transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:07] Hey y'all, welcome back to the Don't Mom Alone Podcast. I'm your host, Heather MacFadyen, and this is the place where I get to walk alongside you and connect you with people and resources so you know that you don't mom alone. And in this episode, number 569, I'm welcoming to the show comedian Tim Hawkins.

Speaker 2:
[00:27] If we're talking about parental wisdom, we weren't bogged down in results. Yeah, we cared about whether to make the decisions, but so many parents around us, they were raised and following some of this philosophy that was very results driven. And if it doesn't, then by goodness, we're gonna make sure they turn into this. And that is just a recipe for disaster. So we didn't give them much to rebel against. We didn't freak out when they started to have doubts. God is big enough to answer our questions. And I think, find it. Ask questions until you're blue in the face. And I think that's part of it.

Speaker 1:
[01:04] Tim Hawkins has been doing clean comedy for over 30 years. He started off in youth groups and open mic nights and is now performing 90 minute sets in front of huge audiences. He's a committed family man. And in this episode, he chats more about his journey and shares really vulnerably, which I appreciate some of the harder parts of this whole career choice. And when he had to kind of step back in the timing of that, you've got to hear all of that. He's a dad to four and a granddad. And you'll want to hear a conversation about his granddad names. If you still are like, I know Tim Hawkins, how do I know that name? Maybe you know his song parodies, whether it's the Chick-fil-A song or Cletus Take the Real, which is an ode to fishing based off Carrie Underwood's classic, or his most streamed song, which is Pretty Pink Tractor. Definitely go to the show notes and look up his YouTube channel and check out his new comedy special on Amazon Prime called Fist Bump. Especially if you're in your late 40s, early 50s, you are going to relate and laugh, which that is Tim's main goal, is to make people laugh as hard as humanly possible. Let's get right to it. Here we go. Tim, welcome to the Dont Mom Alone Podcast.

Speaker 2:
[02:24] What a great idea, Dont Mom Alone.

Speaker 1:
[02:28] Don't do it.

Speaker 2:
[02:29] Don't do anything alone.

Speaker 1:
[02:31] That's probably true.

Speaker 2:
[02:32] Come on. Why? Why? People are so great, aren't they? People are just so great. Other mothers are so great. It's like, what are you doing? I'm doing this. It's not working.

Speaker 1:
[02:45] Sometimes they're great. Sometimes they can be a challenge, but yeah, we shouldn't do anything alone. One mom asked if she could make t-shirts that said, don't homeschool alone. I'm like, sure. Whatever you want to do.

Speaker 2:
[02:58] Yeah. You wonder without all this social media, how did moms do it in the past? I think that we definitely had different neighborhoods. I think we had other moms that were very concerned or, that's why I say neighborhood watch used to be, the neighbors would watch us. They were watching for criminals, they were watching us.

Speaker 1:
[03:22] What's Suzie up to this afternoon?

Speaker 2:
[03:24] Exactly. I think it'd be great if we could get a little more back to that, but I guess we have to do the best we can with what we've been given.

Speaker 1:
[03:32] Yeah. We got to pivot. It's a different way to do it, but for sure, yeah. Talking to women who were in their 80s, it was like, I'd have my friend over and we'd fold laundry together, and I'm like, yeah, that's not happening.

Speaker 2:
[03:46] No. They're also smoking two packs of cigarettes and talking about, is their husband coming back from the war? I don't know. They were a different breed.

Speaker 1:
[03:56] It's a different time.

Speaker 2:
[03:58] Pretty tough skin.

Speaker 1:
[03:59] Yeah. Well, speaking of a different time, I'm sure people who have been following you for your three decades, that's a long time. Let's talk about that. Are curious, how did you even get started? Because in my mind, you were the first clean comedian I'd ever heard of. I saw you at an auction, like an auction for an adoption agency or something.

Speaker 2:
[04:22] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[04:22] That was about 20 years ago. Tell me more about your journey. You're in college. When did you start doing stand-up?

Speaker 2:
[04:30] Yeah. I was in college. I was a baseball player. I played at University of Missouri and I had had about enough of that. I played all my life and I realized that it's phasing out. Also, I really wasn't a huge fan of school. I knew I wasn't dumb, but I knew that I didn't like this iteration of what this was. My coach came up to me one day and he said, Hawkins, I got your grades. I said, Really? He goes, Yeah, they weren't there. I guess you have to go to class and take the test to be able to play sports. I said, Coach, I can't do this anymore. Really, somewhere in the back of my head, I knew that this is the comedy somewhere in my future, but there's no school for that, there's no manual for that. It's like, How does that even work? So I just wanted a girlfriend. I want to stop hanging around a bunch of baseball players. I want a girlfriend, I want some regular friends, and enjoy my life. So that set me off on a, that was in the early 90s where I started doing a little bit of open mic nights at comedy clubs. But then I'd go over to this youth group guy, who would give me an hour. Can you survive with my youth group for an hour? And just got me, I started getting in front of groups of people and just hashing it out, you know? Trying to figure it out. And I think ignorance is bliss. If I was knowing how bad I was back in the beginning, I would have quit a long time ago. But I also was very desperate. I was always very, I knew I'd, it's not that I didn't have a lot of other skills, it's just, this is really what I wanted to do in some way. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[06:11] Well, and were youth groups familiar? Did you grow up going to church and being a part of a youth group?

Speaker 2:
[06:16] Yeah, we did. I did. I had a very positive church experience. A lot of comedians don't. That's why they're kind of anti-God, really because they had a bad, and you can't really blame them. I mean, if they see hypocrisy and don't really feel love and don't really get to meet Christ, who he really is, I can totally understand that. But I grew up in the church. It wasn't like we're every week people. I mean, we go to the Baptist Church one week and then we go to the Charismatic Church the next week. As a kid, I can sleep through any denomination. That was my joke. I can sleep through. They had the grape juice at the Baptist Church, they had the real wine at the Charismatic Church, and I became familiar with all those environments, and I liked them. I mean, it was fun as a kid. There's always stuff for us to do, and we knew that aren't the boundaries, and what not to do, and yeah, it is a very positive experience for me.

Speaker 1:
[07:15] Well, then you can tell the jokes, we can poke fun at all the different denominations, because we've seen them. You've been in them.

Speaker 2:
[07:20] Yeah, exactly. And done shows in them now too. It's really weird now. It's kind of hard back in the day, you could tell what building you're in, all these are Methodists, or these are whatever. And now it's kind of hard to tell. So it's kind of meshed, it's kind of way cars look, they all look the same now. But people are people. And that's what I learned about doing comedy early on. It's like I do corporate events. And it's not just a bunch of people in suits, it's just real people. It's the same as church. It's just they have families and frustrations and goals and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1:
[07:52] So yeah, you just hit them where they are. I mean, with that, like since you did get the opportunity in the youth groups when you're starting out in the 90s, and it's like, obviously when you're entertaining the youth group, you're having to keep it clean. But did you keep finding like this was because it was, I mean, do you know of anybody else who was doing what you were doing?

Speaker 2:
[08:13] Very few. I mean, you had like a guy named Mark Lowry. He was a comedian. There's a guy named Ken Davis who was doing it. These guys were, like Mark Lowry was a singer, but then in between he was waiting for tracks to be played for his next song, he would tell stories. So he would tell more stories and then do less music, and he'd turn more and became more comedy driven. Ken Davis, guys like that. A lot of them were speakers. They were speakers, but they were funny, and so they could do both. That's why a lot of guys in, I think the church get into comedy, is they're doing something else like magic or whatever, they're doing tricks, and they just don't want to take as many of the props along with them. They say, hey, it's not a lot of user, I just show up and talk.

Speaker 1:
[09:01] Yeah. I got that mouse thing I take with me everywhere. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[09:05] Yeah. It's very simple, and it's pretty amazing that you'll see with a comedian, like the night before they had this huge band come in, they have all these pieces and all this crew. Whereas comedian, they have just one microphone, and that's it, and a stool and a bottle of water. But that proves that comedy is pretty universal. That's one thing that I learned too in doing these special events, was comedy is, I would do a ton of just banquets. We're going to have some food and they're going to have an auction and then some guy is going to speak. If this guy shows up and he's funny, then they're like, oh my gosh, this is the best thing ever.

Speaker 1:
[09:45] Yeah. We're going to give more money. We'll give more money to the cause because we're in a good mood. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[09:51] Exactly. Yeah. Whereas music, half the people may not like that style of music you're doing or whatever, but comedy seemed to hit on more.

Speaker 1:
[10:03] You brought up music and I'm curious about your journey into songwriting. Had you always played guitar? Or is that something you picked up as you were on these tours and you had time? Or what's your story with that?

Speaker 2:
[10:16] I started the same time. I mean, mom had me doing piano lessons as a kid, and I would just sit there like, how is Turkey and the Straw going to take me anywhere? How is this mumbo jumbo going to do anything? I didn't really understand it. But yeah, when I started, I was about 21. I left school, and then I bought a guitar, and then I started to do comedy. So I learned at the same time. In the church gigs, I found out that music, because you're doing all ages, like if you do a gig at a church, so music has a way of- It brings in the gap. Add some energy to it, and it really work well. Plus, I just love music. I was very good air guitar for a long time in my life. Quite the good air guitar player, and then something in my brain was like, why don't you just learn it? Why don't you just actually learn how to play? What's happened is that the thing about traveling is that you have a lot of downtime, and boredom is the biggest issue. So I said, I'm going to take this time and just learn this stuff. And I taught myself piano and I bought a mandolin a while back. I'm learning that and using it in the show. So it's-

Speaker 1:
[11:30] That's fun.

Speaker 2:
[11:31] Yeah. You have to learn how to travel well. If you don't, it's going to be boring and really tedious. And you just have to be prepared to do that.

Speaker 1:
[11:46] This episode is brought to you thanks to sponsors like Tumble. Now y'all know we have a dog, two cats, four boys and an axolotl. The axolotl does not contribute to the mess, but I will tell you all of the other aforementioned creatures do, including my husband. And the amount of times that I have spent scrubbing stains out of rugs, whether it's body fluids or Dr. Pepper or spilled something, food, I am so thankful that I have found Tumble. One, they're spill proof. Okay, so they have some proprietary surface that causes liquids to literally beat up on top of the rug. And so instead of the fiber that just soaks it immediately with the Tumble rugs, if you catch it soon enough, you can just wipe it away in seconds. It's magic. And then if you want to deeper clean, if you want to like do the spring cleaning for your rugs, you can just take the top, the rug from the pad and toss it into your washing machine. So if you have pets, this is actually going to change your life. I also love that they're non-toxic. All tumble rugs are OEKO tech certified. That means they're safe for kids and pets. Anyone who's hanging out on the floor and my absolute favorite part is how amazing they look. These are like designer rugs. They have so many different options. It's not something cheap or temporary. Really, really beautiful rug options. And it's not just me who thinks so. Hundreds of thousands of homes have already switched to tumble rugs. They have over 30,000 five-star reviews. So machine washable rugs made better? Yes, please. For a limited time only, our listeners get 10% off in free shipping at tumbleliving.com/dma. That's T-U-M-B-L-E living dot forward slash DMA. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. And you're married to another Heather. There's a lot of us born at this time, that time, not anymore. Yeah, right. 92-year-old Heathers I've met. But the 70s, 60s, we were top. When did you meet your Heather and y'all start your journey?

Speaker 2:
[14:05] That was then when I left school, when I stopped going to Missouri, University of Missouri, like I said, I knew I was an idiot. I didn't really know how to treat women. I wasn't, so I said, okay, that's it. I am just going to be friends. I'm going to learn how to treat people with respect and love. And then I met her just through a friend group. She was dating a buddy of mine. And I don't know, I just knew each other. Yeah, we just, for a couple of years we were, I'd never met anybody like her. She was from California and I was from the Midwest, so she just had different sensibilities and a different kind of a life about her and just a way about her that I found, it just set me free. And it was, she had been married before, like early on, it didn't work out well. And so in that she was not a game player. She was not here, she was not about the drama. And I really found that refreshing and wonderful. Yeah, and that was 31 years ago. And yeah, I got four kids, four grandkids now.

Speaker 1:
[15:12] And my stars, what's your grandpa name?

Speaker 2:
[15:16] Yeah, Papa.

Speaker 1:
[15:17] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[15:18] Yeah, I had final fan that I was like, it's, they came up with Papa. I'm like, I'm good with that. Let's go down.

Speaker 1:
[15:26] I heard a great one last night. I saw, you know, Jen Wilkin, the Bible teacher?

Speaker 2:
[15:30] Sounds familiar.

Speaker 1:
[15:31] Okay, so she's a Bible teacher, right? I think like real like Presbyterian ish.

Speaker 2:
[15:34] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[15:35] Her grandma name is Sugar.

Speaker 2:
[15:37] Sugar.

Speaker 1:
[15:38] Shugs. I love it. That's a great grandma name. This is what I'm talking about.

Speaker 2:
[15:43] Yeah. My wife says Honey. So it's Papa and Honey.

Speaker 1:
[15:46] Oh, these are good.

Speaker 2:
[15:49] I dig it. That's a big deal. You don't live your whole life and then the rest of it is just you, this horrible grandparent name that, oh, the baby couldn't say grandpa. All he could say was boo-boo doo-doo. So now we all call him boo-boo doo-doo. No, no.

Speaker 1:
[16:07] Forever. You don't ever get called Tim again. It's always boo-boo doo-boo. Remember when boo-boo doo-boo would go on stage and sing a ballet song? That's your legacy now. Okay. Well, you've definitely entertained all of us, and I'm sure, are your kids enthralled? Are they all in? I know you have a podcast now with one of your kids.

Speaker 2:
[16:30] I did for a while. Olivia, she got pregnant, so her and her husband had another baby. It's like scheduling was a little crazy. If I was single and I had all the time in the world, I'd probably do five podcasts a week too. You need a producer and there's a lot that goes in. You have to edit it. It takes a lot of time. But I think my kids, as far as being, that's all they know is their dad does what I do.

Speaker 1:
[17:00] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[17:02] They're all just wonderful people and they're funny in their own right. They're talented. I'm so entertained by my children and amazed at watching them become parents themselves and following their path. Heather and I are talking about, it's like how did our kids turn out so well? Because it's not always like that, especially in the church, it's like people are like, I did what I was supposed to do and now they're off the rails.

Speaker 1:
[17:28] Yeah. I think I said that last week. I think I said that.

Speaker 2:
[17:31] Really?

Speaker 1:
[17:31] Yeah. I followed the formula. When am I supposed to get this outcome? Yeah. No, I think I've said that. No. I mean, mine are still half-baked. We're not quite fully baked yet, but yeah, I think we're in the teen years. Good times over here. Four boys. You have three boys or four?

Speaker 2:
[17:48] I have three boys and a girl. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[17:50] Figured it out. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[17:52] Yeah, very good. But we were talking about, I mean, I guess if we're talking about parental wisdom, we weren't bogged down in results. Yeah, we cared about whether to make the decisions, but so many parents around us, they were raised and following some of this philosophy that was very results driven. If it doesn't, then by goodness, we're going to make sure they turn into this. And that is just a recipe for disaster. So we didn't give them much to rebut against. We didn't freak out when they started to have doubts. We didn't say, oh my gosh, it's like, you have to believe that it's like, okay, if my son goes to college and he wants to follow some, oh, well they said this and Jesus is just a story built up of all these other stories. I'm like, go after it. God is big enough to answer our questions. And I think, find it. Ask questions until you're blue in the face. And I think that's part of it. We supported our children. We're not gonna be goofballs. It's like, you're not gonna act like weirdos in our house. We're not gonna allow that, but we still, we love you. But.

Speaker 1:
[18:57] Yeah. Were they like the wrestling type, those three boys? Cause I just had a mom ask me that question. She's like, how do you handle all their wrestling? I'm like, I don't know. You just let them, like give them space for it.

Speaker 2:
[19:09] Yeah. Oh, totally. And that's cause she has, one has the muscles and another one's getting the muscles. And then the youngest one is totally getting the muscles. You're just like, here we go. Yeah. And Heather is the one that she's got the feminine energy. She's like, oh, oh, no, wait, wait. Where I can kind of say, I could sit back and kind of know like, oh, okay, I know what to step in. That's put down the lamp, whatever. You're strangling him. He can't breathe. Stop it.

Speaker 1:
[19:40] It's like good until it's not and someone's bleeding.

Speaker 2:
[19:43] It's exactly.

Speaker 1:
[19:44] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[19:44] It's like they say when somebody's being tickled, you're being tickled and it's really funny until it starts to be like, I think I'm going to die. I think you're killing me.

Speaker 1:
[19:53] I think I've reached fight or flight and I'm going to punch you. You don't stop.

Speaker 2:
[19:58] Right.

Speaker 1:
[19:59] Yeah. Did you guys have, like you said your kids turn out great, like do you have in your mind, like this is what I would write in my comedy parenting book? I mean, we joked about it before we got on here.

Speaker 2:
[20:08] Wow. It's kind of like with marriage, you can't write this stuff. You can't write this stuff like.

Speaker 1:
[20:16] Like it's like a rule, like it's like a do this and then things will turn out well for you. We just said don't do that.

Speaker 2:
[20:22] I couldn't do that and feel like I was giving people good information. I mean, I feel like I've given maybe my children three bits of quality wisdom, and I'm not really, I'm not lying. I cannot remember times where I gave them just some life changing aha moment stuff. I believe that as a father, I think that proximity has a big thing to do with it. Just physically being there, which was one of the challenges of me traveling so much. It got to a point where my family was getting the scraps, and it was like, okay, what are we doing here? What? I'm gone. I'm doing 100 shows a year, and there is no balance. There is no balance. There's no, it's really hard. It's just very hard. And after a while, you can do the best you can, and then you're like, well, things need to change. So, yeah, I do about half the shows that I used to do now, and it's a good speed, and...

Speaker 1:
[21:27] Was it, so it was you that was like, man, this is too much, or did your kids, or Heather, did she say like, hey?

Speaker 2:
[21:32] Everybody, her, she, everybody.

Speaker 1:
[21:34] Master's calling.

Speaker 2:
[21:36] Everybody, you know something's wrong, but you look at your schedule, and it's etched in stone. You're just like, man, you know, I really enjoy what I do, I really do, but it's the travel that's the job, you know? And as what I do is, I was the one writing all the material, and coming up, I had 13 employees, and two tour buses, and all these dates, and yeah, it just hit a point where it was more of my body. My brain was like, all right, we're done. You may not feel like it, but I'm done. I could start to see the ramifications of that, just little things that would pop up emotionally. I'm going to be real honest with you, Heather. I was like, do I need to start taking drugs? Because I can't do this anymore. I can't get up for these shows. I can't write this material. I'm done, so what do I do? I just said, okay, we're going to close up shop.

Speaker 1:
[22:32] By drugs, you're not saying illicit or illegal. Well, I'm saying whatever can get me the energy I need to keep going.

Speaker 2:
[22:41] If you want to speak real stuff, that's where it gets to. I started to think about these rock stars.

Speaker 1:
[22:49] Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[22:51] How do you stay? It takes energy and it takes something that you get. If you don't have it, where are you going to get it?

Speaker 1:
[22:59] Then it does go down that path and you can see how these addictions start and you're pushed to the end of yourself physically, and so you're like, I got to go explore those things.

Speaker 2:
[23:10] Yeah, you do. You're in a different town, you got a pocket full of money, you can get into a lot of trouble and you can get into, once again, you're lonely, you're not really happy where things are going. Yeah, even though you're with people that you love, when you get stretched to a point where you know that the main things aren't the main things anymore, then good luck.

Speaker 1:
[23:35] Yeah, that's very real. I think even parents who are listening or moms who are listening, I mean, their husbands may not be in comedy, but there's a lot of guys out there traveling in this hardest season of The Kids Are Young, and it's a lot of pressure on the family. It's like decisions have to be made at some point and you don't want to get to a breaking point.

Speaker 2:
[23:55] Yeah, so it was the best thing that ever happened. Yeah, my wife was like, we actually separated in 2018. She's like, I'm not doing this anymore.

Speaker 1:
[24:04] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[24:05] It was the best thing that ever happened to me, and it really saved me. I don't throw this around a lot, but I think God was on it and he was working through her because we decided to shut the doors January 1st of 2020.

Speaker 1:
[24:21] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[24:23] Then the world comes to it. I tell people that if I ever retire, the world's going to come to an end. They didn't believe me. So yeah, we shut the doors January 1st, 2020. Then got rid of everything by February, and then my friends started texting me. My comedian friends are like, dude, you picked a good time to step away.

Speaker 1:
[24:42] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[24:44] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[24:45] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[24:46] Dodged a big bullet on that one.

Speaker 1:
[24:48] Yeah, because when you're expecting all that income and then it doesn't come, that's a whole other whole thing that a lot of in-person performers.

Speaker 2:
[24:57] Very scary.

Speaker 1:
[24:58] Yeah, that's very scary. Yeah. Well, that's amazing. Thank you for sharing that hard part of your story, but it does make sense. I was like, where did Tim Hawkins go? Where did he go? Then I think I saw you interviewed with John Chris, and then I saw you come up in my e-mail because Tim Hawkins, he's back and he's got a special y'all, you can find on your local Amazon Prime. I don't know why I want to make all these funny voices. Is that your influence? I'm a chameleon, I can't help it.

Speaker 2:
[25:26] I do the same thing. It's like when I'm talking to you. You're right.

Speaker 1:
[25:30] I'm going to make all the faces.

Speaker 2:
[25:32] You're mirroring. Well, where are you at right now?

Speaker 1:
[25:36] Dallas.

Speaker 2:
[25:38] Dallas. So your accent is, I don't know, are you from there originally? Where are you from?

Speaker 1:
[25:43] Are you going to guess? Is this a game?

Speaker 2:
[25:45] I think you sound very Indiana kind of Middle America.

Speaker 1:
[25:49] How did you know I was from Indiana? Did you do research before that?

Speaker 2:
[25:53] No, I did not. No, I didn't. I can tell though. Well, that's, but what we people, like I'm from Missouri, like us Midwestern, when we're talking to someone in Texas, we'll get a little bit more drawly and say y'all a little bit more because I think we want to be liked.

Speaker 1:
[26:12] I don't know if I want to be liked. I do want to be liked, but I think it just happens. I studied in Oxford for a month and I had a British accent by the end of it. I couldn't help it. My kids make fun of me all the time. They're like, mom, will you stop? You're embarrassing yourself. This is, you're not the person you think you are. I'm grateful I get to share Tim with you. Thanks to sponsors like Storyworth. Maybe you've heard me share about them before, but with Mother's Day coming up, I decided to gift my mom with Storyworth. My mom is amazing. She has been through so much, the loss of so many things, and now she is living on her own, living a very full life in Florida. But there's a lot of her story I don't know. And so I appreciate that with this gift, I get to know her a little bit better. And it is a year long experience. So every week, and even when I set up the gift, I got to pick out which questions I want to know, specific to her story that I don't know. And each week they send her one of those questions. She responds however she wants, whether she writes back over the email, over the web, whether she wants to record a voice recording, or even this year, you can do a guided phone call. There's no app, there's no login, there's no tech hassle. It's super easy for her so she can focus on the joy of just remembering and reflecting and telling her story. And like I said, I can pick the questions. I can choose ones that are already written or write my own. And once I get all those stories, StoryWorth will compile them all. I can add her words, I can add photos into a beautiful hardcover book. Families have been using StoryWorth to create over a million books and they have more than 50,000 five-star reviews. New this year is StoryWorth's Unlimited Plan. You get it once and you'll be able to give StoryWorth memoirs to friends and family all year. It comes with their newest features and multiple full-color book copies. That means you can get all your Mother's Day gifts to your mom, your grandma and any mom figure in your life, plus take care of Father's Day while you're at it. This year, give mom a gift that helps her reflect on her life with fresh perspective and gives your whole family the gift of her stories. Mother's Day is Sunday, May 10th. Order right now and save up to $20 at storyworth.com/dma. Save up to $20 at storyworth.com/dma, storyworth.com/dma. I love getting to share sponsors with you that I'm using every single day. And that is true with the Skylight calendar. I have friends who ask me, they're like, how does it work? Do you, does you actually use it? Absolutely. It is in my kitchen and I will tell you it links to my email. And any changes I make to our calendar go on there. You can make a specific color for different kids. You can sync it to any calendar, your Google calendar, your Apple calendar, Outlook. And you can choose daily views, weekly, monthly. If you are someone who has chores or tasks for your kids to help them build routines or independence, you can add those and it can give little rewards when they complete them. I think it is such a great tool to just stay on the same page as a family. If you are feeling the chaos, I mean, we are all feeling the chaos at the end of the school year. And you're like, how can we do this better? If you're interested in watching the podcast this summer or even in the fall, definitely check out Skylight Calendar. It is designed to bring families together, and it's just gonna help you even with grocery lists. You can try it out. If in four months, you are not 100% thrilled, you can return it for a full refund. No questions asked. Families are so much better when we're working together. Right now, Skylight is offering our listeners $30 off their 15-inch calendars. By going to myskylight.com/dma. So go to myskylight.com/dma for $30 off your 15-inch calendar. That's myskylight.com/dma. So you have a new special. It is called Fist Bump. I mean, the project Hail Mary had that line, fist my bump.

Speaker 2:
[30:39] Okay, yes. I noticed that.

Speaker 1:
[30:43] Look at you. Look at you once again. I mean, ahead of the head of it, you knew this is going to be popular. And so I'm going to give it to you. Holy spirit.

Speaker 2:
[30:53] Yeah, it is. We watched that movie the other day and I kind of said, oh, nice, nice, nice. Well, it's really where that the title comes from. I'll tell you a joke on coming out of COVID. People would, if they didn't turn their back to you, my wife and I would be walking to the park during COVID, and people would turn their backs to us.

Speaker 1:
[31:12] No.

Speaker 2:
[31:13] It's just ridiculous. And it's just plays on these guys who wouldn't shake your hand, they would just fist bump you. That's somehow saving the world. Like COVID can't get around the back of the knuckles. Wow. But yeah, I'm still doing it. I think the show is better now than it's ever been. I don't think I'm grinding anymore. I don't think I'm trying to prove myself as much. It's just more of me. There's nothing, no life changing comedy material. It's just me doing observational stuff. And you're just, but once again, I feel the show is better than it's ever been. And it's a lot more chill, just relaxed and I just show up now. I don't own anything. I just show up and be charming as I can be. That's what my manager says. Show up and be charming.

Speaker 1:
[32:04] From the part that I watch, it seemed like you definitely, you have, you know your demographic, you talk to them, you're in their zone. You just, you're like, you know, I'm not quite 50. I'm just a little off. My husband is in his 50s. And so I can understand from his perspective, the challenges you were talking about, about these old people things. I mean, you know, Pops or what was your name?

Speaker 2:
[32:31] Papa? Papa, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[32:32] Papa. I mean, Papa's got some, some things going on. And so, yeah, yeah. And then, and I'm going to mention this. I know DMA audience, Tim is going to get to be on sidetracked and we're going to record with Cynthia. And there's one thing I'm going to bring up there, but I'm also going to bring up here. You talk about your comedy is basically like, live your life, take notes, and then tell strangers. You're just basically paying attention to life. And to me, that's what happened when we started our sidetracked show was I just started noticing the funny that was already in my life. And it actually became like this interesting gratitude list. This, a different way to do gratitude was more like finding the funny of my life, brought levity that I was missing in this season of teen parenting, parenting teens. No, yeah, parenting teens. Anyway, so I love when you said that. I was like, that is totally it.

Speaker 2:
[33:28] The more success you, you'll be more successful the more you can relate to people. And I, when I, when I started writing comedy, I was writing what I thought was funny, what I thought was witty. And I was getting more bigger laughs when I was just telling them real things. This is what my mom really used to say. This is what my dad really used to do. This is something my wife actually said. This is, you know, and yeah, you embellish a little bit and you kind of, you know, condensed it into a, you know, a funny experience. But most, I would just say, I know it works with comedy, it probably would work, works with what you're doing too, is just you write out of passion. Something that disappoints you, something confuses you, something that makes you really happy, like the Chick-fil-A song I wrote. It's just, it's that feeling when you want Chick-fil-A and you forget it's Sunday and you're in the parking lot, you have this explosion in your head. So yeah, I believe that pretty much everybody who knows Chick-fil-A has had that experience. So there's probably something there.

Speaker 1:
[34:28] Yeah. Well, in the song you wrote about, these are some things you don't say to your wife. What should a wife not say to her husband? Have you been asked that?

Speaker 2:
[34:40] You know what? I don't think that song would be as long. I don't think guys really care as much. Probably, we don't like comparisons. We don't like being compared to, this guy's yard is a lot nicer, that guy, he got a bigger bouquet of flowers for her, whatever. We don't like that.

Speaker 1:
[35:04] Did you see what Sally's husband got her for her anniversary? Yeah, those kinds of things.

Speaker 2:
[35:12] That pushes a button, I think. But I could probably write the wife song four or five times with different verses. Like, okay, and I'll tell you this one, and don't be mad at me, don't be mad at me.

Speaker 1:
[35:30] Oh, can't control it.

Speaker 2:
[35:32] But I had this experiment as far as what to not to say to your wife, like when she's telling me a story, and then I stop her and I say, what are you going on about?

Speaker 1:
[35:45] No, no, no, no.

Speaker 2:
[35:51] You see that, you learn that. Part of me thinks it's really funny, but part of me knows it's very volatile, and I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[36:00] Have you seen the videos? I think it's from Key and Peel where they're like, shut up, mom. That wouldn't probably be good.

Speaker 2:
[36:07] No, no, no, I wouldn't.

Speaker 1:
[36:08] These are not things you say to your wife ever, ever, ever, ever.

Speaker 2:
[36:11] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[36:12] Those are pretty obvious. Yeah. I know, y'all, if you have never checked out one Tim Hawkins YouTube channel, there's a lot of great content there for years and years and years of content, and then go on Amazon Prime and y'all can just pull up, you can buy it, you can rent it. I found out if you rent it and you start it, you have 168 hours to finish it.

Speaker 2:
[36:33] Yeah. It's taking a little bit.

Speaker 1:
[36:36] Who does their math? We did some math. That's seven days. You have seven days. Yeah. You can just buy it and then you can just keep rewatching when friends come over, you're like, hey, let's laugh together because here's the deal, laughter. We need that right now.

Speaker 2:
[36:51] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[36:52] Do you feel like you're on the front lines right now in this cultural moment we're having?

Speaker 2:
[36:57] I don't think there's any depression or any kind of downtime for comedy. I mean, when things are bad, that's when it gets actually better.

Speaker 1:
[37:05] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[37:07] So it would be nice if gas prices were lower and that a newly married couple could get into a house without spending 400 grand. That'd be nice. That'd be really nice.

Speaker 1:
[37:20] Here it's a million and a half.

Speaker 2:
[37:22] It's ridiculous. Yeah, we got some big fish to fry. But once again, I'm very grateful. I'm just very grateful for being able to do this, and I know what it's like to struggle. I mean, I didn't go full time until I was 33 doing this. So I know that I was humiliated that I couldn't find jobs that I could really feel like I made a difference. Like if I wasn't there, big deal, whatever, Tim's not here. That finding something that I could, okay, I'm gonna stand in front of 2,000 people, I'm gonna drive the bus, and I know what I'm doing. There's a good, it makes me feel good. And it makes me feel glad that I didn't quit, and that I took it seriously, and I worked hard at it, and I just made adjustments, and it's very fulfilling, and I'm very, very grateful for it.

Speaker 1:
[38:21] Well, we're grateful for you. Thank you for bringing more joy and laughter.

Speaker 2:
[38:25] You're welcome.

Speaker 1:
[38:25] To all of us. You're welcome. You're welcome. Thanks, Bebop Doodoo. Okay. And y'all go check out Fist Bump, and go check out our sidetrack conversation that we're gonna have with Tim over there. If you forgot that I have this other show that I do, I barely ever mention it, but I do have that. If you need more laughter in your life, and you're a menopausal woman, go check it out. But thank you, Tim, for joining me.

Speaker 2:
[38:53] You're welcome, Heather. And notice I didn't ask you what you're going on about ever.

Speaker 1:
[39:00] For not once.

Speaker 2:
[39:01] Not once.

Speaker 1:
[39:03] Thank you. Pad that back.

Speaker 2:
[39:05] Right on.

Speaker 1:
[39:06] All right. Thanks for joining Tim and I today. And definitely if you've never checked out my other podcasts sidetracked, go check it out. It's in all your podcast players, Spotify, iTunes. It's me and my friend, Cynthia Yanoff. We do an episode every other week. And then we have a super tracker episode that people join us on those off weeks. So my conversation with Cynthia and Tim and I goes live this Friday. So you can check that out. I'm going to pray for us. Lord, I thank you that you did provide a beautiful experience for Tim to relate to you and for his faith to flourish and that he doesn't have a heart that's turned away from you and that he can use his gifts to bring joy to those around him. I thank you for how you have prompted him over the years to choose family and set aside travel for a period of time. I pray over his current comedy special that you would use it to bring laughter into homes and just some beauty and, Lord, and just joy, that we can laugh at life, that we can take note of the good around us with gratitude, even when things are messy and ridiculous, that we can pay attention and that we can just have levity when things can feel really heavy. And I pray, Lord, we would release our parenting to you, that we would not be stuck in a results-oriented mindset, but that we can trust that you are the ultimate one who holds the outcome and that that journey to get there is all in your hands. And I pray over the person listening right now, I pray that that message would really go where they need it to go in their heart and their soul, and that their trust in you and their faith in you only grows. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, y'all, this week, I recorded so many episodes. I'm so excited to share with you. But next week is one of our top 10 episodes that, you know, we've been doing that this year where we replay. And it is my conversation with Mary Flo Ridley and Megan Michaelson of Birds and Bees. If you've never listened, or if you know someone who has never heard, definitely wanted to share. And then y'all, I get to bring on Babs Costello, Brunch with Babs, and David and Thomas, and Sissy Goff are coming back on, and so many fun things. So if you haven't subscribed to the show, make sure you do that right now so that you get episodes when they come out and you don't miss them, and you get the encouragement you need. And just a reminder that you do not mom alone. All right, I'll see you back here next week. Bye. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dont Mom Alone Podcast. If you're wanting to connect with more people and more resources to help remind you that you're not alone, head over to dontmomalone.com. That's where you'll also find show notes with any links mentioned by our guests. Most importantly, I want you to know the good news, the great news that you're not alone because God has promised to always be with you. With faith in Jesus Christ, the one who died for you and rose again, Jesus said when he left, he was going to leave a helper, a comforter to be with us. God in us, moms, that's super power. So while you're washing dishes at your kitchen sink, while you're driving to and from work, while you're feeding that baby late into the night, while you're cleaning sticky floors, God promises to be just as present with you as when you're worshiping in a church pew. As it says in Zephaniah 3.17, the Lord your God is with you. He is mighty to save. He takes great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love, and he will rejoice over you with singing. Now that's good news. Have a great day.