323: Mick Betancourt Got Two Black Eyes from the Devil!

Summary

The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler – Episode 323: Mick Betancourt Got Two Black Eyes from the Devil!

Release Date: March 3, 2025
Host: Ryan Sickler
Guest: Mick Bettencourt

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Introduction and Guest Welcome

[02:54] Ryan Sickler:
Ryan introduces the show with enthusiasm, highlighting the unique storytelling approach of The HoneyDew. He welcomes first-time guest Mick Bettencourt, setting the stage for an intense and personal conversation.

[03:05] Mick Bettencourt:
Mick humorously references a tattoo, breaking the ice and adding a lighthearted moment to the introduction.

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Early Life and Family Background

[05:52] Mick Bettencourt:
Mick shares his multicultural heritage, stating, "I'm Irish and Puerto Rican," and describes the neighborhood he grew up in, Humboldt Park, Chicago—a place marked by poverty and instability.

[06:14] Ryan Sickler:
Ryan probes into Mick's family dynamics, asking about his parents' ages at his birth.

[06:46] Mick Bettencourt:
Mick reveals that his parents were teenagers when he was born—"my father was 16, my mom was 17"—which set the foundation for a tumultuous upbringing.

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Father’s Struggles and Custody

[08:21] Mick Bettencourt:
Discussing his father's custody, Mick explains, "my dad was getting custody of me. So, you know, like, what is that?"

[09:27] Ryan Sickler:
Ryan delves deeper into Mick's living conditions, asking about the stability at home.

[09:27] Mick Bettencourt:
Mick describes sleeping arrangements in a crowded and unstable household: "my dad slept on a love seat... I slept on the throw rug under him."

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Death of Mick’s Father

[21:14] Mick Bettencourt:
Mick recounts the tragic death of his father: "He got electrocuted on the third rail," detailing the confusion and emotional turmoil surrounding the incident.

[24:22] Mick Bettencourt:
He further explains the circumstances, mentioning the lack of closure: "the insurance... he was cut up."

[27:10] Ryan Sickler:
Ryan expresses empathy, asking Mick how he processed his father's death.

[28:00] Mick Bettencourt:
Mick shares a heart-wrenching moment at his father's funeral, stating, "I saw my dad," and grapples with the reality of loss despite the presence of his father’s body.

---

Transition to Living with Mother

[31:03] Ryan Sickler:
Ryan asks about Mick's move to live with his mother after his father's death.

[32:35] Mick Bettencourt:
Mick narrates an unsettling encounter with his mother, who was heavily intoxicated: "She closes the distance like Hagler hits one, straight right."

[35:24] Ryan Sickler:
Ryan highlights the inappropriateness of the situation, to which Mick responds with his perspective as a child.

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Struggles with Poverty and Stealing

[38:00] Mick Bettencourt:
Mick describes extreme poverty: "there’s no food... I started stealing shit, man. I can't live like this."

[39:01] Mick Bettencourt:
He recounts his first experiences stealing food and the consequences that followed, leading to a decline in his mental health: "I started hallucinating and my stomach started hurting."

[42:32] Ryan Sickler:
Ryan touches on the emotional weight of Mick’s actions, prompting Mick to reflect on his feelings of shame and regret.

---

Finding Solace in Wrestling

[47:11] Ryan Sickler:
Ryan asks about how Mick found an outlet, leading to the introduction of wrestling as a pivotal part of his life.

[49:17] Ryan Sickler:
Ryan shares his own experiences with wrestling, drawing parallels to Mick’s journey: "Wrestling really showed me everything."

[50:14] Ryan Sickler:
Ryan emphasizes the discipline and mental strength developed through wrestling, connecting it to personal growth and resilience.

[53:05] Mick Bettencourt:
Mick opens up about how wrestling taught him perseverance: "I just never occurred to me. It was always like, I'll quit when shit gets hard."

---

Reflections and Personal Growth

[55:08] Mick Bettencourt:
Mick reflects on his wrestling experiences and the lingering impact of his past mistakes: "The failures in my life haunt me daily."

[57:29] Ryan Sickler:
Ryan shares how wrestling helped him cope with his father's death, highlighting the importance of having an outlet for emotions: "I needed to get my mind off of everything that's going on."

[58:37] Mick Bettencourt:
Mick narrates a critical moment where his grandfather dies in his arms, deepening his sense of loss and responsibility.

---

Closing Thoughts and Advice

[71:26] Mick Bettencourt:
When asked about advice for his 16-year-old self, Mick offers contemplative insights, encouraging resilience and self-awareness in the face of adversity.

[71:42] Mick Bettencourt:
He promotes his Substack for more in-depth stories, inviting listeners to engage further with his journey: "if you like these stories... it's on there."

[72:11] Ryan Sickler:
Ryan commends Mick for sharing his profound and challenging experiences, appreciating his openness and courage.

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Notable Quotes

• [06:46] Mick Bettencourt:
  "I'm Irish and Puerto Rican."

• [08:21] Mick Bettencourt:
  "Only child. So I'm living with my dad, who lives with his mother and his two sisters."

• [21:14] Mick Bettencourt:
  "He went missing."

• [32:35] Mick Bettencourt:
  "She closes the distance like Hagler hits one, straight right."

• [38:00] Mick Bettencourt:
  "There's no food. I started stealing shit, man. I can't live like this."

• [53:05] Mick Bettencourt:
  "I just never occurred to me. It was always like, I'll quit when shit gets hard."

• [57:29] Ryan Sickler:
  "Wrestling really showed me everything."

• [61:14] Mick Bettencourt:
  "So my mom's business is her business. I need to eat, and I need clean clothes, man."

---

Conclusion

In this deeply personal episode, Mick Bettencourt shares his harrowing journey through poverty, family strife, and personal loss. With Ryan Sickler's empathetic guidance, listeners gain an intimate look into Mick’s resilience and the transformative power of finding an outlet like wrestling amidst chaos. The episode underscores themes of survival, forgiveness, and the relentless pursuit of stability against overwhelming odds.

For more of Mick’s stories and ongoing updates, visit mickbettencourt.substack.com.

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Note: This summary focuses exclusively on the core content of the episode, omitting advertisements, promotional segments, and non-content-related sections to provide a coherent and comprehensive overview for new listeners.

Transcript

[Mick Bettencourt]

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[Ryan Sickler]

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[Mick Bettencourt]

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[Ryan Sickler]

I'm headed back to Zany's in Nashville. Friday, March 28th and Saturday, March 29th Madison, Wisconsin. I'm excited to announce I'm shooting my next special at your club, Comedy on State. I was there not too long ago, had such a great time, such a great club that I'm excited to work with them and bring you my next special. Two shows Saturday, April 12th. Get your tickets [e-mail] the Honeydew with Ryan Sickler welcome back to the Honeydew, y'all. We're over here doing it in the Night Pants Studios. I'm Ryan Sickler and I want to say thank you for watching this show. Thank you for supporting anything I do. I don't care what it is. I don't care if you're just telling somebody about the show. Thank you for your support. Come see me do live comedy if I'm in your city when you're around. Tickets are on my website@ryan sickler.com and if you love this show and you got to have more, then you gotta have the Patreon. It's called the Honeydew with y'all. It is this show with y'all. And I'm telling you, I've been telling you for years, nobody's got these stories. It is ridiculously the wildest podcast on Patreon. And it's your show. And and it has remained and will remain five bucks a month. All right, if you want bonus content, we now have that New tier with the the way back a day early ad free. Everything for both shows is sensor free. And you're getting bonus content up there. You're not getting anywhere else. That's the biz. You guys know what we do here? We highlight the low lights. I always say that these are the stories behind the storytellers. And I am very excited to have this guest on today. First time here on the Honeydew. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome McBen.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Come on now.

[Ryan Sickler]

Welcome to the Honeydew. That's one extra five for each star on the Chicago flag. Is it five stars? Four.

[Mick Bettencourt]

All right. I got that tattooed right there.

[Ryan Sickler]

I love it. I know.

[Mick Bettencourt]

People go, what is that? I go, tattoo of a bruise, brother.

[Ryan Sickler]

It is very good to see you finally.

[Mick Bettencourt]

I know, man. Crazy five years in the making, right?

[Ryan Sickler]

Easy. Yeah, easy. But before we get into what we're going to talk about today, right there. Plug it all, please.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Cool. All right, so at McBettencourt on all social media. I brought my notebook here so I wouldn't forget Reacher on Amazon. Show it some love. That's on right now.

[Ryan Sickler]

And I had no idea you were working on that. How long have you been working on the show?

[Mick Bettencourt]

So I came on season three, which drops, I think, depending on when this drops. February 20th, but it's on right now. Watch it. Show it some love. It's a great show. So do the cast and crew that some want to show some love to? The Toronto crew up there? Yeah, they shoot it in Toronto, but the crew, man, is just top notch humans and just a great family vibe. And Alan leading the show, the star of the show, Maria Sten. Just like, dude, just. It's like one of those things that you get involved with and you're like, oh, this is the dream. Like it's a dream to work in Hollywood for sure. But when the people are on point and they're kind and supportive and caring, man, you're just like, oh, this is amazing. So if you don't know about the show, it's on Amazon. Give it a try.

[Ryan Sickler]

It's already on season three.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, season three is dropping. It's on right now. Yeah. So check that out. And then St. Baldrick's Foundation, I want to give show some love to the Franklin Park, Illinois Fire Department that's doing a fundraiser to fight pediatric cancer.

[Ryan Sickler]

So that's nice.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, man. So that's March 14th at Joe's Live in Rosemont, Illinois. Doors open at 5:30. It's free kids activities, open donations, silent auctions and Irish dancers. I don't know if you're familiar with Irish people. Second on the left on the evolutionary chart. It's going to be fucking amazing. Someone's going to get punched in the face while helping raise money for pediatric cancer, so.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh, I love that. And your substack.

[Mick Bettencourt]

My substack, dude, I almost forgot. So, speaking of stories and wild stories, Mick bettencourt.substack.com over 85 stories up right now. Free for seven days if you sign up as my Honeydew promotion. So just go. There's over 85 stories. Vibe with it. Read all of them. Seven days. And it's five a month if you want to hang out and get access to the premium content after that or 30 for the year. But right now it's free for seven days.

[Ryan Sickler]

All right.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, man.

[Ryan Sickler]

Well, like I said, it's good to see you and you had such an epic, I want to say, couple episodes of the Craft Feasts, but let's talk about your life story, because you're one of the few. You're. You have a very Joey Diaz, myself sort of upbringing. Sure. Wild and parentless. Yeah. So let's. Let's dive into. You're originally from Chicago.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Chicago, yeah. I'm Irish and Puerto Rican and I look like.

[Ryan Sickler]

And who's what, though?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Fucking map a dairy on my face. So just. You. You have to drive over a Puerto Rican flag under. Sorry. Like, it's a. It's a metallic. It's a huge sculpture to get in and out of the neighborhood that I grew up in for before my dad died in Chicago. It's called Humboldt Park.

[Ryan Sickler]

Is that right?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

And who is Puerto Rican? Dad or mom?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Ryan, look at this.

[Ryan Sickler]

You look.

[Mick Bettencourt]

White is a nun's ass.

[Ryan Sickler]

So your dad wasn't Puerto.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Ric, my grandfather from Puerto Rico. And he's so Puerto Rican that when my dad passed away, which we'll talk about, it says when he had to go fill out the death certificate under country of origin, it said Puerto Rico as a standalone country, not to have been given to the United. You know, to the United States from Spain. He's just like this, fuck you. This is an independent country, you know, so. Yeah. So they were teenagers when I was born. My father was 16, my mom was 17.

[Ryan Sickler]

Is that right? See, I noticed we've. Yeah, I know. I've heard this stuff so long ago, but. Yeah, I don't remember. Is that right? Your. Your parents were kids?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Dude, now that we have kids and you look back.

[Ryan Sickler]

16 is.

[Mick Bettencourt]

My daughter's 17. Oh, I would have already been one.

[Ryan Sickler]

Hell no.

[Mick Bettencourt]

I go into her room and I was like, yeah, this is your.

[Ryan Sickler]

Like, can you imagine also looking at your daughter be like, you'd have been my mom. Like, hell no. What's going on?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, man. But to look at that and imagine my daughter with a one year old is like. Blows my mind. But you don't have any of that perspective when you're coming up. I mean, my. It was, it was a quarter pump off from my dad, you know what I mean? Just like there was. He dropped out of high school, got a job at factories, mechanic, whatever he could get. Like, he just was like, I'm out. And he got custody of me. So, you know, like, what is that? Just. Well, you'll find out in a second about my mom. But like, no, dad was getting custody of the kid back then. So I was born in 74. They tried to make it work for a couple years. My grandmother, my mom's mom, Irish Catholic. And you know, they were, they were teenagers. My parents was like, he's not getting baptized. And so my grandma was like, what? And then they were like, we're gonna try to save the marriage. We're gonna go spend a weekend together. Will you watch? I was little Mickey. My dad was Big Mickey. I was little Mickey. She's like, oh, yeah, I'll watch him. Snuck me down the street.

[Ryan Sickler]

I knew you're gonna say it. Did she. She had you baptized?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, just knock me down the street, dunked me in the water.

[Ryan Sickler]

And I was like, don't hurry up. Just bless it. Throw some on this kid. I gotta get out.

[Mick Bettencourt]

No help for you.

[Ryan Sickler]

Is that right?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, man.

[Ryan Sickler]

Did she ever confess to them?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Oh, yeah, they were furious.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh yeah.

[Mick Bettencourt]

But you know, it's. Yeah. So my dad got custody on me. I don't, I didn't really have any memories of my mom. So.

[Ryan Sickler]

My dad, your only child between them.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Only child. So I'm living with my dad, who lives with his mother and his two sisters.

[Ryan Sickler]

And how old are you at this time?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Two?

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah, imagine he's 18.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

Of course, he's limited at home with his mom.

[Mick Bettencourt]

We're Sharon and dude, his mom went yard on the booze. Like she would just come out, you know. This is grandma, seven in the morning, sit there, drink all.

[Ryan Sickler]

How old is she? Do you remember? Is she a young lady too? Like, is this a Young Grandma?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Like 40s? I think everybody was young, man. It was just straight poverty, you know what I mean? Like just no road map, no nothing.

[Ryan Sickler]

And so sharing A room with your dad?

[Mick Bettencourt]

No, my dad slept on a love seat. Not even a full sofa. And I slept on the throw rug under him. In the living room. In the living room.

[Ryan Sickler]

That was your bed?

[Mick Bettencourt]

That was my bedroom. And what? I used to sleep in a drawer. Pull out drawer. Because my mom's brother came to a park. Just imagine, this is high school. He came to one of my dad's parties, heard a baby crying, knew that he had custody of me, went into a room, and I was in a drawer. So now when I was too big to sleep in the drawer, I'm on the floor. And I told this on the original crap feast. My. I'm sleeping, my dad's above me, hear somebody come in. I look up, I don't see anybody. I hear someone kind of walk past. And then I hear a sound of, like, someone throwing a basketball up and hitting it with an aluminum bat.

[Ryan Sickler]

And I'm very descriptive.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, that weird phone sound. Yeah, yeah. And I was like. I looked, and I saw a little light under the bathroom, you know? So my dad gets up and he opens the door, and his sister, who was a heroin addict, had got naked, tied off on the toilet and fell in.

[Ryan Sickler]

Into the tub.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Into the tub. And it was her head hitting the porcelain. You know what I mean? And her legs are sticking up. And I'm like, what's that? You know, like, you're just going to kindergarten tomorrow. Not even I was around kindergarten time. So I'm like, what? And then my grandmother grabs me and yanks me out as he starts pouring cold water on her, slapping her. And my grandmother grabs me and she goes, the devil's in the house right now. And I was like.

[Ryan Sickler]

Five years old.

[Mick Bettencourt]

What are you talking about? She's like, the devil's in the house right now. I'm like, we gotta go. You got that? And she's like, and tomorrow we're all gonna wake up with black eyes. And I'm like, black guys. Because I was like, what do you talk. Because the family upstairs, we shared an illegally converted a frame house.

[Ryan Sickler]

The black family.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So because I look like this, my grandfather said he never speaks Puerto Rican because it was a, you know, racist town. And you don't want to give him an accent. So I just hung out with the three black kids. I thought I was. I was Steve Martin and the jerk. I thought I was black till I was seven. So I'm like, what do we got to do? She's like, black eyes. So she's like, we. The devil's here. The devil's here, the devil's here. And she goes, now go back to sleep. And I was like, when? This is my hands upside down on heroin in the bathtub. And you said about just a friendly reminder, the devil's here. And you're like, go back to sleep.

[Ryan Sickler]

Go rest.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Go back to sleep. So I was like on the floor hearing those two yelling at. Because you know, she's a junkie that lost her high. He got her to come back. So she's furious at him, my father. So I'm like, I finally. He's like, gets back to sleep. I'm like, you okay? And he's just lays back down just at that time. He's probably 21. Let's say I'm five. Just got his sister who overdosed. You know, just this, this guy.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah. 21 years old.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So I wake up the next day and I'm in the bathroom making my little five year old tinkle. And I'm like, what did grandma say? So I like lean and to the mirror to see on my kids, purple, black eye, yellow. I'm like, yank this coat covers off my dad. Black eye. No, on my kids go into my grandmother's room, covers down, black eye. To this day, I still don't know how that happened.

[Ryan Sickler]

You don't think she went and did that?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Whereby Devil came in throwing heaters, man, just straight right.

[Ryan Sickler]

Wouldn't you if you were a ghost? I would. I'm like, yes, motherfucker.

[Mick Bettencourt]

How. Why would you say that? How would you know? Then we all woke up with black eyes. I mean, look, I would go to school and every day. So. So my dad, my dad had a. Would drive me on a chopper. He got like a discount chopper. So I'd hug the tank going to kindergarten.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh, you're up front.

[Mick Bettencourt]

I'm hugging that tank for dear life, man. Chicago potholes. Then he got a work van driving people with spinal injuries around. And so they're like, don't use this van for personal reasons. That's all they got it for because the bike broke down. He had a Trans Am for a while that you'd start with a screwdriver.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah, Trans Am. Of course, he's 21.

[Mick Bettencourt]

The T tops had like tarps duct taped to the car, you know what I mean? This was not fancy shit, man. You know what I mean? This is real good shit. So he goes, he finally gets this van, he gets a job.

[Ryan Sickler]

Trans Am.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Oh, you see them new T tops he's got over on Trump's out today.

[Ryan Sickler]

So take that bungee Cord off over there, man. Let's get these t tarps off.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Gotta take the t Tarps off real slow so you don't take the paint off t car.

[Ryan Sickler]

He's got a kid in it. Started with a screwdriver. T Times, bro.

[Mick Bettencourt]

We'Re on the sub mir, my lady.

[Ryan Sickler]

Little canvas tops, your little jeep tops.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Little bikini top, blind. You're like, oh, you want to.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh, God damn.

[Mick Bettencourt]

You want some wind in your hair.

[Ryan Sickler]

Hang on a second. Let me roll that back.

[Mick Bettencourt]

You. You have a screwdriver on here? I lost my keys. God damn, dude.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay, so we had trans am. And so wait, when you say you had a work van, like, it was a. You got a job at a company.

[Mick Bettencourt]

They gave, and it had the lifts and on the side.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh, it's like, had the handicap.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But every day you go, pick me.

[Ryan Sickler]

Up at school in that.

[Mick Bettencourt]

He started picking me up in that. He'd go, hey, I'd have to come out. I'd be scared to death. And I go, hey, dad, the teacher wants to talk to you. And he's like, are you around again? I go, I thought, yeah, I'm in there. And I get these services in the back.

[Ryan Sickler]

Right now.

[Mick Bettencourt]

You'Re with my tea talk money. And he. And I'd be like, she wants to talk to you. Because I would just be in, you know, because I just had disciplinary. The house was crazy. So, like, you know, I'd be. I just need to release the pressure somehow. So they'd be like, we're gonna do colors. And I literally just run out the room. Or I. Or I just grab a chair and just see if it go through the window. I mean, just crazy. So I'm like, the lady wants to talk to you again. So he's like, all right. And, you know, every time I come back in, I get a crack on the ass. He'd yell at me, something. Sometime I'm sitting there, Ryan. And he goes in, and I look over, and the van's on, and I'm like, I think I got to get out of here, man. Like, this is. You know, I mean, like, I can't get another crack on the ass. This is. So I jump in, and I. You know, you watch your parents drive. I'm like, all right, this works. This. Those two pedals. I got a 50. 50 chance. So I just get under in the wheel well, and I push one, and I hit one. It's like. So I'm like, all right. And I just.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah, in the school parking lot.

[Mick Bettencourt]

No, he parked in front of the school. So he's, like, on the street, and he went in. I see Dan's just sitting there, bro. I'm under the well, like. Like a pinball. Down the street.

[Ryan Sickler]

You're hitting.

[Mick Bettencourt]

I'm mowing cars down.

[Ryan Sickler]

You're hitting cars for real?

[Mick Bettencourt]

I can't see because I'm, like, driving it. And then it just stops. And I'm like, I think I'm in more trouble now.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah. Like, I thought, dude.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So this lady runs up, and she's like, where's the driver? Where's the driver? And I'm like, I don't know.

[Ryan Sickler]

Just. My dad's talking to the principal. It's gonna make him look bad. It would. Any dad whose child gets into a car drives. They're coming to look for my ass.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So he. You know, sirens, people. It's a thing. And I just see him running up and, like, looking at me, like, seeing everything. And he's like, did you. Did you fudgeing? You know, Was this you? And I was like, nope.

[Ryan Sickler]

Did you really?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah. I was just scared to tell him the truth, man. And he just was so dejected. Then the cops came up, and they're like, it's because you know what? You don't know when you're a kid doing that, but you're looking at a guy is. He's now doing the math.

[Ryan Sickler]

That's my work van, the insurance. How many cars that he just fucking hit? We got to pay all those out.

[Mick Bettencourt]

No new T tarps, bro.

[Ryan Sickler]

You better hold on to those teeth.

[Mick Bettencourt]

That's it.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So he loses the job. Foster dad, they lose the job. He gets fired. Wrecked the van, dude. I total the van that they said do not use for personal reasons, which is a block from his kid's school. And so I remember, like, him just being angry. He was never, like, a dude. He was just put on, man. You know, he just dropped out of school to raise a kid that he didn't plan on having. And then was like, I'm in survival mode, you know? And I remember just seeing him. Like, I checked. I'm sorry. You know? Like, damn. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And he always rocked kind of like a biker vibe. Like, he had long black hair. Always had, like, turquoise and teal earrings. My dad? Yeah. Yeah. Like a biker vibe. In a neighborhood with no real bikers. His friends were bikers. Like, he just loved motorcycles. So he's like. He just left one night when I was apologizing, like, right around when it happened. And he just leaves. And I'm following him like, I got a T shirt on like this.

[Ryan Sickler]

How old you say?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Six. Okay, so he's walking. We go to the corner store. He gets a case of beer. He's not talking to me. I'm, daddy. I'm trying to crack jokes. Whatever bus comes, he gets on the bus. I just get on with him. We go in the back of the bus. He's just drinking the beers, right? And he's just getting more. And, like, I'm starting to watch, like, the people, because they see him with a kid. I'm little and I'm looking how people are looking at him the more drunk he's getting. Because, like, we'll ride it to the end of the line. It's total silence. Get on another bus right at the end of the line, and he's starting to stagger more. Get to another one. He can't even walk. Bus driver comes in, and he goes, you guys got to get off. I'm like, well, where are we gonna go? And my dad's just out, just, like, barely. So the guy grabs him, the bus driver from the back door and just, like, kind of tosses him. He stumbles. My dad, we're like, in an industrial outpost in Chicago. Hits, like, this warehouse and just drops. And so I just go with him. And the look on the bus driver's face, I just discussed, you know, this bum wino and his kid. And, like, it's cold, man. And I got a T shirt. I just followed him out of the house when he went to corner store. So he's just kind of passed out, barely coherent. And I'm, like, nuzzling into him to try to win. And I'm looking around like maybe he's wanted to bring me here, you know, because I don't know anything. And I'm like, you know, maybe this. Is there a cool thing he wanted to show me? And he finally comes to, and he just looks at me, man, and he goes, I'm sorry.

[Ryan Sickler]

Did he.

[Mick Bettencourt]

And then he went missing the next day. Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

Are you being for real? Yeah, for good.

[Mick Bettencourt]

But. But what happened was.

[Ryan Sickler]

Can I ask you a question real fast?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

Because now I'm looking at it with hindsight. So I'm sorry. Is that just for getting faced on this bus and what I did to you tonight, or is I'm sorry, what I'm about to do?

[Mick Bettencourt]

No, because I don't.

[Ryan Sickler]

I don't think you know what I'm saying.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, I think. I'm sorry.

[Ryan Sickler]

Was that goodbye?

[Mick Bettencourt]

No, I Don't think it was a goodbye. I think it was how I felt when my son was born. And I had no tools to be a father to him. I had no tools and man, I wanted them. I wanted those tools. And I just, it was like I felt like I would never have them. Like the idea that I could be. Take care of somebody and, and the rent's paid and the, the, the. The repo man's not coming and they're not coming to evict. I mean, I've lived in 29 different places in my life. No, 30, 30, 30 now. And I think the I'm sorry was like. And maybe I'm being, you know, I'm looking back and I'm making it more flowery than it, than it is. It could have just been. I'm sorry I took you out and it's cold, but I really feel like, felt I don't have what it takes for you. And then he went out and he got. So he was missing for three days, so I should say he went missing.

[Ryan Sickler]

So the next day he goes missing.

[Mick Bettencourt]

He goes missing.

[Ryan Sickler]

Who, Who? Yeah, who tells you?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Well, so he's dating a girl at the time who was addicted to heroin at the time and looked like the, you know, remember the girl with the long blonde hair, the Muppet? You don't.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah, with the big red lips?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, yeah, she looked like that.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mick Bettencourt]

And so she's like, anybody seen Big Mickey? And they're like, oh, man, he's out partying. Like, you know, he lost his job. He's probably out partying. Like day two, it was like, call the hot, you know, call the drunk tanks, call the hospitals, call around. He might got an accident. He's probably laid up. He's just on a run, you know what I mean? He's out partying. Day three, man, the vibe in the apartment was not good. So my grandfather's over his father and he's like, we gotta, we gotta call the morgue, you know, and then my grandmother's howling. Like no one wanted to even entertain that idea, you know, because I didn't even. I was like, what's a morgue? And so he goes in the other room and he's on the phone, on the kitchen phone with the long ass cord. And he comes back in and he goes, there's a John Doe matching Big Mickey's description that's been at the morgue for three days. No wallet, no money. So they go down, he identifies the body of his son, which I can't as A parent now, I can't even fathom. I don't know how, dude. I don't know. I'm still not equipped to process that. Like, you know, you think about your own kids as like, dude, you got to kill everybody. Like, how do you. You know what I mean? Like, how do you.

[Ryan Sickler]

How do you process thinking about the drive there? Of course, it's not a thing. Every goes into this.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, man. And they go, and how old was.

[Ryan Sickler]

Your dad at the time? 21.

[Mick Bettencourt]

3.

[Ryan Sickler]

He's a baby.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Because I was 6. No, 4. Yeah, yeah, 23. 23. Just turned 23.

[Ryan Sickler]

And his father's down there identifying his son's dead body.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, man.

[Ryan Sickler]

Do you know what happened?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Penniless. He was electrocuted on the third rail.

[Ryan Sickler]

In Chicago on the train tracks.

[Mick Bettencourt]

On a train tracks? Yeah. And they don't know if there's any foul play, if he. If he pulled the ball. And, you know, now there's a miss because there's no story. There's no cameras.

[Ryan Sickler]

There's no, you know, these days, nothing.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Three, I think it happened. So. Yeah, man. Then Marianne comes home because she heard, hey, come to the house. No one said anything over the phone.

[Ryan Sickler]

Is Marianne the girlfriend?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Girlfriend said her name, but she's passed away since the market. No, no, it's all good, man. She's passed. And. And I'll say the good news of this story. She was excited because she had found out that day. She thought she was coming. Mickey was there. She found out she was pregnant that day.

[Ryan Sickler]

No.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So now she shows up. I'm gonna tell my guy, we're gonna have a kid. She's told the father, your kid has passed away. So. Yeah, man.

[Ryan Sickler]

So wait, you have a half brother?

[Mick Bettencourt]

I got a half brother who I've never met.

[Ryan Sickler]

Never.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

Do you want to?

[Mick Bettencourt]

I. I want to more for. I mean, I have such limited memories of my father. You know what I mean? I was very young. I mean, dude, the house that we.

[Ryan Sickler]

Grew up in, he's got none.

[Mick Bettencourt]

He has zero. So I would want to offer that for him, but without slandering his name. When I finally think I found out who he was, the first thing that came up was mugshots.com.

[Ryan Sickler]

Was it? Yeah.

[Mick Bettencourt]

I mean, sometimes. Sometimes happens.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah.

[Mick Bettencourt]

But his mother eventually moved down to Florida and got clean, and so she wound up leading a very beautiful, peaceful life. She turned it all around. But, like, we would be at the house, like, from my. My dad was throwing a party one time. I think I was 5 or 6, and I just had the rambunction going, you know what I mean? And he's like, you gotta calm down, man. I got people over here acting like lunatics. I was like, all right. So he gives me Harley Davidson belt buckle. So I strapped that bad boy on, gives me a Michelob and then a Playboy.

[Ryan Sickler]

How old?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Five.

[Ryan Sickler]

God. Jesus Christ.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So now what a starter, kid. Now I'm over in the corner like, you know, flipping the pages. It was just crazy. So then.

[Ryan Sickler]

So your dad goes, where do you go now?

[Mick Bettencourt]

So here's what happens, man. My dad dies. I don't really understand what that is, right? The word death. That. That German shepherd that the. The 16 year old kid upstairs had got killed. And his little brother, whose name was Dude. Dude.

[Ryan Sickler]

Really?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, yeah. Dude goes, hey, you want to see a dead dog? This was. This was like a week before my dad passed. I go, yeah. So we go in the alley and there was the German shepherd, but he lifted the side and it was filled with maggots, which I had never seen before. It was just this white undulating mass. And then you looked closer, you could just see him little, right? So I was like, oh my God, what is that? He goes, that's dead. That's a dead dog. That's dead. And I was like, oh. Then a garbage truck came down the alley and two dudes hopped off, hit the dog with a shovel, threw it in the back. Then a week later, ish. Big Mickey's dead. I was like, oh, he's cut up. He's got maggots. I don't know what's happening, man. The black family upstairs is wailing. They. They mourned in a way.

[Ryan Sickler]

That's nice. They liked your dad.

[Mick Bettencourt]

They loved him.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh, that's nice.

[Mick Bettencourt]

And the mom up there was like so sad. And then baby. The daughter was like.

[Ryan Sickler]

Her name was Baby.

[Mick Bettencourt]

It was. It was Baby dude and Tyrone Robin Harris. Yeah. And I was embarrassed because I was like, why can't I feel that? Like it's my dad. Why don't I. They're so like, why? Where is that thing in me? You know? And so we go to the. It was a welfare storefront funeral, you know, like folding chairs, little casket wreaked of formaldehyde or whatever they. Whatever chemicals they use. So I go up there and I see my dad, you know, and then a little kid, they. Everyone there starts fucking breaking up. They're sobbing. I'm like, what is. What is. He's right there. Why is everyone so sad? You know? So I go up and I could See the veins in his face? And I move his eye. I'm like, dad. And I just hear like. Because I pulled the stitches or the glue, whatever it is, off his eye. And then my uncle comes, my mom's brother, obviously, just grabs me and takes me outside. And he's like, look, your dad is dead. And I'm like, I know. He's like, I don't think, you know, like, he's not coming back. He's up in heaven. This is he. And he goes, you're not going to bed tonight. And I'm like, what am I going to do? He goes, you're going to stay up in the living room. You are not going to go to sleep. You hear me? When you hear me knock on the door, you come to the door. I'm like, fine. So that. He's like, don't tell anybody. So I'm like, all right. Whole night of stay up. Whatever I hear on the screen door, you know, the steel screen doors, like, Baltimore, open the door. He goes, come on, we're going. I go, where are we going? He goes, come with me right now. I'm like, all right. It's like 6am the sun's just coming up. He had a brown Scirocco, Volkswagen.

[Ryan Sickler]

Volkswagen's rock, so little Scirocco, right?

[Mick Bettencourt]

So I. I'm walking towards the car, and then my dad's other sister, who was like, the good kid trying to go to school, and she goes, what are you doing? And he goes, you don't. You don't gotta worry about what I'm doing. She's like, you taking them? And he goes, yeah. She goes, are we ever gonna see him again? And he goes, no. And I go, what? I go out, where are we going? He goes, get in the car. So I was like, what? He goes, get in the car. So I get in the car, we take off. I'm like, crying. Like, where we going? Not go, baby, I'm not gonna hang with dude. Like, he's like, you would be dead in two weeks if you stayed there. It's all junkies and junk and drunks. There's no food in the fridge, nothing. You know? I mean, like, you can't. Your dad is the only person that gave a shit about you at that house. Like. Like, my other aunt was just trying to get the fuck out of there. You know what I mean? Like, she was just staying there, tolerating it until she could leave. So he's like, we're going to your mother. And I'm like, who's my Mom. I'm like, who's my mama? You know like I'm talking like, like dude. And he's like, she's great. We're going to a little place called Berwyn. It's a neighborhood. There's a tasty freeze a block down from where you're going to live. There's a park three blocks away. You're going to go to a school. There's a nice kids. Don't worry. This is the Irish side. It's very nice and very calm. You're been around Irish people. Ryan.

[Ryan Sickler]

Enough of dude.

[Mick Bettencourt]

That would be the last way that I would describe is not a calm.

[Ryan Sickler]

Isn't that used for that?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Palm is not the descriptor, bro.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So we pull up to a two story apartment building in this neighborhood called Berwin and he's like, your mother's in there. We're gonna walk in. Your whole life's gonna change right now. Everything's gonna be fine. All right. How to have fun anytime, anywhere. Step one, go to chumbacasino.com chumbacasino.com Got it. Step two collect your welcome bonus.

[Ryan Sickler]

Come to papa.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Welcome bonus. Step 3 Play hundreds of casino style games for free. That's a lot of games all for free. Step 4 Unleash your excitement.

[Ryan Sickler]

Woo hoo.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Chumba Chumba Casino has been delivering thrills for over a decade. So claim your free welcome bonus now and live the chumba life. Visit champacasino.com no purchase necessary vgw group void where prohibited by law 21 + terms and conditions apply. Take an AMEX card with you on your morning coffee run and earn cash back on a weekend trip. Earn miles. See if you pre qualify for an American Express card with no impact on your credit score. Learn [e-mail] check for offers. Your credit score may be impacted if you accept a card. Terms apply. I'm nervous. I have no memories of my mother. So we walk in staircase going up to the right to the second floor apart. Little door opens. This like 4 foot 9, red haired, pale freckled woman is standing and she's like hey. And I'm like hey mom.

[Ryan Sickler]

That's your mom.

[Mick Bettencourt]

That's my mom, right? So she opens the door, no hug, walks to the other side. Like it.

[Ryan Sickler]

No hug.

[Mick Bettencourt]

No hug. So when you walked in, you walked into a kitchen. There's like a little sunroom here, which is where her bedroom was. And then a living room, right? And there was like a dining room table in the kitchen. Her other room had been walled off. For like a two chair polish beauty salon. So it just smelled like perm fluid when I walked in.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So she's standing on the other side. She's kind of looking at me like, what's my life now? Because she didn't plan on having me there. You know what I mean? So I walk in, I'm looking at her like, what is this? I'm hungry. I just basically got kidnapped. I haven't had breakfast. I open her fridge, it's empty. Like you knew a kid was coming. Like, I think about this now, right? There's a quart of milk. I just. That's it. That's all that's in the whole fridge. I pop that open, I start guzzling it, it's sour.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So I just instinctively just go. She closes the distance like Hagler hearns one bro across the ring, straight right? Bang. Drops me and goes get a towel and pick it up. And I look up at my uncle who just gave me the pep talk, and he's like, good luck.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah.

[Mick Bettencourt]

He just leaves. I was like, this is chill. You know what I mean? Like, this is. And dude, that was my mom.

[Ryan Sickler]

And like, how long are you with her?

[Mick Bettencourt]

So I live with her. I lived on the sofa for a little bit in the floor. And then sometimes she would sleep on the sofa because one time I'm like. So they send me to the Catholic school three blocks away called Saint Odillos, which is the patron saint of purgatory.

[Ryan Sickler]

I didn't even know there was one, dude. There's a saint of purgatory, of stuck between heaven and hell.

[Mick Bettencourt]

You're not good. And you're not. Yeah, you're just like, meh.

[Ryan Sickler]

Also, what's it say about the saint that gets that gig? You know what I mean? You're also just a mass saint, you know.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Hey, Frank, has anybody ever told you your average.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah, we got a whole saint for that. That's the name of the school.

[Mick Bettencourt]

That was the name of the school. So I.

[Ryan Sickler]

For all the average kids.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, man. So I'm there in my. My mom let me sleep in the bed one night. I'm like, not. I'm. I'm in first grade. So what is that? Seven, eight.

[Ryan Sickler]

Now you're five and six in first grade. Seven, second grade, eight, third grade, nine.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Okay. So I might have been a year later. So I. Let's say. Let's say I'm. No, I'm. Let's say I'm first. Or I was just at the school because this is why she wakes me up at midnight and goes, where? We're going out? And I'm like, where are we going?

[Ryan Sickler]

She got a lot of these late night runs of Relative, dude.

[Mick Bettencourt]

She goes, we're going out. I go, where we going? She goes, we're going dancing. Wear something sexy. And I'm like, sexy girl.

[Ryan Sickler]

Sexy.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So I got. I look at. And she was in a hurry, man. She's like, if you want to go. There was some urgency to the request. So she was drunk, full on alcoholic. So I'm like, all right. I get my corduroy pants from the Sears Husky section. Throw those on. Mustard yellow shirt from, you know, my uniform from school. I'm like this. Come on. And we go to a place called Tuttiette. Tuttiets? Yeah. I think was on North Avenue or Grand Avenue. We walk in, my mom comes in, she's dancing. The music's going. There's a wall of mirror smoke machines going. She gives me a 20. She goes, Go get two Manhattans. I don't know, you know what I mean? So I had Michelo, but I never had Manhattan. So I go to the bar and I go to Manhattan's. I'm in my Saint Purgatory School uniform. It's probably 12:40am I'm like, come up to here on the bar. I'm standing on the little rail under it. The guy sets two drinks down and goes, keep your mother in line tonight.

[Ryan Sickler]

Telling the kid to do it.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So I take the drinks. I give her one. She's got her purse down, dancing with herself in the mirror. It was.

[Ryan Sickler]

She didn't want both of them.

[Mick Bettencourt]

It was. No, one was for me. She gave me one Chima. I drank. It tasted like gasoline. I'm just. So now I'm kind of dancing. The women there thought it was the shit, that this little kid was out there dancing. My mom's dancing. About two hours later, last call comes. I'm shithoused. And I'm dancing with this girl. And she goes, you're so cute when you get older. And what did she say? She goes, she flashes me. And she goes, oh, my God, if you were older, we would totally be going home together now. But I can't get in trouble.

[Ryan Sickler]

She showed you her tits?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah. You're a kid on the dance floor. And then the next day again, I'm going to school. And they're like, he has a problem sitting still.

[Ryan Sickler]

He's hungover.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah. Like, I go in people like. And then. Plus, at the same time, I'd be sitting there.

[Ryan Sickler]

He can't stay Awake during story time for. I got. Yeah. So now what happens to mom? So is she an addict still?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Well, it was mostly alcohol.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay.

[Mick Bettencourt]

And abusive men. Dudes would just. Yeah, dude, it was not good. And then she would forget to buy this shit called groceries.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So I'm not eating. I would eat it at the Purgatory school. And then finally, I'm like, she had passed out. I. I'd only been eating lunch at school, and I knew that there was a guy living upstairs. So I go up the stairs at night, maybe about eight at night, my mom's already passed out. He kept. Remember the generic sodas that would say, like, red, orange. Yeah. So there's generic pop and chips that just say chips on them on the little ledge. Like, you open the door, there was the ledge, and you go downstairs. So I just take the top.

[Ryan Sickler]

I'm like, dude, that was three liters back in the day, too. Where you had to let it. And it would take, like, five minutes to think.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

You're like, oh, man. Try to go a little. Great.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Then you grab in the corner of the chip thing.

[Ryan Sickler]

So.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

And you can't do it in the fridge either, because the lights on the whole time.

[Mick Bettencourt]

You're like, oh, yeah. So I'm guzzling as much as I can, right?

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah.

[Mick Bettencourt]

And then I'm just trying to open these chips, man. And I'm just shoveling these chips in my mouth. And then the door swings open, and now it's just light on me because there was no light on in front of the thing. He's like, hey, this guy. Hey, what are you doing? I'm like, huh? He's like, you eating my food? And I'm like. And he's like, look down. And I just. I'm covered in potato chip crumbs. Now. This is my mom's father.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Who would become my grandfather. But when I first went there, I'd only seen him once. I figured that he lived up there, but he would. He's. He's like, how's the kid doing? But I was standing next to my mom, but because I was Puerto Rican and Irish, he. And his was a teen mom, and his son had just gotten murdered. I left that out. But the house that I was moving back to, my mom's brother had just been killed. He was involved in a homicide and had some things go. He got jail or the Marines, and he went to the Marines. And then when he got out of the Marines, he got.

[Ryan Sickler]

They got him.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Well, jury's still out on what happened, but it was nefarious. So it was a brokenhearted fam, you know. So I was coming from that environment into this environment that had been shattered by the loss of this guy. But my grandfather was old school. He did seven years of a 15 year sentence for armed robbery. So he, you know, he wasn't. He was street smart. Then he cleaned his shit up, got a job at Sears Roebuck, got this little two flat building, you know, and it's so funny, that building sold in 1990 for $200,000. It just went on market last year for 210. That's everything you need to know about that neighborhood, dude.

[Ryan Sickler]

Nothing.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Nothing. Dude, you made a sweet 10 grand profit.

[Ryan Sickler]

40 years and everything. You got about $2,500. That's my nest egg, bro.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So everyone was upside down, man. So this guy, see, this guy sees me. He's. He's probably 65 at the time. Stocky dude, you know, I kind of look just like him. And he goes, you eat today? And I go, no. And he goes, how's. How's your mother? And I just was like. I didn't want to say anything, you know, because it's that neighborhood thing. I'm just like. It's easy for me to just say nothing or not.

[Ryan Sickler]

That's why I always. How you good? I'm good, I'm good.

[Mick Bettencourt]

I'm fine.

[Ryan Sickler]

Fine.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So he goes, you know Mickey Rooney? And I'm like, no. He goes, there's a movie coming on called Black Stallion right now. It's got Mickey Rooney in it. You want to watch it? And I was like, yeah. He goes, I can put some popcorn on the stove. Remember the Jiffy Pop? Yeah. He goes, I put some popcorn on the stove. We could watch a movie. Because he knew, right? You look back, he knew. He knew his. He knew who his daughter was. He was. His alcoholism destroyed his family. He saw what was happening, son. You know what I mean? It was. It was not good. And here was a little kid stealing food to eat. He took me in. He had two lazy boys in the kitchen because he had walled off his living room for his son who had disowned him because of his alcoholism, to let him live for free after he had gotten Ms.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay?

[Mick Bettencourt]

So he was making. He was a member of Mensa. I don't know if you know that, genius.

[Ryan Sickler]

Sh.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, yeah. So that was that guy. His name was Tommy. He disowned his family, moved to New York, started making some money in his early 20s, got hit with MS, became an alcoholic, came back in had nowhere to go. And his father said even though they hated each other, you could live in the living room for free. So that was the guy that lived on the other side of that wall. So his living room was his kitchen. We had two lazy boys. And I just sat there and I ate popcorn, man. And like, I ate. Like, I. That was not happening. Like, I didn't. There wasn't two days in a row that I ate.

[Ryan Sickler]

Isn't it funny, too, that it's just popcorn, but you're so grateful to have something going in your mouth and stomach?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, man.

[Ryan Sickler]

Also, Black Stallion, I'm not gonna lie to you. Within the last year, I went on YouTube and I re. Watched the scene where he rips that fucking mask off and they're hauling ass.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh, it's giving me chills now. Yeah, I remember seeing that as a kid and I was like, what a fucking great movie that was. But he's playing with them on the beach.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Oh, yeah. But you know what's crazy?

[Ryan Sickler]

I'm gonna go home, watch it today and get fired up for.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

I'm just gonna give up.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Movie poster in my office. My pal Billy gave me the figurine, the horse. The figurine that the kid gets, you know, I watched it again. I mean, dude, I'm crying at the end of the movie. He's crying at the end of the movie, and he looks at me and he goes, stay up here tonight. And I go, I gotta go downstairs. He goes, no, don't worry about it. And I go, but he goes, I'll talk to your mother. And then I moved upstairs with him.

[Ryan Sickler]

Is that right?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, my mom just let me go live upstairs. She would come up, dude, let me talk about Blackstallion for a second. That's about a kid who loses his parents and an old guy who's a little bit lost and they find each other. And that was what happened. You know what I mean? Like, that's just what happened. And he was not the perfect guy, but he was the fucking perfect guy for me, you know? Like, he would give me oatmeal in the morning, and he was doing the best he could as a guy who had fucked his family up through his drinking, had tried to get sober. I saw him relapse twice. A tough dude. This guy carried a hatchet under the front seat of his car.

[Ryan Sickler]

A hatchet? A hatchet.

[Mick Bettencourt]

You know, like a little handle fucking hatchet. Some guy pulls up to us, we're going to Toys R Us. A guy pulls up some Bikers in a car, right? A guy, he goes, hey, old man. You your old lady as slow as you drive? My grandfather goes, dude, when I say Irish temper, like stereotypical shit, I mean, there's no space between what that dude said and my grandfather going to murder him. No, for real, murder him. He. He goes, like the clinched teeth grabs the hatchet, gets out. The guy's like, what's this guy gonna do? Walks around, goes to kill him with the hatchet, kill him. And the guy just happens to gun it and veer away before the hatchet goes into his head. Instead, it goes into the side of the car so that when he cuts over, I see the hatchet sticking off the side of the stick wedged in the car because the guy happened to move it before he got murdered. Hardcore dudes, man. And this guy just, like, loved me. He drove me to school. Like, my mom would come flying and drunk kicking my door, beat the shit out of me and leave. And he. He didn't stop her. He. Because that, like, it was a weird thing. Like, I'm her kid, he's the grandfather. But, like, ultraviolet cigarettes put. I mean, crazy shit, you know what I mean? And. But he was always the safe harbor. Then one day, you know, it's like June. It's hot. I'm 13 at this point. You know, I'm a teenager, not super rebellious. I say that I got pinched a couple times for stealing, but my neighborhood was all that was kind of the vibe. Like, I got arrested one time for. For stealing baseball cards. Like a whole box of them, right? But I was with a guy. It was a kid with me. So I get arrested. The kid makes it away, My partner. And I'm there. I'm scared. He's like, who are you with? I'm like, I wasn't with anybody. And he goes, we know you were. We saw the other kid go away. I goes, I don't. I wasn't with anybody. So he slaps me. The cop does. He goes, who are you with? I go, I wasn't with anybody. He goes, well, now we're going to call your house. I was fine. I call my grandfather. They call him. He comes in, but the door's open. Now they got me cuffed to a table and everything, but the door's open, so I can hear my grandfather come in. Oh, he stole baseball cards. I hit him. And my grandfather's like, that's all right. You know, this is the old school. So my. They get. I can't see him, but I can hear him. They're right outside the door. And the guy goes, he. He was. He had a partner and he didn't give him up. My grandfather goes, oh, no, he's a good kid. Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh, he's the best.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

We're raising him right. Yeah.

[Mick Bettencourt]

For real. He didn't give him up. No, no, he's a good kid. So primo. And so I start wrestling. You know, I. And I found this beautiful sport, man, where I had all this energy my whole life from the trauma or whatever the fuck you want to call it, right? And I remember the first practice, and it was a club, so it wasn't a sport at the school. But we had kind of heard that there was something like that. And so me and another kid who I love, one of my best friends, we go. We just try to do. We went to this strange sport, strange place, strange smelling room. We knew nothing about it, right? So we're in there and we're experiencing what every wrestler experiences, which is abject terror of physical violence, but your body exerting at a level you didn't know was possible. So I just stopped, man. I just stopped. And Coach Jerry Rafino comes up to me and he goes, we don't do that here. And I go, what? And he goes, quit, bro. It was like, hit. I was like, what are you talking about? Like, in my. I was like, what? He's like, we don't do that here. He wasn't a dick about it. He was a fireman that came from the firehouse to the wrestling room. He's like, we just don't do that here, man. And it was all a bunch of knucklehead neighborhood kids. We didn't have wrestling shoes. We didn't. We wrestled in street shoes. You know what I mean? Like. And he was just like, you just. You gotta. You just can't do that. And I just never occurred. It was always like, I'll quit when shit gets hard. I gotta find. I gotta cut corners, man. I gotta be slick. It never occurred to me. You take it all and you keep going.

[Ryan Sickler]

I have to say, wrestling saved me quite a bit, too, in high school. My dad's just dies, and we're in the middle of a wrestling season, and my mother's gone, and I'm just like, man, you talk about also, in hindsight, being very grateful to have an outlet to take some aggression out. Yeah, somebody.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

You know, sorry about that illegal lateral drop right there. You know what I mean? Like, my bad. I'm going through some right now, my friends. Do you don't want to wrestle his ass right now. I'm like, I might put you. I might DDT you. You know what I mean? I might put some WWF on this. But, yeah, man, I remember it was no quit and just the mantras. It was respect. It was fear. Respect everyone. Fear no one.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

We were never allowed to lay on our back. If you were on the mat on your back and the coach caught you, it was like fucking 100 push ups, shit like that. It was discipline.

[Mick Bettencourt]

A horrific amount of physical exercise that you didn't even think was an option.

[Ryan Sickler]

You would hear in sports. I played team sports as well. But, you know, you hear all your cheating yourself. And the truth is, in a team sport, there is someone that can back you up. Somebody bail you out or whatever. Not in that sport.

[Mick Bettencourt]

No.

[Ryan Sickler]

It's you and all your fears, your emotions.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

Everything. Trying to also skillfully dismantle this within the rules.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, on its surface, you have to put somebody against their will, have both their shoulder blades touch the mat. You, you know, like Jay Moore said, you know the same moves, you train the same. What were you doing when nobody was looking? And it was, man, it just. That in skateboarding changed my life forever. Also individual, but part of kind of a team or a group where, like, you just fell, man. You had to fall. You had to yourself up.

[Ryan Sickler]

Seinfeld has. Has said some great things about. I say it a lot like he said you would think maybe an older dude like that, like, whatever, but he said, no, those kids are going to be just fine.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

Out there doing that same trick again and again and again until they perfect it. He's like, it's a lot like comedy. It's a lot like life.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

Just keep repeating it until you get it, and then it's not good enough just to barely get it. Now let's do it. Well.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yep.

[Ryan Sickler]

You know, and then it's now the next trick. Let's get it. Do it well, you know, so that's. It is all. You know, the other thing, too, that I've learned in life, too, is that just. And a lot of people ask about this, but honest to God, the majority of it is just hanging in there.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

Don't quit, show up. Hard work. It's. It's hustle. It's. It is. There's no shortcuts. I tell my daughter that all the time. I go, you don't ever want to go like this. You go like this. You're coming down like this. You want to go like this.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

You're gonna have your.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yes.

[Ryan Sickler]

Peaks and your valleys, but you want a steady rise. You know, it's okay to drop here, but we're gonna go up here. We're gonna. Too forward. It's fine. You don't want to skyrocket up because then you skyrocket down.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

There's no where you going from there. This is a steady climb. Google Coca Cola. You know what I'm saying?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

Steady on.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Not only that, failure is part of the COVID charge, man. Like, embrace that.

[Ryan Sickler]

And that's all comedy is. People like, how'd you get good at stand up? Because 90 of what I did sucked.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

And 10 is all right. That's how.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah. I mean, failures.

[Ryan Sickler]

Wrestling really showed me everything.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Oh, yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

Also just getting beat. Humble. Getting humble. That's another thing too, because you're. You're angry and you got a lot of ego and you're just full of testosterone. Nobody who. I don't have any parents right now. You can't tell me.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

But this from North Carol that can ride legs is twisted up like a pretzel.

[Mick Bettencourt]

How about this, though? When you are in a funk and you get stuck and you get pinned, I. I'm not kidding you. Only till about maybe five or eight years ago did I stop daily replaying grade school pins.

[Ryan Sickler]

Is that right? You would think about that pin.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Oh, dude. All the failures in my life haunt me daily. They just come on me less of like that I'm afraid of it, but just that it happened and it really bothers me. It really bothers me. And the fact that I couldn't win and beat them and couldn't figure it out, or worse, the time where I did give up. And I knew it. Like, I could have bridged for a little longer or I could have fought for a little harder and the gas tank went. But I made a decision to quit was so shameful. I took it so personally that, like, just recently, I'm free of that.

[Ryan Sickler]

That's interesting. I. I had a. This one is a moment that really stuck out for me too. Wrestling again changed my life a little bit. So my dad dies in November. We've got the holiday tournaments in December. It's just weeks after my dad's dead. And they're like, you know, you should probably. I was like, nope, I need this.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

I gotta get. I can't sit home. I gotta get my mind off of everything that's going on. This is literally. He's fresh in the ground. This is Fresh on my mind. He was always at these events. Now he's not here. So I'm going to my first Christmas tournament and wrestling tournaments. You know, Christmas one, like, eight, 10 schools, and you're wrestling all day.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

And I get. I get to the end, and my coach is like, we're gonna need you to wrestle at 165. Or no, 175. And I was like, like, dude, that's, like 10 pounds over. He's like, you just got to step up and do it, because, you know, you get your individual accolades, but team sport. I was like, okay. And I said, but I'm weighing in in my singlet, and I'm eating a cup of pudding. He goes, go ahead. I stood on that thing in my clothes, my headgear hanging off. I'm eating a couple of pudding. Big bad cord that didn't move. And they were like, all right. I was like, oh. And I'm wrestling this yoked from Gilman. He's a big six plus motherfucker. Just. And. And look, the thing was, just do your best not to get pinned. You know what I mean? That's what he's telling me. Don't. Don't get the six. Just do what you can.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

Try not to let him pin you. And I'm like, all right. And I'm just. I'm also like. I'm thinking about my dad. Like, my.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Here.

[Ryan Sickler]

My dad's not here right now. I'm locking up with this dude. My dad's not here. I got so much emotion going on. I tell Stella about this all the time. And I grabbed this guy by the back of the neck, and I just give him a chuck just to see.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

And that neck went by me, and I saw it, and I said, headlock this now. It might be your only chance. And I now hip toss them. Boom. Drop on him. I put my arm over his throat, which you're not supposed to. You know what I mean? But I don't want him to say I'm. I know that if he gets up, you're done. I'm getting not. He'll toy with me. He'll hurt me, not just pin me. He's gonna bat me around. It's what it just started. And I get up on my. You know, like. They teach you on your heels. And I'm rocking in his chest, and I'm bending his neck up, and he's screaming, and I hear, boom. And I'm like, oh, my God. And I get up, this dude's. He won't shake my hand. So he gets a. Another team deduction for unsports facility conduct. And I win. And I can't believe it. And I go down in the locker room, and I just break down.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

I just ball and ball and ball. I can't believe. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I'm not supposed to win that. What the We. And. And not only was I not supposed to. If there's one I wish my dad could have seen, that would have been it. He would have been like, you took that big down because he had no problem busting your balls like that little wiry gave you a lesson, you know what I mean? He told you that? I'm like, I did. That he did. He's like, he wrote all down your ass, man. Had you twisted all. I'm like, I know that. My brother got pinned one time in six seconds, and he came off. And my dad goes, derek, I said this all time. People ride bulls longer than that dude. So I know that he would have been like, I want to with you, but, man, you handled your business out there. That dude was a Goliath. He really was. But I get it, man. That sport, really.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

It saved me at that moment. I need. I needed it right then, too. I needed it right. I needed to get all that anger out, all that aggression and all that, and. And I didn't need it in a team sport like football, just banging a guy in front of me. I wanted to. This guy up, or I wanted him to, go ahead, give it to me. I need it too.

[Mick Bettencourt]

You know what was interesting was the. I liked the combat of it, but to me, the mental side of the training, I was fascinated with because I was discipline. Unreal. You know, like, learning that stuff was awesome, but seeing what you're made of. So I was telling you, like, it was like June. It was hot. We couldn't run the air conditioners at the same time. So my grandfather had his on my. Blew the fuse.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So my miles would be running, and I went into my grandfather's room and he would. He was just a stock. My grandfather had a foot race. I was the fastest kid, one of the fastest kids in grade school. And he goes, don't ever be cocky. He goes, I'll beat you in a foot race right now. I'm like, you're 70 years old. He goes, you say, ready, set, go.

[Ryan Sickler]

We'll.

[Mick Bettencourt]

We'll sprint to that car. Beat me, did he? He's like, don't get cocky. Don't be a cocky guy. So we would. I would like grab his wrist, and he tried to swap me away all the time, you know, trying to show my wrestling moves and stuff. So I go into his room, he's sleeping. I grab his wrist to lock him up. He comes up, he kind of smiles at me. He turns purple. Heart attack and dies.

[Ryan Sickler]

Nah, dude. Is that a true story? No, I don't mean I'm laughing. No, please, please. Is that real?

[Mick Bettencourt]

You heartless? Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

No, dude.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, I grabbed his wrist, try to.

[Ryan Sickler]

Put him in a half nose. This.

[Mick Bettencourt]

This poor bastard, he's dying.

[Ryan Sickler]

He smiled.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, I grabbed his wrist because he had the acid. So he would. He would be propped up on pillows. He would already be. He was halfway there for the headlock.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh, bro, he was.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So I just came out, I grabbed his race. He kind of looked at me and I didn't. I mean, it was very similar to what my dad when he said, I'm sorry, but, like, he just. He turned purple and he just went. And the life went out of.

[Ryan Sickler]

Right in front of you, right?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Dude, he died in my arms. I was like, crap. You know, because after a while you see him turn purple. I'm like, grab, grab, grab, grab. And then he just died. So I'm like, dude, I run out. I jump over the balcony, hit the stairs, coming down, pound on my mom's door, grabs dad. Grabstead. Grabstead. She opens the door, she's naked. There's a naked dude on the table, table.

[Ryan Sickler]

And he's like.

[Mick Bettencourt]

And he goes. Kicks a half dog of vodka off the table.

[Ryan Sickler]

What?

[Mick Bettencourt]

His ball bags hanging out. She's like, what? I'm like, gramp's dad. She's like, oh, she's calling 41 1. I just literally, 4, 1 1.

[Ryan Sickler]

Hey, listen up. As she was. She might have been. She might have been calling information for who to call 411. What's the number? I called an emergency. That's 911. Okay.

[Mick Bettencourt]

How do I live life? Thank you. She called information. She called information. Oh, my God. What time's Toys R Us open till?

[Ryan Sickler]

So what happens?

[Mick Bettencourt]

So this dude just, like, is. You just see him grab his, like, start to get ready to get somewhere in the world. That guy is at a bar and someone's saying, remember the time you hooked up with that chicken?

[Ryan Sickler]

I was naked on the table. Little boy come down, back to the door about his papawls dead. My nuts are swinging.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Did I get sober then? No.

[Ryan Sickler]

No, I got worse. I started doubling.

[Mick Bettencourt]

That's when the nightmares started.

[Ryan Sickler]

What a terrible story.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So Then we go to the hot. The. The ambulance comes, they grab them. You know, he's a big dude. They're struggling to take him down the thing. We go to the hospital. They're like, we. We can revive him, but he won't be the same, like, whole thing, right? We get home and I'm off. I'm. I'm so sad, but it's all up. My mom gets to her door. She's like, all right. I'm like, yeah, you know, all right, we're getting ready to fall. She's like, where are you going? I'm like, I'm going in there with you. She's like, you got upstairs. I go, grant died upstairs. I don't want to go up there. She's like, tough. And went inside, just slammed the door.

[Ryan Sickler]

So I'm like, oh, you gotta go sleep in the. In the death house there.

[Mick Bettencourt]

I thought I saw a ghost. Tommy, who lived in the next room, in the living room while we were at the hospital. He walked with the cane. He's his. You know, he had Ms. Yeah. Came out, climbed up the bookshelves, got the key. My grandpa had a little safe. Took the cash that he had robbed his dad's safe while his body wasn't even cold yet. Steals his money.

[Ryan Sickler]

It's gotta be a lot for this guy to do all that with that.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Listen to this.

[Ryan Sickler]

It probably took him like an hour to. So, yeah, he couldn't do it while I was home. He's like, one day somebody's gonna die, and I'm gonna get that second.

[Mick Bettencourt]

He has practice bookshelves in his apartment.

[Ryan Sickler]

He's been ready. He's ready. He's like, I know exactly how I'm gonna do it, dude. I got 20 minutes. I'm in and out.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Years later, after the building got sold, Tommy dies. His brother, my uncle, the one who came and got me out of Humble Park. Tommy would only come out at night because he was so embarrassed. So he'd walk to the corner store and drink with Bernice Bernie, the gay woman who ran the overnight, you know, counter lady at Overnight Stuff stuff. So Bernie calls my uncle, says, hey, will you help me clean out Tommy's apartment? So they go over there. This is. This is maybe 10 years ago last. Maybe he gets over there. Paddles, whips. My uncle's like, what the fuck is this? She goes, don't you judge him. He's dead. He goes, what is this? And she goes, well, he was an S and M Dom guy. For all of the wealthy senior citizen women In River Forest, they'd let him tie them up and spank them because they knew if he crossed the line, they could just nudge him and he'd fall over.

[Ryan Sickler]

Dude, you got me thinking of a retirement plan right now. I didn't know they'd still be into it. So he's an S M. Domination.

[Mick Bettencourt]

But my uncle's telling me the story. He goes, so Tommy's a spanker. I'm like, what are you talking about?

[Ryan Sickler]

He's getting paid to spank senior citizens.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Old ladies, man, that still, like, they still wanted to get their freak on and. But they, like, they're rich, so they're around. How do I trust a guy who.

[Ryan Sickler]

Knew that was a red?

[Mick Bettencourt]

So he's like, how does the car get there? It screeches up on the lawn like, he's got Ms.

[Ryan Sickler]

He's coming, dude.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So I go upstairs. Now I'm living in my grandfather's apartment. They try to put the building for sale to chop it up amongst Tommy, my uncle, and my mom. No one's infested with mice. It's awful. So I go through the food that he has. I'm asking my mom, you got any food? She's like, what a fucking Taj Mahal. Who's got food? You know the Social Security check. Yeah. Parent.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah.

[Mick Bettencourt]

So I run out of food, man. And so I start panhandling. So I'm out on the street, like, hey, can. You know, like, how you think it happens? Like, can I. You have extra money and do it the way that people looked at me. I will never forget. I've had cigarettes put out of me. I've been beaten. I. The poverty is the single worst thing that's ever happened of, like. And I don't mean, like, you know, I want to be a painter. And I'm. But if you can go home, you haven't experienced real abject poverty when there's nothing of, like, there's no food. And then the store closes, and then there's no food. And then. So I was like, fuck this. I'm gonna start stealing shit, man. Like, I can't. I just can't live like this. And then I started stealing some shit, and I didn't like, how that made me feel. And then I didn't eat for, like, three days, and I started hallucinating and my stomach started hurting. And I was in my grandfather's apartment, and I went. And I told my uncle, I said, can you take me? I go, I haven't eaten. I need to eat. And he took me to get a turkey sandwich at a place called the majorette. And I was shaking, you know, like, looked like I was having a seizure. And I'm trying to eat the stuff. And he goes, stop with the act. I was like, are you all right? You know, I'm trying to eat. And I'm like, this is. This is. This is. This is really up. Because I knew if I said anything, I'd become a war to the state or I'd go to an orphanage. You know what I mean? Like, I couldn't. I had to keep it a secret. So I went through my seventh grade, summer, eighth grade, almost got expelled the summer after eighth grade, enrolled myself in high school, and then was in the middle of high school, like, it was around November. I'm trying to wrestle. I'm working at her. I saw my solution was get a job at a restaurant. So I was a bus boy, and I could eat. I'd bring food home.

[Ryan Sickler]

But I was also the same.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah. So I was also wrestling. So I had to cut weight. It was just too much. And I started to smell. I didn't. I didn't have money for laundry. You know, I'm walking around the school. It's like, rich kids and stuff. And, dude, I had a. I was like, I cannot do this anymore. And so I said, I got to talk to a counselor. And so it was this guy named Brother John, who's a Franciscan brother. So he had that kind of like, brown potato sack robe on, you know, with the rope belt. And I go, listen, man, can I move into the old rectory? Then I can come from my job at the restaurant to here so I can hit wrestling practice at, like, 6:00am and he's like, well, why don't you. What are you talking about? Like, you can't live here. Where are your parents? I go, I don't have any me. So he's like, if you're lying, we're going to kick you out of the school if you've just decided to come in here and make the up. So I'm like, I'm not. So he's like, all right, we're gonna go right now. This is the middle of the day. He's gonna go to your place right now. So we drive to my apartment. Dude, you could see there was a bare mattress with the outline in my body on it like a crime scene. Mice everywhere, dirty clothes. It smelled. He goes, this is the worst case of child abuse I've ever seen. Where's your mother? I go, here's the deal, man. I Don't. I'm not saying I don't know. My mom's business is her business. I need to eat, and I need clean clothes, man. Like, that's what I need. And he goes, is there anywhere that you can go, like. Because you can't stay here. I go, if you bring me to a foster home or you try. If I see you pull up to a state home, I'm out. You're never gonna see me again. I'm running from the car. I'm just telling you that right now. So he called my uncle, who was newly married and had one baby with one baby on the way. And I go. He's like, you can stay on my sofa. So I packed some stuff in. I think I had a pillowcase with some clothes in it. And then he called my mom, and he's like, mickey's living with us. And she's like, all right. And I moved in with my uncle. Then we got evicted from that place and moved back into my apartment.

[Ryan Sickler]

Your grandfather's old place?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, dude. And then later, my mom caught a felony conviction for bank robbery.

[Ryan Sickler]

She robbed the bank.

[Mick Bettencourt]

She robbed a bank? Yeah. She used a note saying that I was being held hostage.

[Ryan Sickler]

Her child was.

[Mick Bettencourt]

She went in with a note.

[Ryan Sickler]

I see. She's acting like the good person. Person. Like I'm the victim here. My son.

[Mick Bettencourt]

My son's being lost. If you don't give me all the money, they're gonna kill him.

[Ryan Sickler]

Now, your mom did that?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah. So let me tell. Let me tell you this. Now, this is 2001, right? So I'm jumping around a little. So my pal Dave, rest in peace. I was living in a subterranean apartment, like a garden apartment, you know? So there was one door that went out to the front street and then one door that went to the alley. But, you know, you could see people's feet walking by, right? So the back door knocks, I open. It's Dave, who looked like Fenster from Usual Suspects. He's got three, five DVD players stolen. He's like, homeboy, the. I'm a little hot right now. Can I lay these off here? I want 100 for each. Take whatever you want off the top. I'm like, put them in a corner. I got you. He sets him down. He's like, I love you. I'm like, I love you, too. He goes out the back door. Ryan, a second later, knock on the front door. I'm like, this set me up. You know what I mean? I was like, never. I never had him on that. Like, he was A stand up guy. Because there's no organization on earth that knocked on my door. Like the knock, like you could knew. And then it was like FBI opened the door and I was like. So I put my foot on the door to just open it a little bit, you know. And they're like, FBI, where were you this morning? And I go, I was at work, swiped in and out. Now my brain's going, something's up. Because they would have this morning. Dave just left. Like I'm like, I'm with the city. I'm swiped in, I'm swiped out. I'm on camera all day. Why? They go, well, your mother robbed Forest Park Federal bank this morning. And I go, oh, thank God.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh, dude.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

So this is your first time on the show here. I end the first time anyone comes home with advice they would give to their 16 year old self. So I'm curious because it's a wild time for you. What, what advice are you giving to 16 year old Mick Bettencourt?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Buckle up.

[Ryan Sickler]

Right? You have a wild life, Mick Betancourt.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, man, so good to see you.

[Ryan Sickler]

You as well. And thank you for doing this. And I know you have a million stories are. Can you hear more of this on your sub stack?

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah. So if you like these stories that that actually actual whole story, which is just a part of which I just told you is on there. So right now, right now, if you go there free for 7 days, just sign in. It's a subscription thing. You'll get new stories every Sunday emailed to you and old episodes of the podcast are on there. Check Reacher out and then March 14th if you're around. Oh, so it's pinned to my Instagram so you can go there now. Watch it. I'll keep it pinned. Is that fundraiser for St. Baldrick's to fight pediatric cancer. So check that out as well.

[Ryan Sickler]

That's awesome.

[Mick Bettencourt]

Yeah, thank you, thank you. Thanks for having me, man.

[Ryan Sickler]

Of course. Yeah, of course, dude. As always, Ryan Sickler on all your social media. Ryan sickler.com we'll talk to you all next week.

[Mick Bettencourt]

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[Ryan Sickler]

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[Mick Bettencourt]

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[Ryan Sickler]

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[Mick Bettencourt]

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