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What is good exhomies? It's your boy Jacob Gooden and we're back in the exhomeschoolers clubhouse. This is the
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best exhomeschooler show this side of the internet. And uh I'm stoked for today because uh I've got a brand new
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exhomeschooler friend that is uh Jeremy Alder and we're going to get into his
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whole story. We're going to get into how he grew up in like rural Texas and basically was like the first
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homeschooler in that area um to kind of like finding and making friends. We're
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going to walk through his journey after the homeschool years and finding his career. And then we're going to talk
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about like who he is today. He's a stand-up comic. And uh that's kind of
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honestly why we got connected because Jeremy is dropping his debut album on April 25th. It's already out at the time
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that this is dropping. But go give it a listen. It's super funny. It's called
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Almost a Grown Man. Jeremy alder.com. It's going to be linked in the description. It might be popping up on
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the screen if you're watching this in video. Uh but uh yeah, go give it a listen. Go give him some support. see if
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he's coming to a city near you and I don't know if you enjoy comedy like I
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do, you maybe want to go see it live live and in person. But uh yeah, Jeremy is hilarious. He makes a bunch of jokes
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about being raised homeschooler and fundamentalist Christian and he's just hilarious. But uh we had such a great
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time chatting about his past and in the future and uh so I hope you guys will really enjoy it. But before I turn it
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over to past me and past Jeremy, um I do want to ask a favor of you guys. I've
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got a newsletter. I would love to have you on there. So, if that's something
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you're interested in, link is going to be in the description to hop on the newsletter. All it takes is just your
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email address. I send it out about once a week, maybe sometimes every two weeks.
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Um, but yeah, it's just uh you know, what's going on in my life, what what
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I'm reading, what I'm watching, you know, links to this podcast, links to
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other shows, whatever. You know, it's just fun. It's just meant to be fun. If
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there's something you want to see on there, you know, hit me up. So, all right. I'm gonna turn it over to past me
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from future me from past whatever, however this works. Uh, we're gonna turn it over to past
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me. Jeremy, we're here. I'm stoked to have you on the Exhome Schoolers Club.
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I'm stoked to get to know you a little bit more. Um, first and foremost, welcome to the Ex Homeschoolers Club.
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Thank you, Jacob. It's great to be here. I I love this idea for a podcast. Thank you. I like to think of all of us
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ex homeschoolers as a big weird club. Yeah, pretty much. I can't take all the
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credit for it because uh my homeschool group that I grew up with over during the COVID couple years in there, they
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started a Facebook group and they it was like the ex-h homeschoolers club of uh of uh Venture County. And so I was like,
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yeah. So I was like, I'm going to steal that, I think. Um, which hopefully they
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don't mind that I I kind of took that moniker from them, but here we are. We're in the club. I'm stoked to have
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you today. You are a stand-up comic. You like are an ex-h homeschooler. You grew
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up in a fundamentalist Christian household. Um, y you've got an album coming out called Almost a Grown Man.
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So, we're going to talk about that a little bit later, but I really wanted to
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kind of start, let's start back in the homeschool days. And run me through what
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it like a day to like a week of what the homeschool world looked like for you in
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in the Alder household. Yeah. In it sounds like rural Texas. Yeah. Yeah. Um Yep. Just outside San Antonio. Yep. So,
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South Texas. And uh well, we started uh mid80s. Uh my mom started home and I say we
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because it was uh me. I have an older brother um an older sister and a younger brother who was uh not in school when we
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first started homeschooling. But I did um initially my first two years of school uh kindergarten and first grade
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were in a a small kind of private uh school connected to a little fundamentalist church in okay in San
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Antonio. And then um and then my mom pulled and that's where my siblings went
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too. And then my mom pulled us all out and started homeschooling us. And um you know at the time in the
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mid80s there were not the there was not the homeschool community that there is now. Um it was it was very rare. I I
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didn't know any other homeschoolers. I didn't know that was even an option, you
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know, uh, until my mom said that's what we were doing. Um, and of course for a
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kid, the idea of, oh, I don't have to go to school anymore, that's great. I mean,
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what's, you know, of course that's that's fantastic. But it came with a lot
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of I I know it wasn't easy for my mom um because what she was doing was so weird.
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And I know like our extended family was not on board with it. Um I think you know there the people at our church even
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um homeschooling is very common now and I think in fundamentalist churches but at the time we were the only ones in our
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church and it was not it wasn't a tiny church. I mean, there were a lot of kids
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my age, but you know, the attitude was um you know, uh you want your kids in school to be salt and light for the
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unbelievers, right? So, like what are you doing pulling them out? But anyway, my mom just felt like it was uh what she
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was supposed to do, that she wanted uh more, I guess, control over shaping who we became and what the influences were
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on us. And so she just went for it. And um I I don't remember this because I
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guess I was like six or seven, but my mom said our first year homeschooling curriculum was composed entirely of um
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the Bible and Highlights magazines. I don't know if you remember Highlights magazines. I do. I remember going to the
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doctor office. The doctor's office or the dentist's office. Yeah. Yeah. So
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apparently that was my first year of schooling, which is why I guess I'm so good at like finding the
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difference between two pictures, you know? Like I'm just expert level at that. Um but yeah, Goofus and Gallant
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were my first two like um like people I looked up to, you know. Um yeah, so she was kind of winging it and
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um and so I got to give her a lot of credit. I I know it took a lot of courage and it was it was a heck of a
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lot of work cuz she was basically you know my dad worked full-time and um he was involved some but not like during
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the day it was mostly just her and then uh me and and my three siblings and so um I don't remember a lot of like the
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typical day like early on I know that we always started with like a Bible study okay and and and prayer and and like I
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remember we did a lot of like memorizing of of scripture and and that would be like how we would start the day was um
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trying to remember whatever uh psalm we were we were memorizing. But um yeah, and then we would at some point
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all gather around the kitchen table. Yeah. And um and get at it. I remember my mom
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uh at least eventually got like a like a a a planning book that she had where um
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it was like a calendar and she had each of our names um and like each day of the
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week and next to our names was like our assignments for each day that we were supposed to do. Um and so at least
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eventually it became fairly structured uh you know um yeah and we did end up getting a curriculum eventually. It was
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kind of a mish mash of um well I think we I think I graduated from Highlights magazines to the ACE
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curriculum which was the curriculum we used at the school I was at which was like a mailin kind of I'm trying to
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remember what AC stood for but it was like a I definitely I've definitely heard of that before. Okay. So I think
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it's really interesting because in the home school world there's the the big
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one that everyone talks about is a Becca curriculum being like the thing and then
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and then I I have heard of ACC before. Um, but a lot of them, it's so interesting because a lot of those
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curriculums are just built for like more of a traditional school setting or a private school setting, right? So, a a
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room of kids and then you're trying to apply it to sometimes the at home cuz I
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started with a Becca and similar to you, I had like two I did kindergarten, first
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grade, public I went to public school. Okay. Um, unlike you, I didn't want to
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homeschool. Like I was like, I'm you're taking me away from all my friends.
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like, "Yeah, I want to sleep in, but at the same time, I was like, I have friends now, mom. You're taking all the
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way." But anyway, yeah, it was definitely um it was interesting cuz like you like my mom also was like
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there's a there's a shift in there that it's like it's a hard transition to get
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into a rhythm where you're like, "What am I supposed to do now?" Right? Like if
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you don't have a structure, you end up with the Bible and Highlights magazine
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for a year, right? Of like trying to figure out like what is this? And I can't even imagine. I I'm more a product
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of the 2000s um era of homeschooling and so there was definitely a lot more resources I feel like available at that
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point. Also, we had the internet. Um but yeah, I can't imagine being someone in
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the 80s in the '9s kind of being like I what do we do? Where where do I go for
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this? Yeah. Right. Right. There was no there was no internet and in fact we weren't even sure it was
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entirely legal. Oh god. Because I remember my mom telling us that um she was like, "If basically if if men
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in suits drive up the driveway and come to the door, don't answer it. You come and
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get me because they might be trying to make you go back to school." Oh man.
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Yeah. So, I know there was some um yeah, because like I said, it just wasn't
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there weren't a whole lot of people doing it. So, like I don't think the
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laws around it had been entirely clarified because technically from one perspective
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um and I've I I used to make a joke about this that like homeschooling is just truency for white kids, right? Like
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you could just get away with it. No one asked any questions, right? And um uh and I think at some level it it really
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might have been that, you know. Um and so when we were out in public, you know, I was always a little bit nervous around
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like police officers because I was like, do they are they going to wonder why I'm
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not in school? And what do I say? Am I going to get in trouble? Am I going to get my whole family in trouble? And am I
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going to get my mom in trouble? you know. Um, so it was a little bit sketchy that at the beginning. Um, for sure. Um,
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yeah. And not having internet, you couldn't just Google is it legal in Texas? Right. Right. You just couldn't.
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So, yeah. I think it's interesting too is you talked about how also your extended family wasn't and even your
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church was maybe not like fully on board with it. Yeah. where like that's also I
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mean that's also playing a role in that feeling of just like okay like we're
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doing something weird like you said like is this illegal how do we handle stuff you know I can't say that I've ever had
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really that fear I mean by the time I was 16 I was like driving my mom would send me to go do the grocery run by
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myself you know but it would be like 10:00 in the morning you know um and I wasn't really afraid of am I going to
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get in trouble cuz I could just say I'm homeschooled you know I did school last
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night. It's all good, right? You know, and they could look it up. There's, you
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know, a whole process of like here's how to, you know, in California, and that's
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where I grew up, it was, you know, is a very much like here's the whole process
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of how do you make your school a legitimate school and, you know, all that stuff. But that's such a
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interesting experience. And so I was wondering like was there a point where I don't want to say it became more
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legitimized in your brain, but like you talked about also the transition until you guys started to get a curriculum.
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Did you guys also find other homeschoolers in the area that you could kind of bond with? Yeah. Yeah. By the
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time I became a teenager, it was completely different. We had there was a a group. We were part of a very
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large homeschooling co-op or network in San Antonio that um that had all kinds of resources. They had like a
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homeschooling bookstore. We had a gym. We had a basketball league. We had like um certain classes that you could take
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as a part of the co-op that different parents would teach that had expertise on certain subjects. Um there was like
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debate clubs and drama and so like it became more like a like a almost a a private school experience a little bit
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because we started to connect with other people. Um, so yeah, by the time we got
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and and it was clarified by then by then like I feel like between the mid80s and
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the early 90s homeschooling experienced like a renaissance and I think my mom was just like on the frontiers of it and
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because it felt very common and not at all that weird by the time I was a teenager, which is pretty quick. Um,
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yeah. And so and and by then like I think most or all of our family had come around to it. Um the people in
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our church I in fact I think the pastors of our church if I remember correctly apologized to my parents for you know
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giving them grief about it initially because they came to embrace homeschooling and see the benefits of
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it. And um so yeah, so it definitely changed. And what also changed was by the time I became a teenager, I started
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to wish that I was in school. I didn't want to be homeschooled anymore. Okay?
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you know, so I started out really enjoying it and then and then started to feel like I was missing out on certain
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things and um and you know, I just wanting more friends and connection and more like res, you know, I was into
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sports and stuff and we had that as homeschoolers, but it was definitely an inferior product to put it
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mildly. Um, so, so yeah, to to answer your question, it did kind of normalize and become less of a weird thing, you
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know. Yeah. But I always felt weird. Oh, yeah. I still do. And I think that's
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just a part of the of it. like you never fully feel like you fit in or you get what's going on cuz I did miss out on
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these this entire like 10 to 15 year span of like popular culture that because for me we were very
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like not all homeschoolers are like this but we were like we didn't have a TV we
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didn't have we weren't allowed to listen to the radio or secular radio we didn't
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have access to like we didn't go to the movies much, you know, it was just very
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like very sheltered. So, I didn't really know what was going on. Like, what are
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kids talking about? What are they into, you know? Um, I didn't get it. I somewhat I somewhat feel that like I
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also had that protective growing Christian homeschool values, very plugged into like church. Church was
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kind of like the one of the big outlets of like that's where your friends are.
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That's where, you know, sometimes sports were there, sometime, you know, youth
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group. Um, that was just kind of my place. And I had some friends in that youth group who were public school kids,
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which was like, "Oh, wow. That's, you know, but also there's this kind of it
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it's funny because I think homeschoolers, there's two trains of thoughts I think with homeschoolers of
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the like either I'm the dumbest person in the room because like I know that my
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education is lacking or I feel super smart and I've been kind of convinced that my my education is so superior to
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like a public school scenario where you're like, "You guys are just dumb.
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I'm the smart one in the room." You know? I Yeah. Which one did you feel
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like? Oh man, that's a tough one. I I in some areas I felt smarter than other people.
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In other areas I was like, I am I'm stupid as all as all can be. Science is not my area, but when it came to things
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like history, my my parents really leaned into finding the things we were passionate about and really pushing us
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to research those areas. So, like, okay, for history, I really loved I was really
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into World War, uh, Revolutionary War, just wars in general. I think that's kind of maybe a boy thing, too, of just
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like, yeah, guns and swords and, you know, all that kind of stuff. So, I so I leaned heavily into that stuff where I
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was like, I I was pretty knowledgeable of that and I could talk anybody's ear
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off about it. And then I loved music and so I was really I was just really into the music industry. That's what I wanted
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to pursue as a career anyways. And thankfully I had parents who were like, "Yeah, you can listen to some rock
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music and you can, you know, dabble in some other uh genres other than Christian rock." Um but uh but I could
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talk anybody zero off about that stuff. But then it comes to science. I have a buddy who he ended up he works for like
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NASA and um uh some of he builds rockets and stuff. He's a rocket scientist now.
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Yeah. That dude would not shut up about science and he was just a genius at it. And I was like, you know, he made me
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feel like an idiot when we would chat. So I kind of I sit in both camps where I'm like some areas I'm like, "Yeah, I'm
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definitely superior in my knowledge about this than anybody else in the room, but other areas I was like, "No,
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I'm just I'm just dumb." Yeah, I think I probably felt the same. I I felt like certainly when it came to
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the Bible, I probably knew more than you did. Um but uh and maybe um yeah maybe certain elements of
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history. I was a pretty good I was a good reader. I enjoyed reading and so um and I think I learned to read fairly
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early on and I was just a voracious reader. So that I think helped I felt at least equal to
00:19:01
my public school and private school friends when it came to like English. Um but like you when it came to math and
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science um you know I it was it was tough and my best friend I think one of one of the saving graces in my life is
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that my best friend who lived two houses down um he his mom was a public school teacher and his dad was a college
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professor and he was brilliant and very studious. And so I both like had a good like measure of like where I stacked up
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and I was always below him. Uh he's gone on to like he got his PhD, he became a
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scientist. He studies like monkeys in Costa Rica now or something really okay cool like that. I also had like his
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parents I think were a little bit worried about me because they you know and they cared about me and they loved
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me and they wanted me to have a fuller I think cultural and academic experience than I was getting and they found ways
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for me to to get that when I would go over and I loved going over. I would they took me on trips uh like their
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summer family vacations which were very educational for me. They let me watch TV
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when I was at their house, play video games. There was access to like just like stuff I would not have at home. And
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it really kind of expanded my mind and my my heart in ways that I'm really grateful. Grateful for like looking
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back, you know. Um so yeah, shout out to Miss Vicki and Gamma Como uh Compost. Y'all really uh y'all really saved my
00:20:57
life in a lot of ways. I think it's always great to have people like that in
00:21:01
your life. I had like my we called them my adopted grandparents. They were like my my church grandparents, if you will,
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cuz all my other grandparents lived a little too far away. But Tom Ramenet, man, he he saw that I loved guitar and
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he was like, "Dude, I'm going to introduce you to G uh to Eric Clapton and uh BB King and like all these
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things." And like he was just like, you know, he would push me to be like, you
00:21:23
could play like this. You could, you know. Um, and I think you need I think kids in particular, I think, need people
00:21:29
like that in their lives that see they see the the the value and they see like what you're passionate about and they
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just push you to like go for it. Like just do it, go all in on it, you know, have fun with it, enjoy it. Um, no,
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absolutely. like I'm I am I love sports and my family is not a sports family at
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all and um and being homeschooled there was it was very unlikely that I was going to
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encounter sports opportunities but uh Fernando's dad GMO um he started coaching Fernando in basketball in the
00:22:06
YMCA and asked me if I wanted to join and he would play every evening he would practice with me and Fernando
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um you know, they had a hoop above their garage and he taught me how to play basketball and I fell absolutely in love
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with it and yeah, it became like, you know, a big part of my identity and um and it it changed my
00:22:30
life, you know, to to have that and um and I probably never would have gotten that into it if it hadn't been, you
00:22:38
know, for him. And um so yeah, so you're absolutely right. So like having those
00:22:44
those people um whether you're homeschooled or not, just having other adults that care about
00:22:51
you is really important. Um and not to say like I had wonderful extended family that did care about me a lot, but I was
00:22:57
an odd little kid and um I had interests that didn't that were different from a
00:23:03
lot of the rest of my family and and so I I'm grateful I just had an outlet for
00:23:07
that. Yeah. you know. So, yeah, I think yeah, there's there's something about
00:23:12
having like an exterior like your family your family is supposed to love and support you no matter what. That's, you
00:23:19
know, in a in a perfect world, we'll we'll say that. Um, you know, but having
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that outside kind of person, mentor, picture, you know, whatever it it's it's
00:23:29
incredible. I I've had a cute few of those in my life and they're just always
00:23:32
like the best people, you know, and they come and go. That's just life. But the
00:23:36
other thing they did is they were native Spanish speakers and so they wanted me to learn Spanish. And so when I would
00:23:42
come over to the house, GMO would only talk to me in Spanish and he would force me to try and figure it out. And it
00:23:50
helped me learn some Spanish, which is very valuable. Living in San Antonio, I should have been being taught Spanish
00:23:57
anyway. I feel that growing up California, same deal. It's like everybody speaks Spanish. I'm also, no
00:24:02
one believes this, I'm a quarter Hispanic, so I'm like, I really had no reason to not learn it. To not learn it,
00:24:07
right? Yeah. And I'm ashamed even though like I had that, I still I still should
00:24:12
know a lot more than I do. But yeah, uh but I am I am grateful for that like whole like kind of cultural window that
00:24:20
I just again would not have had, you know, because I wasn't in school. Had I
00:24:25
gone to public school in San Antonio, I would have had a lot of Latino friends, I would have been around a lot of
00:24:32
Spanish speakers, but where we were kind of a little bit isolated on the outskirts of town, um, I didn't, you
00:24:39
know, and so that was it for me. So, I want to shift gears just a little bit. I I kind of want to jump forward just just
00:24:46
slightly. Sure. So, so high school and going into like college years and like what did that look like for you? Because
00:24:55
for for me I definitely there was a lot more I don't want to say legitimacy to
00:25:00
like homeschooling but like it wasn't really an issue for me to get to college. I had transcript. I had you
00:25:07
know I was I was decent at enough stuff that I was like I could get into a couple places. So, but what did that
00:25:13
look like for you? Obviously, I know you you we've already talked about your
00:25:16
homeschool experience kind of evolved and it got more solidified, but like when you were gearing up for kind of
00:25:21
that launch, I guess we'll just say the adulthood launch, like you know, what
00:25:26
were you thinking about? What was going through your brain of like what's the
00:25:29
next step here? Yeah, I I wasn't sure. I had a few false starts. Um, I I wanted to be a Christian rock star.
00:25:44
That's what I wanted to be. So, I was in a few different few different bands uh
00:25:50
in high school, which I do talk about on the album a little bit. Yeah. You got a
00:25:54
great bit about the the rock band, Christian rock band. Um, and so I was hoping that would take off and, you
00:26:01
know, we would tour or something. Um, college was not really on my mind. Um, neither one of my parents went
00:26:09
to college and um, I had uh, one grandfather that that went to college and I don't think the rest of my family.
00:26:21
Um, I had a couple of cousins that went, but college just was not I know for some
00:26:25
kids it's kind of the expected thing, right? um wasn't really uh for me and my
00:26:32
parents didn't really push it. They never discouraged it. They didn't push
00:26:35
it and I think they just didn't know, you know, even how you would go about that probably. I I don't know. Um
00:26:43
so the Christian rock band thing didn't work out. Uh when I graduated high school, um I was working at a Christian
00:26:55
bookstore. um in San Antonio in their music department and uh I was enjoying that
00:27:03
and uh for the most part and um I had kind of gone I'd kind of gone through a
00:27:10
crisis of faith uh during my teenage years too. So my I had stopped going to church but I still
00:27:17
had most of my friends and stuff were were people I had met at church. So I still kind of had the connection and I
00:27:23
wasn't like antagonistic. I wasn't anti-church or anti-Christian. I just
00:27:28
realized like I don't think I really believe this or at least not in the same
00:27:33
way. And um and so uh so I'd stopped going to church. And um I did I decided
00:27:42
at some point and I'm not even sure why that I was going to I wanted to go to
00:27:45
community college and just kind of try it out. and I lasted like less than a semester and I was like, I don't think I
00:27:53
want to be in school. And I actually had a little I did go um my junior year of high school, I went for a semester to a
00:28:06
private Christian school in San Antonio because I wanted to play on their basketball team. And they had they had
00:28:13
like a a nationally ranked basketball. They were very very good and um and I wanted to play and I went and my parents
00:28:22
agreed to it and um I hated being in school. As much as I wanted the like social part of it, I was like, "Yeah,
00:28:33
wow, we're wasting a lot of time and a lot of these kids are really dumb and
00:28:38
they don't want to be here and they're just making everything harder and making
00:28:43
everything take longer." I was like, I could normally get my schoolwork done in
00:28:48
like two or three hours, right? And then have the rest of the day to do whatever
00:28:53
I wanted. And now I'm locked in this place for eight hours a day. Most of it
00:28:59
feels like wasted time to me because I could get all this stuff done if if y'all would just get out of my way and
00:29:05
just give me the work. I'll just do it, you know? Um and uh and so I decided it
00:29:12
just wasn't worth it. And so um uh I also buted heads with the uh administration at that school because
00:29:20
they were very very fundamentalist, very very strict. And I tend to like to push
00:29:26
buttons a little bit, push boundaries a little bit. And not even like I just remember one chap I was in chapel and
00:29:33
um the uh it was the assistant the vice principal was preaching in chapel and he
00:29:39
started talking negatively about Jars of Clay, the band. Yeah. and he was talking
00:29:48
negatively because uh they had decided to go on tour with Sting. Yeah. Yes. I remember he felt like they
00:30:00
had no they were basically by doing that they were endorsing Sting and what Sting
00:30:06
was about and that they if they're if they're Christians they shouldn't be
00:30:09
playing in those kinds of venues and environments. And I actually raised my hand in chapel, which you don't do like
00:30:16
you did. It's not a Q&A, but I was like, I raised my hand and he actually stopped
00:30:21
and he asked what I and I was like, doesn't it make s isn't that where you
00:30:26
would want Christians to be is like in front of non-Christians where they get a chance to like hear this the message and
00:30:34
this other perspective and stuff. And um anyway, it kind of became this thing uh
00:30:40
in the middle of chapel between and then I got called to the office afterwards and he was upset that I was disruptive
00:30:45
and and being rebellious and um so that was the other piece where I was like, "Yeah, I don't think I want to deal with
00:30:54
this." So yeah, uh I if I'm going to butt heads with um you know, a cranky
00:31:00
fundamentalist, I'll butt heads with my mom or my dad. You know, I have to do it
00:31:05
anyway. So yeah, it's so funny that you bring up Jars of Clay because um I went to the same
00:31:13
college that they went to. Granted, my time was way later. So Greenville College is now Greenville University and
00:31:19
Greenville, Illinois. It's where Jars of Clay formed. Yeah. They only lasted, I
00:31:23
think, a semester to one year before they dropped out to do the band full-time. Okay. And moved to Nashville.
00:31:29
Okay. And so anyway, so that's a big rich history of that school of like we learn
00:31:36
pretty much everything there is to know about Jars of Clay. Yeah. Uh the lead singer spoke at like my graduation and
00:31:42
stuff like that. Like they bring them back for anything and everything. But they're they're a great band. They were
00:31:47
a huge huge band for me growing up too of just like I loved their music was very influential. Yeah. So it's funny.
00:31:54
Well, I was excited. I you know when I was 16 I was excited because they were starting to have some crossover success.
00:32:01
Yes. And like they were getting played. I would just hear them on. By this time,
00:32:04
I was listening to secular radio because I had gotten my own car and I could drive and I could listen to whatever I
00:32:10
want. I could buy whatever CD. This was when CDs were a thing and I had my whole
00:32:15
like, you know, book of CDs and my, you know, and I could I could listen to whatever I wanted. So, I was just
00:32:20
excited. Oh, this band's like, you know, making it. And um and uh yeah, so they
00:32:27
were they were influential. Um, so is Greenville is it like a small like a Christian college? Very small Christian
00:32:35
college. It's like a thousand-ish students. It's right over the border from St. Louis, Missouri. So, it's about
00:32:40
45 minutes to an hour. Okay. Uh, depending how the wind travels. Um but yeah, very small school, very it's a
00:32:47
free Methodist uh school and uh but huge music program like very it's a very interesting thing
00:32:57
like that the history of it and like the people who have come out of there. Um Jar Clay obviously being a big one uh
00:33:03
one of the founders of In-N-Out Burger is like from there from way back. It used to be a women's college. Anyway,
00:33:09
there's a huge history there of stuff, but um and it's not super far from
00:33:13
Nashville, so a lot of people they have a great music business program and music
00:33:16
program and stuff like that. So, that's where I that's why I went there. I
00:33:19
wanted to initially do audio engineering, got into the music business side of things, was like, I'm going to
00:33:24
manage bands and stuff. And to your point about Clay being like on tour with Sting and kind of that like salt of the
00:33:31
earth, like let's go be a light in the in the dark places, right? It was always
00:33:35
funny to me how my my relatives and my friends back home, they would they would always ask me like, "What band do you
00:33:41
want to work with?" And at the time, this was before everyone knew that Kanye
00:33:45
was a Nazi, but um but I wanted to work for Kanye West. Really? And I was Yeah, I did. And I was like, I think it'd be
00:33:55
really interesting to work in the rap industry. And I and I I had a huge list of like all these secular artists that I
00:34:02
wanted to work with. And I just like I think it would be so much fun to go see that side of of the world and really
00:34:08
like push myself to be out there. And people would be like, "No, like you should go like work for like the News
00:34:13
Boys or Jars of Clay or Switchfoot or like any of the Christian bands." And
00:34:17
I'm like, "But they're all Christians already. Like I wanted that push to be
00:34:23
like something bigger than that." And um Yeah. So I just think it's all it's kind
00:34:28
of an interest that was an interesting point you brought up. I was like I resonate with this uh Yeah. Yeah. And I
00:34:32
will say, you know, I I had that same feeling of like I didn't want I didn't
00:34:37
want to be in a Christian bubble anymore. And I was interested in jars of clay, but I also part of me I was not a
00:34:46
huge fan of jars of clay because they felt a little too safe and mainstream. And that's this is when I had started to
00:34:52
discover like um kind of the Christian indie alternative scene. You know, this is
00:35:00
when like Tooth and Nail Records started putting out bands and like um started to
00:35:06
discover like there's like a punk scene and a you know, like a very kind of experimental art rock
00:35:16
scene and there's these music festivals that of like like Cornerstone Music Festival in Illinois that I went out to
00:35:23
a couple years and I was like it felt a little um more you know, a little more worldly, a
00:35:32
little edgier than what you would hear on um you know, Christian radio. Um, and so, uh, I I defended I wanted to defend,
00:35:45
uh, what what Jars of Clay was doing in theory, but there was also part of me that was like, I don't it still felt too
00:35:51
safe, you know, and which is why I think eventually when I decided to go to college, I never really considered going
00:35:59
to like a a Christian college. Um Mhm. Um it's that's probably where my parents
00:36:07
would have wanted me to go if I were um yeah, you know, that's where most of my
00:36:12
homeschool friends that were going to college, they were going to private Christian colleges. But I by that point
00:36:22
I was like, man, I really want to experience more of the world and uh just have a a
00:36:31
broader experience. And so uh I dropped out of uh I dropped out of community college, took a year off. I was just
00:36:39
working and um wasn't sure what I was going to do with my life. And then I got
00:36:43
really into um kind of through uh Christian apologetics. I got into philosophy and just reading philosophy.
00:36:55
And then I got into I have a brother my brother my older brother had left the church and um he was considered himself
00:37:03
a kind of like rationalist skeptic and started like getting me to read like Richard Dawkins and uh kind of these new
00:37:10
atheist types and um and so I started reading some of their stuff and I got really interested in philosophy and
00:37:18
science and trying to like integrate it with my faith and like right and so um I actually I read a book
00:37:31
about um uh I don't know if you familiar with the intelligent design movement but it
00:37:39
was kind of like it's a type of creationism but uh it's not like young earth creationism. It doesn't take the
00:37:48
Bible as a starting point, but it does uh they do argue that like there is clear kind of evidence of
00:37:59
uh intelligent design in biology and there's a lot of like serious scientists
00:38:07
that were a part of this and one of them wrote a book that I read and I emailed him and uh I was probably
00:38:17
17 at the time and uh either had not graduated yet or just graduated. I just emailed him and saying, "I really
00:38:25
enjoyed your book. This is fascinating. I'd really be interested in like learning more." And he um he immediately
00:38:32
wrote me back and this is we had just gotten a computer so like email was kind of new. Yeah. And uh he was like uh he
00:38:40
was like I want to connect you with some other people in this movement. and he made me a part of this like email
00:38:47
um list. And all of a sudden I was in this email list serve with all of these like
00:38:58
scientists and philosophers around the world who were talking about this intelligent design stuff. And I was
00:39:05
like, "Oh my god, this is fascinating." And this is something I could see myself
00:39:11
like really throwing myself into. And so it got me excited about learning and going to school because then I had in my
00:39:19
head that like, oh, okay, I'm going to either become a scientist or a philosophy professor and um I'm going to
00:39:27
like be a part of this like movement. And um and so that's when I got serious about like
00:39:36
okay I want to find a good university with like good you know science and philosophy program and so that's how I
00:39:43
ended up going to I ended up going to the University of Texas uh in Austin which is a massive school at like yes
00:39:50
55,000 students. Yeah, huge shift for me because you know I had never been to a public school at all and this is a
00:40:00
public university and certainly never been to anything this large and so um it it was it was a big it was a big shock
00:40:11
but I loved it. Like I loved the challenge of it. I think homeschooling kind of put a little bit
00:40:18
of a chip on my shoulder because I felt like I always had to prove myself that I
00:40:24
wasn't stupid. Yeah. And I wasn't stupid. I was just uneducated. Right. Right. Like there's a difference.
00:40:31
I wasn't stupid. I was just ignorant. Right. Because I just hadn't been exposed to stuff. I just hadn't had the
00:40:36
opportunities. And so and then once I had something that I was excited about learning, I really threw myself into it.
00:40:44
And um and yeah, so I I um to but applying to college, I do remember as a homeschooler, you know, it wasn't clear
00:40:54
how you do it. Um and I think that's why starting at the community college kind of helped
00:41:02
because it was just more accessible. We went into the office and I remember they
00:41:05
were like, "Well, he's going to have to take like a placement test and just to see where he's at
00:41:11
academically cuz I did have a transcript. My mom wrote my transcript. We wrote it together.
00:41:20
Um, and it was we really winged it cuz we didn't really remember everything that I had learned and grading was like
00:41:32
pretty loose. Uh, so so we basically made up a transcript for me and um I have a joke about it on the
00:41:42
album. Uh, you know it is you know if your mom writes your transcript you end up doing pretty good, right? So, yeah, I
00:41:49
um I we turned that in and they're like, "Okay, um thank you for the transcript.
00:41:55
We'll be sure not to set it down on anything wet since it's written on a
00:41:59
napkin, but um you're going to have to take this test." And so, I took some
00:42:04
kind of test. I wrote an essay for them, and I guess it was good enough that they
00:42:08
were like, "All right, we'll let you into community college." And um and then when I applied to real
00:42:16
college or real college, I don't know if that's community college is real
00:42:19
college, but when I applied to a four-year school, um I think that's when I had to take
00:42:27
like the SAT or one of those like standardized tests. And at that point, I do remember I did
00:42:36
have the sense that colleges were actually really interested in homeschooled students at that
00:42:42
point. And because I guess enough had gone to college and proven themselves that it was like, oh, this is these some
00:42:50
of these kids are really pretty pretty smart, you know. And um so I would say they rolled out the red carpet for me,
00:42:57
but they did facilitate my applying and it was fairly straightforward and um and
00:43:04
uh and it and it was great. Um yeah, and uh I'm really glad that I, you know, got
00:43:09
to have that uh experience. But I did once I got there, that's when the gaps in my education
00:43:17
really I think showed up, you know. Okay. Uh, and I did feel like I had to work twice as hard. You brought up like
00:43:26
them kind of not necessarily rolling out the red carpet, but having colleges starting to have an interest in
00:43:31
homeschool students. Yeah. And what I got told when I was headed to college was this. There was enough evidence that
00:43:38
showed that homeschool students thrived in the college experience because they already kind of knew how to like
00:43:45
individually like operate. They didn't need like a classroom setting. And so
00:43:49
when it came to like, hey, professors are going to hand you just like a ton of work, you have to just be able to do it
00:43:56
and have nobody looking over your shoulder demanding you do it. Yeah. And that, you know, homeschool students, I
00:44:03
think, tend to lean a little bit more towards Yeah. That's that's a possibility. Especially in your case,
00:44:09
your mom is is raising three kids, you know, and homeschooling them. My mom was raising two. I have friends who their
00:44:15
homeschool family is 12 kids, you know. It's like insane, you know, right? Um,
00:44:19
and so there is this kind of like you have to you have to have the drive to like do
00:44:25
it on your own. Um, and so I think that was like a really I don't know. It was
00:44:30
just an interesting moment that I think back on and I'm like, "Huh?" They wanted
00:44:33
me partly because of that. And then once I got there, I lied to everybody. I just
00:44:37
said I went to private school. I was like, "Yeah, I was like, I I told everybody I went to private school. I
00:44:43
wanted no one to know I was homeschooled." I told a few of the people who became my better friends. Um,
00:44:48
and then it eventually came out and I was less scared about it. But I I think I just wanted that like I don't want
00:44:54
this marker on myself. And I also I wanted to work in the music industry. I was like cool people work in the music
00:45:00
industry, you know, like I was like I I'm not a cool person. Um, and so it it
00:45:06
was definitely a it's an interesting thing to be like homeschooled. But to your point too, it's like the gaps show
00:45:11
up where you go Yeah. I really I don't know this all that well. Yeah. So, I got
00:45:16
to go figure it out. Yeah. But I felt like I I didn't mind I didn't mind
00:45:22
telling people I was homeschooled. There was a part of me that liked it. I like to like be like, "Yeah, I'm homeschooled
00:45:29
and I'm here and I'm I'm smart and I can we're out here, right?" Yeah. We're not
00:45:35
all a bunch of weird freaks, you know? Um, uh, so I think I liked it and like I said, it kind of gave me a little chip
00:45:44
on my shoulder that I think helped helped me, yeah, succeed in school because I I did want to prove that, you
00:45:54
know, homeschoolers can, you know, we're just as smart as anybody else, you know,
00:45:58
if you give us the opportunity to learn, you know. So, Exactly. Um, yeah. So, I I
00:46:04
actually I I embrace the identity. um pretty strongly, but the gap showed up and I was like that's when I really
00:46:12
started to feel like realize what I missed out on as a homeschooler and how just given the way
00:46:21
I was wired and what my interests were. Um, and I probably would have benefited quite a bit from
00:46:32
a structured school situation with college uh, as a as a target and a goal. You know, if I had been like prepared for
00:46:43
college, like I just like in a college prep situation, I think I really would have thrived um, and benefited from
00:46:50
that. uh because it made it a struggle in college, but you know, we do I'm sure
00:46:56
I learned a lot in the struggle, you know, too. Um yeah, so it's hard to sometimes look back on it and be like,
00:47:02
of course there's ever there's things we would always change, right, about like I
00:47:06
wish this was different. I wish that was different. And the the point of the show
00:47:09
is it's also to kind of like it's like, well, we made it through. We're we're
00:47:15
two successful guys. Granted, we're white. We got that working for us, but Absolutely. Yeah. But we're we're too
00:47:22
we've made it out. We're we're successful. We're still here. We're
00:47:25
standing, you know. And it's like, okay, we if if we can do it, you can do it,
00:47:29
too, you know. And um so I I do want to get to a little bit of like when when does comedy enter the scene for you of
00:47:38
like maybe it's not starting to do standup, but where did that have you always been a funny guy? Like is that
00:47:44
you know um or where where did that really come from? I think I started using humor. sarcasm in particular as a
00:47:53
like defense mechanism pretty early on as a teenager. And um I like I remember when I was 16, I my
00:48:05
friends uh had my church friends had an intervention with me, a sarcasm intervention where they literally sat me
00:48:15
down and were like, "Dude, we love you, but like you're too sarcastic too much of the time. Like
00:48:23
you've got to dial it back. It's just too much." And that was kind of a wakeup
00:48:27
call for me. Um that I was just really just leaning into it. It was just a way of like I think
00:48:35
uh protecting myself probably. Um and so I know that that's been a part of me for
00:48:43
a long time. Um but and I enjoyed standup. Um uh but I I wasn't really into it until
00:48:54
much later in life. So, like I think I started really paying attention to it uh in my like early 30s and then um because
00:49:06
I was just going through a hard time personally and comedy was just like a nice uh relief and distraction. Yeah.
00:49:15
And then I started when I was 35. So I was just pretty old to start a career in comedy. Um, you know, most of the people
00:49:24
that I know that uh that I started with were like um you know, early 20s. Some of them were still teenagers. They were
00:49:33
in high school doing comedy. And um so I was uh from the beginning kind of the the old man in the local comedy scene,
00:49:42
you know, but I just loved I just kind of fell in love with the art form. And I am the type of person when I get into
00:49:49
something, I really get into it, you know, like I really throw myself into it. And it happened to be just a time of
00:49:56
my life where um you know, my my marriage had had uh had broken up and um we were sharing custody of our kids and
00:50:08
so I would have like I would have my kids for a week and then they would be with their mom for a week. And so all of
00:50:13
a sudden I had these huge vacuums of time and um and so comedy was a way I was looking for ways to fill my time and
00:50:23
find a like creative outlet and something something about comedy also felt kind of therapeutic and so um
00:50:33
I had been a preacher. So after college, after college I um still thought I was going to be a
00:50:42
philosophy professor. I started a a PhD program in philosophy, realized it's not
00:50:48
what I wanted. I ended up dropping out and going to seminary instead. Okay. And uh and then after seminary, um I never
00:50:56
worked for a church. I worked for a couple of different nonprofits, but I did regularly preach in the
00:51:01
congregations that we were a part of. So preaching was like a regular part of my
00:51:06
life. And um at the time of the divorce, I had I was kind of going through kind of a spiritual shift too and had stopped
00:51:15
preaching and comedy was like uh you know it was kind of a lateral move in a way. It's very
00:51:23
similar. Yeah. you know, I was used to talking to people and I was used to the writing process. And so, and in my kind
00:51:31
of preaching, um, I tended to, uh, lean towards, you know, being like I leaned on humor and I
00:51:40
was fairly provocative and, you know, wanted to like get a reaction out of people, right? Which is what you do with
00:51:49
comedy. And and actually the first stand-up set I ever did, uh this was before I really got serious about it, um
00:51:59
I was still preaching and I was a part of a Menite church in San Antonio and the Sunday after Easter every year in
00:52:10
the Menite church, they have this tradition of humor Sunday and it's an old tradition that goes way back.
00:52:16
There's a few other denominations that that do it. Um but the idea is that um
00:52:22
this is Easter was the greatest trick that God ever pulled on the devil, right? And so the the Sunday after
00:52:31
Easter, you celebrate that by like um having this service that's devoted to humor. And so people would do skits,
00:52:39
some people would sing silly songs. Um, I chose to do a standup a five minute standup set making fun of Menites and it
00:52:50
crushed like it killed like it was it was so good and I love I had so much fun doing it and that's probably that was
00:53:00
two or three years before I actually went and tried standup you know really and um but I
00:53:07
think that's probably what put the the bug in me and there must have been something in me that what made me want
00:53:13
to try it in the in the first place. But um but yeah, that's what my first taste
00:53:18
of it and um and it stuck with me. And so so yeah, so when I started doing it kind of and I say seriously, when I
00:53:26
first started, I was just going to open mics just for fun. Like I said, I was I was trying to meet people. I was filling
00:53:31
my time. I was looking for a creative outlet. And I just found that I enjoyed the challenge of it. When it's good,
00:53:41
when you're making people laugh, there's nothing like it. It feels great. Um,
00:53:48
when it doesn't go well and you're bombing, there's nothing like it. Like
00:53:52
the pain of it, the the embarrassment, the humiliation, there's there's nothing
00:53:57
like it. And so the highs are really high and the lows are really low. and I just got addicted to it, you know. And
00:54:04
um I was gonna say because I look at standup comedy as like, you know, I I work in a creative field. I work with
00:54:11
podcasters, but like I and I wanted to work with musicians and stuff like that, but so I've just I have always been
00:54:17
drawn to the creative aspect of stuff. And what I think is so interesting is comedy is really the only
00:54:24
I I would argue the only creative one that like you get instant feedback, like you just said, right? Like if your joke
00:54:31
is hilarious, you will know instantaneously. You write a song, it's going to take you
00:54:38
six months to a year to really flesh out whether the audience likes this song or
00:54:42
not. Like there is something to the live performance where yeah, you can kind of
00:54:45
feel it, but you have to put it in front of a bunch of audiences, but yeah, with
00:54:50
comedy like you know pretty quickly like this is really bad or this is really good. And so, yep. You know, and and you
00:54:57
learn how to read people, too, where, you know, I'm sure that an audience in
00:55:02
Texas versus an audience in North Carolina or here in Tennessee or California, they got to be very
00:55:07
different, you know. Yeah. Which is part of the fun of it is part of the like the
00:55:12
learning how to read different audiences. And um but to your point about Yeah. the instant gratification. I
00:55:19
think that was was part of what was attractive to me is I could I could have an idea that day and go up that evening
00:55:28
to an open mic and try it out and immediately get some feedback on it. But the thing the other thing about comedy
00:55:34
that's different I think from other a lot of other art forms is that you can't
00:55:40
you can't practice it in private. You can't do comedy in your room. you you
00:55:46
can't you have to go on stage. You have to do it. Um it's not like guitar or
00:55:53
whatever where you can sit in your room and learn the chords. Like you don't
00:55:57
know if you're playing it right until you're in front of an audience and they
00:56:00
tell you that you're playing it right, you know? So, exactly. You just got to
00:56:04
keep getting up and which means you have to be bad in front of people usually for a long time before
00:56:16
you get good. So it takes a certain kind of um I think uh mental illness probably
00:56:24
to subject yourself to that for long enough to get good. You know, it is a weird like almost
00:56:31
addiction that I think you have to have because most people that start a lot of people start standup. They try it and
00:56:39
then they they quit for a number of reasons and there are so many good reasons to quit and um
00:56:46
and the ones that that stick with it um you know for whatever reason I think I mean I think there is something wrong
00:56:54
with us for sure. I'm not I'm not sure what but as a group there is something
00:56:59
yeah wrong. It is a kind of you know massochism um to yeah to keep putting yourself in that situation
00:57:07
because I remember the first time I bomb the first time I did it I did okay. The
00:57:12
second time I I did really bad and it hurt and I remember it kind of made me mad at
00:57:21
myself because I was like, why didn't it work this time? And I was like, I'm
00:57:26
going to figure this out. I'm gonna like I'm gonna go I'm gonna go back home and
00:57:30
I'm gonna like rewrite some stuff and I'm going to come back and I'm gonna I'm
00:57:33
gonna try it again until I figure out how to get this to work. You know, I remember I watched this uh documentary
00:57:41
at one point and I'm trying to I want to attribute it to the right person. I
00:57:45
don't think I'm going to, but I they were interviewing like Jerry Seinfeld
00:57:48
and Dave Chappelle and some of the great some of the the biggest stand-up comics
00:57:52
of all time. And uh they were talking about like the New York circuit because, you know, that was that was the thing.
00:57:58
And they would talk about, one of them was talking about how they would go do sets at like six different clubs in one
00:58:04
night and it was just like this hour I'm here, you know, and they'd move. And one
00:58:08
of them was saying how he's like and I would change one word per joke per spot
00:58:13
to see what landed the best with audiences. And that's how I would practice my jokes. And I was like, that
00:58:18
is such an interesting concept because again to go back to that concept of like that that thought process of like the
00:58:24
instantaneous like reaction and knowing this is what lands. Well, you sub out this word for that or timing. It might
00:58:31
be a timing issue or whatever. You can practice all of that within the span of, you know, they're out for six hours a
00:58:37
night, whatever. You know, practice all of that and then and then the next week when you have your next sets, you know,
00:58:43
you're like, we're back at it. And now that joke is much more refined. And I
00:58:47
think that's such an interesting it's such an interesting thing because I've worked with enough
00:58:53
musicians where we look at similar things within the music, right? Of like a pause in a song or like when the drums
00:59:01
come in or you know all of these different things that evoke a certain emotion which comedy is very it's
00:59:06
emotional, right? It's meant to make you think and make you feel something and
00:59:10
music is the same way. And so you look at it and you go, okay, like I've been
00:59:15
sent so many albums that I'm just like I'll sit there and I'll listen and I'll
00:59:18
listen and I'll listen and I'm like, there's something missing. What is
00:59:21
missing? And it's like it might be a word. It might be like a freaking triangle. It might just be like this
00:59:27
little tweak that we make and it's like, okay, that's it. That's the hit. That's
00:59:30
the That's the single. Um, and so I think it's an interesting I don't know.
00:59:35
I I love that kind of stuff. I you know, no, it's a puzzle. It's a it's a total
00:59:40
That's the fun of it. is the puzzle is trying to figure it out like how do you
00:59:43
fit it together just right? Which pieces are missing? Which pieces are in the wrong place? And um yeah, absolutely.
00:59:52
And uh and that's, you know, the thing is you never feel like, and I'm sure
00:59:58
it's the same with a song, I never feel like a joke is done. Like even all these
01:00:03
the jokes that are on my album um you know some of those jokes I wrote my like third year into comedy. So I've
01:00:14
been doing them like seven years now. I'm about 10 years in and um and they're
01:00:20
still even after I recorded them I was like oh you know what I think I I think there's a better way to do that or I
01:00:26
thought of a new tag for that joke that I've been doing for seven years. you
01:00:30
know, because it just feels like it's never done. It's always it's always um
01:00:36
it's always growing and changing. And so that's what keeps it interesting to me,
01:00:40
you know, and keeps me excited about it. Um even when there's no success, because
01:00:46
it is a very hard business, just like music, very few people that do it are able to
01:00:52
make a living at it. And those that are, it's a hard living. you know, it sounds
01:00:59
fun and like um you know, uh exciting, but most of it's not. Most of most of the day-to-day
01:01:08
stuff of a musician or comedian, um it's not the fun part. The being on stage is
01:01:14
the smallest part of it, you know. Yeah. Um it's all the other stuff, you know,
01:01:19
the travel. Yeah. and you know, which is really hard, especially if you have a family and you know, um it's it's just
01:01:26
the the logistics of of of getting places and stuff. It's exhausting and it's hard on
01:01:33
relationships. So, yeah, you nailed it. It's definitely it's a challenge and
01:01:38
it's it's such an I don't know. It's it's a great creative outlet like you
01:01:44
said and I think it's so cool when people can make it and they can make it work and like but yeah I the number of
01:01:50
times it like now now understanding the peak behind the curtain Yeah. of like seeing how the industry works. It's such
01:01:56
a I I have so much more um like appreciation for like when I go to a a smaller comedy show or even a
01:02:06
larger one like going up to the opener after the fact and just being like yo I loved this bit that you did right and
01:02:12
like just attempting positive because it's like that's huge that's so huge you don't
01:02:18
know how much work went into all of this to get them here where they are today right and so it's like you know if I can
01:02:24
say one nice thing about Um it it it might make their whole day. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because if if they're like
01:02:33
99% of comedians, they get off stage and alls they can think about is where they
01:02:39
messed up. Yeah. Or that that spot where people didn't laugh or didn't laugh hard
01:02:45
enough, you know. So, right. Uh so getting that kind of feedback Yeah. really can make their whole night, you
01:02:52
know. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So tell people. So, the album is called Almost a Grown Man. It's coming out the 25th of April.
01:02:58
This episode, I think, is going to is going to drop after that. So, it'll be
01:03:01
live. Yeah. Where where what's the best place for people to go like connect with
01:03:05
you, find it, buy it, stream it, whatever, find shows. Yeah. Well, um so you can go to my website,
01:03:13
jeremyaldder.com. Uh and that's where you'll be able to find links to, uh the
01:03:18
album, to uh previous special that I've done, and all my upcoming dates. The
01:03:23
album will be streaming on all the major platforms. You'll be able to find it on
01:03:27
Spotify and um Apple Music or wherever you stream music. It'll it'll be there.
01:03:32
Um and so, uh yeah, shouldn't be too hard to find. Cool. And that's all going
01:03:37
to be linked down in the description as well. So, go go give Jeremy a follow and
01:03:41
and see what's up there. Give it a listen. I've listened to it. It's a
01:03:44
great album. I got a sneak preview, so thank you for that. Um I think my favorite of course. Yeah. I think my
01:03:50
favorite joke has to be you have a joke about purity rings and how you didn't
01:03:54
wear one. I don't want to butcher it like if you want to tell it. Um yeah. Um right. So that one's about So
01:04:02
like most a lot of my friends in youth group wore purity rings and um uh but I I didn't because um you I didn't have to
01:04:12
because I was homeschooled and uh and that would be redundant, right? That I'm
01:04:16
not having relations. Um, but I also realized that uh the pair of corduroy pants that my mom sewn for me sent the
01:04:29
same message as a purity ring. Um, so I didn't need to wear a ring because uh
01:04:35
pretty much any belt can be a chassity belt if you're wearing your purity pants
01:04:40
is uh is the joke. So yeah, true story. Yeah, that would that would hit with me so hard. Yeah, I was that was that was
01:04:48
going to be my question after it was like is is this based on a true story? We got really into sewing our own
01:04:53
clothes and so my mom made some I also made some of my own clothes. Yeah. Which I unfortunately don't have anymore but
01:05:01
uh because I would love to um be able to share those with the world. But um Yeah.
01:05:08
No, that's true. We we were making our own We were making our own clothes. Yep.
01:05:12
We were one of those homeschool families. Yeah. I mean, hey, it, you know, to to each their own. I won't say
01:05:19
that I necessarily made my own clothes. I do know a lot of the girls in my group
01:05:23
growing up, they would they would all make their own bathing suits during the summer. Um, wow. Again, like you, we
01:05:28
grew up in very purity cultureesque environment. And so, um, they didn't feel like they could find something at
01:05:33
the store uh that was that was modest enough. So, um, that was always an interesting experience to kind of go
01:05:40
over and be like, "So, what are you guys what are you guys making?" Um, but I
01:05:45
didn't need it either. I was also a theater kid, so I mean I've worn tights
01:05:48
and wigs and all that kind of stuff. So I, you know, yeah, I to to your point, I
01:05:53
didn't need to wear a ring either cuz they could just smell. I just oozed homeschooler.
01:05:59
Um, so okay, I want to as we kind of wrap up here, I I want to kind of look back a little bit and ask you some
01:06:07
questions about as you as you've kind of, you know, homeschooling is definitely a part of your identity
01:06:12
still, which is awesome. Um, it's something it took me a while to get there where I was like comfortable
01:06:18
expressing that part of me. But is there what like what aspects of the homeschool
01:06:25
experience do you think you appreciate the most looking back on it? Um I think the independence and the freedom that I
01:06:34
had to kind of shape my days was huge. Um, and you know, and that was that was the
01:06:44
biggest adjustment for me when I dipped my foot back into school. Um, is just, you
01:06:53
know, not having the the freedom to decide what to do with my time, you know. So, I think that's probably the
01:07:01
biggest. I think also I do appreciate I always felt a little bit like an outsider
01:07:10
and I think that helped me recognize other people who felt like outsiders and connect with other people
01:07:20
who felt like outsiders. And I appreciate having that perspective. Um, and I'm I'm I'm I'm grateful for
01:07:33
that. Um, even though like I'm the my my views now, my beliefs are very different than what they were when
01:07:44
I was being homeschooled. I do feel like I have a kind of critical lens on mainstream culture that um came from
01:07:57
being homeschooled and not just taking things for granted, you know, um basic assumptions that you would have if
01:08:06
you grew up kind of in the mainstream, you know. So, yeah. Yeah, I totally I I agree with you 100%. That's like, yeah,
01:08:16
I'm not even going to add to it because I think you nailed it right on the head. I did also want to ask you
01:08:22
this, too, because you are a parent. You're a parent of four kids. Um um and so when you look at their like
01:08:31
education now, and I don't know if your kids are homeschooled or not, but like
01:08:35
has that run through your brain of like h how has that factored into your decision to raise your kids as they are
01:08:43
today? and like their education. Um, so my kids are all in public school. Uh, two of them have graduated. Um, we
01:08:55
briefly tried homeschooling um when they were very little. Um, and that lasted about a year and it just felt like too
01:09:06
overwhelming for us and I think for them. I could tell we just were not able to give them what we felt like they
01:09:12
needed. And part of it was just like, you know, you have four very young kids all with different I think the oldest at
01:09:19
the time was um maybe in fourth or fifth grade and then we would have had like a
01:09:24
third grader and a kindergartener and a baby, you know, and so like trying to juggle all of that, I was like, man, it
01:09:31
gave me so much more appreciation for my mom. I was like, I don't know how you
01:09:36
did it, you know? This is uh this is we need a break in order to be who we want to be for our kids and for each other.
01:09:44
We can't be with them all 247 and so um so yeah so we that was shortlived and they've they've gone to
01:09:55
public school and they've they've thrived and done well and I've also
01:09:59
become a very strong believer in an advocate for public education. I think it's important and necessary and
01:10:09
valuable that we have um universally available solid good education for kids. Not every kid can be homeschooled. In
01:10:23
fact, most can't. Most families in America don't have the resources to homeschool their kids. the financial
01:10:29
resources for one to have one parent be able to stay at home uh is very very hard now. Um and so just
01:10:41
financially it's it's it's a huge barrier for people. Even if they wanted
01:10:45
to homeschool, they can't. And also to be honest, most people are not qualified to
01:10:54
homeschool their kids. They're just not. Your mom had an educa a background in education, which
01:11:00
is great. Most parents don't. Mine did not. I love my mom and my dad. They did
01:11:06
the best they could. They had no business trying to be a school for us. They had no business doing that. And
01:11:15
because they couldn't they couldn't and so I think you know it's it's uh I I I
01:11:22
came to realize that and I and I came to really you know growing up public schools were like always painted
01:11:29
negatively for me and they were seen as like a threat um you know a spiritual threat, a political threat, a cultural
01:11:38
threat. They were just it was all bad. And um I came to learn that that wasn't
01:11:44
the case. I went to college. While I was in college, I started uh working as a substitute teacher in the public school
01:11:51
system. And I was like, man, these are just regular people. And these are just regular kids. And this is the most
01:11:59
accessible education option for the vast majority of people. And we want people educated, right? So like, so let's
01:12:11
stop crapping all over public schools and let's give them the resources they
01:12:17
need to provide a good solid education for the people that that want it. So, so yeah. And so I felt like also a little
01:12:25
bit of like I'm going to send my kids to public school and if I've got a problem
01:12:30
with the school, I'm going to now be invested in it to help make it better for my own kids, you know, and therefore
01:12:38
for the other kids in my community who I now realize like I'm responsible for.
01:12:47
Yeah. And we are truly in this life together. And we are, you know, we are one body and when one of us suffers, we
01:12:57
all suffer. And so I want I I really do believe there is such a thing as the common good. And I want I feel like
01:13:05
public education can serve the common good and I want to support it and I wanted my kids to be a part of it. So,
01:13:12
um, all that to say, you know, I like I realize there are people for whom particularly I think kids,
01:13:21
um, neuroatypical kids can really benefit from homeschooling because a lot of schools are not set up to help with
01:13:29
them. There's lots of kids I've heard stories from parents whose kids were
01:13:33
just bullied in school. And not just public school, private school has a huge bullying problem, too. has all of the
01:13:40
same problems as public schools and some worse. And so in that case, like homeschooling can really make a lot of
01:13:47
sense. I get that. But I think in general, I want I want people in public school learning how to live together.
01:13:57
Yeah. how to be together, how to learn together, how to create community together, you know, and because that's
01:14:04
one of the things I think I did miss being homeschooled is the socialization process, socializing into a
01:14:12
multicultural um uh you know um country. Um, and you know, being so isolated, I didn't I just didn't know how to
01:14:27
interact with people that don't share my my same beliefs or outlook on life or
01:14:32
have a very radically different experience growing up. Um, I was sheltered from all of that. And so then
01:14:39
I had to learn it on the, you know, on the fly much later, um, without the like social skills that
01:14:46
I probably should have developed earlier on. And so I didn't want my kids to
01:14:49
experience that, you know, I wanted them to to have the full the full life experience. And if there were
01:14:56
corrections that needed to be made about or influences I didn't like in public
01:15:00
school, those could be dealt with at home. You know, I 100% I I'm I'm with
01:15:05
you. I agree with you. I think my big the biggest thing I'm an advocate for is
01:15:09
parents being involved in their kids's education and and recognizing the strengths, the weaknesses, what works
01:15:16
best for your kid and pushing them to be the best version and giving them the tools they need and and to your point,
01:15:21
your kids are in public school, but being when you see things in the public school system that you don't agree with,
01:15:26
being able to address that and not just be angry, but be like, how do we make this better? And I think that's what
01:15:32
we're missing a lot of um in this country. And to your point, I think also being able to have that socialization
01:15:38
and know we're growing up in a multitude of cultures inside of the US. You just
01:15:43
go between states, you go between towns. There's a multitude of different cultures and belief systems that happen.
01:15:50
And we got to figure out a way to come together and work together. And you know, sometimes we got to set
01:15:55
differences aside. Sometimes we got to have healthy disagreements. We got to work on that, people. So hear
01:16:01
me all. Right. Amen. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much. Um, like I said before, go stream the album. Go
01:16:10
support this guy. And, um, Jeremy, you're always welcome back in the Ex Homeschoolers Club. Uh, thank you for
01:16:16
doing what you do. And, uh, bring a smile to people's faces. Thank you, Jacob. Appreciate it. Can't wait to get
01:16:22
my Ex Homeschoolers Club membership card in the mail. Very excited. Yeah. Yeah. I
01:16:27
got to work on that. I gota That should be the merch. Honestly, I've been I've
01:16:30
been playing around with some ideas. I'm like, that's that's probably the move
01:16:33
right there. Let's just send out membership cards. But, um, yeah. Well, cool. Well, to the audience, thank you
01:16:38
guys so much for tuning in. Hope you hopefully you stayed to the end. I really appreciate those of you who did.
01:16:43
And, uh, until next week. All right. We'll see you. Peace. [Music] [Music]