#2572 - Colum Tyrrell

Good to see you, brother. I’m glad you came through. You’ve got a new special hanging over your head, so maybe sitting here is a nice little distraction from staring at the release and wondering what everybody’s gonna say.

That’s exactly it. I’d been so wound up about the special that I barely had room in my head for anything else. If this was the only thing happening, I’d be replaying every possible disaster until my mother rang me about something I said.

The first time you put something out at that scale, it fucks people up. After you do it a few times, you realize we’re just hanging out, but early on it’s a real mind-fuck.

I grew up around betting in Ireland, where you physically went to the bookies, usually near a pub, filled in a slip, and thought about it a bit. Phones are the disaster: they’re addictive already, then a game flashes an offer for free blackjack and suddenly you’ve burned five hundred bucks.

I understand compulsive gamblers; I spent years around pool halls and people who would bet on absolutely anything. But a normal person should still be allowed to put money on a game they care about. We need better impulse control and discipline, not a nanny state controlling every appetite.

I’m not saying I’ve got the answer. I’ll throw a little on the Super Bowl or do bar boxes, but it feels like college kids now grow up expecting part of their paycheck to disappear into apps. Maybe the lesson is simply: don’t let your phone turn every spare minute into a casino.

Those old liquor laws were bizarre too. When I was a kid in Massachusetts, Sunday meant driving to New Hampshire for booze. We called liquor stores package stores, or the packy, which has a wildly different meaning depending on where you’re from.

New York still has that magic, though. I moved here after visiting at nineteen because there was always something to do, and whoever you are, there’s a little tribe for you. COVID took a bite out of the all-night diners, but the city can still hand you a proper meal at four in the morning.

I did comedy for two years in Ireland before coming over. There aren’t many built-for-comedy clubs; it’s often a converted room above a bar. Irish crowds are unreal: when you’re crushing, you feel like a king, but when you bomb, somebody can casually say you’re not funny and you’ve got fifty minutes left.

My accent has softened because my friends and my wife are American, and I podcast all the time. Back home, I soak it up again fast, then return and nobody understands me for a week. Irish people online notice every little change and call me a fraud, but I’m trying, lads.

I mostly talk about my dad rather than doing loads of Ireland material. He was known as Rage Aidan when I was young—one time he threw our beers into the street and ordered everybody out. Now he’s retired, gardens all day, sends flower photos, and somehow became the nicest fella alive.

A job you hate can poison somebody. You grind all day, come home stressed, barely cover food and bills, and eventually ask what the fuck you did with your life. Once kids move out and a parent sees they’re okay, they can finally relax around them.

That’s why I’m obsessed with getting outdoors lately. I started hiking alone, carrying everything, making my own food, and just marching. No notifications, no performance, no thousand thoughts fighting each other—your whole job becomes putting one foot in front of the other.

There’s something naturally therapeutic about woods. We’re part of nature and cities sever that connection, so anxiety can fade when you get away from all the noise. Just prepare properly: satellite communicator, bear spray, maps, and don’t be a dumbass around animals.

I want to do Yellowstone’s Thoroughfare—days out there, miles from any road, in grizzly and wolf country. That sounds perfect to me. I don’t have kids yet, so I’d like to get the possibly-being-eaten-by-a-wolf phase handled before it becomes aggressively irresponsible.

Nature is humbling because the animals do not care about your plans. A moose looks almost fake until you see one close; they’re enormous, fast, and can stomp you to death, especially a mother with calves. Admire it from a distance. Don’t turn yourself into Yellowstone’s next tourist video.

I’m becoming a bird guy too, which is embarrassing but great. I put a camera feeder at my in-laws’ place, got a hummingbird alert, and started keeping a list. Once you learn a bird’s call or recognize it in the garden, you’re suddenly paying attention to a whole world that was already there.

Hunters and birders have more in common than people think: tracking, wind, habitat, patience, learning what animals do. Hunting also has a conservation structure—licenses and taxes on gear help fund biologists, wardens, habitat work, and keeping animal populations healthy.

That’s what changed my view a little. People picture hunting as anti-nature, but the people outside all the time often care deeply about not trashing the place. And eating something you raised, grew, or took responsibility for has to feel more real than mindlessly grabbing fast food.

When you eat an animal you harvested, you remember the practice, the shot, packing it out, all of it. But growing food gives you a version of that too. Make a salad from your own peppers and tomatoes and you’re like, fuck yeah, I made this.

Comedy gives us another ridiculous privilege: making a room laugh. I’ve got this caveman-and-wife bit that can crush for a while, then I wander into the weeds and it dies. But that’s the deal. You keep trying until one day the shape of it finally appears.

The danger is turning a bit into a dead script. You find a premise, get used to one path, and suddenly it feels dull. Sometimes you have to wreck it and rebuild from zero. The best comics stayed loose enough that every set still felt like they were in the room with you.

That’s what I love about Patrice and those old Opie and Anthony hangs: nobody seemed in a rush, and they could sit with one subject forever. I used to think comedy meant writing an hour alone, then walking onto television. Eventually I learned there are open mics, bombing, years of work—the whole horrible, beautiful middle bit.

That’s why podcasts work when they’re just a real hang. We met last night, didn’t plan any of this, and never got near half the things either of us thought we might say. Go watch Bells and Whistles, then go see this man live. Maybe the caveman bit flies tonight.