Trae Crowder
Appearances
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My whole life growing up, poor, rural Tennessee, whenever I heard others talk about white people, in my head that was always like Connecticut, Yacht Club, like, is that dill? Fucking white people, right? Like, white people. And I didn't know what I was, but I knew I wasn't the same thing as them. And it was very confusing to me as a young man. Now that I'm an adult, it couldn't be more clear.
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Yeah, I don't know. He loves ratings and stuff. He loves a hit. And even though it seems like antithetical to their whole general immigration philosophy, it's a TV show that people like. And so he probably thinks they're doing great work over there or whatever, I would imagine. Yeah. Which, I mean, from a TV perspective, not that they're not. There's like eight spinoffs or whatever.
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No, we don't watch all of them. We just went through a little spell there where we were watching it. I actually... It actually wasn't even her. It was... I was gonna... We... It doesn't make any sense. You ended up there. Yeah. We were trying to do these... Me and these two guys, other comedians, Corey and Drew, that I have a podcast with and collaborate with and stuff.
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We were trying... We were doing these... digital sketches for Comedy Central at the time, and we were thinking about doing one that was... Drew had the idea to do one based on 90 Day Fiancé, and I'd never seen it. So to watch it, or to research it, I mean, I watched it and then ended up getting sucked into it. Yeah, I got hooked a little bit and watched a whole season or two or whatever.
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And then we never even did that sketch, by the way. So I just... So I just watched it just to watch it.
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No, yeah, you're right. I mean, it was both of those things are true. Like I had started I started stand up in 2010 in Knoxville, Tennessee, where I was living at the time. And and I had been doing it for like, you know, six years or whatever. And it was going fine. Like for all things considered, I lived in Knoxville and I had like a manager in L.A. and I'd gotten into this.
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writer's development program that NBC had and all this stuff, so I was feeling pretty encouraged by it, but I was in complete anonymity. I had no following. No one knew who I was or anything like that. Couldn't sell any tickets or nothing. But I still was pleased enough with how it was going, and then I decided to make these Internet video at the time and stand up.
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I was closing with this bit about the simplest thing, but it was basically just on a set list. If I wrote it out, I called it the liberal redneck bit, but I never said the words liberal redneck on stage. It was basically I said, you know.
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Everybody that hears this accent assumes I'm one type of person, like a Bible thumping troglodyte, because that's the only time you ever hear this accent in the media. It's that type of person. Yep. But I'm not that type of person. So I got to figure something out to try to balance the scales. I got to find a way. I need to go out in public and...
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you know, be just as loud and redneck as they are, but just say a bunch of super liberal shit to like, you know, try to balance the scales. And then I would literally just scream a bunch of like really, really liberal political talking points, but in the most redneck fashion that I could. And it like, I closed with it. It always worked.
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Even in like, like small comedy clubs and like Southern cities and stuff like that. Like it always worked because it's wild to say now, but in that time, you know, 2015 ish and like, It wasn't as like charged, the politics.
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Right, so like people would... There'd be plenty of people in the crowd who were like, they were conservative, but they would still laugh at that bit because it was just like, that's just a funny juxtaposition. So it worked as a stand-up bit, and I had the idea to try to make internet videos out of it. And at first I was like, ah, man, but I'll have to buy a fancy camera.
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I'll have to figure out how to edit things and light things. It all sounds so familiar. I don't know how to do any of that. And it just felt like a barrier to entry or something. And then one day I saw this preacher guy, like a deep south preacher somewhere in North Carolina, who was standing in the woods by a big truck, just yelling in his phone about like...
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He was preaching fire and brimstone about the dangers of transgender people using the bathrooms with their little girls and all this type of stuff. And it's like not a dick joke inside. It wasn't funny at all. Just spewing venom. And it had like 20 million views or something like that on Facebook. Amongst people on the right, obviously. But when I saw that, I was like, oh, wow, okay.
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If that guy doing that thing, if that's what I'm trying to make fun of or whatever, then I don't need to do anything fancy about it. In fact, that would be a mistake. That would be the wrong thing to do. I should just do exactly what this guy does. I should just pull my phone out and yell at it. Yeah. And once I had that sort of realization, I made the first one like in the next couple of days.
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And the first one got like 50,000 views or something, which I was over the moon about. I was thrilled with that. And then the second one I made was also about the whole transgender bathroom law thing. And that one like went to the moon. It's like 30, 50 million views or something. And just like. went like crazy, you know, megaton viral and like changed my life literally overnight.
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So it was like zero to a thousand. So I'd been working at it for a while and it was a very deliberate thing, but I also did not expect it to work like that. And then when it did, like I still had a day job at the time and I posted it the night before and I was sitting at my day job the next day and it was like an office job. I worked for the U.S.
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Department of Energy, which I'm sure won't exist soon, but I used to work there. And I was sitting in a conference room in some meeting, and, like, my phone, like, got hot in my pocket. Like, so hot. Like, I don't know if you remember, around this era, phones would sometimes just explode. Yes. Remember how phones used to just blow up for a while? Yeah.
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So my phone got like real hot in my pocket. And I like freaked out, put it up, threw it on the table or whatever. Like, you know, told everybody to duck, get down. It's going to blow. But it didn't. It wasn't exploding. It's because I had, you know, I got like notifications and stuff. And it overloaded my phone when it all started.
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And the phone never did explode, but it ran the battery completely down in 15 minutes or something. And my phone died. And I'm still at work knowing that something is happening. But now my phone is dead and I'm there the rest of the day. And by the time I got off work and got home, it was like... You know, I mean, like I said, my life had changed. I wasn't ready for it either.
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Now I have a fan page. First of all, at this point in time, Facebook was still the main one.
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Well, 10 years ago, almost 10 years ago, Facebook was still the main one. Of course, yeah. And so all this was on Facebook. And I didn't even have a fan page or nothing. That first video that went viral was just on my personal Facebook page. So I maxed out my number of Facebook friends immediately. First of all, I shouldn't have been accepting all those people as friends. Because it's different.
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Followers and friends, it's two different things. But at the time, I was like, I got to accept I accept everybody, but I maxed that out immediately, and then it was just nuts, and I was getting... I got contacted by Warner Brothers. They signed me to a development deal. I signed a book deal with a publisher. I started touring. I quit my day job and started touring.
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I didn't think anyone was going to... Even in spite of all that, I didn't think anyone was going to come to the shows. I was like, you know, dude, look, it's one thing to watch somebody... Like, to click play on a video on your computer or on a phone. Right. Like, it's a very different thing to... Spend $20 and get a babysitter or whatever and come out to a comedy show.
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I was like, nobody's going to do that because of these. And we did a trial run of one week of dates. And the very first tour date I ever had as a headliner was at the Punchline in Atlanta. And it sold out almost immediately. We had to add a second show and it sold out too. And that's when I was like... Holy shit. This is wild.
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So thankfully, I did beforehand, I had a manager already who lived in Los Angeles, but she was very green and new. She was like a rookie manager herself. They gave you the rookie, yeah. But she... still she helped me navigate all that because she at least, you know, had some notion of how things were supposed to work, but like, I didn't even have an agent yet or anything.
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And the, the Warner brother, the, the, um, like, uh, uh, assistant to, or secretary of, or something like that of the president of Warner brothers television, like sent me a message on Facebook is how that is, how that happened initially. And then, um,
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and then I got contacted by a literary agent, uh, because she knew that, you know, there was, uh, whatever, a publisher wanted to do a book deal or something. And, um, yeah. And it just, I mean, it was wild. And then I was on, you know, a couple months later I was on like real time with Bill Maher the Friday after the election in 2016, like three days after the election appearance.
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Like the whole, that was so surreal, that whole thing. Because, I mean, you know. Of course. Everybody was pretty gobsmacked in that audience or in that production staff and everything. Like people were not expecting that to have happened. And the mood was just wild. And especially added to it is the fact that I'm fresh out of the holler and I'm, you know, I'm new to all this.
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So just the experience of even being there was crazy to me. And then add on top of that, the larger societal context and the energy and everything. And it was like, I mean, it was nuts.
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I mean, I don't know. I really do think like I know I just said a minute ago, like right before I went viral and I was doing that bit on stage in 2015 and it was fine. That is all true. But it still does feel to me like it. A happened pretty quickly and be like, you know, coincided with the rise of Donald Trump and MAGA specifically.
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And I feel like the reason for that is all the people who are not on board with it were so just so powerfully like you guys are joking, right? Like that's you cannot be serious here.
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And then the people who were on board with it were already so sensitive to feeling condescended to, or however you want to put it, by the same people, that that really struck a nerve with them, the general reaction to it. And also they liked it in a way that we were so put off by the whole thing. And it just like...
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It was kind of woven into the whole MAGA experience from the very beginning, I feel like. And then so it, you know, as that got to be more and more of a thing leading up to the election and certainly after they won, it was like we were kind of in it at that point because I had been doing that bit in front of live shows and never had a single problem with it ever before.
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But now that I have an internet presence, I mean, that whole time, you know, in 2016 and everything, like, I mean, I'm getting death threats and crazy stuff all the time, you know. So, yeah, I felt like it happened pretty early on in the process and it has only gotten worse over the intervening years, I feel like.
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moment in 2025 because you do get death threats and people want to and you don't know who's out there you don't know who's taking it more seriously than the next guy right well i mean honestly i probably should i guess but i don't i don't really worry about that part of it too much and i guess it's because in nine years in i thankfully you know knock on wood i haven't had any kind of like real life experiences or anything that made me realize like oh this is
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This is a serious concern, but it still is tough. I mean, that's why I said you said, yeah, we don't do politics. I was like, yeah, good call. It's like, because I've... I mean, there's a lot of aspects to it. Honestly, before this most recent election, it's not that I... I did not think I knew what was going to happen. I didn't know what was going to happen.
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I was like, you know, this could go either way in my mind. We'll see. But had it gone the other way, I had fully intended to, like, I kind of had a plan in my head for, like, pivoting away from politics. Because in my head, it was like, had it gone the other way, it's like, okay, we could put all this. Mm-hmm.
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nastiness behind us and just kind of go back to the old boring version where people don't care as much where no one talks about politics and all the corruption happens behind the scenes right yes and then I could do like I was gonna do like you know cooking videos and just more stand up clips and that type of thing yeah
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But then that didn't happen, and now I feel almost obligated to keep – because of my brand and what I do, it's like, well, I can't stop that now. So I'm even – I'm deeper in it now than I have been in recent years. But it is – it's obviously – it's divisive. So it's like I'm on – there's a huge chunk of people I'm never going to get on board, no matter what, because of that.
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frankly never saw coming is that uh there's been a huge influx of like right wing stuff in the comedy world specifically like and that never used to be the case it used to be like it was like a stereotype or a cliche even that it's like are there any uh conservative comedians is there anybody funny that's conservative it's like it just it just doesn't happen there'd be like a couple of
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Token ones you could throw out or whatever. It's like, well, post 9-11, Dennis Miller is, you know, he's pretty good. Or it's like, you know, Nick DiPaolo or Adam Carolla or guys like that. But, like, they were very much the minority. And now... the objectively the biggest people in the comedy world are at least somewhat associated with the right.
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Or if not all the way on the right, at least they're anti-woke or whatever. They're flirting with it. Some of those guys that get categorized over there,
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i don't think it's fair i don't think they they are actually like that but they do have a lot of fans that believe they are like that and then and then some of those guys i mean it's you know they just are that way they just are that way yeah right but there's a huge chunk of them and they're like some of the biggest names in comedy and serious power brokers and all that and it's like
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I never, ever would have anticipated that that would happen when I was getting started.
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All the time. But even though it wasn't as much of a thing, you weren't supposed to talk about like religion and politics. Right. But, but still, but the main thing for me, I've talked about this a lot, but it's true.
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The thing that made it different is that like, so I was raised by a single father and my dad had only one sibling, a younger brother, my uncle Tim and my uncle Tim is openly gay and has been since, you know, I was born. So, uh, and this was, you know, I'm growing up, I'm a kid in the nineties in the rural South. So there's like, I mean, just rampant homophobia, you know? And, uh,
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And I always loved Uncle Tim and was always just very opposed to that. And part of that also was that I did not grow up in the church at all. So those two things definitely made me sort of stand out. And also I was very... Combative is not the right word, but I was very open with how I felt about that stuff and my disagreements. And a lot of people were...
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A lot of times the people in places like that who are on the other side or on the left or whatever, they just – they, like, never speak up and I don't blame them. It's like you don't want to be the one that ruins Thanksgiving dinner or whatever or just gets yelled – gets ganged up on.
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So I get it, but I never had that problem when I was growing up. And what I've always chalked that up to is the other thing that was going on with me as a kid was that, like – I was the smart kid in my school, which I realize now looking back is like being the straightest guy to share a concert. It's not really that impressive, but I didn't know that. I had no frame of reference.
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So at the time, as a child and as a teenager, I literally left that town. I left high school genuinely believing that I was goodwill hunting, like a prodigy. level intellect. That's how I thought of myself. And then realizing in my 20s that that was not the case really screwed me up and engendered a major quarter-life crisis that fucked me forever. A lot of gifted kids have that problem.
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You end up being just a burned-out husk at 26 or whatever. But anyway, but as a kid and as a teen, I thought very, very highly of myself in terms of intelligence and intellect. And so it was always a thing where it's like, well, yeah, all these so many people surrounding me, they disagree with me. But like, you know, of course they do. They're all idiots.
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And I'm brilliant, you know, like, so it makes sense that I would be the only one who's right about this thing, you know, like that.
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Yes, exactly. And it's like, that's... You know, I realize now that's... I mean, I'm very self-aware of how douchey and insufferable that is now. But at the time, I wasn't aware of that. So, like... So, because I felt that way, I just had no qualms about just being up front with, like, that's ridiculous. You know, you're wrong, I'm right, whatever, and pushing back on people. So...
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Like, I remember one time, a story I always think of, we had our English class, like, one Friday a month, English class in high school became debate class because they couldn't justify an entire, like, debate team or debate class.
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Right. But, like, one Friday a month, they'd be like, okay, today's debate day. And we came in there one day, and it was that Friday. And she goes, this is, you know, 2003 or whatever the timeline was for this. We were just gearing up to... The country was debating whether to go to war in Iraq, right? Like weapons of mass destruction and all that. And she's like...
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who all here thinks we should go to war with Iraq? And roughly half the kids raised their hand. And she was like, okay, who thinks we shouldn't? And it was literally just me. Like, I was the only one who raised my hand in the whole class. And she goes, and who doesn't have an opinion? And the other half of them raised their hand like, I don't care.
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And she's like, okay, you guys are on Trey's team. You get over here. You guys get on this half of the room, and everybody else on this side. But, you know, they had all just said they didn't even care. So it was literally just me saying, It was literally just me versus the other half of the team. But I was completely unbothered by that.
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Well, I ended up getting bothered by it because I was like... They're over there yelling. It's like, they knocked their damn towers down. We got to do something. And it's like, no, they didn't. I was bothered by the idiocy of it all. But I wasn't bothered by the prospect of having to be alone and push back on that because I've been doing it my whole life. So I like...
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I'm not white, I'm white trash. And it is different. It is different. There's a whole list of differences. Like white people got a trust fund. White trash people got trust issues. White people got a sister who's secretly a lesbian. White trash people got a sister who's secretly their mama. White people play golf with their boss on the weekends.
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Yes, I was very aware of being – like, I've been – it's like a running theme with me is I'm kind of a man without a country. I've been that way my whole life because I never really fit in in my hometown. And, like, now I live in L.A. And, I mean, you know, you'll be surprised to hear I don't super fit in here either. So I just kind of never really have. So, you know, I'm adjusted to it.
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Oh, the current administration. I mean, I mean, kind of just to steal your answer. I mean, I like I mentioned earlier, I used to work for the Department of Energy. So like. I know firsthand. I'm sorry if it's inconvenient for anybody, but it's just true. There's a lot of areas in the federal government that could be tightened up, let's say. It's pretty bad.
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I've got a political podcast and my co-host on there, he's the smartest guy I know. And he's very, he's very anti all things, you know, Trump and MAGA and all that. And he hates Elon and he hates Doge. And when we'll be talking about it, I'll tell him, I'll be like, well, you know, to be fair, man, like there's there, you know, we could clean some of it up and he just, you know, he's always like,
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he don't want to hear it. He's like, that just feeds into the narrative. Feeds into the narrative, whatever. But my whole thing with that, it's like, okay, but I know that it is true, though. Like, I've seen it, so I'm not going to I'm not going to act like it isn't just because, you know, it's like inconvenient for my political beliefs or whatever.
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But like you said, the methodology is insane and the way they're going about it is ridiculous. So it kind of doesn't matter. It's also like I'm even going back to the very beginning of Trump. It's like. The town that I'm from in Tennessee was wrecked by NAFTA and everything and opioids and all that.
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It was actually a blue county for years up until around the turn of the century, like Southern Democrat working man type shit. And then now it's hardcore Trump country. And it's like I was always...
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sympathetic to the reasons that they felt because my town has been like utterly decimated and people there have been really screwed over through no fault of their own they have a very valid beef with like things that have happened in this country i just was always like but this dude is not the answer for any of that you know like so There's a lot of it that I'm sympathetic to.
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Like you said, populism, a general, a more leftist populist message, obviously like Bernie Sanders or something. That's really more aligned with where I'm at. There's plenty of things people do actually agree with if you take the... the letters out of it. You take the R's and the D's out of it and all that.
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And it's just about like, you know, most people agree with regular, you know, everyday Americans having more money in their pocket, getting paid better. You know what I mean? Most people are okay with taxing the rich and corporations, but it's more, you know, I'm kind of a no war, but a class war type person. Like, I think it all really comes down to that. I believe that
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most of the culture war things are just, uh, purposeful distractions, you know, that like turn people against one another. And it's like, don't get me wrong. That's not, I think the trans people should have rights. I'm just saying the whole narrative around even debating it in the first place is just serve.
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It means, you know, just serves to like distract people from stuff that really matters is my opinion. So, and I think there's a lot of people like you, I've heard Theo Vaughn talk about how like, or on his show, like, uh, A lot of people on his show, they hate, like, oh, the billionaires that are really in charge or whatever.
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But the people that I'm talking about, they think that those billionaires are all, like, liberal elite billionaires, like George Soros and that type of thing.
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And it's like, I hate the billionaires that are in charge, but I'm talking about the one that we see being in charge every day, who's like... clearly on the right. Like, I got a problem. Like, I've seen people tweet out, you know, it's like, Elon's gonna, you know, finally get rid of all these corrupt billionaires that are ruining our government, you know?
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Some things are just not meant to be motivated by that, so you can't treat them the same way.
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I definitely think it's time for the old guard to move on. I don't know. Other than, you know, a couple that are obvious that already are there. Like, I mean, AOC and Jasmine Crockett or whatever. And I like Eric Swalwell out here in California and some other people.
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But like, I did one of the videos I just made recently was about how the Democratic Party needs like a complete paradigm shift, in my opinion. It's like a. They need their own version of the Tea Party moment from the early 2010s, you know? Where it's like some new faction or force needs to establish itself and shift them in a different direction because they're completely lost at sea right now.
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And yeah, the old guard, Chuck Schumer's of the world are just like... I'm just ready for them to go on somewhere. I have no interest in those people being around anymore.
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yeah i really do your new special trash daddy is on youtube are you on the never-ending tour do you always yeah perpetually yeah uh i'm always going you know three weekends a month at least sometimes all of them i'm uh out and about around the country doing doing shows so yeah you can see all that at treycrowder.com i'm sorry i don't know this but you have a wife and do you have children
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Yeah, they're middle school boys. They're 12 and 13. Oh, yeah. You've got teenagers. What's that all about? Tell me.
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I'm living in fear, constant fear of staring down the barrel of teenagerdom. I'm hyper aware of it.
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my 13 year old is like, he's, he's taller than my wife and he's, you know, approaching my height. So he's definitely shooting up, but he's also, he's like, you know, he's a little Timothy Chalamet. He's a, you know, he's kind of, he's kind of a beam pole. So, uh, I'm not worried about that part just yet, but, uh, yeah, no, I, it's, it's wild.
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I've got two good friends, the guys I mentioned earlier, the comics that I toured with, they, uh, they both had babies in the past like 18 months, their first children, their first babies in the past 18 months. And so I've just been really, really, I've been thinking a lot about like, you know, the inexorable march of time and that type of thing.
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And, uh, just the fact that, you know, kids are only, they're only little once. And then, you know, and that's for me, that's over. And now they're becoming, you know, hormone monsters and all that. And it's just, uh, It's wild. It's all part of it, but it's pretty crazy.
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You'll make this rather snappy, won't you? I have some really heavy thinking to do before 10 o'clock.
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I'm doing all right, all things considered, hanging in there.
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Just the general dissolution of society and everything.
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Yeah, that type of thing. We ain't got to. Yeah, not to just dive right into politics or nothing. I just mean, you know, I feel like a good chunk of people are generally feeling like things are not entirely great. Let's put it that way. It's like a, you know, it's a one way to put it.
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White trash people play scratch-offs with their rent money on payday. It's different.
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Yeah, there's a bit about that on my new special, Trash Daddy, because that's what I always thought. Whenever I watched 90 Day Fiancé with my wife, that was always the thing that struck me the most about it. It made me feel oddly patriotic or whatever.
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You just watch these gorgeous people from all over the world who are just attaching themselves to complete jabronis. Just losers. Just so they can get into America. And it's like, man, people will go to great lengths to get into America. And that's got to be indicative of something. And I'm sure for a lot of those people in a lot of those places, even now, that holds true. But it's funny.
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That bit... The special that bits on, I recorded it a few months ago and it like just came out and I've been feeling like, you know, I wonder how true that still is or feels now. Like I bet there's at least some of those people in some of those places are rethinking their decision to try to, you know, infiltrate over here.
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A lot of times the people in places like that who are on the other side or on the left or whatever, they just they like never speak up and I don't blame them. It's like you don't want to be the one that ruins Thanksgiving dinner or whatever or just gets yelled, gets ganged up on.
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Right. And I think that's a secondary concern to the producers of the show. They specifically select the wildest pairings that they can. But since you have some personal experience, I don't even know the... foundational premise of that show. Like, is that accurate? Like that, you know, the whole 90 day window thing and all that.
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Yeah. Well, it's funny. I mean, I totally believe you, obviously. But I just always think about this buddy of mine. Now, this was years ago. I mean, this is like 2005. This is like 20 years ago. Uh, we were 19, 20, 21, something like that at the time. And I had a friend that was in the military, joined the army and, uh, was not the sharpest tool in the shed, but a bit of a wild card.
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So I get it. But I never had that problem when I was growing up. And what I've always chalked that up to is the other thing that was going on with me as a kid was that like. I was the smart kid in my school, which I realize now looking back is like being the straightest guy to share a concert. It's not really that impressive, but I didn't know that. I had no frame of reference.
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This guy, he would get a signing bonus and just buy kayaks from gas stations and he would crash into embankments immediately. He'd rent cars and take them off-roading and mudding and stuff and then just bottom them out and get sued and shit like that all the time. So, you know, not the soundest decisions, but I always... Remember, he showed up when he didn't even tell us this was going to happen.
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He like came to a get together we were having or something with this this girl. None of us had ever met. And she was from like Columbia or Bolivia or some some South African or South American country. I can't remember. and it was totally out of the blue. And he was like, he was like, Hey guys, this is my wife. And we were like, you're what?
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And he was just openly talk discussing how, like, he was like, yeah. So, uh, she gave me like 200 bucks, right? It was literally like $200 or something. He's like, she gave me like 200 bucks so we could get married so that she could have like a, whatever, you know, a visa or green card, however it works.
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And it's like, And he was just talking about it very casually and shrugging it off. And then I never, and I don't know if he ever saw that girl again after that. Oh, man, you should. I'm assuming, in retrospect, they probably were not doing it right. No, no. But the way he was like... I mean, I know it was shady. You sure? But I mean, in terms of even...
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accomplishing it properly they probably were not but it always just seemed like the way he the way he presented it and the way i experienced it it made it just seem like the most easy breezy casual ridiculous thing in the world he's like yeah she gave me 200 we got married now everything's she got what she wanted and then i don't care so you know here's the crazy thing a similar story when i was uh i'm twice married right after i got a divorce i met a girl and