Finding Hope and Humor: Ryan McCormack’s Journey from Cancer Survivor to Comedian

Brad Miller 0:00

Hey, good people! Welcome back to Cancer and Comedy. This is the podcast we like to talk about facing adversity, particularly cancer and things of that nature, with hope and humor. My name is Dr. Brad Miller, and my Deb, my co-host is Deb Crayer, and together we like to reflect on both the challenging parts of being a cancer survivor and some of the good things in terms of how there's a lighter side of things, and we can we call it looking at things with hope and humor. Today we're talking with Ryan McCormick. He's a comedian and he's known on stage as the Nutty Irishman. You can find his website is the is nutty dash irishman.com, and he's been making audiences laugh for 30 years. He and I are a bit of a contemporaries a little bit, and we're also from the same hometown of Indianapolis. And but and but he has also dealt with a cancer diagnosis in his life, and he's been able to really deal with some of his most honest material in his comedy in his comedy act dealing with his cancer circumstances. So let's get into Ryan. Though, welcome to our conversation today, my friend. Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Well, awesome. It's good to have you with me with us, and we. I know you're in in Sacramento, California area now, but your bridges from Indianapolis, which is where I live, and so we've got roots in this same community. So it's good to talk to another Hoosier here, or at least Hoosier, former Hoosier. So that's good.

Ryan McCormick 1:33

Once a Hoosier, always a Hoosier.

Brad Miller 1:36

There you go, and there, there we go. Good to good to have you with us. But today you've been you you have a corporate career, but you also have a career as a comedian, and so take give us just a little nugget of how that happened. How you had kind of a corporate career, and then you're doing you've been doing professional comedy for a while too. Give us a little nugget about the intersection of those of those two worlds.

Ryan McCormick 1:58

Yeah, I I was graduated from Ball State University in August of 1988, and always had an interest in comedy. Did a couple of shows up at Ball State, and I started open mic night at Crackers Comedy Club in Indianapolis in September of '88, and then I was hosting Open Mic Night, and my first paid week was April of 1989, and then in June I started at the corporate end of things. I I was working as a telemarketer for a consulting engineering firm, and a friend of mine and I would go to the club every week, and I meet all these comics. And I realized fairly early on that lifestyle wasn't really going to be for me, and so I just decided to do both to work, kind of eight to five Monday through Friday, and then do comedy

Brad Miller 3:09

right as I

Ryan McCormick 3:10

could.

Brad Miller 3:12

So, but but you've been a a professional in both fields for 30 years or whatever, more than 30 years, and so you've had that kind of thing going on. Really, as I've learned more about the field of comedy, you know what you do is pretty common. Really, you know, a lot of people do something along this line. They have some sort of a career outside of comedy, and that there's a you know I don't know what the percentage would be, but a a select few who can really make it work, traveling the country and what have you. But but way to go. But it's not like you've had a lot of fun with it. Have you had some fun with it over the

Ryan McCormick 3:49

years? It you know it's just been a lot of fun. I've met and worked with some really great comedians. I've traveled the Midwest quite a bit. I was actually able to do a show in Las Vegas for a company that a friend of mine worked for, and asked me to to come out during their sales and marketing convention, and that was back in '01, and that was probably the biggest crowd I had.

Brad Miller 4:17

Yeah,

Ryan McCormick 4:18

I almost passed out when I got on stage, but yeah, it's just afforded me to do a lot of things, meet a lot of people, go a lot of places. But I think the the thing it's really done is just provided me to give laughter to people.

Brad Miller 4:35

Yeah, that's a that's a real gift, isn't it? That's a real gift, and yeah. So you've had some fun with that. You you know you've been able to have a good solid career in the corporate world and doing comedy for all these years, and yet you know this you know as you said you've had some great opportunities, and yet reality kind of kind of slapped you in the face back in October of 2004. So. Why don't you just kind of take us to that part of the story? How you had to deal with some pretty harsh reality there?

Ryan McCormick 5:05

Yeah. So my wife and I, we found out she was pregnant in May of '04, and then we got married in June of '04, and then in October of '04 I was diagnosed.

Brad Miller 5:21

Wow.

Ryan McCormick 5:22

Yeah. So it was it was crazy. I remember,

Brad Miller 5:26

and then it could have been too much after that. You had a child, right? Not too long after that, right?

Ryan McCormick 5:29

Yeah, he was he was born January of '05.

Brad Miller 5:32

So you had within whatever eight or nine months, you had trauma, drama, and trauma of almost every spectrum. You know, pregnancy, get married, cancer, new child. Wow, yeah,

Ryan McCormick 5:47

it was nuts. And so, what was going?

Brad Miller 5:49

What was what was going through your head then, Ryan? What we, how were you, how were you processing all that kind of insane set of circumstances?

Ryan McCormick 5:58

Yeah, it was just a flurry of weird emotions, up and downs. I try not to get too depressed. I didn't, I didn't really know what I had until we did some more tests, and then we met with the oncologist. And I think when we met with him, he was so confident that that really helped a lot. Yeah. Okay. I remember he walked into the room, and my wife's with me, and she's pregnant. He kind of snapped back, asked a lot of questions, left, came back, and he said, "This is what you have. This is what we're going to do, and this is when we're going to start. And I'm like, okay, wow,

Brad Miller 6:42

wow. So, do do you mind saying a little more, just a slight more detail about what kind of cancer you had and how serious was it, and a little bit about the a treatment process?

Ryan McCormick 6:53

Yeah, I was I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Brad Miller 6:57

Okay,

Ryan McCormick 6:57

and I think I was at I can't remember stage four, maybe three or four. Wow.

Brad Miller 7:03

Okay, serious matter. I mean, this is not. This is a serious circumstance you were dealing with, right?

Ryan McCormick 7:09

Yeah, and yeah, the the option back then off the bat was chemotherapy.

Brad Miller 7:17

Yeah,

Ryan McCormick 7:18

and we did six rounds of chemo every three months, it the protocol was called Chop R. I can't remember what all it was. Prednisone was one of them.

Brad Miller 7:30

Yeah, you just had you kind of have a cocktail of different drugs you're administering to you, and and it some people react handle it pretty well to other people. It really knocks them on their butt. And so, how did how did you manage? You know, the actual chemotherapy. How did it go for you?

Ryan McCormick 7:49

You know, it being that young at 38, it it went fairly well. I remember my doctor saying you're going to lose your hair in two weeks, and these these lumps are going to go away within a couple of days, and both were true. So that gave me some hope. I would say probably two or three days after the chemotherapy, it's when it really hit and had flu-like symptoms and just couldn't do much. And then by the time I felt good, it was time to do chemotherapy again. Yeah. So that crazy

Brad Miller 8:28

that it's that crazy cycle a lot of people going through chemotherapy go through. They, you know, have a really bad time with it. Feel a little better about that time. Back at it again. So yeah,

Ryan McCormick 8:39

yeah. So it it was just you know focusing on on my wife and soon to be child and really listening to the doctor

Brad Miller 8:50

right

Ryan McCormick 8:51

you know he gave me all kinds of to dos and not to dos and you know one of them he said if you're going to go out to eat. Go out early, really early. I don't want you to be around people. And I asked him about doing stand up, and he's like, "No, there's no way. And I said, "Well, on the dinner thing, what if we go and there's there's people? And he goes, "Well, you know, you could do that. I go, "Well, what happened to your patients that did? And he's like, "Yeah, they're not around anymore.

Brad Miller 9:22

Oh my gosh! Okay, we'll go early. That's a little dose of reality. By early, did you mean like early in the day or early in the treatment cycle? Is that what what we would hit? What do you mean?

Ryan McCormick 9:33

Early day, like go right at five. You know, you can go out to dinner, but go right. So

Brad Miller 9:38

just try not to be around a whole lot of other people. Yeah. So you wouldn't get whatever bug was going around with that kind of. Okay, all right. Yeah, and

Ryan McCormick 9:45

i I had to take my temperature every night at six, and if it was elevated, I'd have to go to the ER. No questions asked. Right.

Brad Miller 9:53

Did you have any kind of sets back then, Ryan, of kind of your own mortality and that type of thing that you were dealing with that kind of thing?

Ryan McCormick 9:59

I try not to think about that,

right?

You know, I just tried to think about getting through it and not get that big.

Yeah, you know. But that at that time, you also were still involved with comedy. It sounded like you had hit the pause button for a little bit there, but it sounded like that it was still on your mind that you that you that you want to get back when to get back at it. Is that right? I did.

I definitely did. I missed it.

So tell me about when you finally were able to get back into it. Able to get before an audience again was I don't know months or year or so before you're able to do that. Tell me about how that was to get back at it. It

was about I think, eight or nine months, maybe maybe a year before I could really get the clearance to go ahead and do it, and yeah, it it was a little a little shaky, you know, being out that long,

yeah.

But I kept running through jokes and kept thinking about material and kind of rehearsing in my head. So by the time I got back on stage, it didn't look like I was back to amateur status.

Right. So you had been working on material that whole time. You were kind of sitting out as well. You were kind of writing and what have you.

Yeah, and and I do. I still to this day do cancer jokes in my act.

Yeah, well, that's well. Let's let's go with that for a second because I know that you know when I've what little standup comedy I've done, I've done cancer related things, and so I'm I'm just interested when people are doing that. You know, as you as you have done, and so tell me about how that went when you do cancer-related material in your acts. Just kind of tell me how it goes, and about your experiences with that. It usually goes dead quiet. Okay, yeah, I know,

especially early on when you know I still my hair was still gone and I was you know a lot thinner from all the treatment and silky jokes and people I've had people come up to me like are you really a cancer survivor I'm like why would I even make that up

yeah right and now

I still do it today, and it's a little, a little. There's a little bit more laughter just because I'm so far out. But those that first couple, those first couple of years, it was, it was like you know, it just fallen on deaf ears. And

but it's,

but I didn't care.

Yeah. Well, also from our prior conversation, you said something to the effect of that you still chose to, even though some of the material was not pitting, bombing, or whatever you want to say, you still chose to do it kind of for you. Is that right? Tell me a little bit, kind of tell a little bit about the kind of the psychological process of why you felt compelled to still do some of the cancer-related material for yourself,

because I found humor in a dark place.

Yeah,

and that was the way I could deal with it. Like there were there were funny things that I thought happened, and me talking about that on stage helped me kind of deal with it more, if that makes sense.

Yeah, well, it's the way you were coping, and that's kind of what we deal with here in cancer comedy. Help people to cope. We call we like to call it cope with hope and humor, and kind of the hope. The hope is the goal, but the humor is kind of how you do it. And so I'm gonna I'm gonna put you on the spot here just a little bit. If you can come through fine, if not, we'll move on. But do you have to remember any of the jokes or the stories that you told at that point, or even now, about about cancer and your relationship to it? Even if they bombed, but

yeah. So one of the funniest stories is when I got diagnosed. You know, then you get staged, right?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. So they

do the the bone marrow, and then the bone chip test. And I tell people if you've never had a bone a bone marrow test, it's probably the most painful test until they right after that they do the bone chip.

Yeah.

So I'm explaining how they do the bone chip, and the normal person, it took three vials to numb the area. For me, it took six. I felt like, and I'm on the table on my stomach, and I'm moving back and forth quite a bit. And I'm thinking, man, something's not right. I look back at my doctor, and he's broken out in a sweat. And I'm like, Are you okay, Doc? And he said, Do you drink a lot of milk? And I'm like, That's true. And he's like, Yeah, I should have told you to stop drinking milk three days ago.

Wow. Okay. And I always just found that hilarious. The nurse was cracking up. I just so. Just basically, just for understand, the calcium in your bones was tougher to get. I don't know how to explain it. Really, it was tougher to get to your bones because of calcium. Okay.

Yep. Yeah. So therefore, therefore, you was yeah. Had I stopped drinking milk three days earlier. So some

people they say you drinking alcohol or something like that. You were supposed to stop drinking milk, right? So you know she missed your you know pure thing, but oh my gosh, that's you know I get it, and it's funny it's in its own way, but I can see how you got to go go really around the bend to get to a lot of people in that. But I think there's something to be said about the procedures that cancer patients go through, whether it's needles or surgery or chemo or you know the you know I'm a prostate cancer surgery guy and so there was ramifications of that you know sexually and so on that are all in the mix here. We all go through go through some things, but I think part of what what I've learned in my experiences doing a little bit of cancer related humor and what I've done in standup is that you kind of still have to kind of discern a little bit based on your audience and what your own personal sensitivities are about kind of you know how far to go or what to say and kind of judge your audience. There was any kind of that process for you to try to figure out you know what was appropriate, what wasn't appropriate, and what what to go for and what to not that kind of thing?

You know, I'm I I consider myself a clean comic, and so by the time I get to the cancer material, I think I've already established relationship with the crowd.

Yeah,

and so I feel pretty good about diving into that at that point. I think there's been a few times where maybe it hasn't that relationship hasn't developed, and and at that, I remember a couple times just not doing that material just because I think yeah

you you kind of self edited on the spot so to speak yeah okay yeah

yeah but um yeah but I would say more often than not, I do it. It's now well received, and being so far out, I think people, I would hope, think, "Hey, you know, if this guy can make it, we can make it.

Well, I think it depends a little bit on the audience that you have, that kind of stuff as well, you know, in terms of trying to read the room, and I'm sure you've you've got a lot more experience than me in that type of thing. And but I just think it is a the discernment issue. I think is something that a lot of us who deal with this kind of therapeutic humor thing, which is what I kind of lean into, kind of have to kind of think at least think about a little bit. You know, wins as not only in as a professional comedian like yourself, but in certain settings. You know, like I'm a retired pastor, so in visiting people like in the hospital with cancer, had to be a little careful about you know what I said to whom and that kind of thing, and because I I would tend to want to try to lighten things up, like you know somebody wired up to you know Needles and IVs and everything. You say, "Hey, when you going to do cartwheels or something like that? And you know, just some people. Some people would go over well. Some people not not so much. But yeah, depending who's who's in that room. But I love the fact you you've chosen Ryan to not let your cancer situation either to kind of push it out of the way completely, try to pretend like it's not there, and you've also haven't made it kind of you know kind of doom scroll type of thing, you know, where you know there's you got a little dark humor here, and that's that's okay, but you you know you've kind of integrated it with your with your act, and that's I think that's that's that's a good thing. Tell me a little bit about tell a little bit about your kind of philosophy and approach to comedy. I know in our conversation you said you and you I did the same thing. You watched a lot of Johnny Carson, Late Night Guys. I was a big David Letterman fan as well, and then you would kind of maybe try to learn from that, or repeat that or do something like that. What do you think you learned, both in kind of those incredible comedians, late night comedians, and people you've been around in your career? I know you've you've you've like opened for some pretty big headliners. I know that. What do you've kind of learned about that? That you've maybe applied not only your career wise, but how to make some decisions. You know, kind of what we're talking about here. But what's right to put in, what's what's not right to put in.

Yeah, I think what I've learned is is two things: timing, obviously, and confidence. Okay, I've worked with. I mean, watching Carson, watching Letterman, despite Letterman's own self-deprecating humor, there's a confidence there. Carson had it

for sure

a gazillion times over, and that's what I've learned working with so many headliners is just the confidence they have. When they get up on stage, they expect to kill. Yeah, and I've worked with other comics who are tentative, and they, man, I don't know about this crowd, you know, blah blah blah. And I just had other guys like, I'm going up and I'm killing it.

Yeah,

and that that's what I've really learned is just that to have that confidence, and even if the joke doesn't work, move on and keep that confidence going anyway. That's that's the main thing.

Kind of a, if I'm understanding you correctly, kind of a go for it in the initial stages, and even if things didn't go quite right, just keep going for it. Push push through.

Yeah,

and and that that's awesome. Well, and yet there's another side of this. I think deserves some some conversation with you and I. You mentioned that you're married and have children, and and I know that when you deal with cancer or other life situations, you know you've got a family life to deal with your marriage and your children and all that kind of thing, and you had to kind of balance that out with your comedy career and your your corporate career as well. And was there any time where you had to really think about this in terms of your wife and your family? You know, if what am I putting them through as well? Anything along this line, where you had to kind of be sensitive about those family matters?

Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, once we had our oldest, and and I was able to perform. I was fortunate enough to be working almost every month at at the club. It was great, and then we had our second, and then my wife's like, "I just can't have you going every month. I, I need help, and no, I can't have you doing that. I'm like, you know what? Yeah, that I totally get it, and that's fine. And so I did that, and then as they got older, I started to get back into it a little bit more, and then we we didn't, you know, trying to not talk about cancer in front of the kids, you know, would try to be cognizant about that because I mean, obviously they were they were young,

sure,

and so we always try to be careful about what we were talking about. And now they're at the point where we we you know we can talk about it, and they ask about it if they want. But there was a time there where we just had to kind of keep it on the on the down low.

Sure, sure.

Yeah, the interesting thing is our son, the oldest, got RSVP, and then we had to take him to the hospital, and then I got sick, so we took him home, and then I went in.

Oh, really? Wow! Yeah. So we mentioned all the traumas you had having a kid sick, an infant especially. That's that's pretty big right there. Yeah, it

was it was crazy. I tell you the other story. I almost had to have open heart surgery. They put the they put the port. I I would think they would measure where the port stops in relation to your heart, and they don't. They just put it in there. As a result, my heart was beating into the tip of the port.

Oh my gosh!

And I developed a clot, and my oncologist thought my oncologist thought it was a clot. The cardiologist thought it was a tumor, and these guys were arguing for a week.

Oh man! Oh, I've heard these. Unfortunately, I've heard these types of stories before, where you know, where doctors are arguing over, and you're kind of in the middle of it, and sometimes you're literally in the middle of it. I've seen it. I've seen it where one one guy's on one side of the bed, one guy's on the other, and you're in the middle, and they're arguing about your treatment. I don't know if that's the case for you, but I've seen. No, no, you're

spot on. That's exactly what happened.

Yeah, and

an hour before I was supposed to go under, the cardiologist comes into my room and says, "I'm gonna, I'm gonna buy into this clot theory and put you on Coumadin, and I'm going to have you come back in in a month. And if that is the same size or bigger, I'm going in and I'm going to rip that out. Oh my gosh! And I went back, and it was almost it was almost gone at that point.

Wow!

So that that was just insane. And this this is the period where it was such a stress on my wife. Yeah, obviously,

right.

And you know, she she is incredible. Was incredible. Still is incredible. You know, she she she stuck with me and stuck through it. And you know, I I I just feel like as a. Couple were stronger than maybe most couples. I don't want to brag, but that kind of bond-that's

well, that's all right. If you're gonna if you're gonna brag about something, brag about your marriage, man. That's good. Yeah,

it was it was crazy times. Well, tell me

tell me about how that relation with your wife and how you kind of sorted it out with your kids and all these things happening to you, what if anything did that teach you about hope in the in the midst of all these pretty significant stressors in your life?

Yeah, I think it gave me a lot of confidence in the in the medical profession. I think I had doctors and nurses that were just golden, and that gave me a lot of confidence. I think the way my wife and I navigated through it, and and talked about it, the hopes and the fears and the what ifs and all that, you know? It it I think it just strengthened us, but I definitely felt hopeful just from the medical profession I was dealing with. I know a lot of people, you know, you can go on and on about

sure, yeah, stories,

but

right. Well, it just it sounds like they gave that the the hope that they had some confidence in your treatment procedures was good. And you mentioned about your wife and your family being supportive. And I'm a big believer, you know, the the emotional connection with other people as well comes into play. I'm kind of curious about how the comedy community or your work, even your corporate work community, how they responded, you know, was were they helpful? Was it just a non-factor, you know, apathetical? How did both those communities react to your your pretty significant health crisis here?

You know, it's interesting. A lot of people kind of went away during that period, and I think because I was 38, it's pretty young to hear the c word, yeah. And so I think a lot of my friends didn't know what to do. We're kind of freaked out that that even happened, and so it it it our our social group dwindled. Okay, and there was some anger with that, and then once I was done with chemo, and as time passed, then that's kind of what I figured out is that people just didn't know how to deal with it.

Yeah.

Well, and you know, it's a

it's a scary thing, and I think that's part of what we work on in our podcast is trying to give some tools to people, both those who are and we we like to see people impacted by cancer. It's not only the persons like you and me who have cancer, but the family members and others, and try to give some tools on how to we call it cope with hope, helping people with coping organism, not just coping mechanism. Coping mechanism is kind of stuff you bring them from the outside, whether it's whatever buying a new car or drinking or whatever it would be to kind of cope with it that way artificially. We try to talk about kind of internal life and and relationships that kind of thing, and we also sometimes talk about the spiritual life and that kind of thing. So I just want to ask you, and if you're not comfortable with it, fine, that's okay. But any aspect of a spiritual element involved with all this whole process for you,

you know. It's funny you mention that. I'm not particularly religious, but I can tell you how many people said they were praying for us, and you hear that over and over and over again, and it it just felt like it resonated, like it just it just did something and gave me a little bit more hope and a little bit more light at the end of the tunnel. I guess,

yeah,

yeah.

It kind of goes into the mix, you know. I I believe there's kind of a a process for people to kind of we call it healing with open humor, but you know, and the the connection with other people and the thinking strategically and your health related things, but also the connection with a higher power in some form or another is a part of a healing process as well. Certainly, I was interested in another thing we mentioned our prior conversation here, Ryan. It kind of goes back to some of the family stuff we mentioned. We talked about a minute ago. You mentioned that you have a have a daughter, and I think there was maybe some part of the story. We when we talked about before, there was even some question whether you'd be able to have children, something like that, after your son. I don't know. I can't remember that exactly what we talked about. Anyhow, but that's kind of a part in the mix too. But when she did come along, that she used it as she part of your life. She asked you basically to not include her in your in your comedy. So I don't know. Just unpack that whole situation for me a little bit. How you navigate that? Because I I happen to be the father of a dog. Who's pretty sensitive, and now I'm the grandfather of two daughters who are well. One's one's a comic relief person, and one's very sensitive. That kind of thing. I think the one who's the comic relief would love it, and the sensitive would go, you know, no way, Grandpa. But yeah, but just unpack it a little bit about you know how do you kind of try to honor your daughter, but you know, do some things as well.

Yeah, yeah, it's funny. So when before I started chemo, the doctor said you're going to be sterile, and there's a chance that you won't be able to have kids again. And I'm like, well, okay, we have one, and he's healthy, and we tried, and it just wasn't happening. And I, you know, I think we both agreed. Let's just move on, not worry about it. And then boom. And then Erin was born in '08, and probably in the last three or four years, yeah, she's made it very clear. I don't, you know, no talking about me on stage, no talking about. And and my I I do some jokes about my son. I didn't really give him a choice. I just did him. There you go. But yeah, she she's she's great. She's funny. She's witty. She's fast. Yeah. But yeah, I can't. I there's so many great stories I could do, but I'm not allowed, so I respect that.

Well, you respect that. There's, and this kind of goes back to some of our earlier conversation about where do you learn how to draw the line, and what price do you pay if you go over the line? And that you know, you I'm sure you wouldn't want to jeopardize your relationship with your daughter, you know, by going over the going over that line. But what have you kind of learned about all that kind of thing about this line? You know, this place to go when you do your your comedy.

Yeah, you know, it's funny. A long time ago, I auditioned at a comedy club in Louisville, and I had a couple of guys come up to me, and they said, "Man, you are quick, dark, and edgy, and you should move to Boston.

Wow. Okay, that's an interesting. That's an interesting take take on things. Yeah, quick, dark, and edgy. That sounds like it should be a t shirt or a tattoo or something. I don't know

something. And so I don't know I I think I'm quick maybe back then I was a little dark and edgy but not so much anymore but um you know the line that's interesting it's it's so much different now because of all these different ways to watch come

yeah oh yeah

YouTube and Instagram and Facebook, and you can go on and on and on.

Sure.

And there are comics out there that are, you know, still dirty. There's, you know, the ones that are still squeaky clean.

Right.

I think. I think when you're performing, you know, you could you could kind of tell where the audience is. Yeah, are they are they sober? Are they a little loopy? Can I get away with this? You know, maybe you do a little test joke to see where they are.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But well,

I just kind of wonder how you handle that kind of thing, because then one of the things you also do, Ryan, that I think is really cool. You have done some volunteer work for Leukemia Lymphoma Society, and I know you you mentioned that your wife's involved with some cancer-related groups. Why why are you doing that? How's it going? Tell me a little bit about that experience of working with some these cancer related groups, yeah. So my

and and this is how I found you. Is my wife is the one who who found.

Okay.

Yeah, I I think on Facebook, the volunteering's great. I'm I'm a first connection volunteer with Leukemia Lymphoma Society now Blood Cancer United, and when somebody has a similar diagnosis, I get contacted and I I talk to them about what to expect.

All right, excellent,

and yeah, that's been really rewarding because you could hear obviously the fear and the unknown in their voice, and I,

yeah,

I talk them through. You know, we've we've done some work with Light the Night. I I was a Man of the Year candidate a couple of different times. It's just it's just rewarding to try to give back and try to help people. Well, sound

like you're involved with something helping other people that maybe I'm not sure if it was or was not afforded to you. You said you had your family with you, but was anything like this afforded to you when you were going through this?

You know, we we didn't really connect with LLS until maybe I don't know five or six. Months into it, and then when we did, they were great. I just wish we would have known about it sooner. Sure,

yeah, they they've just been a great organization and very supportive.

Well, Ryan, you've mentioned that you know you incorporate your cancer story into your comedy act. I'm just curious when you do that, if you see, you mentioned you've had some kind of negative reactions, but if you ever had anybody come up to you after the show or anything along this line to say, you know, thank you for sharing this. It's important to me. Anything where or helpful, anything along that line that's come to come to your your way.

Yeah, it's happened a few times where where people will come up to me and and you know ask again you know you really a cancer survivor I am and then they'll say that that they are as well and it might not be the exact type but it's still the common bond it's happened a few times and that's been really nice and it's really nice of them to come up and and say something and kind of share some stories and and you know have a confidence level and then and then you know

yeah well that's awesome well you made a connection you made a connection yeah so many and the fact is cancer one form or another impacts almost everybody whether they admit it or not, you know they either have a themselves or a family member or coworker or you know somebody in their life who's dealing with it, and yeah, that's a deal there. Which kind of leads me to I just kind of bringing this around our conversation around just a couple things here before we conclude, and that is, you know, has ever has cancer ever showed up in your act in some in some way that kind of surprised you. What I mean by that, or a kind of a joke that came out of nowhere, or some experience that you decided to share that maybe you thought might have been a private thing. Is it can any kind of an aha moment or surprise moment that's kind of coming out of your experience

from the cancer specifically? Well, I'll

I'll give you the leeway. You know, I'm kind of thinking about the cancer, but you know, I just wonder if there's, you know, like in the middle of an act where it just you kind of had, you know, you got your set things you're going to say, but something comes to you kind of out of the moment that kind of the that you kind of went for it that maybe even surprised you a little bit. I mean,

I can't really think of anything specific. I will tell you, I do a lot of crowd work.

Oh, you do, okay? Yeah,

and that's that's always a lot of fun, and

then

things come out of that that sure usually go well. I think on the act, there's been a few a few times where I'll do a punchline that might not work, and then I'll follow up with something and then I get a big laugh out of that and trying to remember that for the next time. If that there you go, but yeah, there's there's a lot of moments like that where,

well,

you say something.

Let me ask you just one or two other things, and that has to do with let's just say there's someone in life who either you encounter either through your professional career or just personally who you know has some sort of a diagnosis in life, cancer or some other bad adversity. It could be a bankruptcy, a divorce, any number of things. But going through something bad. What are some lessons you've learned out of your career and out of your life experience, especially people going through that, and I call it the insane period where you kind of just you know going, your mind goes 100 places. But what would you say to somebody going through that? How they might be able to get through it, even with a little bit of humor in their life. What would you tell them how they can have some coping coping skills?

I think the the most important thing for me was to slow down, and it's a cliche, but it is one day at a time. It really is. You if you start thinking about all these things, it's going to be overwhelming, and then you're just going to go down a depression. It's really wake up, get through the day, be be positive, and just keep keep that going. You know, things are going to happen, negative things. You know what I what I like to say is I don't believe in bad days. I just believe in bad moments.

Yeah, there you go. There you go. So

that that's really the most important thing is is

well, if you don't believe in

be honest, I

think you see a lot of people kind of go down a doom scroll or a spiral, and you got to break out that, and you got to be very intent intentional about that. And I think with you thinking about humor, and the most comedians I've been around, or humorists, or writers, things like that, are kind of got they're you know they they're kind of got their antenna up all the time about what they can be thinking about and how to apply it to their to their art, and I think that's part of what you're doing there. All right, just to to where do I guess got to ask you where do you get the name the Nutty Irishman man, and then tell us a little bit of what the what the. What people can expect from a nutty Irishman if they track down one of your shows? How'd you get that? Well,

I think a friend of mine came up with that. He and his wife are advertising duo. She she does my website. He came up with my logo, and I've had that nutty dash Irishman for quite a while. I'm not sure that was the original idea, but there were other sites taken, so we came out on that. I think when you come to a show, it's going to be high energy, mostly clean. I talk about a lot of different subjects: marriage, divorce, obviously the cancer, observational. Do like I said, a lot of crowd work. I've been at it for a long time, and and I I feel like I'm fairly polished, and so I think you'd get your money's worth.

Well, I know on your website, you've got a lot of examples, YouTube videos, and whatnot of your of your work, and you you mentioned some of the headliners you've worked with, Henry Chow and some others. I noticed that, and so you know they're going to see a professional show and they're going to have a good time. And you said mostly clean, and you know that's what people can expect there. And so, are you doing mainly? I know you're based out of Sacramento, California. Is it mainly around there, or do you travel a bit in what you do?

It's mostly in Northern California.

Yeah. So, so, so people in that neighborhood look you up, and in any case, yeah, the website is Nutty Irishman. That is Nutty Dash irishman.com, and we'll put all of this in our show notes@cancerandcomedy.com. And it's been a delight to have you with us. His name is Ryan McCormick, the Nutty Irishman. Now, if you want to catch him live and find out more about him, as we said, the nutty nutty nutty dash irishman.com, and and we thank you for being our guest here today on the Cancer and comedy podcast, and he just said it a minute ago. Ryan said, "Kind of look for the brighter side of life, and we'll see you next time. Thanks for being our guest today on Cancer and Comedy, Ryan.