone ostensibly behind their back and then the camera backs out and they're right there on the couch.
That's what Twitter is.
So I get my $10 free dollars and I go to my first slot machine.
Like this is like whatever.
I throw it in and I made $70.
Wow.
And like the first time I made the money back essentially.
And I was like, ah, whatever.
It's like I'm sure they set it up.
And then I did it again.
And I was like, why does anyone work?
Like, why do people have jobs if this is available?
Like, it was that quick.
I was like, oh, I get it.
I get the gambling thing.
I'm on board.
Yeah.
And now, yeah, I lost my house.
Your family.
But it was interesting.
And then I went to like two other casinos and got free money.
And then I lost that.
But it was interesting to see how quickly that addiction can set in, like the endorsement.
So you didn't take home the $70?
You didn't come back, Richard?
Did you gamble the 70 and lose it?
Or did you keep this?
Oh, no, I still have it.
Yeah, so that's...
It's in my pocket right now.
To this day.
Right here.
You see my...
But I'm going to...
Like, I'm never going to do it again because now I can say that I ended on top.
And like for people who have gambled their whole lives, they're like, I don't know.
I'm probably somewhere.
They feel good if they're only 5,000 under, you know, over the average of their entire life.
And now no one is clapping.
Appendicitis?
What do you think about that?
For the confused listeners, we asked Kellen ahead of time if he had anything you wanted to talk about on the show.
And he very specifically said, well, if we need to, I got TikTok, gambling, and appendicitis.
He's like, that's only if we need to.
I'm like, we are absolutely speaking on all three of those.
You can't just say that.
Out of everyone in this room, there are five other people.
How many of you guys have had your appendix out?
Anyone else?
No.
So it is a fairly common thing, but I didn't know that it was because you kind of feel special when you go to the hospital because, you know, you get attention or whatever.
Oh, man, Kellen's going to have surgery.
And then I come out of it and every other person I talked to is like, oh, yeah, I had that when I was like eight.
It felt serious, but in the couple days leading up to it, I had that pain in my side.
I don't know about you, but like my whole life, at least four times a year, I'll have like a stomachache and think, wait, which side is my appendix on?
You know, it's always like something you hear about.
And I think it's because of that really concrete image of your appendix bursting.
Like they say that, but as if it's like a water balloon inside your body.
It's nothing like that, but just that phrase is so visceral that like people are afraid of it.
Like even though they just had a chalupa.
You're like, yeah.
I think Taco Bell set off your appendix.
And so I thought it was that, but then I was pretty sure like the second day in, I still didn't say anything because I wanted to be absolutely sure.
But like my wife knew that my stomach was hurting.
And we were driving through a Target parking lot.
She was driving, which we let them do that in our driver or is it like.
Yeah, another thing that distinguishes Mormons from real Christians.
They left their wives trying.
So she's, we go into the parking lot and we go over a speed bump.
She goes over a speed bump pretty hard, pretty fast, and it hurt.
And she's still like, she's like, I thought it was the brakes.
You know how women drive.
I go straight through the front gas station walls.
Seen those videos?
You should tell some jokes about women driving.
I'm just trying to help you.
Help your set out.
I already barely have a career this year.
How about you cancel the two shows you have on the books?
So she knew that I'd been having this pain in my side.
Neither of us knew what it was yet, but I was like, oh.
So I said something sarcastic to her, like, hey, could you go over the next bump?
Could you drive even bumpier?
That's what I said.
Can you drive even bumpier?
Because we joke around.
So she takes the next one at an angle, you know, so that it'll hit four times, which is pretty smart, especially for a woman.
Could you bleep that out for all of your listeners who don't get irony?
But only them.
So she hits it.
It was actually like a genius move because it was like, you know, after what I just said.
And I was like, so then I bring that up about every other day since then that she did that while I actually had appendicitis.
Remember when you almost killed me?
Okay.
TikTok.
I mean, how much we're just blowing through.
I love the double whammy of that.
That's also something you say like during someone's boring story.
TikTok.
No, the whole TikTok thing is just that I joined TikTok this year and then I stopped.
Like all of it happened during COVID.
Somebody told me, yeah, you can get a bunch of followers on there.
And so I joined it.
I started doing like a video every day just to keep myself from going crazy.
And I ended up getting like 50,000 followers in a very short amount of time, which is so much bigger than any other platform that I'm on.
You don't have like any followers on Twitter.
Kyle, yeah, we talked about our Twitter followings last time.
Kyle has since surpassed us both by far.
But he has the Twitter voice because he just doesn't care if he can't get canceled.
It's true.
I can't get canceled.
He just goes hard.
Yeah.
I'm not like QAnon or anything.
I'm like that you have a goal.
Yet.
Yet.
How many do you have?
29,000.
That's great.
Yeah.
How many do you have?
I love this new social score.
It is funny, though, in Twitter land, how it's still such a small number.
Yeah.
You can have like 100,000 followers on Twitter and be absolutely nobody in real life.
Yeah, it's an interesting thing.
It's that principle, too.
Like you're never happy because you're constantly, once you reach a goal, all you do then is compare yourself to everyone who has even more than you.
You find these weird guys are like marketing guys or like lawyers or people.
I'm assuming maybe they're paying these like follower farms or something.
They must be buying follows because nobody knows who this guy is.
It's bizarre.
Well, every once in a while, you'll see that guy in like a blue suit.
His profile picture is a blue suit and he's like, he has his hand on a jet.
And he'll be like, I'm going to give a thousand bucks to the next three people.
And boom, he gets like 90,000 more followers.
I think anyone can just say that.
I would love to do that.
Yeah, just dress in like overalls and no shirt, but still be like, I'm going to give a cruise ship to the next seven people.
I've got $70 in my pocket.
Hand this to the next.
Fresh from Atlantic City.
I was curious.
I tried it one time.
So for my Bermageddon page on Facebook, I just wanted to try on Fiverr.
There's a thing that says, get a thousand followers, $5.
So I tried it.
And sure enough, and they were all like, you know, from like Philippines or something.
Yeah.
I didn't do it after that.
It's like, I just wanted to see what happened.
He's counting us this whole time.
It sounds like Kyle's done that 29 times.
Yeah, Kyle's very familiar.
That's the only explanation.
So did you dance on TikTok or what?
Yeah, how did you get these?
How'd that go?
And why'd you get off it so fast?
Because of the Chinese?
Because of the Chinese?
It was like Chai Coms.
Well, that's what I do love that I was loving about TikTok is like, I don't know what the algorithm is, but I would see one video of a guy dumping ketchup on his friend.
And then the next video would be a guy with three American flags on the back of his truck, like MAGA and all that.
To those guys, I wanted to be like, you know that this is owned by the Chinese.
Maybe you want to try, I don't know, Facebook.
But this, what happened was I was uploading a video every day and I put it in my bio every day, a new clip until I ran out of stuff, which is pretty quick.
So a week later.
Fast forward to the next day.
But on one of the days, on one of the days, I'm going through the comments.
This is one of the reasons why I don't read comments anymore.
All of them had been pretty positive, but on one of the days, I uploaded a clip and this kid comments, this is what I get for waiting 24 hours.
He's been sitting there refreshing.
Yeah.
Waiting for you.
And that was the last one that I did.
So entirely.
Yeah, I ate that mentality, especially with entertainment nowadays, that it's like, no, you give me stuff and I do nothing for you.
That's really.
This podcast isn't free, is it?
This part is.
I'm just kidding.
But I know that at least there's like, you can monetize it with advertising and everything else, just like you can, like a YouTube video.
But with TikTok, there's no way to monetize it.
So like, I'm literally getting that, even on, like, I'm making money off of my videos.
They're essentially free for anyone watching, but I'm still getting something from it.
But TikTok is nothing at all.
So I thought, at least if I have 50,000 followers, maybe, you know, I could put an announcement, people to come to shows, but it's been like, so, it's like, there's zero impact with those.
I think it's part of the algorithm.
If you see how many people have so many followers, it's a smart move on their part because, yeah, you have all these followers, but they're doing nothing for you.
And there's nothing that you can capitalize on them.
Yeah.
So if everyone, I think the goal for TikTok is to make everyone feel famous.
Everyone's a blue chick.
Yeah, and that's why everyone's on it.
So it was that.
And it was also finding out really about comment culture, which you guys don't know anything about.
But I'm sure you guys have seen this.
This is new for me.
Seeing that, like, I had a video that had close to a million views.
And I was just going through the comments every day because I had nothing else to do.
Just scrolling through comments, scrolling through them.
Nobody said anything up until I had about 900,000 views.
And then all of a sudden, one guy, one guy says, this reminds me of a John Mulaney bit.
And it was nothing like it.
And then all of a sudden, every five comments was like, ah, this has Mulaney vibes.
So it's just like, it's this whole culture of people watch a video, scroll through the comments, find one that maybe they didn't even have that opinion, but this person does.
So it validates me if I also put it down.
It's such like a cowardly, like safe way of criticizing someone else.
Yeah, is by seeing that there's a bandwagon and trying to create your own because that guy got likes with his comments.
It's just so toxic, too, that now there are all these people that maybe didn't feel that way.
I'm sure that you guys have sleuths.
We see it.
Yeah.
What we'll see is that, you know, most of our followers are, you know, they lean right or Christian or whatever.
And Christian or whatever.
I thought I was waiting for you.
I didn't mean to point that out.
Or Christian or Mormon.
We do have a good little medical.
We do have a Mormon LDS followers.
Who sent us the nicest hate mail, by the way?
Yeah, the nicest.
Very kindest.
Very most polite hate mail they'll ever see.
And we'd have a little LDS joke.
To whom it may concern.
Yeah, very politely asked us to take it down.
The underwear.
I was amazed.
Like, they do not like you joke about that underwear.
Oh, the temple garments.
Yeah.
The temple garments.
I'm right here, guys.
At Kellen Erskine.
Wow.
I don't even remember what I was saying.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
So someone else, someone will quote a progressive Twitter account with 50,000 followers or something will quote tweet it and go, This is a dumb joke.
And then all of a sudden, all of progressive Twitter is like, this is a terrible joke.
Yeah, yeah, it is.
That's how cancel culture works.
That was the thing that happened to us with our other podcasts.
Like one guy said something, and then just people that had never heard that would never care to comment on or say anything, they latch onto that.
Yeah, a lot of it is people that aren't part of your audience, really.
That are just like finding it.
They found something to point and laugh at.
Justice warriors of some kind.
Yeah.
This is really pitiful.
Oh man, these people were mean to us.
Just three guys crying each other's shoulders.
Lost followers.
Now is the time for the guy in the corner to go, oh.
My wife is constantly telling me to look at TikTok videos.
She's just sitting there in bed for hours.
This is hilarious.
All I see is people.
And every single one she shows me, I'm like, was that that was the punchline at the end there?
Like, I didn't, I don't get it.
It's a whole culture of like meme sharing.
So one of the another thing that drove me away from it is how many people there were all these people who would start lip-syncing my comedy videos, which is such a bizarre thing and sometimes getting more views than I did.
And it's like, no exaggeration.
It's your voice coming out of their mouth.
Yeah, yeah.
It'd be like a girl with like glam makeup on.
She's eating Chinese food and then saying, doing my grocery cart bit.
Yeah.
And boom.
Yeah.
I think it's part of TikTok because you share someone and you can take the audio and then you do it's like part of like re-engineering.
Yeah, yeah.
But it doesn't work.
But then I would never see the results.
Like I wouldn't get new followers.
She just would.
And then all these people in her comments would be like, you're hilarious.
Like, you know, this is a man's voice.
Like, they can go to you and say, you're really ripping off that noodle girl.
You think there are 300 people laughing at her, eating Chinese food in her living room?
Like, that's me.
That's my audio.
It's such a bizarre thing that never happened before.
You never saw it on Facebook or YouTube that people would spend the time to make a video of themselves lip-syncing, you know, it was a lip-sync.
Did she nail it though?
Like the lip sync, or did you tell she was like catching the words?
Like, you know, like, well, she probably recorded a bunch of times.
Yeah, did she practice it, like, get it really lacked?
It seems like they do.
Yeah, yeah.
It was well edited.
Yeah.
I saw that one girl got her, like, didn't she get like a Netflix special or something?
That girl that does the Trump Or something that she just lip syncs to Trump's speeches on TikTok.
Wow.
It's like that's her whole bit.
It's like not an impression.
It's just like lip sync.
I'm just lip-syncing the Trump speech.
What do you think of Trump?
We will find out in the subscriber portion, which is beginning right about now.
Did you want to promote anything?
Anyone want to be on the Masonic Temple?
Yeah, he'll do Zoom events for the Masonic Temple.
I guess Title Twins, I think they have a.
What's that going to be on the show?
It's on VidAngel, right?
It's going to be on VidAngel, but it's also just going to be its own app.
So you'll just upload the app probably for free if you're wondering.
I won't pay for it.
Yeah, well, it's built on the same, it's the same idea as the Chosen.
Where they sort of crowdfunded, and then now it has its own app, and it's available on VidAngel.
It's the same thing.
It's the same studio.
Awesome.
That and my Twitter.
Because you need more followers.
Yeah.
Go follow at Killiners.
Follow that man on Twitter.
If anything, I'm giving it out so I can lose followers.
And then Instagram.
That's it.
Sounds good.
Let's do this.
Let's get into the subscriber portion.
We can really talk crazy stuff nobody ever hears.
Secrets.
Oh, man.
It's going to be crazy.
Coming up next for Babylon Bee subscribers.
Have a good Howie Mandel story for your paid section.
Calvinist or Arminian.
But three nights in, this woman raises her hand like it's a class.
And I was like, you cause?
I've never just had a question during my jokes.
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Kyle and Ethan would like to thank Seth Dylan for paying the bills, Adam Ford for creating their job, the other writers for tirelessly pitching headlines, the subscribers, and you, the listener.