Jason Rouse's Safe Word

Jason Vest is a veteran, stand-up comedian, and the man behind Hard Ons for Heroes — a project that started as a comedy video and somehow grew into a legitimate initiative to get care packages and OnlyFans access to deployed troops. Maddie Mae and her 58-year-old former lawyer mother are involved. I'll let him explain. We walked Austin and covered a lot of ground — the 48-hour comedy content shoot in Las Vegas with a porn star, getting permanently banned from Lifetime Fitness over a TikTok, the Barton Springs sugar incident, doing stand-up at a swingers party while a woman rode a Sybian in the background, childhood trauma from a small town in Michigan, and what it actually takes to make it as a headlining comedian without doing material about dentist appointments. He's got a custom rifle coming in two weeks, upcoming dates with Dave Landau and Charlie Mack from Kill Tony, and a movie on Amazon called Sangreen Teeth and a Driftless Road. He played a burner. Charlie played a vampire. We're all gonna be okay.

Bonggun Kim. Capital B. Capital G. Double G. And yes, his mom is responsible for the spelling. Bonggun and I walked Austin fresh off his first real trip to the States, figuring out the lay of the land — comedy scene, cost of living, scooter infrastructure.

Mike Eaton is one of my absolute favorites, and this one proved exactly why. We walked around Austin on a beautiful February day — Mike's been doing stand-up for seven and a half years and has one of the sharpest, most unfiltered minds I've come across. He talks about what it actually feels like to be on stage when you have anxiety — why performance is the one place his brain shuts up — and why he thinks Austin might not be where he belongs long-term. We also spent a concerning amount of time on peanut butter. I'm not sorry. This is the walk-and-talk format at its best: no agenda, good weather, two people who should probably not be given a microphone, given one anyway.

Greg Dobroski - by Jason Rouse Safe Word

I walked through Austin with Glenn Foster, a Canadian comedy veteran with almost 30 years in the game, and we covered everything from blowing it at Evening at the Improv with Tony Curtis to making $200K in the 1980s without ever touching cocaine.

I walked through Austin with Dan Guiry, and this conversation was 20 years in the making. We started on Congress Street and wound our way down to 6th Street, hitting every major comedy venue along the way while catching up on two decades of chaos. Here's the thing about Dan—I met him 20 years ago in Calgary when he was 19 and had done maybe three open mics. Someone told him "You gotta see Rouse, he's crazy." So he shows up, I'm with four pirate-looking ladies, and I ask this kid if he wants to come fuck these bitches with me. He tells me he's a virgin, almost shits his pants, goes home and "feverishly jerked off." That's how we met in 2006. Fast forward four years, Dan's been touring across Canada five times and moves to Toronto. Then he gets into the San Francisco Comedy Competition, doesn't win, and decides to hitchhike to LA. This maniac puts his thumb out on the highway with just a guitar and a burner phone. He messages our mutual friend Brian O'Gorman asking what to do, and O'Gorman tells him to hit me up. So Dan ends up staying at my LA house for 10 days and we just partied our asses off. I took him to this VIP nightclub where my buddy Chris, a top-tier club promoter, gets us in. We're dressed like shit—I'm in this, Dan's in jeans and a t-shirt—and we walk past the line into the basement private club. I ask Chris if I can smoke, he calls over 12 bouncers to circle our table with their backs to us, and I'm doing lines and smoking cigarettes while everyone in the club is staring going "Who the fuck are these guys?" Then we hit Bar Sinister, the vampire bar, did absinthe, watched some light BDSM, and Dan was thoroughly confused by the whole experience. Walking through Austin, we ran into my ex Brendan Lemon with his new girlfriend (had to keep a face on), saw Harland Williams which gave us Canadian hope, and encountered Robert Orlando after his "47th gay joke." The whole walk was punctuated by these meat fan hair dryers blasting beef smoke everywhere—apparently that's just Austin at dusk. Dan's been in Toronto raising his seven-year-old son, and I've been calling him every 3-4 months for four years going "You gotta get out, man." He always had excuses—the kid, the family, whatever—but I knew if I kept pestering him, eventually a door would open. Toronto used to be like Austin is now: five shows a night, banging around the city. Then COVID destroyed it. The only game in town was those park shows, which were awesome, but the city's just not the same anymore. Meanwhile, I moved to Austin five years ago after Red Ban came out here for the Kanye West episode with Rogan. I showed up during COVID curfews because I had Slipknot tickets, and I've been here ever since. Got my green card after a 20-year journey that started in 2001, cost $15k, and involved getting turned back at the border and living in Europe for six years. Dan's been here nine days and he's already hooked. We hit Houston to see Adam Ray kill for an hour, went to Casino El Camino for the best pastrami burger either of us have ever had, smoked cigarettes in bars like Dan fucking Guiry, and I took him to my first open mic signup ever (I thought it was Kill Tony auditions—rookie mistake). We walked past the Mothership where I've performed 10 times in four years without being booked, hit Vulcan Gas Company which was the only spot doing comedy during COVID, passed the Velveeta Room where Doug Stanhope used to hold court, and ended at Creek in the Cave for my Nightmare Before Christmas show. We even stood in the spot where someone got shot yesterday. I'm like "You're standing in their blood" and Dan looks down horrified. The bullet hole's still in the door behind us. Dan's going back to Toronto tomorrow but he's already planning his return. For the first time in his life, he's got hope again.

All right, welcome back to the Roustabout Podcast. I’m Jason Rouse, and today we’re rolling through Austin at noon, taking you along for a walking podcast with Tomek Kołecki, our Polish comedian fresh on the Austin scene and diving into the Kill Tony chaos. And just a heads-up for everyone listening: you can catch me whenever I’m in Austin at the Secret Show at the Sunset Comedy Club. We’ve got the Nightmare Before Christmas show with Danny Martinello and the Danger Cats on November 25th, and I’ll be at the Comedy Store on December 9th, the Laugh Factory, and the Hollywood Improv in December as well.

Austin, Texas 🇺🇸 Walking and Talking With Vidar Lunde | Roustabout by Jason Rouse Safe Word

Walking and Talking With Kill tony Guest Sebastian Fowler

Austin, Texas 🇺🇸 Walking and Talking With Byron Bertram| Roustabout

Austin, Texas 🇺🇸 Walking and Talking With Jordan Macdonald| Roustabout

Austin

Marina del Rey, California 🇺🇸 Walking and Talking With Nittish Sakhuja | Roustabout

Brussels, Belgium🇧🇪 Walking and Talking With Ric Diez | Roustabout

Finnbogi Örn Einarsson by Jason Rouse Safe Word

Roustabout Boomer by Jason Rouse Safe Word

Copenhagen, Denmark 🇩🇰 Walking and Talking With Kyle Lucey| Roustabout by Jason Rouse Safe Word

Morten Larsen by Jason Rouse Safe Word

11 Minutes on Stage on Kill Tony W/ Trish Smart

It's bar mitzvah in a bottle W/ Ari Mannis