Name: Theo Von Reflects on His Relationship with His Father
Uploaded: 2019-04-29T22:15:02.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Theo Von Reflects on His Relationship with His Father' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-04-29. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Theo Von Reflects on His Relationship with His Father' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-04-29. Transcript available.

Theo Von Reflects on His Relationship with His Father

And what else? Another guy came up and I was thinking about, you know, I've
been working in this 12-step stuff that I'm doing.
They have, you know, you think about, you talk about family and people you have
resentments against and things that are buried inside of you that can like,
that can affect the way you behave daily, but you don't realize it.
You know, it's not like, they're treasures, but you don't realize they're
treasures at first.
Because resentments, you know, they can really, it's like a little edge inside
of you where it's supposed to be a curve.
And so everything that goes around there is choppy.
Every time your thoughts or your feelings pass through that canal of, that
journey within you,
if you're thinking about something that even is related to, you know, a
previous experience you had that you didn't like
or a person that you don't like or a family member, a loved one or a parent or
whatever, you have a resentment.
So then anytime something else comes up that would kind of use one of the same
streets in your brain or your feelings,
it'll, instead of it being a curve, it'll be a, you know, a 90 degree angle and
it's choppy.
They're like speed bumps for the way that you can love others.
To me anyway, I, you know, I can't love people as well if I have these speed
bumps in me.
It makes, uh, kind of the highway of my heart.
It's got a lot of, it's just, uh, you know, it, you're going to have to have
really good insurance if you're going to travel down it
because I got a lot of speed bumps on it.
Sentiments, anger, things, you know, previous experiences that are rough, that
make my road rough
and make it rough for me to bring anybody down the road.
And they had a young man that came after the show and he said, Hey, you know,
uh, I really appreciate
some of the stuff you talk about on the podcast.
When you get into like, just talking about what you're feeling and stuff.
Um, you know, my father, my father was real old when I was born.
You guys know that my dad was born in 1910.
And so I've been doing this work recently, just thinking about my, my dad and,
and my relationship with him.
And this young fellow at the show said, Hey, you know, my dad was born with 61.
And, uh, and that got me thinking even more about just about my dad and just
kind of how,
you know, I always had, you know, like, I love my dad.
I'm grateful for him, but I've also always been a little bit angry at him.
I didn't realize it.
Uh, I was always angry because I didn't know him very well.
You know, I was 16 when he passed away and he was 86.
And, uh, you know, I was angry because I didn't know him because he didn't know
me.
You know, I kind of always, and then I, you know, I realized that I really kind
of judged my father.
Like I didn't realize it.
I always thought that's one of the reasons we didn't know each other very well
was because, um, because of the age gap.
And I really started to think back more on it.
And one of the reasons also we didn't know each other very well was because I
really judged him.
You know, I really judged him for being so old.
You know, other kids would make fun of him and then I kind of made fun of him.
And I think sometimes I didn't even try to get to know him, even though I was
young.
It wasn't my responsibility really.
It was, it wasn't an ideal situation.
But I didn't really try to get to know him.
You know, and I would have, I would make the excuse, well, he shouldn't have
had a kid when he was that old.
You know, what was he thinking?
Well, that's true.
But if he doesn't have that, I don't exist.
So, there's some, there's validity there to that argument, but, but, but if I
don't, if I don't exist, but he gave me my existence, whatever, however way it
happened.
You know, he really gave me the only important, the most important gift, which
is my experience of the world.
And, and I judged him so much and kind of, that I didn't really get to know him.
You know, there were times I, he probably thought sometimes, wow, maybe my son
doesn't, he's not interested or he, I think maybe I was afraid to get to know
him because I knew he was going to pass away.
So, it was probably like safer to not get to know him, you know.
But I remember I chose to joke around, I would always make, you know, because
other people started making fun of my dad because he was just so old, man.
You know, and so I would make fun of him, you know, sometimes.
Because it's all I could do, it's the only thing I could do to kind of survive
was to also make fun of him.
But, but in doing that, I didn't really honor him.
I didn't really honor my relationship with him that much.
I didn't, you know, and I'm not really blaming myself.
I'm not coming down hard on myself.
I just, I'm trying to get to a place where, where when I think about fatherhood
and I think about parenting, I'm trying to, you know, pick these locks that
keep me from having a lot of emotions in those spaces.
But I was real embarrassed of my father.
You know, I hate to say this, man.
I was embarrassed like, you know, when we would walk somewhere, I would walk
kind of far behind him or away from him.
You know, because he was so old, I didn't, and he didn't notice that much
because, you know, when you get old.
And this wasn't when I was a kid.
When I was a kid, I was real doting on him.
I was real caring.
You know, I remember we would walk to church sometimes and I would, you know, I'd
make sure that the leaves were off of the sidewalk and I would make sure that
the, that he knew that the, I mean, a sidewalk in Louisiana, dude, good fucking
luck, bro.
That thing is a gangplank.
Dude, sidewalk in Louisiana, that's a side work.
They should call it that thing.
The first thing is like that.
The next one is straight up.
One of them is a damn drawbridge because they got all the tree roots popping
through.
So you have one piece of cement sidewalk.
The next piece is a damn, the third piece is off ramp.
Take you right over to Laplace where Billy Conforto lived, RIP.
I mean, the sidewalk in Louisiana, that thing is dangerous.
Slip and fall, dude.
Slip and fall all the way into the Lord's arms.
That thing's killing senior citizens left and right.
That's a side work, baby.
There's no.
And so I remember I'd make sure that my dad knew how the sidewalk was when we
were young so that we could walk together, you know.
But then as he got older, I remember like we'd be somewhere and I would be, you
know, I'd walk away from him or.
You know, I remember like, you know, I remember like his skin sometimes on his
hands was real old.
Excuse me.
I just cleared my own throat and swallowed my own mucus.
So I'm obviously a reptile.
But I remember his skin on his hands was so old that sometimes, you know, when
I saw him, it would make me.
Like I loved him and stuff.
But it would make me kind of scared or it would make me.
It would make me kind of sad sometimes, you know, when he touched me because.
You know, because he wasn't the way that I wanted him to be, you know.
And I'm not sad because it's, I don't think this is like my fault.
I'm not, you know, I don't want you to, I'm not like in this kind of woe is me
space.
I just.
You know, I want to be able to.
Be as loving as I can.
And I know that sometimes I have to examine relationships in my life.
To see where I have hang-ups.
But yeah, I was just embarrassed of him, you know, the way he is.
And my dad was a handsome man, you know.
He had a lovely girlfriend, Miss Maggie, and she would make us some.
She lived in a nice place, man.
I remember when I went to her place, it was like the nicest apartment we'd ever
been in.
Big tall ceilings, man.
You could have a whole nother fucking room in the ceiling.
The ceiling was so high.
I said, damn, just give me a hammock.
I'll go live up there.
Give me four hammocks.
You know.
I'll just, I'll just Tarzan around up there.
I'll build a little kitchenette up there.
Halfway up the wall.
Give me four hammocks.
I'll live in the corner of the ceiling.
And she took care of my dad when he was real old.
You know, she, you know, she was probably about six, she was probably 60.
And my dad was, you know, at that point, he's 85 or something.
Or she was probably about 63.
And she was fancy.
She was like a high society woman, you know, in New Orleans.
And that's still very, you know, they got the fancy people down there.
But she was a good woman, you know.
And she loved my dad.
And, um, and they were friends and, yeah, but I just remember seeing him, like,
you know, walking around.
You know, I remember I'd sleep over there sometimes at her house in the middle
of the night.
And my dad would get up to go to the restroom.
And I'd see him in, like, the window, in, like, the moonlight.
She had these big windows that faced right out on the Mississippi River, man.
She lived in a, I don't even know what it was.
It was over there in, uh, across the river, across the Mississippi over there.
And, um, uh, I can't even remember it right now.
Kind of by Gretna, but right off the, right by the river, by the ferry.
Um, anyway, so, and I would see my dad walk.
I could see him walk.
And he was just old, you know.
And, and I didn't recognize it as much when he was, you know, I'd see him fully
clothed, all dressed up.
And he dressed up real nice every day.
And then at night, though, I'd see him in his body.
He seemed like a dinosaur, like an old dinosaur.
And I think it made me scared.
You know, it made me, as a kid, it just, but it made me angry at him.
And I didn't realize this until just, I mean, literally just this week.
And, and then I was thinking about it even more on the flight home this morning
when this,
after this guy last night was telling me he had an old father.
And by hearing me talk about my dad, sometimes he could, he could relate.
Um, and that made me feel happy, you know.
It made me feel happy to know that, you know, we can relate to each other.
Uh, but yeah, it made me, you know, it just made me look more in my, my
relationship.
You know, and I could have had more memories with him if I hadn't judged my
father so much.
You know, he wasn't like this or he, you know, he couldn't do this.
He didn't have anything.
Uh, you know, I just think I'm not mad at myself.
I don't, I want you to know that I'm not like.
You know, I just, I, I, I think I could have been a better.
I maybe could have been a better son to him, you know,
and I know the circumstances weren't ideal, but.
But I just maybe could have been, could have been a better son to him sometimes,
you know.
I could have had more pride.
You know, I wish somebody had taught me to have more pride in my family when I
was young.
Cause I didn't know.
And then when other kids started making fun of, you know, my situation in the
world, like.
You know, I joined them and made fun of my situation as well.
Instead of.
Having a sense of pride.
Now that's where.
You know, my parents or the world or the scenario or whatever.
That's where that, that's where.
You know, my father probably, he could have done a better job by helping me
have a sense of pride.
In our family.
And maybe he tried and maybe, and sometimes things just are the way they are.
But.
But I never realized that I was angry at my dad.
Until I wrote down this.
This resentment thing.
It says I'm angry at my father.
And then I have to write why I'm angry at him.
So I have to really sit there and think.
And I was angry at him because I didn't know him.
You never.
You know, I never got to know him.
You know, I know he loved.
To sit and drink coffee and speak in Spanish to his friends.
You know, I know he bought a Delta 88 off a black dude and had some speakers in
it that were fucking ratchet.
And he would just listen to talk radio with the loudest bass you've ever heard
coming through the neighborhood.
You never heard a man roll through the neighborhood with just the weather
report.
40% chance of rain.
I mean, dude, it was fucking crazy, man.
And he liked to, you know, go sleep in his car at the park