Latest / Drawn of History / Casey Rocket on Why He Left Austin for Chicago(M4A_128K)

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Casey Rocket on Why He Left Austin for Chicago(M4A_128K) · Drawn of History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You're living in Chicago now, huh?
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I moved from Austin in December, and I lived
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: in St. Louis for six months, and now I've been
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: settling in Chicago, yeah.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: How's it been there?
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: It's been good.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: They have a hot dog culture that is out of
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: this world. Relish Mustard, the works.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: And the people have been treating me with grace and kindness,
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: and I, in turn, have been passing on to them
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: a smile.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Very fair.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Did you miss Austin when you left? What was
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the reason of leaving Austin? Because things were going good there, right?
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: Sure, yeah.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I worked at Mothership for a year, and I
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: won the equivalent. I won the Austin's, not the funniest person,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: but the Austin comedy competition. So, yeah, I was really
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: ingrained in the scene there.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: And that was 2021, was it, or no?
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: When I won that, I moved there in 2021, and
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: I think I won that in 2021. three maybe okay
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: um but yeah I have a lot of really great
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: friends there I felt like maybe um it was time
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: for me to do something else I'm going to grad
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: school so um you wrote me a letter of recommendation
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: for that and I'm going to DePaul to do screenwriting
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: so I just wanted to make some changes in my
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: life yeah.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: That's wild dude congratulations man thanks on getting in over
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: there are you excited about it.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: I am it starts in September and then I'm gonna
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: write my great American novel dude yep.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Is there a novel that you kind of were inspired by? Like,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: was there a novel that you kind of read that
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: led you to even kind of spark that in your head?
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Or a book that you read that kind of sparked
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: that in your head? Because I think, like, I like
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: to write, so I think there's things in, like, there
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: was one book I read and I was like, huh.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's some good, like, memoir-type books that I really liked.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: One of them is a book called Permanent Midnight by
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: a guy named Jerry Stahl that they made into a
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: movie with Ben Stiller. Another great one is Sing Backwards
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: and Weep. by Mark Lane again, who used to be
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: the lead singer of the screaming trees. Um, so yeah,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: some memoirs and then a lot of like screenplays, like
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: obviously I'm a big fan as most people are of
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Paul Thomas Anderson who did Magnolia and one battle after
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: another PTA PTA. Yeah. So yeah, I love movies and
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: I like movies and I'm just as happy with a
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: good book. I can't stress that enough, but yeah, I
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: want to learn how to like write screenplays and stuff
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: like that. And I want to be a multi-hyphenate.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: I want to be a bad boy and I want
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: to be a sweetie.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: How do you do that? I wonder. I'm trying to
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: think of like a candy that really presents itself like that.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Oh, Sour Patch Kids.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: You think? Oh, because they're kids.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: And there's nothing more rotten than a kid.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: So you've taken a break from comedy when you moved out?
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I took like... Well, I did some gigs. I
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: did some shows with Fiona Cawley, our friend Fiona.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, she's so funny.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: And Matt is her husband.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I've met him, but I guess
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: I'll meet him tonight probably at Zany's. And then Dylan Carlino.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Do you know Dylan Carlino?
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Yes, I do know him. He's in Austin. Yeah.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: He's so funny.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I like kind of stopped headlining for a
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: bit and then got back to doing like some local stuff.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: I got involved in the St.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Louis scene and I like featured again and Yeah, just
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: kind of started over a little bit. I'm running a
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: new hour. And it's been good to enjoy doing it.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: You know, when it feels like a job, you get
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: kind of jaded. And it's like I just ever wanted,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: all I ever wanted was to riff. So it just,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: things got complicated.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Were you happy with like, because Kill Tony was and
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: is kind of like The Tonight Show in a way, right?
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: People would call it that. Sure. Kind of like The
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Tonight Show, but, you know, a different like. amalgamation of
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: it right or like a present semi-present day yeah you
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: know there's also dark sorcerers that are involved with it
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: but it's exactly where we are in the world and
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: it's great it's a great show did you feel like
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: being attached to that became too much or like how
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: did you handle like the popularity and celebrity because i
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: would say you were one of the most popular guys
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: that kind of came through that system um did it
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: feel like that because um even in my own life
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: and recently, like I've, you know, like in the past year,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: I've thought a lot about like ego and what is
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: popularity or mean and the value of it and stuff
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: like that, you know? Yeah.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Well, I think I started to assign some of my
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: self worth, some of my self worth and the opinions
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: of others. Not that I, I would never look at
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: stuff online, but I guess I got too wrapped up
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: in my sense of self, like the poltergeist of self,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: like what, what all of this meant. Because all I
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: ever did was stand up for years and years and years.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: That's all I did, seven days a week. And then
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: if it wasn't going well, then I didn't know who
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: I was. So, yeah, more so than the Kill Tony thing,
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: that gave me a platform and it allowed.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Me to do all this stuff.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: I just tried to take the good and not think
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: about anything else.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: But, yeah, it was just really wrapped up.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: And all this pressure that I was either misinterpreting or
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: putting on myself, and I didn't like it.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: I didn't enjoy doing it anymore.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and as you say, like, when it wasn't going well,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: I didn't like myself, kind of.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, I can relate to some of that, man.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I felt like, you know, I try to improvise
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: so much riff, some have said, many have said, and...
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: If I wasn't able to catch my thoughts perfectly, and
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: that opens the door for so much pressure on myself
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: where I was thinking of myself, maybe rightfully so, maybe not, duality, yes,
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: laws of polarity, that I had so much potential. And
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: so every night I would go out and I would
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: try to use 100% of my potential on stage. And
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: when I set myself up for that, there's no way
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: I can possibly reach that. Which makes it fun to
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: keep going, makes it always exciting, but I will never
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: be satisfied with it.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Right, it always sets you up for a little bit
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: of failure in a way.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, which a little bit of that is good.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: It's good to strive, and comedy is a lifelong thing.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: If that's what you choose to do with your life.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: But I came to realize, and probably in December, that
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: there has to be more to life than this. There
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: has to be more than a performative affect. Um, I
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: have to be worth more than what I think I'm
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: worth to my friends just as a performer.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: And if my whole world is wrapped up.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: In the business of show business, then I am doomed
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: to go spiritually bankrupt. There's nothing that will ever be enough.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I just try, it was really nice. You know,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: I made a lot of friends that weren't comedians for
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: the first time in a long time.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Um, and it was just great, you know, people who
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: didn't know who I was to know that I have
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: worth to people like, not being funny. Like I can
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: just go to the movies and I can talk about
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: movies or we can kick a soccer ball around, which
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: I never did, but I could have. And if we
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: had found a soccer ball at any point in the
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: beginning of the year, I could have kicked it around.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: And that kept me going.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: So I would wake up every day and I would
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: make myself a promise and it was firm. And it
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: was if I run into an unattended soccer ball today
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: or one I could borrow just for the time being,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: I will kick it back and forth with whoever's around.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: I know exactly who you'll kick it back and forth with.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Some victim who had too many of those little crackle
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: bars or whatever and is now in a wheelchair. And
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: the last limb he can move is just soccer and
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: back and forth with a stranger passing through.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: He has to do one of those muscle tests where
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: he has to hit his knee at the exact right time.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: To kick it.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: And he does it himself now. Yeah, because that's his
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: insurance provider. They mail you the little hammer with a
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: little triangle, and you do it yourself at home.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: That's Moderna. Yeah, that's Moderna or Pfizer, I think.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, I just got a kit the other day
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: to take a couple cysts off my own body. They'll
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: mail you the scalpel now. And all of the stuff
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: that made you a picture of a nurse, you put
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: that up in the corner. And you do it, man.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: It's pretty cool.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: And the picture, not to cut you off, but I
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: think that it's one of those pictures where you look
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: at it one way and she's beautiful.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: And then you look at it the other way and
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: it's a witch.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, dude. And do you feel like, because you kind
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: of have like, I don't know, you created such like
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: a unique you, right? And do you... Do you ever
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: think like, is this the real me or is this
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: a me that I created? Does it ever come to
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: your mind yet?
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, sure.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: It's no judgment against you. I've just had that happen
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: in my own life recently. I quit, like I took
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: a break from touring and so much of my life
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize had been like attached to, oh, I
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: always have somewhere to go. Oh, I got to get going.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: There's somewhere to be. There's somewhere I need to be.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: There's somewhere I'm going to be seen that's coming up.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: And then now it's not really like that and it's okay,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: but it's just been interesting to be like, okay, well,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: say if that were going forever, then what, you know,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: who would, how would I, what's going on with me,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: you know?
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, how would I, because it is, it's a degree
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: of show business past a certain point. It's almost not
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: even like seeking, it's like running. It's like you're running,
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: you think you're running towards something, but you're running like
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: away again from this idea that I have just coined
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: the poltergeist of self, about the visage of like who
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: is Casey Rock, who is, This interference pattern of like
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: where I grew up, what my friends were like, what
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: I like to do. And then also this person I
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: try to present on stage, which is, you know, it
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: more or less is me. I'm just having I'm just
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: letting myself be a goofy guy.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, I have had instances of like
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: ego death either. chemically induced or just being in a
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: really low period of depression where, yeah, I look around
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: and I go, what is all this for, you know?
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: But if I did have any answer, it would be
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: that the macro mirrors the micro. So that in the
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: little victories of my life, I figure out my greater purpose.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: So it's easier for me now because I've gotten used
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: to it the first six months of this year of
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: not running around so much. I've been so much happier
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: where I'm just a really stressed out guy.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: I wear the world really heavily.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: So if I have to do anything, like even just
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: like go to a local showcase, it used to drive
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: me nuts. It ruined my whole day.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Just the stress and knowing that it's coming.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: It's hard to operate. Yeah.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Some people seem to be able to operate kind of freely,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: even if there's something looming, you know, like me, I'm
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: already like, fuck man, my marriage, what will my wedding
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: day be like? That's just going to fucking be net.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: It's going to be hectic. And my, if my wife's there,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: she's going to be pissed or whatever. You know what
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: I'm saying? Like, but that shit will weigh me down.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: It's like on a regular Thursday afternoon, dude, not to
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: mention whatever else I have to do. Or sometimes like, yeah,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: that's such a cool way to say it. That, yeah,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: sometimes I just feel like I wear the world heavy.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: And some people, it just seems to be like this,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: like summer shawl that, you know, that it's nothing. Like,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: it seems to be like, just like a little baby
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: kite landed on their shoulder and they just brush it off,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I think it's easy
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: to get trapped in like, there's popularity here. There's some
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: money here. There's reward. There's like ego reward here, but
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: it's just really like what I really want to do.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Like sometimes I really want to just focus on learning
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Spanish and be a writer. Right. Some of those, those
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: are things that I think, right. That gives me self-worth. Right. And,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: but then you get caught in different things and sometimes
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: they're blessings and it's great paths and stuff, but it's like, yeah,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: do we reward like that? you know, do we reward
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: that thing inside of us that also we, that was
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: the reason maybe we started out wanting to be creative. Like,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: sometimes you'll get on such a path that you never
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: get back to those things sometimes.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been so nice to bring it back to
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: comedy in any capacity, to do things just for fun,
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: to go do an open mic at like a hot
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: dog stand.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: It's like I used to love stuff like that. I
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: used to live for shit like that.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: And then when you get caught up in all the
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: numbers and how are the tickets and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, me, me, me, me, me.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: When you get caught up in all that, some of
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: it gets lost.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: And I'm tired of losing stuff, you know.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: I needed to trim some of my hedges, right?
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: Tall poppy syndrome.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: I needed to cut down some of these egotistical parts
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: of my life that I know don't serve me. And
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: then it's a daily thing of figuring out, you know,
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: chipping away at the block of happiness and trying to
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: get a firmer picture of what that looks like.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: Hard to say.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: I think well said.