A Comedian’s Guide to Navigating Cancer with Humor with Rik Roberts

Dr. Brad Miller 0:00

We have a great guest with us today. His name is Rik Roberts and he embodies these themes of hope and humor. He is a professional comedian who travels the country he's been on on Sirius FM on laugh USA and Jeff and Larry's comedy Roundup, among other things, and he was just recently in the movie and the television series. Mayberry Man his name is Rik Roberts. Rik, welcome to our conversation here today, my friend.

Rik Roberts 0:27

Hey, how's it going Brad?

Dr. Brad Miller 0:29

Hey, it is going awesome. It's great to make a personal connection with you and learn your story a little bit and hear what you are all about you you're on the road a lot to traveling for your comedy shows and and your but you enjoy your family. You a lot of your comedy, a lot of your a lot of your things that you share in your life come from your family life. What's a Rik What's something to put a smile on your face? You're recently either in your family or seen your travels or something else? What's something that just kind of put a smile on your face?

Rik Roberts 0:59

I joined by kids you know, they say stuff my 17 year old son and an 11 year old daughter and my 11 year old has just no filter at all. And she just speaks the truth even when nobody needs to hear it. The other day I was doing something I think I was 10 my wife was gonna go for a bike ride or something like that. My wife's like but you rode yesterday. am I loving your stepped in says hey, let Papa be Papa

Dr. Brad Miller 1:29

give you your space. He said you had this had to say to her you had to be you had say something your wife like you know, listen to the wisdom. Listen, listen, listen to the wisdom of the young one here. That's, that's fantastic. Well, you got that going for you got your family life and you got some good things going here. Tell us a little bit about how you traversed your way into the world of professional comedy. How did that kind of come about for you, Rik?

Speaker 2 1:55

Yeah, I always enjoyed comedy. Looking back I was I guess I was really into but I never thought you could do it. You know, when the head of the comedians on the different rock in real estate and throughout the week when I was in junior high in high school, I would tune in and listen to him on Thursdays. So they were coming to Lexington, Kentucky where I lived and they would do a little promo and be interviewed. And I was I would set my stereo to record it. I kind of had like a timer all in one Lloyd's system. So I would put a cassette tape in there and set it for 730. And if I couldn't be there to listen that would record it and listen to I come home. And then you know many years passed by go to college, creative in college, I do funny stuff on the radio, but I still wasn't thinking comedy was a job that I guys didn't know how you got into it.

Dr. Brad Miller 2:39

You realize on campus, you're allowed to campus radio station or something like that.

Speaker 2 2:42

Yeah, radio station. I was contribute little pieces to the morning shows parodies different goals, commercial skits, or whatever. And graduated moved to Columbus, Ohio, and about three or four months in, I was just kind of looking for something to do. And I was flipping through the pages of the Sunday paper for you know, goings on whatever, NSC listing for an open stage night, which in college, we had those and you would read a poem or you bring a guitar or do something creative, but we didn't have a comedian. So it never dawned on me this was going to be a comedy open stage that I was going to. So I thought I'll just bring my guitar played three songs. So I go there. I sign up, the guy goes, Listen, there's 20 of you tonight. You go up, you're gonna first do about three to seven minutes, and then any longer that will give you a light you'll get offstage. I just hit him with your best stuff. So I'm like, Alright.

Dr. Brad Miller 3:34

you're the very first you're the first one up is that right?

Rik Roberts 3:37

Yeah. So when I didn't know it was was a comedy contest. That was a 12 week contest. They were like in week number four. And after each show, they would bring the comedians back on stage and the audience would vote on who they thought was the funniest. They count the votes up. People get the most votes got to go later in the show that next week, since I was new, I had zero votes from a previous week. They put me up front, so I didn't see any comedy. I went up to play three songs. Nobody laughed. Nobody clapped. Nobody was interested in what I was doing. I just thought well, at least they were quiet. And as I'm walking the host of the night goes. Didn't anybody tell you? It's a comedy night tonight? Oh, Michael, what he's like, yeah, it's comedy nights. It's a comedy competition. Oh my god, I'm out of here. So grab a guitar is headed out the door. And lucky for me two guys came out. And they were they were nice. So I came in. I kind of think you were doing some kind of Andy Kaufman thing in there where you were just trying to Oh, no, I didn't know his comedy tonight. So I'm a bad guitar player. But I thought he'd come out here and play a couple songs. Like, well, if you're leaving, can we have your hoagie? I'm like, well, let's go on stage. And I was just out of college pretty broken like I'm gonna go back in and eat that six inch sub, you know, so I said the corner watched the other 19 or so comics go up and summit already as the night went on and gotten better because those people had the most votes from the previous weeks. And yeah, that's how they got to the last three or four. Those guys had been on like evening at the Improv and tonight shows and they're just having to live in Columbus, Ohio. Alright, so it's kind of watched all this. I'm like, oh, so the newer people are practice. They're kind of in the front. But as you get experience, you get better at it. And I just thought, Okay, well, I know, this is a comedy that now I'll come back next Sunday, and do another set, but I won't bring my guitar. I'll just write some jokes.

Dr. Brad Miller 5:27

So you kind of figured it out a little bit on the spot, kind of how the navigate it. Okay.

Rik Roberts 5:33

Yeah, it's kind of washed with us, you know, the, the different comedian. And there was a couple that I enjoyed and thought were funny. And so I've kind of talked to them a little bit like, hey, you know, after a few weeks, we'll get together and we usually write on Saturday afternoons or something like that. If you want to bring your notebook and some ideas, we'll just meet at a coffee house or whatever. Yeah, so did that started getting a few minutes of material and different opportunities, and then about a year into it? Done, maybe. And this is no exaggeration, at least 200 shows or 200 sets

Dr. Brad Miller 6:02

home, I had to sit at all around Columbus area, the same club or whatever it was, or

Speaker 2 6:08

Yeah, in the Columbus area, there was seven open stages a week, seven open mics a week. And then I would go to Dayton, Ohio, Cleveland, Toledo had a club. Cincinnati had two clubs. So I would just go to anyone I could just to try and see if the material was funny over there. Because some things were so local. You guys outside of Columbus, they weren't funny anybody else because so you learn those things. But a year into it. I'm like, I'm gonna go full throttle.

Dr. Brad Miller 6:33

So you mostly got hooked right away? If you did 200 shows within that short amount of time, you must have said, Okay, I'll go for it.

Speaker 2 6:41

Yeah, the great thing was we there was three shows on Sunday, three on Monday, two on Tuesday, two on Wednesday, that you can find some stuff out of town. So you can have an idea at the beginning of the week. And after three nights, four nights, you've already done seven shows, you kind of start to figure out how to tell a joke if it's funny or not. If it didn't work, I didn't completely get rid of it. I would just try to rewrite the beginning of it or try something different.

Dr. Brad Miller 7:06

Tell me the story, Rik, about that moment when something clicked or snapped with you. And you kind of realize, okay, not only was this kind of a lark, something to do, and I kind of enjoy it. But okay, maybe I can actually do something with this. Maybe I can, you know, build a little bit of a career here and make some money or do something with this. Was there a moment like that when you something kind of clicked for you? That story?

Rik Roberts 7:28

Yeah, I mean, it was it was kind of a two click deal. One was I was working with an improv group, improvisational comedy. So we would take suggestions from the audience do a 90 minute show. And that was a lot of fun. I didn't have to write any material, because you were just in the moment reacting to stuff. And I kind of thrived in that environment. And about a year from the day that I started doing the first comedy night, they asked me if I could go on the road with them to do some gigs, because the guy that played guitar in their group was going to take a year off. And oddly enough, he was moving to Nashville to try the songwriter thing out. So okay, yeah. So if you want to join us, it's yours. But we will go on the road next week. And we need your next week. So I went into my HR department talk to my light lady that was in charge and said, Hey, I think I'm going to be a comedian. I'm going to stop working here. So sorry, three weeks, but I just got a notice about 20 minutes ago that I got an opportunity

Dr. Brad Miller 8:21

here as some sort of a corporate job tracking that way of some sort.

Rik Roberts 8:26

Yeah, I mean, it was it was it wasn't tracking any good direction. entry for Simon and Schuster. It was a dead end, you know?

Dr. Brad Miller 8:33

Okay, so it wasn't any huge, heartbreaking moment, you know, for you to make the shift to least give it a try.

Speaker 2 8:41

That was very refreshing. I'm like, Okay, I'm kind of a wandering soul. So I don't think I could have stayed in that building much longer than I was anyway. And yeah, travel the country and do comedy. Even if you're breaking even or going in debt a little bit. It was more interesting than just typing in, you know, ISBN numbers for books.

Dr. Brad Miller 9:00

But I've always been a little bit curious about kind of how the, you know, how the sausage is made, how you get there. The writing process and the practice and that kind of thing. Can you tell me a little bit about how that worked for you.

Speaker 2 9:14

I think initially, you kind of start imitating what you like, which you can't do that for very long, because unlike bands who do cover songs, comedians have to have original and unique material. But initially, the stuff that I thought was funny growing up was Bill Cosby. Jeff Foxworthy, I thought was funny. Andrew Dice Clay I listened to in college so I remember one of my first bits was what if Andrew Dice Clay lived in the country and Jeff Foxworthy lived in? New Jersey? Yeah, you know, you're from New Jersey, if you know kind of thing. So those things

Dr. Brad Miller 9:49

Kind of a fish fish out of water sort of a thing

Speaker 2 9:52

But by of saying those jokes and they were original jokes, but it's just us doing impressions of comedians. You'll hear most kind I'm excited, it takes about seven years to kind of get comfortable saying what you think and how you think, from your point of view that the audience will digest. And that's kind of part of the journey, the audience will laugh or whatever Sunny. But what connects with them is the material that's true to you and who you are, and from your point of view, so you just want to establish that early in the show. So people know this is the filter that everything is coming from, whether you're angry, or bitter or excited or confused. You got any first jokes, really let them see where you're coming from.

as you've definitely have tracked and found your voice, so to speak, and kind of the clean comedy and kind of the Down Home sort of a thing. Is that a fair assessment of where you're at? And did you? How did you kind of arrive at that place?

Yeah, it took a while. But I think, once you, once you stop trying to please the audience, and just try to say and write what you think is funny. If I write 10, things that I think is funny, maybe two of the audience will think is funny. But those are two that I think are funny, and they think are funny, if I try to sit write down 10 Things I think the audience will laugh at. If it doesn't resonate with my persona on stage or my point of view, it'll fall flat. So it's better to come at it with something that you're thinking, if it doesn't work, retool it or set aside, but keep the ones that do work, and just build off of that. And so once I kind of figured that out, it was a big relief, because I didn't have to change the way I wrote jokes for every single audience has in front of me, but obviously, it's funny, if they don't think it's funny. I'm not taken aback by it or mad at the audience. I'll just write more stuff until I find stuff that both of us can connect on

That sweet spot, I guess that you found it didn't really jives with who you are and what you're all about. But I, you mentioned something a second ago that I just maybe something I've always kind of wondered about here. Rick, you mentioned Andrew Dice Clay, which known as an extremely blue comedian, right. Yeah. And then you mentioned, Jeff, Jeff Foxworthy. No one basically, you know, is kind of the country down home, essentially a clean comedian for the most part. And, you know, he had the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, which was more oriented to kind of a rural mindset, if you will. And you'll with Andrew Dice, Clay, urban, and all that kind of stuff, really rough edge. So I've always kind of wondered, you know, it's at least I've looked at it from my experience in comedy clubs and watching comedy and being a fan is that you've basically got kind of a track that is, you know, likely to sit or if there's a blue track, and there's kind of the clean track. And there's, you know, some in between there. The thing I've kind of wondered about, I'm just curious about, is there any, oh, animosity or competition or derision? Or how do those two groups of people look at each other? Or are they just completely separate worlds?

Anybody that's a professional comedian, you know, you for doing it full time. You know, like, I know, guys that are pretty dirty on stage and know guys that are cleans, can be offstage, I can get along with them fine, I respect that they've made a living out of it going either direction or whatever. I think a lot of the dirtier comics will you often hear him say, I wish I could write clean or I really respect clean comedians, because they're doing it a different way. I think comedy is just a tool, it's at some point, you have to figure out what you're using your tool for. And so for the first eight or nine years, Mike was just creating that tour that Sledgehammer of comedy, or whatever you want to call it, in the comedy clubs, and that was populated by people who were drinking, smoking out to have a good time partying, you know, more or less, the material was geared towards them, whether you intended to be or not a lot of times. And then once I figured out, oh, now I can be funny. I kind of had a few different moments where I realized, well, God has gave me this tool to use for other things. It's not an ends to a means to an end just to go to a comedy club and be funny. But to use your comedy to do other things with you sacrifice the spotlight being on you, because you're highlighting other things, which is what I think is what I'm supposed to be doing with it now. So I had to I had to kind of go through the comedy club experience, and I enjoyed it for the most part. But you need that many repetitions to get good at your craft doing 567 Shows a week, people that paid money that are expecting a good show, long story short, I decided to use my comedy for clean things and for bigger purposes that May.

So basically, there's not like we're our team over here near the other team is over here. And we don't associate there is, you know, there's a mutual respect and some connection. There's some overlap there as well. Is that a fair thing to say?

I think in general, I'm sure there's extremists on both ends are like your claim. Why? Thank you, right.

You mentioned something there that you use it for what kind of God called you to be about and tell me a little bit about Oh that you see this calling this biblical Colleen and as it were as it as a tool to you do something to benefit, the greater good as you're

driving back from a particular long stretch is probably 10 or 12 days, one night, different cities, as about an hour away from Nashville on the way home and I literally pulled over, I was just exhausted and just prayed. And I said, you know, God, I've been doing this for 10 years, I think I'm decent at it. I feel like you've let me do it for 10 years for a purpose. If there's something I can do with comedy, besides just going to a Holiday Inn Express on a Thursday night, or whatever it was, you know, and performing comedies, I want to hear what it is, you know, give me a sign that kind of thing. But 10 minutes later, my phone rings, and it's an opportunity to do a Christian comedy show called bananas. And I've never done a show in a church, I didn't even really understand that there was Christian comedy. In my brand, thought you had to get there until jokes about Noah's Ark for to be a Christian comedy show. Like I had no idea what it was. But I took that as an answer to my prayer that, hey, here's an opportunity to be around other Christians. And this recording will be put on the DVD and people in churches will see it and whatever I thought, well, this is great. This has challenged me to kind of whatever jokes I still have in my act that maybe shouldn't be there. I can drop those, I can write a few new ones. And I can put together an hour for this thing. I had two weeks to do it. And oddly enough, the recording took place back in Columbus where I had just moved from Columbus to Nashville, and I'm going back to my club. And I had a chance to do the Christian show. And then my friends who were in Columbus, who had never seen me do a Christian show were like, are you a Christian? And I'm like, yeah, like, I had no idea. Then I'm like, oh, that's probably that's my band. I've been in for 10 years, and you didn't know, me

set the scene of how it felt what that looked like. And what it feels like to do something that sounded like it was a pretty significant shift for you.

Speaker 2 16:58

is my first time really is saying that was a Christian comedian, because I just never, you know, you're a variety of things. But as far as time put those things together. But the trickiest part was the I got bronchitis like two days before so

Oh, my gosh

Speaker 2 17:13

the whole time we're doing morning radio, five different radio stations, I can barely breathe, I got to do a show that night. I can barely breathe through it. But I got through it. But it felt good. And I thought you know what, I literally driving back home from that event. I said, that's the show I should do every time whether I'm in a church, a corporate event, a fundraiser, a comedy club, I can be funny not have to do anything that's out of out of the boundaries of being a Christian. And I don't expect to get their whole time and say I'm a Christian, I you know, this is a joke about church or whatever, I can just be the guy that God made me and not have to worry about pleasing anybody else. And that was really free.

You kind of found your calling as a where you found you kind of found your pathway that was working for you. Is that fair?

Yeah. And but at the same time, you still had a schedule full of shows that weren't at churches or whatever. And I'm curious how to how to connect with churches and let them know that I'm doing this, and I can offer that but

and then a couple of things happen. One was COVID. And you had to deal with that we all did. And then you had another dude, you had a health episode. Tell us a little bit about how one of those kind of led to another and you had to deal with some renewed challenges that kind of threatened a little bit of your career, I suppose.

Yeah, it was really interesting. You know, when COVID happened. I remember within three weeks, my last show was like the first weekend in March of that year, and then everything got canceled for the next 12 months, like 115 shows basically, is what I counted up to get canceled. I'm like, oh, I need to find another job, I think to go to Home Depot or maybe actually looked and see how much do Amazon delivery drivers make? You know, maybe,

because those those guys were busy back then weren't there, there's still

two more months went by and there was nobody rescheduling stuff and they were canceling stuff even further on the calendar. And it was very odd. And I don't I want to be positive about my experience during COVID. But 100% Understand it was not positive for a lot of people. But for me haven't been on the road so much with two kids. My wife, I was gone more probably than I needed to be. And so that gave me a heartbreak where all of us were home 24/7 And we really get to reconnect and my relationships with everybody in my family got much stronger and we got more connected. So that was all great. And then God provided through a bizarre I got a phone call it basically I was given a year's pay. But my publisher called me and said hey, we've got a check for you at the office. I said we'll just mail it, they're like no, you might want to drive out here and get it and it was literally within $5 of what I made the previous year doing

it Hey, that sounds like a bit of a God thing to me.

Speaker 2 19:52

Or there's a crazy because that plus the two good months I had in January and February. It was my best year and in earning he's ever and it wasn't. It wasn't my most busy year by any stretch of management. So I just knew God was providing for me then. So

there's a bit of a silver lining out of that experience. You could spend some time with your family and you had your financial needs cared for. And then you had a big health challenge.

Yeah, so the other benefit of the COVID year was because I was home and I had free time I started to exercise, okay, I started started running hurt my foot. Plantar fasciitis, which is if anybody's ever had that, it's like an ice pick going right into the arch of your foot, like it's the worst thing. So I'm like, I'm not going to stop moving. So I got on a bicycle started really liking that. And that started biking 3050 70 miles at a clip. And my wife's like, hey, hey, buddy, once you go to the doctor and get a checkup, because you're my family, everybody has had heart attacks before they were 50. And here I was 5253. So I scheduled doctor's appointment, thinking that they're gonna come back and say, Hey, your hearts totally blocked or whatever, wasn't thinking about anything else. And they said, well, listen, your heart's fine. But we did a thing called a PSA test. And your numbers indicate you may have some prostate issues, maybe prostate cancer. And so I said, what's, you know, what are my numbers? So like, Well, we really don't want to be above five, five, we really want to take action. And most guys at two or three, we start to do something and, and change some things. Here's a 63.

Yeah, that is that's not good. And

they thought it was they actually called me in for a second test, like maybe something was wrong in the lab. This is one of the biggest numbers I've ever seen, do a biopsy and check for cancer cells. And they did that. And that's that was in November of 20. Let's see. COVID was 2020. Right? Yes, November 21. Yeah. So then I'm like, Alright, I definitely got it. And as you know, there's different ways you can treat it, proton therapy, radiation, or have your prostate removed. And the way it was explained to me at my age, if if we did, we did chemo first we kind of Chris are us, right, where it would basically turn the area around your prostate into more of a potato chip than a potato. So when you go back in there, cut something out later, like remove your prostate, it would be a little bit trickier to do.

By the way, the way my the way, my doctor said his group it is going to fry your insides up is what it is because I had the same thing prostate cancer and my my PSA was elevated.

And I elected to go with the removal the prostate, as you know, it's it's scary when you hear the word cancer, and you look at how old you are. And you look at younger kids are all these things. My wife's dad, he was definitely older. But he passed away from prostate cancer. So it was extra emotional for her to hear those words attached to me. I see. I was I was pretty calm until the visit where we were looking at the results. And my wife was just asking like a million question. Like she was just trying to say, Well, maybe it's this is causing those numbers to be up. And he's like, No, we've got the results here. She's like, well, maybe I just kind of had to interrupt both of them. I said, Listen, I've got it, let's address it, and get rid of it, and move on, let's just, let's just don't argue back and forth about anything else. It's just figured out that they were going to get this done.

But still, there's still the moment it kind of takes your breath away and you just kind of

it's like getting punched in the nose. You know, it's like, okay, they got my attention now. So let's, let's get it taken care of. And, and, you know, it was upsetting and all these things. But literally, I had one full day of, of just like sadness and depression and worry. And then I prayed probably two hours at night. And just from there on, I just whatever happens happens, you know, I did all the things that you do before major surgeries and started making. Here's a list of all my passwords in case that you know, the robotic arm goes haywire or the power goes off or the Wi Fi disconnects from this robot. Like, why do I have a MySpace password still CompuServe what is going on here and keep goes I can just delete these. Do all those things, made a little folders? Everything wrote letters to everybody in case it didn't come back from it and all these things but surgery went well.

What you're sharing there is that traumatic moment I want to get to with you in a second is how you justify in some sense, something so dramatic and traumatic with a person whose actual job is to be funny stuff. It's not so funny. I wouldn't cut that food up but my quick funny story about that the day I had surgery, I prostrate surgery prostatectomy just as you did and that day we had tornadoes in our area and the lights were flickering on off and there were a big power outages. The power was out at my house when I left to go to the hospital that day in the hospital. And I part of the conversation was what if the power goes out in the middle of your procedure here. That's one of our conversation that very day but so I just struck me funny at the moment. And but we made made it through. But I am interested in your response. As a comedian, as someone whose job is to be funny, when you deal with something that really isn't funny,

early on in comedy, maybe five or six years and somebody said the phrase, everything can be funny, but not everything is okay. And that's 100% True, everything can be delivered the right way to the right audience in the right timing. But not everything can also not be funny done the opposite way. And so I've journaled a lot, I wrote a lot all my thoughts down, like all my serious thoughts, and then I would kind of pop back out and with just kind of the way I felt whether it was factual or not, and, and I've still got a chunk of those now. But you find that material, I've even that morning, like you say, I'd go in, you're doing more paperwork that morning at 5am. Make sure you use the valet so we, the wife drops me off at the front, and I see a guy smoking and he's in a leather jacket. He's got tattoos, and I jokingly say to my wife, well, there's our anesthesiologist. An hour later, there, that guy comes out. It was my industry. Hey,

what's your purchase? Just fantastic.

Are you doing that paperwork, and I remember the nurse, bless her heart, she goes, so I'm just gonna run through these questions. And she does seven or eight normal things. And she goes, and how do you just just for clarity had How do you identify? Like, Well, I'm here for prostate surgery. So identify as a male, but we'll see what happens on the other end.

In case something slips, you got to be careful there.

Well, there's all those things. And then definitely, as you know, in the couple of weeks following, you're humbled with a catheter and all these other things, and it's just the beautiful part of my post operation. Two weeks was it was right when March Madness started, so I could sit on the cats, literally and not leave the cats for 24 hours and watch all the ballgames night had to get up. And take take care of, uh,

do you think do you think having this sense of having a sense of humor, and essence a hopeful attitude? Do you think it helps in the healing process? Do you think it helps people to recover from trauma? Whether it be a physical thing, I guess, or maybe even emotional thing?

Oh, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of studies that have showed that humor, and hospital visits and stays and post surgery, all that stuff helps the healing process, you know, it releases endorphins, in your body, in your brain. And that's those are positive connections, and you need all those kinds of things, when you're going through a tough time. You know, a deflect everything and never, you know, acknowledge that things going on in your body. But you also can, can absorb those things with some humor. And with that, take, taking it as life or death every single moment. I mean, we're going to withstand a few hits, it's going to ebb and flow and things might look better for a while they might look worse, but your attitude, I definitely think plays a big part in how you heal and how fast you heal. And even if it doesn't change, the quickness or the speed or the the depth of your healing. There's no need to pile on and feel anxious the whole time you're going through it. I mean, you need to relax and let your body do what it does.

I think it's a bit of a nuance and see what you think record between a kind of a denial and you know, just, you know, delusional, not that it's not really happening, and kind of a distraction or a bit of a deflection to help you to deal with it to cope with it. I think, you know, humor and seeing things a little bit brighter, and opportunistic silver lining can be a coping mechanism. Do you think you think so?

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's, if you're, if you can't see, the outcome has been positive, that I don't see how you get up every day anyway, like, it's just I wouldn't be dreadful to me. So we can we're humans. So we get impatient with how fast things turn around or how fast things get better or, or how fast they don't get better, and how quickly they go the other direction, all those things, but it's really totally out of our control. I mean, you can make healthy choices you can do what you need to do and get treatment the way you need to get treatment. But beyond that, there's not much else you can do. So you don't want to beat yourself up with it.

You can be quickly drawn back into reality rather quickly by a doctor's report or you know, some bad thing happening in my field as soon as I you mentioned about the catheter. I had a catheter for a couple of weeks once I got home. And when the first time that I was able to get up and try to walk down the hallway, our dog decided to take a walk down the hallway with me and got it's got tangled in the tube and started walking and I had to follow my dog for several feet and believe me, that got my attention. Yeah,

two days before I supposed to have my cat removed. It stopped working like something wasn't connected in there rushed over there. But with no anesthesia, right thing and be wide awake, he had to kind of jam it back in there and make it connect. And he's like, hold on to something and use every word you need to use

it so baby here, we're going we're going in

Speaker 2 30:12

oh my god all my all my posts up bad words were the names of basketball teams in the big dance of what he did and I go Gonzaga.

And yet here's one of the things I found really cool about your Rik is you've been able to take this situation, you know, your cancer situation, and you'll be able to do some really positive things with it. You mentioned you've made it a part of some of your shows. And I know you are an advocate for people getting screened and so on. But you also have you mentioned earlier about how you were a cyclist as part of getting back to health, and you've combined your cycling, bicycling with your cancer and, and health and health charities to do something positive. Tell me about what you came up with that way.

Yeah, so that, like you said, I got into biking a lot. And it part of it was therapy, I think because when you're riding a bike, you can't can't think a lot about other issues. You're just paying attention to the road or the mountain bike trail, whatever you're doing. And it started to add up to a lot of miles. I'm like, Man, I wonder if I could combine this with a goal that's bigger than just me riding a bike. So what I'm attempting to do is cycle the distance around the world, which if you round it up is 25,000 miles, I've tried to do that before I hit 57 years old. I've done 14,000 miles so far. The game is can I do it before I help raise a million dollars for other groups. So the fundraising is at about 60%. We're at $640,000. I think so far with different fundraising events I've done in some individual things. And the biking is just behind it probably 58%, or whatever it is, it's maybe a little bit ahead of it. But I'm curious to see what happens first, I hope that we hit a million bucks before I even get close to finishing my ride. But every day I go ride if I don't feel like the extra five miles here, I'm like, You know what, I'm going to push towards this goal and see if I can help raise some awareness. So if people are interested in that, then go to bike, the number four bucks.com and see the different groups that have helped raise money for the different causes. And I'm excited about the cars we have coming up pretty soon as well. That'll be included in the tablet, for sure.

And you and I are working on an event that we're looking forward to having here clean comedy cancer benefit here in suburban Indianapolis where I'm located at and and it's going to be looking to raise money for cancer research and you're going to be with us and tell us a little bit of what what we can expect. And when when you come to be with us clean comedy cancer benefit

nicely, you can bring your whole family bring anybody who needs to laugh, if you're going through cancer have been through it come out the I'll probably have a little bit of material that night about my experience. That gives you a little bit of hope on the other side of things. And we just want to kind of be around each other and raise awareness. I think it's a big part of it. I wasn't aware of a PSA number or PSA blood test and all these things that are

very, it was all new to me as well when I started.

Speaker 2 33:25

That's the thing. You know, men are very prostate cancer and skin cancer are very prominent among guys in their mid 50s. And up, you know, we weren't raised with the sunblock for the skin cancer. And we weren't raised by parents who talked much about like, I didn't even know my dad had prostate cancer. Until two weeks after I had the surgery. Then my mom goes oh yeah, by the way your dad had that he's doing okay. I'm like, this would be good information for me to have graduating college student I should have a little book of medical facts of history, my family still gonna go on to have my own family and have checkups. I've got some information and I had no I didn't even look for it.

Well, that's, that's all part of the family story. And part of you know, you mentioned now your wife believed that you said her father died of prostate cancer. I know that frustrate cancer, all forms of cancer are just a major, still a major killer of people. And we need to respond and let's respond in a positive way. You know, a lot of times people deal with the cancer and they just think it automatically like a death sentence. They think doom and gloom and grim ah, you know, and I you know, one of things we like to say here and the cancer comedy podcast, we'd like to turn the grim into a grin that you can do that and through events, like we're talking about here, and it's about telling a tale telling a new story and so, well how can people learn to tell a great story about their experiences, I find a lot of people you know have very life changing experiences that really need to be shared. Sometimes it's just shared in the family, like you mentioned there. And sometimes it needs to be shared in a bigger forum. Because there are so powerful stories tell us a little bit of how people can kind of take their experiences, and the chairman to a story that can be transformative or hold people's attention.

I think for me, what I've realized is if I always share what God has done with me, as opposed to what I did, or a choice I've made or didn't make, and then how responded to what God put into my life as an opportunity, I look at cancer as opportunity now, you know, I look at this and I'm cursed with I'm blessed with it. I can help other people maybe go through it better recognize it earlier, all these different things. So it's not a it's not a shackle, by any means. So if at stake if you get to the truth of the matter, and share that part of the story, that's the most important thing. And God is the one who shapes all of our stories, I believe. So what he did with me is just one small example and what he's still yet to do with me, I still feel like Megan just on the first step of this new journey with him. So that to me is riveting. Whoever's telling their story about what's kind of did done in their life is Scott, my attention.

Well, let's just kind of close with us how people can be learn more about you, your website, that there's a TV show that's coming, but some new episodes are coming up about it, and you kind of have a prominent part to play. Tell us what it what you're up to these days. What you do with your tour, your website, the new TV show, tell us what what you're about, as we so people can learn more about you.

Sure, they can check out my website, Rikroberts.com, it's R I K, just leave out the C, Rikroberts.com People are Mayberry fans, they can go to mayberryman.com or look up Mayberry Man the movie or maybe man the series and YouTube or Facebook and find out more about those things. But I basically got a phone call. Somebody had seen my interpretation of Barney Fife in a couple of YouTube videos. They're like we're doing a movie. You don't have to be done. That's or Barney Fife. We just need you to be in a Barney Fife impersonator. The whole movie takes place at a Mayberry festival. So you'll be interacting with other Tribute Artists. And so we shot in three locations, I shot in two of them Mount Airy, North Carolina where they have a big Mayberry festival. And it's kind of the adopted home of Andy Griffith. And then Danville, Indiana, the town square and a lot of the areas surrounding that was you know, we shot many different scenes and sets there. So that was a lot of fun. And it was on Amazon Prime still is it's on different channels, you can check it out now and it's been spun off into a series we've shot five episodes, and that's going to be premiering in September, a few red carpet events and then most likely to end up on Amazon Prime or one of the other streaming services after that.

Hey, just a really cool interpretation. If you're kind of an old Andy Griffith Show fan, I saw some clips of this really a cool interpretation of the party five character. Well, what a delight to have you with us, Rik Roberts, we're gonna put everything you mentioned on our website canceled comedy.com. And he also you know, on his website has all the locations around the country where he's going to be, you can check him out live. You can also check it out live in suburban Indianapolis on November 4, and you can check it out by going to cancer and comedy.com/events. Our guest today on cancer and comedy. Rik Roberts, thanks for being our guest today, Rik.

Has a lot of fun Brad, we'll see you soon.