384: Jackie Kashian on Losing Her Mom at 8 & Growing Up Fast | The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler #384

Summary

Podcast Summary

The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler

Episode 384: Jackie Kashian on Losing Her Mom at 8 & Growing Up Fast
Original Release: May 4, 2026
Guest: Jackie Kashian

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Overview

In this emotionally honest and sharp-witted episode, comedian Jackie Kashian joins Ryan Sickler for her first time on The HoneyDew. The conversation centers around Jackie’s childhood, marked by losing her mother at age eight, growing up nearly feral in a big, struggling family, and the life-changing arrival of a no-nonsense stepmother. The two comics dig deeply into mental health, generational trauma, eating disorders, poverty, and how structure (and dark humor) can save your life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Jackie’s Background & Comedy

• Jackie introduces her 20-year podcast "The Dork Forest" and new special "Altercation," which riffs on her last name and penchant for conflict.
  • “I want to punch everyone in the nose. So the next one, the third one, we don’t know what it’ll be called. Could be abdication if I choose to run. Could be vindication if everyone I dislike slips on a banana peel…” – Jackie (05:13)
• She discusses redirecting domain names for fun and merch, displaying her signature deadpan humor about the realities of flogging old comedy CDs.
• [04:39-06:56]

2. Growing Up in South Milwaukee

• Jackie describes her hometown as a blue-collar “factory town” just outside Milwaukee, always hovering at about 22,000 people and slowly gentrifying.
• Mentions the town’s racist history as a “sundown town,” which she addresses with openness and dark comedy.
• Grocery store, gun shop, bait store: Every small-town cliché, now gentrified: “My childhood liquor store is now an ice cream shop.” – Jackie (09:41)
• [08:24-10:31]

3. Immigrant Roots & Family Size

• Her father was Armenian, her mother Irish Catholic. The two started dating at 17 and 15, a classic ‘50s romance that led to six kids by age 26.
• Jackie is the youngest, with a 10-year gap to the oldest, meaning when trauma hit, the older siblings were thrown into surrogate parenting roles.
• Descriptions of “babies having babies” and parents ill-equipped for adulthood, let alone a huge family.
• [10:38-14:33]

4. Family Dysfunction and Tragedy

• After years of alcoholism and violence, Jackie's father left when she was three or four. Her mother struggled with alcohol, neglect, and basic self-care.
  • “For a couple of years, she didn’t do laundry… she would just throw them [dirty clothes] in a closet. She would go buy us new clothes.” – Jackie (18:13)
• Jackie’s mother died at 33 in a drunk motorcycle accident when Jackie was eight. Her father returned, bringing with him a new partner who changed their lives.
• [13:10-20:45]

5. Losing Her Mother & Immediate Aftermath

• Jackie recounts learning about her mom’s death from a cop and a father she barely recognized:
  • “I don’t recognize my dad because I haven’t seen him in four years… I was like, who’s that guy with the cop? And Russ goes, ‘It’s Dad, you idiot.’” – Jackie (39:07)
• The details are grim: her mother’s body mangled after being run over post-crash, no closure, and no counseling or family processing of the loss.
• The siblings “Voltron into a tiny adult” to survive, sharing beds and barely scraping by.
• [18:47–41:07]

6. Enter Nancy, the Stepmother (the Anti-Cinderella Story)

• Nancy, only 26 at the time, steps in and brings order, routine, and a sense of (begrudging) family:
  • “She fixed our lives. My grandmother was like, she saved your lives.” – Jackie (23:36)
• Nancy’s honesty: “You guys, I don’t want kids. I never wanted kids. But we’re doing this now.”
• Strict family chores, structure, predictable (if bad) meals: “Monday and Wednesdays were egg days, Tuesday and Thursdays were pancake days.”
• Despite her strengths, Nancy herself was a product of generational trauma—ditched by her own mom at 17 to raise younger siblings.
• The family’s history is rife with suffering, but Jackie honors Nancy for pulling all six siblings back from the brink.
• [22:52–36:09]

7. The Legacy of Silence About Trauma

• The family rarely spoke about Jackie’s mother for a decade:
  • “Nobody fucking mentions her ever. For 10 years… My two [oldest brothers] kind of canonized her. Phil was like, she was all right. And Russ, she used to beat the shit out of Russ.” – Jackie (48:16-48:35)
• The unmarked grave, estrangement from maternal grandparents, and the emotional tangle of navigating that as a kid.
• [48:16–53:11]

8. Humor, Survival, and the Power of Siblings

• Stories range from buying beer and cigarettes as a child, to being sent to the bar with mom, to surviving on buttered noodles, and siblings stepping in to adult:
  • “My sister would be like, we’re going to school… She’d wake up all my brothers and she was only a year and a half older than me.” – Jackie (27:10)
• The humor is always present, even darkly:
  • “I genuinely picture her [my mom] in a heaven where there are no children.” – Jackie (25:00)
• [25:21–29:34]

9. Eating Disorders and Food as Comfort

• Jackie candidly discusses realizing her lifelong disordered eating only recently, and how her stepmother modeled bulimic behavior.
• Both Jackie and Ryan share their struggles with food as comfort, boredom, and emotional insulation:
  • “It’s the thing that stops my brain from spiraling.” – Jackie (57:08)
  • “She never ate with us… she would just sort of perch on the side and… later eat some ice cream and drink a Coke.” – Jackie (58:11)
• Jackie’s approach to her current challenges: “Just admitting it. Saying it out loud. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want… any feedback. I don’t need gym internet piping up… I have a bike, I’ve ridden it like six times.”
• [56:47–80:09]

10. Money, Adulting, and Career

• Jackie shares a forthright account of financial struggle, fighting for raises, the economics of comedy, and finding fair employers and role models in the business (shoutouts to Maria Bamford and Brian Regan).
• Candid advice for navigating money in the arts, addressing Under Earners and Debtors Anonymous as resources.
• [63:17–68:09]

11. Health in Middle Age

• Open discussion about medical challenges (high cholesterol, statins), the difficulties of losing weight later in life, and the anxiety of new weight-loss drugs.
  • “If I lost that 60 pounds, you could tell exactly how old I was. Because this is filling in a lot of wrinkles… But I would like to be healthier.” – Jackie (78:11-79:32)
• [75:54–79:57]

12. Wisdom for the Younger Jackie

• To her 16-year-old self:
  • “You’re hot. You were so hot. Look at that rack, lady.” – Jackie (83:57)
• She jokes about the terror of puberty and female bodies, the plans she once had (history teacher, forest ranger, lawyer), and her abiding affection and respect for her sister.
• [83:52–85:24]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “She had lost her shit. She was violent. She was drunk. She was done.” – Jackie on her mother (17:37)
• “Six kids in a two-bedroom apartment. My sister and I shared a bed in the dining room. I wet the bed until I was eight.” (22:15)
• “It was a drunk driving accident… they flipped off an overpass and got run over.” – Jackie describing her mother’s death (19:05)
• “Peanut butter and bread in the fridge, you know. He [Phil] was 15… Boy energy at 15, you’re constantly starving.” (24:09)
• “She fixed our lives. Nancy was like Mary Poppins… She genuinely saved our lives and changed our lives.” (23:36-36:09)
• “Nobody fucking mentions her ever—for 10 years.” – Jackie on silence about her mom (48:16)
• “It’s comfort. It’s comfort food. It’s comfort book. It’s comfort… all of it.” (74:24)
• “If you can’t say something nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all.” – Nancy’s rule after she joined the family (48:26)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [04:39] – Jackie introduces herself & new special
• [08:24] – Hometown stories, South Milwaukee’s past and quirks
• [13:10] – Family dynamics and early trauma
• [18:47] – The loss of Jackie’s mother and immediate aftermath
• [23:36] – Stepmother Nancy saves the family
• [34:34] – Strict structure, chores, and discipline in the new home
• [39:07] – Recounting the day of her mother’s death
• [48:16] – The family’s decade-long silence about their mother
• [56:47] – Jackie’s eating disorder realization and stepmother’s influence
• [63:17] – Money, adulting, and being assertive as a worker
• [75:54] – Health in middle age; medical realities
• [83:57] – Advice to her 16-year-old self

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Tone and Language

The episode is unflinchingly honest, deeply compassionate, and sharply funny. Both host and guest use gallows humor to process pain, often swinging quickly from tragedy to punchlines. The language is candid and direct, never shying away from uncomfortable realities—from abuse to poverty to family estrangement.

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Final Thoughts

Jackie Kashian’s episode on The HoneyDew is a profound, darkly funny meditation on survival, forgiveness, and the complicated ways we cope and grow after profound loss. The honesty about mental health, family secrets, and self-acceptance will resonate with listeners who have struggled with their own “low lights.” Fans will also find new appreciation for how Jackie's comedy is rooted in personal truth.

Transcript

[Jackie Cation]

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[Ryan Sickler]

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[Jackie Cation]

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[Ryan Sickler]

You'll have the confidence to keep building. Apply today and earn a welcome offer of $1,500 cash back after you spend $50,000 in qualifying purchases on your new card within the first six months of card membership terms apply. Learn more at Go Amex Graphite hey guys, exciting announcement. We are doing a Live Way Back at the Netflix Is a joke festival. It's May 5th at 7pm at the Hotel Cafe main stage. It's our first live ever way Back. We're going to have a special guest. We're going to have prizes, we're going to have gifts. We're going to do some fun stuff with you guys as well. So get your tickets now for the Netflix Is a Joke Festival live way back May 5, 7pm at the Hotel Cafe Boston I'm fired up to head back your way. I'll be there Friday, May 15th and Saturday, May 16th Albuquerque, New Mexico I'll be there Friday, June 5th and Saturday, June 6th Tulsa, Oklahoma I'll be there Friday, June 19th and Saturday, June 20th. All tickets on my [e-mail] hey guys, we have a new segment on the way back called after the Beat. We got a new landline and an old school answer machine and we want to hear from you. Call 323-452-3732 and leave a message. Hit us with things like Craziest high school moment, Worst job, Dumbest injury, Worst trouble. Maybe something you got away with. Or maybe you're looking for some old school advice on relationships, jobs even. Am I the asshole? Or Keep it quick confessions, weird habits. The worst advice you ever got. We'll play him back and react. Keep it under 60 seconds. Anything longer than that, we ain't listening. All right, full segments are only available on Patreon, so give us a ring. 323-452-3732 and leave a message after the beat. The Honeydew with Ryan Sickler. Welcome back to the Honeydew, y'.

[Jackie Cation]

All.

[Ryan Sickler]

We're over here doing it in the night. Pant Studios. I'm Ryan Sickler. Ryan Sickler.com and Ryan Sickler on all your social media, thank you guys for supporting this show. Thank you for supporting anything I do. And if you love this show and you have to to have more, then you have to have the Patreon. It's the Honeydew with y'. All. And y' all have the craziest stories you'll ever hear in your life. We are well over 300 episodes on that Patreon show now, and for five bucks a month, you're getting hundreds of the craziest stories you'll ever hear in your life. It's been five bucks since day one. And we will not change it. What we do want is if you or someone you know has a great story that has to be heard, please submit it toHoneydew podcast gmail.com. if you sent it before, send it again. I don't care if you're a member. I don't care if it's your story, if it's one of your parents, whatever. We want the best stories out there. All right? 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. I am very excited to have this guest with us here. First time on the Honeydew. Ladies and gentlemen, Jackie K. Welcome to the Honeydew. Jackie Cage.

[Jackie Cation]

Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

[Ryan Sickler]

It's been a minute since I've seen you, young lady.

[Jackie Cation]

I know that you recognize me on

[Ryan Sickler]

the street, everybody recognizes you.

[Jackie Cation]

There's no reason not to.

[Ryan Sickler]

I'm also a student of the game. And you're a. You're a pro. You're a. You've been in this game, in this business quite a long time. And you in for the duration. You're a killer.

[Jackie Cation]

Thank you so much. I got the. I got the new album, the new special.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah, tell us everything.

[Jackie Cation]

It's that I'm doing everybody's podcast. I've never done this one. I can't believe I've never done your podcast.

[Ryan Sickler]

Me either. Cuz you did the crab feast, right?

[Jackie Cation]

I don't. Right. I don't think you. Have you ever done the dork forest?

[Ryan Sickler]

I have not done your dork forest.

[Jackie Cation]

Dork forest. 20 years. This the 20th year.

[Ryan Sickler]

Doing the 20 years.

[Jackie Cation]

20 years of doing the dork forest. That's it. Dorkforest.com or thedorkforce.com if you enjoy a determiner. Anyway the. Yeah, I got some. I got some pedants and you've got

[Ryan Sickler]

a special and an album out now.

[Jackie Cation]

Special and an album out and it is called Altercation and it is called that because I was going to call the last one Altercation it came out I guess it would have been 21 and but we had just stayed home for 16 months and so that one was called Staycation because my last name's Cation and we were around. I got you stay home. And so now I've decided to do a trilogy. And so this one's gonna be. This one is called Altercation because my last name's Cation and I wanna punch everyone in the nose. So the next one, the third one, we don't know what it'll be called. Could be abdication if I choose to run. Could be vindication if everyone I dislike right now slips on a banana peel and we roll em into the sea.

[Ryan Sickler]

And social media, where can they find you?

[Jackie Cation]

It's Jackiecation.com is the website. It's ackiecation on everything. And Jackiecation.com if you don't know how to spell Jackiecation.com go to familypetancestry.com which points you to Jackiecation.com yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

What do you mean?

[Jackie Cation]

Do you know why I bought family pet?

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh, you actually did do it. Okay.

[Jackie Cation]

Because it's funny, I like the idea

[Ryan Sickler]

you bought familypetvacation.com family pet ancestry. Oh ancestry.com and that just redirects you right.

[Jackie Cation]

15 years ago I've had it because. Or 10 years ago. I can't even remember how long ago

[Ryan Sickler]

you get more traffic from.

[Jackie Cation]

I don't know, I don't look into it. It's. But I like the idea of someone just going did my cat come over on the Mayflower family pets Real.

[Ryan Sickler]

Anyway, can they.

[Jackie Cation]

Oh, you could get DNA of your dogs, you cats, right? Yeah, but you weren't getting it when I bought familypetancestry.com no one has offered

[Ryan Sickler]

to buy my next question.

[Jackie Cation]

I assume one day they will or they'll get over it, right? I mean is my dog eligible to join the dogs of the American Revolution? So familypetancestry.com points to jackiecation.com all right. And it's all there. All. Both of my podcasts, all of the merch you could ever want. My garage is full of old CDs and DVDs so if you could either have a collection of five mismatched coasters if you don't own those machines, or if you own those machines, you can get what you like to call hard copies. Yeah. And live it up. Live it up with a hard copy of a CD or a dvd.

[Ryan Sickler]

My brother just. He's like, hey, I just found these VHS in my house. I'm like, send them out here. They could be stuff we could use for the way back or whatever. He's like, I don't know what's on them. I said, well, do they look like they are playable? He goes, yeah. I said, I'll buy a vcr.

[Jackie Cation]

There you go. Did you find one?

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah.

[Jackie Cation]

All right.

[Ryan Sickler]

You'd think. You'd think a VCR would be affordable because they're.

[Jackie Cation]

Because they're. It's 25 years.

[Ryan Sickler]

300 for a V8 VCR, which is.

[Jackie Cation]

Which is how much they were when they first came out. I think maybe 40 bucks.

[Ryan Sickler]

You could get one in Ralph's in the checkout line.

[Jackie Cation]

Right. But they're just. They're now you can't find them.

[Ryan Sickler]

300. It costs me. I hooked it up on the TV. I got it working, and I was like, oh, yeah. And then the tapes were nothing. It was all, like, old. He was recording. Recording from tv. Let's get into your life, Jackie Cation. Where are you from originally?

[Jackie Cation]

I was born and raised in a little factory town outside of Milwaukee called South Milwaukee.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay.

[Jackie Cation]

It is east of the city. We're not a bright people. And it is a factory town. Right. The. The factory that currently. That bought the original factory is John Deere. Oh, and. Or Caterpillar. One of those two. I think it's Caterpillar.

[Ryan Sickler]

A massive name.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah. Yeah. So Pasirs. Erie was the name of the guy Osiris, and it was started on Lake Erie, but southwest. Right on Lake Michigan. And so it's a little Factory. It's got 22,000 people in it. It's always had 22,000 people in it. I used to think it was a really small town, but I think that's just. I was doing laps looking for an exit, and turns out it's a bigger town. Like, some people come from towns that have like 500 people in them or 750 people or 2,000 people.

[Ryan Sickler]

You got more in that factory?

[Jackie Cation]

We got.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah, we got some towns.

[Jackie Cation]

It used to be one of those sundown towns where black people couldn't live there. They could work in the factory, but they had to leave by sundown.

[Ryan Sickler]

Is that right?

[Jackie Cation]

That's a real year.

[Ryan Sickler]

Are we talking about.

[Jackie Cation]

Oh, that was 72. Yeah, 76.

[Ryan Sickler]

And they just have to get the. Out and go wherever they lived.

[Jackie Cation]

Yep, it was. Yeah, it was those. Those towns are called sundown towns.

[Ryan Sickler]

I didn't know that.

[Jackie Cation]

Sundowners, I think it's like that. And now pretty well integrated. Not almost gentrified. Like my childhood liquor store. Huh. Is now childhood liquor. Is now an ice cream shop.

[Ryan Sickler]

There you go.

[Jackie Cation]

That's it. Right. Trying to help the community. That's it. And right next to my childhood liquor store was a childhood gun shop.

[Ryan Sickler]

It's alcohol. It's them or just. Or diabetes. And so it was alcohol gun back in the day. Right.

[Jackie Cation]

It was owned by the same. Same guy. It was a gun shop next to the liquor store. And now the gun shop is actually the old gun shop is a. Which for a long time was like a Catholic bookstore or whatever. Is now a coffee shop. So gentrification is coming is what I'm saying. Not that you can't still get a gun and some liquor. You got to go across the street to the bait store. Yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

That's all bait and tackle right there. What are you in that town? Because dad, mom work at the factory. Like why.

[Jackie Cation]

Oh, no, no.

[Ryan Sickler]

They from. Why are we there?

[Jackie Cation]

That's where my grandparents moved there when they immigrated.

[Ryan Sickler]

So what is catian. What is.

[Jackie Cation]

It's Armenian Armenia. Yeah. So. So they moved there and then my dad was born. Little anchor baby and lacation. And. And that town grew up around him. You know, he tells story about how there was one of his buddies from. From grade school had a trap line, a winter trap line where he would catch rabbits.

[Ryan Sickler]

And that's how they legit ate and

[Jackie Cation]

stuff to eat and. And I don't know what he did with the rabbit fur, but. But legit. Yeah. Like food.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah. And

[Ryan Sickler]

I don't know anybody that sat here and knew a trapper.

[Jackie Cation]

I know. Me neither. My dad talks about. He was like. He had to do it before school too. So at like 4 in the morning, he would walk the trap line and pull the rabbits and reset the traps, drop them all off at home and then go to school, go learn math. Right. And not my father, though. My father, an only child, A prince and a late baby to my grandmother. So beloved and spoiled beyond belief.

[Ryan Sickler]

God.

[Jackie Cation]

And he's better now since he almost died about a dozen years ago. You remember Georgia? Not Georgia. Georgia o'. Keeffe. Of course not Georgia o'.

[Ryan Sickler]

Keeffe.

[Jackie Cation]

Not even Georgia o'. Keeffe. Not those two. Neither of those two.

[Ryan Sickler]

The Vagina Pain.

[Jackie Cation]

Right, right. Who wrote A Good Man Is Hard to Find? That author. She was great. Anyway, A Good Band is Hard to Find is the short story I'm thinking of. And it about this terrible family who gets killed by these two guys who escaped from prison, one of whom is a psychopath and a murderer, and the other one is just a murderer, not a psychopath. And the. Just a murderer, not a psychopath says, kill the grandmother first. She's the most irritating. And. And the psychopath says, she wasn't that bad. She'd have been okay if there had been someone there to kill her every day of her life. And I think about that sometimes with some people. Some people be all right if there was someone to tell them every single day, I will kill you if you do not act like a normal human being.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah. And anyway, so. Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

And what's my mom do? What's mom doing?

[Jackie Cation]

Well, my mom's dead, so.

[Ryan Sickler]

I mean, at the time.

[Jackie Cation]

Right, Right. So here's. My parents had what could only be referred to as a 1950s romance. Right. He was 17, she was 15. She got pregnant, they got married.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh, wow.

[Jackie Cation]

He joined the babies having babies, and he joined the Navy.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay.

[Jackie Cation]

And he did not know how. She didn't know. They had six kids. It was the only thing they were good at.

[Ryan Sickler]

Six kids. And the first one comes at 17 and 15.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

Or 16. And she has.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah.

[Jackie Cation]

And I'm.

[Ryan Sickler]

And then they continue to have five more.

[Jackie Cation]

Right. She had me when I was. When she. She had me when she was 26.

[Ryan Sickler]

In 10 years, where are you?

[Jackie Cation]

I'm the youngest.

[Ryan Sickler]

You are?

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah. So. Pretty sweet spot, though. Is it the sweet spot? You wonder about it because those first five years, my mother pretty much kept it together alone. Because my dad was in the Navy. She had four. She had three boys.

[Ryan Sickler]

Boys, too.

[Jackie Cation]

I mean, three boys in a row. And she's just running her ass off trying to figure out how to be a wife and a mother. And my dad is like, here's some money, I gotta go. Here's some money, I gotta go. Very 50s dad kind of thing. Right. Except for that he's 18, he's 20, you know, boom.

[Ryan Sickler]

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[Jackie Cation]

She was Irish Catholic and my dad's Armenian.

[Ryan Sickler]

So we're not using contraception and we're not believing anything.

[Jackie Cation]

My sister, hilariously, because it goes four boys, then my sister, then myself. And my sister has always said, you know, the condom was invented in the 1700s. And. And she said that people have said to her, but then you wouldn't have been born. And she's like, I would have been born. I would have been born a Rockefeller. Like I was supposed to have been born.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah. Someone else's. Yeah.

[Jackie Cation]

So. Yeah. But they, they weren't. You know, there was just. So everybody tried. You know, you go through life and you can be mad. Like my father remarried almost immediately when. Because he left when I was about three or four years old.

[Ryan Sickler]

And what. I'm sorry, what's the age gap between you and the oldest? 10.

[Jackie Cation]

10 years. Yeah. So my oldest brother's 10 years older than me. And so he was 14. So he was 13 or 14 when my dad, when they separated, my parents separated and I was three or four years old and he, he Left because my mother was incred. Like she had lost her shit. She was violent, she was drunk. She was done. You know, when he left, she was probably 29.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay.

[Jackie Cation]

So he was 30. Ish. 31. And. And he left. And so he didn't all. So he couldn't come back to our small town because he wouldn't give her child support because she spent it all on booze. And. And he never checked. He would just give her all the money. And so she would cost. She would be like she would. For a couple of years. She didn't do laundry.

[Ryan Sickler]

Years.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah. So she would. We would take off her dirty clothes, she would throw them in a closet. She would go buy us new clothes.

[Ryan Sickler]

Ah.

[Jackie Cation]

So when after she passed away. Closets full of rotting clothes.

[Ryan Sickler]

Rotting, rotting. Okay, let's talk about mom passing away. So you're how old when she passes away?

[Jackie Cation]

I just turned eight. I was seven. Eight. Okay.

[Ryan Sickler]

So your brother 33. So 17. 17.

[Jackie Cation]

He's 17. I'm seven.

[Ryan Sickler]

And they've had a relationship with her?

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah, he had a relationship with her, except for he was 13, 14 when she left. And there was three or four years where it was just chaos. Right? There was.

[Ryan Sickler]

So did dad come back then?

[Jackie Cation]

He came back.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay.

[Jackie Cation]

And she died horribly. She had a. It was a. It was a drunk driving accident where she was with her boyfriend Harold, and they were on a motorcycle and they flipped off an overpass and got run over.

[Ryan Sickler]

No overpass.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah. And they were drunk. See these videos online.

[Ryan Sickler]

I'm sure back then, no helmet either.

[Jackie Cation]

No helmets. It was no helmet law. And they go. Harold lived.

[Ryan Sickler]

No.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah, Jackie, I know. Broke two legs and an arm.

[Ryan Sickler]

That's it for going off an overpass

[Jackie Cation]

and getting run over by cars.

[Ryan Sickler]

Are they the drunk ones?

[Jackie Cation]

Yep.

[Ryan Sickler]

And they get fly to the bottom

[Jackie Cation]

of a highway and then they get run over.

[Ryan Sickler]

And so do you. I'm sorry to ask. Do you know if your mom was alive when.

[Jackie Cation]

I don't.

[Ryan Sickler]

Or is the car the thing that ran her over? The thing that.

[Jackie Cation]

I don't know.

[Ryan Sickler]

Don't hit her head or anything.

[Jackie Cation]

Right. Hopefully I. Hopefully she would passed out. Yeah, it's. And if there's any. God, I hope to God she was done.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay. So mom and dad are split at the time. Okay. And she's got a boyfriend.

[Jackie Cation]

Right away. He's got. Right. Well, not. I don't know if they both did right away, but my dad was living with my stepmother.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay.

[Jackie Cation]

And my mother had Harold and they were talking about possibly moving in together. And from What I've heard, and you know, the joke I've done about it, I think it's on the Staycation album, is that it was. At least it was a Harley Davidson because imagine the neighbors, if it had been a Kawasaki, were from Milwaukee. Anyway, so little dark, but that's.

[Ryan Sickler]

And she was the Milwaukee vibrator. Yeah, that's it.

[Jackie Cation]

And she was 33, the age of Christ. Coincidence. Yes, Big, big coincidence. So. But she. Yeah, so she was. So then my dad came back into our lives and.

[Ryan Sickler]

Well, who's watching you then?

[Jackie Cation]

Prior to that. Yeah, it was. Well, my step.

[Ryan Sickler]

We were sort of checking in on you. Sort of.

[Jackie Cation]

Well, here's. Okay, so we lived. So my parents lived at this one house right up the block from my grandmother. Okay. And my grandmother's still in my grandfather's past when I'm like 3 years old. So at 4, that's when my dad. That's when, that's when my dad separated. I bet you that's what sort of gave him the permission to do it because his dad. Because what I heard is that my grand. My grandmother was like, she. From what I heard, both of my grandmothers, my mom's mom and my dad's mom both wanted my mother to have an abortion. Oh. Which was legal, but they would have figured it out. And my grandfather, my dad's dad was like, no, no, we're going to. You're going to. I don't know why he had to say it all, of course, because my 17 year old mother was like, I guess, all right, I guess I'll just be over here.

[Ryan Sickler]

Moo.

[Jackie Cation]

Breeding. And so. But my grandmother lived down the block. So when my dad left, we got evicted from that house. And so we ended up sort of listing around that town and we ended up on sort of the main drag next to the big water tower in an apartment that had two bedrooms. There were six kids. My sister and I shared a bed in the dining room.

[Ryan Sickler]

A bed?

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah, I wet the bed until I was eight. My sister to this day sleeps on the edge of the mattress.

[Ryan Sickler]

Both my brothers went to bed way too long.

[Jackie Cation]

Too, way too long.

[Ryan Sickler]

I'm like, yeah, you get your own damn bed. Right?

[Jackie Cation]

That's it. And I was talking, I was. I told I'd started my nephews once and one of my brothers was like, I can't believe you just admitted to my nephew, your. My sons, that you wet the bed till you were eight. And I was like, what do I care? I don't wet the bed down.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah, I'm Looking forward to it in

[Jackie Cation]

my 70s and 80s, I guess, together. But it's not. It wasn't my fault I wet the bed.

[Ryan Sickler]

You know, there's a lot going on,

[Jackie Cation]

a lot of going down. It's hardly anyone's fault. And Nancy Kishin, my stepmother, who was a great loss to the Austrian army. Holy smokes. My dad, he picked an amazing woman. She was 26. And so my dad would have been, I guess, 36. 30. 35. She was 26. He would have been 35, and she was our stepmother. And she came in thinking to be essentially Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music, Mary Poppins. She had a very Julie Andrews fixation, and she fixed our lives. My grandmother was like, she saved your lives.

[Ryan Sickler]

She did. Okay, so she was a good one.

[Jackie Cation]

She was amazing. But she was also. She was trapped. She set herself up for this thing,

[Ryan Sickler]

and she didn't want kids of her own, or did they have.

[Jackie Cation]

She never did want kids. She used to always say that. She's like, you guys, I don't want kids. I never wanted kids. But we're doing this now, is what she'd say. And one day we will all love each other, and we won't know why and. But because she was. I genuinely think I got my sense of humor from her. I got my timing from my dad, but my sense of humor I got from Nancy.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay.

[Jackie Cation]

And Nancy Kitchen. She came into our lives. My brother Phil always said, you know, I would have mourned Mom a lot more, except for the day after mom died. There was peanut butter and bread in the. In the fridge, you know, he was 15.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah.

[Jackie Cation]

He had a hollow leg, you know.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah. Eating non stop.

[Jackie Cation]

Everything. Non stop. Boy energy at 15, you're constantly starving. He didn't have any underwear when he was 13. When he went to, you know, when you go to gym class, he used to get beat up because he didn't have any underwear. So we went to Kmart, and he stole a package of underwear, and he went into the changing room, put all six pairs on, walked out, and Kmart was like, they're yours now.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jackie Cation]

Congratulations. Proud owner. But every picture of me from when I'm a little kid and there's only like three or four, I'm either wearing, like a ball gown or a pillowcase. I mean, it was. You know, my mother was a mess. I genuinely picture her in a heaven where there are no children, where she just looks down on us and go, look, it all worked out.

[Ryan Sickler]

What do you remember? I know you're eight.

[Jackie Cation]

You Said I was. Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

What do you remember about a couple of memories?

[Jackie Cation]

I remember her. She chipped my front tooth by hitting me so hard I slammed into the radius.

[Ryan Sickler]

Damn right.

[Jackie Cation]

And it was a grow. It was an adult tooth. I just got it fixed and just now. Well, I got it fixed and then I got it correctly fixed about a year ago and, and I'm a hundred. So I remember one of my first memory is of me sitting at a pile of dirty laundry in the attic in our. When I was like two or three. And then I remember when I was, When I was 4 and 5, we lived in this dumb, this dumb two bedroom apartment where my mom had one room. My brother Russ and Scott shared a room. Darl and I shared a bed. And my brother Phil was in what I swear to God was like a pantry where there was just a mattress in there. And my brother Terry, my oldest brother was on a two season porch in Wisconsin.

[Ryan Sickler]

What's a two season porch?

[Jackie Cation]

It's not. There's no windows.

[Ryan Sickler]

What are you out there in spring and summer only? Is that two seasons?

[Jackie Cation]

And winter?

[Ryan Sickler]

He's outside.

[Jackie Cation]

He's outside in the snow. That's Wisconsin, man.

[Ryan Sickler]

That's Florida.

[Jackie Cation]

No, and it's 1973, you know, and so. Yeah, so what I remember is I remember that my mom would send me to the. My childhood liquor store to pick up cigarettes and beer and they knew who I was, she had a credit line and I would just bring them back and she would live it up. I remember going to the bar with her once and spinning on one of the bar stools. I was drinking a Shirley Temple, she was playing pool and hitting on some guy. I remember that. That's like a memory. I have a lot of memories of her and I don't have any memories of her being nice to me. I don't have any memories of her, I mean, besides the one time when she smacked me. But I don't have any memories of her being that mean to me either as I think I was the youngest of six. It's real because all of my siblings were old enough to go to my grandma's house for food. And my brother Phil would make us buttered noodle. He'd make butter noodles. And I would, I to this day, not my favorite meal because he, but he like, they all, they all sort of voltron into one tiny adult and raised me right. So like my sister would be like, we're going to school. She'd raise, she'd wake up all my brothers and she was only a Year and a half older than me. Right. So she was 6, and. Yeah. And I just, you know, and I remember kind of walking around with her a bunch. I hitchhiked. There was a public pool, and if you didn't bring a towel or flip flops or any sort of. You could get in for free. Otherwise, you needed a dime. I was raised in the Appalachians in the 30s, and so you needed a dime to get, like, to get a locker.

[Ryan Sickler]

Right?

[Jackie Cation]

And so I remember walking there once, but I had walked. It was 90 degrees, right? Or 95. 5 degrees. And my feet are covered in tar because the. The.

[Ryan Sickler]

So hot.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah. The asphalt was too hot. And so they wouldn't let me in because my feet were too dirty. They were. They were like. And I was like, no, I'll shower. And so. But the. But I hitchhiked one time when I was five to. Because I didn't want to walk to the pool. And one of my brother Terry's friends, my oldest brother, picked me up, and he was.

[Ryan Sickler]

How old you.

[Jackie Cation]

I'm five or six.

[Ryan Sickler]

That's insane, right?

[Jackie Cation]

And the town's not that big, so it was just a mile. But it was. But he was like, aren't you Terry Cations, little sister? And I said, yeah. He said, I will give you a ride, but do not do this. And I'm like, well, that's the word. This is the weirdest mixed message in the world. Never do this again. It's successful.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah, you're lucky. Yeah. Yeah.

[Jackie Cation]

You're not walking. So. Yeah. And so, you know, Nancy came into our lives, and she. She was like, you're gonna do homework. You're gonna structure. It was so much structure that some of it was super pejorative, because there had been no structure that it appeared pejorative. And then it was pejorative like you. We were. We all had to have dinner together, even if my dad didn't show up, because my dad, he's working the room. He's always working the room, guys.

[Ryan Sickler]

I recently used TaskRabbit for two things. I got an invert chair where I hang upside down and stretch my back, and it feels amazing. And I got a vanity for my daughter. These things had about 3,000 pieces. And I was like, yeah, man. I. I'm just looking at them on the floor. I'm like, I'm not doing this. So I hit up task rabbit. All right. Guy came out, put both of them together. All right. TaskRabbit connects you with skilled taskers in your area for moving furniture, assembly, home Repairs, yard work, mounting, and more. You can search for a Tasker based on cost, skill set availability and past client reviews so you know exactly who's showing up and can have confidence that they know what they're doing. Because Taskers have assembled over 3.4 million pieces of furniture, completed 700,000 home repairs, handle 1.5 million moves and counting. I promise you, any kind of these chores I have nowadays, I'm hitting up TaskRabbit. When life happens, your to do list grows. Get ahead of it now and get 15 off your first [e-mail] or on the TaskRabbit app using promo code honeydew. Taskers book up fast, especially for same day tasks. So book trusted home helps today. That's $15 off your first task using promo code Honeydew with the TaskRabbit app or at taskrabbit.com used to do a

[Jackie Cation]

joke about how my dad, because this is true, he had an affair on Nancy. Nine years.

[Ryan Sickler]

No, we love Nancy though, right?

[Jackie Cation]

We love Nancy.

[Ryan Sickler]

Grandma loved her.

[Jackie Cation]

Grandma loved her.

[Ryan Sickler]

And by the way, is that dad's mom or mom's mom?

[Jackie Cation]

Dad's mom.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay.

[Jackie Cation]

And. Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

So cheated on her.

[Jackie Cation]

Cheated on for nine years.

[Ryan Sickler]

Find out. Wait, the whole nine years?

[Jackie Cation]

No, no, that was what he said when she confronted them. Not nine years in a row. You know what that is? That's funny. Still a dick. Still a dick. Turns out

[Ryan Sickler]

you've been cheating on me for nine years.

[Jackie Cation]

Not in a row. Not in a row. All right, you piece of.

[Ryan Sickler]

I do see where you get. And Nancy stayed.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah, that's. I mean, that's on her, right?

[Ryan Sickler]

That's on her. But also, maybe she only loved you guys, you know?

[Jackie Cation]

No, I think she really loved him though, right? Well, she did. She. She always said. Because when they finally did get divorced, because they did after 25 years, and then they continue to live together like lesbians.

[Ryan Sickler]

Did they really?

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

Isn't it blow you away when people do that?

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah, because both of their moms lived with them and then both. Yeah, Nancy took care of both of their mothers.

[Ryan Sickler]

Nancy's a soldier.

[Jackie Cation]

Nancy. Five kids.

[Ryan Sickler]

Is that what it's.

[Jackie Cation]

Six kids and two in laws and two moms.

[Ryan Sickler]

But one's hers, though.

[Jackie Cation]

One's hers. One's granny. Granny puts. And because Nancy's main name is putz. P, U, T, Z, Italian, Polish. And then. But like, I mean, Nancy had some of the greatest. Some of the greatest. Like she was like, wash, wipe and put away. There was a chart with our chores Right. So the chores were, you know, broken up into who washed dishes, who dry dishes. The person who washed had to sweep. The person who dried had to wipe everything down at the table and take out the garbage. And. And if you drop the ball on any of these tasks, 5:30 dinner, you had to be home by 5 so you could wash up, help set the table. And for every minute you were late, you were grounded a day.

[Ryan Sickler]

Damn right. And is she sticking to this too?

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah. Yeah. It was brutal. And she and her. And Darla, my sister, never got along, though. Darla, she understood the qualities of Nancy even more now that she has kids. But it was. Nancy just liked my dad so much. And you're like, wow, you need al Anon like somebody's grandmother, man. But she was. She had, you know, she would read to us. She made breakfast every morning before we went to school. Mondays and Wednesdays were egg days. Tuesdays and Thursdays were pancake days. It was. It was like that. It was structured like hell.

[Ryan Sickler]

You remember it. That's how she was.

[Jackie Cation]

Not a good cook. She didn't like doing it. She wasn't good at it. I didn't have a decent pancake until after college because I wouldn't even eat pancakes in college. I was like, I hate pancakes.

[Ryan Sickler]

They're hard to up, too. They were so hard to up.

[Jackie Cation]

They were too dry on Tuesdays and too wet on Thursdays.

[Ryan Sickler]

Nancy's trying.

[Jackie Cation]

She's. The only thing she was good at cooking was she had a couple of things that her grand. Her mother made, but I recently bring over. No, no. That she could. That she brought from. From.

[Ryan Sickler]

I see.

[Jackie Cation]

And I will say this is. I've recently found out. My brother Russ told me that Nancy had to raise her. Her youngest siblings because her mother got a job with. With one of the. The U.S. congress people. Her dad died when she was like 12. Nancy's d. And then her mom got a job. So Nancy was. When Nancy was like 18, 17 or 18, she still had two younger siblings. And her mom got a job in D.C. with the U.S. congressman. And her mom was like, I'm leaving. And left Nancy to raise her two younger siblings.

[Ryan Sickler]

This is why Nancy never wanted kids.

[Jackie Cation]

Well, and that's why Nancy never wanted kids. And Nancy was just. I mean, you just look at it and you go, thank God you were there. I mean, she genuinely saved our lives and changed our lives. But I just, you know, Nancy's passed away too. And I picture her in a heaven where the best version of my father.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah.

[Jackie Cation]

Because she deserved that she really deserves the best version of my dad. And my dad had a big scare about a dozen years ago where he had, like, open heart surgery and three surgeries. They fucked it up. They had to open him up three times. And every time, my brother's. Russ's wife is a doctor. And she'd be like, oh, he's dead. He's not going to make it. And I was like, hey, the angel of death, we don't need. Okay. And then. But he kept living and then. And he came out of it really sort of aware of his own mortality.

[Ryan Sickler]

Is he alive now? Yeah, he is. How old?

[Jackie Cation]

He's gonna be 89.

[Ryan Sickler]

This. Wow.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

But that's what it took for him to finally be like, man.

[Jackie Cation]

To some extent, he's always been a bit of a charmer, but it's not, you know, he's just. He's more sort of aware of the things that, like, they took away his car two years ago, my brothers. And the other. The other week I was talking to him and he said, I. I dropped something on the floor. I squatted down to pick it up, and I said, you can still squat at 88. And he goes, no, this is what I've learned. I cannot squat. I fell on my ass. And I said, then what happened? He said, I rolled over and I did a push up. I can still do a push up.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah, my man.

[Jackie Cation]

That's it. That's it, you little gym rat. And because all. Everybody's short. They're all short. My brothers. My brother Scott's the tallest. He's just shy of or just at six feet.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay, so can we go back to mom passing away for a sec here? So this is a lady you really don't know or remember much I was mentioning to you. My dad died at 16. You said, yeah. You probably knew him. And a little bit. I wish I knew more, but a little bit, sure. And to your, you know, credit as well, like, you know, you start remembering things that, like you say, two, three. Remember, you don't really start remembering things until later. So you didn't get eight years old with your mom. You got. You got maybe four, three.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

You know, that's. If that. What. When that happens, you're in. What about third grade? Second grade or so?

[Jackie Cation]

Second grade.

[Ryan Sickler]

Do you remember the kids in school? Did you?

[Jackie Cation]

No.

[Ryan Sickler]

Well, who told you? Oh, and how did you.

[Jackie Cation]

This is not a positive detail, but this is not a pot. This is a. This is the honey. This is the honeydew, you guys.

[Ryan Sickler]

For you.

[Jackie Cation]

So it's been. So I'm. I've just turned eight, I think. So I'm seven, essentially. I'm in. I'm in. And she died in July. And I think July might have been early August. Whatever. August. Actually, I think it was August 6th or 7th. Whatever. So we're all sitting in this dumb apartment. The six kids and my dad and a policeman come in. And I don't recognize my dad because I haven't seen him in four years. And I didn't know him. Yeah, Very much before. I don't have any memories of my father. I have no memories of my father before the age of 8 at all. Which is weird now that I think of it. And I'm sitting next to my brother. Rest. I was like, who's that guy? The guy with the cop. And Russ goes, it's dad, you idiot. And I was like. Because, I mean, Russ was. So if I was. If I was. If I just turned 8, he would have been like 11 or 12, and my sister would have been 9 or 10. And here's the crazy thing. When my sister Darla has a caricature of an abandonment story. When she was five or six years old, we got evicted and we had to move to another house. I was little. I was like three or four. So my mother took me. I guess I wasn't all their ascension. And then Darla and my brothers were all at school, and they all were gonna go to the new house after school. My brother Scott's job was to pick up my sister. Scott would have been 11, 10 or 11 at that time. His job was to pick up Darla from first grade after school and take her to the new house because she didn't know where it was. But he did. He forgets because he's a child. And she goes back to our house that we lived in, and we'd all moved. Yeah, a caricature of abandonment. When you come home from school and your entire family has run away.

[Ryan Sickler]

Gone, gone.

[Jackie Cation]

So she goes to my grandmother's house house, because she knows where that is. It's, you know, six, four blocks away. And you'd have to know my sister. But I just picture my sister getting to my grandmother's house and going, well, thank God they're gone. What do you want to do? I've always wanted to be an only child anyway. I just. That's what I picture. So the insanity.

[Ryan Sickler]

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[Jackie Cation]

But yeah, so I did not. And we lived in that apartment for a little while. I don't know if my dad lived there. I know Nancy didn't. Nancy. So what really happened? And I don't remember any of this that first year is so my, my mother dies. Nancy and my dad are living together in an apartment in the city of Milwaukee. Nancy goes to live with my grandmother, my dad's mom.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah, for a year.

[Jackie Cation]

For a whole year. Where she learns how to make pilaf and she learns how to, you know and, and she helps my grandmother and my grandmother becomes Team Nancy. 112%. And then my dad buys a house which I'm sure my grandmother bought and we all move into it with Nancy. Cause my parents, Nancy and my dad who are my parents got married a year and a day after my mother died.

[Ryan Sickler]

Wow.

[Jackie Cation]

And then they go to the Wisconsin Dells for their honeymoon and we are all Scattered with friends and family so they can have a week of a honeymoon. So. And then we're all living together in this dumb house that the attic is unfinished, and Nancy is like, it's fine. And three. So Terry, my oldest brother, is almost. He's 17, and while we're still at that weird apartment, him and my dad have a huge fight, and he takes a swing at my dad.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh.

[Jackie Cation]

And so he gets put into juvie. Really? Yeah, really. For the last. For the last six months of his childhood.

[Ryan Sickler]

Get the out of here. Just for taking a swing?

[Jackie Cation]

Well, I think it was. I think it was a lot of things going on. I think there was a lot of things going on.

[Ryan Sickler]

But they're putting him in jukebox.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah. Well. And. And my brother, he was some delinquent home. Some sort of troubled youth. Right. So it was the Bowery Boys, you know, just some sort of Mompa Kettle where we're sending you off to the farm. And so Terry goes into this for six, eight months, and then he turns 18 and he hits the road. He's gone. And he comes back, like, three years later and brings me a ball that would be for a four year old. And so whatever. And then my brother Phil and Scott and Russ and Darla and I. So it's Phil, Scott, and Russ upstairs in the attic. In. Essentially, it's an unfinished attic with particle board walls that make two rooms and then a big sort of open space and then stairs down, and then there's a kitchen, a living room, and then two more bedrooms. Darla and I are in one, Nancy and my dad are in the other, and there's no heat upstairs. And Nancy doesn't believe any of my brothers until I go to college and they redo the upstairs and they find out that there's no heat upstairs.

[Ryan Sickler]

This is when they believe it. That's when they believe it's Wisconsin.

[Jackie Cation]

Right. And Russ is like, remember? And plus Nancy was, like, so super frugal. Right. So we had powdered milk, and she was constantly trying to save. Like, she wouldn't let us use the Yahtzee paper. You know, when you fill out the. When you're playing the games. Right, Right.

[Ryan Sickler]

You got to use a separate.

[Jackie Cation]

You got to. You got to use a separate piece of paper.

[Ryan Sickler]

We can't use them at all.

[Jackie Cation]

Right. I guess waiting for the queen to come over and play Yahtzee. Never. That's what it's there for.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah. This is also. Well, before you could take it at your home and just make photo copies of it.

[Jackie Cation]

Exactly. Right. No printers at the homestead.

[Ryan Sickler]

You got a male Yahtzee. Probably to break these things. Exactly.

[Jackie Cation]

Right. Same with Mad Libs. We had Mad Libs, but we had to do a separate piece of paper. So just in case you wanted to come up with different adjectives later in

[Ryan Sickler]

life, not cross it out right over it. We gotta. Yeah.

[Jackie Cation]

Now you gotta start.

[Ryan Sickler]

Let me rewind you for a sec. Do you remember the dad and the cop come. But do you remember being told mom's gone. And do they also tell an 8 year old how she went? Because what a. That's a horrible way they did it.

[Jackie Cation]

And the craze. The insanity of it. Because what I have in my mind is I have an image because.

[Ryan Sickler]

I'm sorry, I'm going to interrupt one more time. It's about. About to be a mindset of. Who's that guy with the cop? Dad, Mom's dead.

[Jackie Cation]

Yes.

[Ryan Sickler]

This is what you're finding out in a matter of.

[Jackie Cation]

But I'm pretty sure they were like, hey, Mom's dead. And then these two guys show up and one of them is my dad, one of them's a cop. And I didn't. It didn't even occur to me that it mattered. It didn't. I mean, I was like, no. Okay, now what? And honestly, I don't remember that first year before we moved into the house. I don't know where we lived.

[Ryan Sickler]

Do you talk to your older siblings about mom ever?

[Jackie Cation]

Here's the crazy thing. Only recently. Because all of my childhood, as Nancy said, if you can't say something nice about somebody, don't say anything at all.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay?

[Jackie Cation]

So nobody fucking mentions her ever. For 10 years even.

[Ryan Sickler]

You don't. Just the natural conversation, like, what was mom like? Or nothing, nothing. Ten years.

[Jackie Cation]

Ten. My two. My old Terry and Scott kind of canonized her. Phil was like, she was all right. And Russ, she used to beat the shit out of Russ because he looked most like my dad. And it was very sad where you're just like. And Russ was beloved. He was my grandmother's favorite. Right? And he was even the teacher's favorite at his grade school. The principal offered to adopt Russ. Oh, just Russ.

[Ryan Sickler]

Fuck that principal, by the way.

[Jackie Cation]

Such a piece of shit.

[Ryan Sickler]

Take Russ, you know, the family unit you probably need. I'll take the one going out of there.

[Jackie Cation]

Take the good one. And then the rest of you guys. I don't want part of the rest of you. That's. What a piece.

[Ryan Sickler]

You should not be the principal of

[Jackie Cation]

a school of children.

[Ryan Sickler]

You tell yourself no One wants your college era band tees. But on Depop, people are searching for exactly what you've got. You once paid a small fortune for them at merch stands. Now a teenager who calls them vintage will offer that same small fortune back. Sell them easily on Depop, just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest. Who knew your questionable music taste would be a money making machine? Your style can make you cash. Start selling on Depop where taste recognizes taste.

[Jackie Cation]

Completely insane.

[Ryan Sickler]

Just offering.

[Jackie Cation]

Right, man, right. And then we didn't. There was. Nobody had. She didn't even have a gravestone. My mother. Until my brother Phil, my brother Russ pitched in, bought her one.

[Ryan Sickler]

Was it a plot or.

[Jackie Cation]

It was. She had a plot. It was near where my grandfather was buried in the Armenian church graveyard. And then. So she has a plot. She has. There's no marker. And then I think in the. I think it was in the 90s, maybe the late 80s, Russ and Phil bought a. A marker and. And that was it. And so she. Like. I would occasionally, like when I came back from college, I would go to the bar and I would occasionally run into someone who knew her, my mother. And I'd be like, what do you know?

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah, you talk about an adult.

[Jackie Cation]

Like I talked to another adult and all. Nobody knew. Nobody knew anything.

[Ryan Sickler]

It turns out what she did for work or anything or she just.

[Jackie Cation]

I know that she had several weird jobs. Like she worked at. There was a neon sign factory in South Bohemia, Wisconsin. She has a short lived job there. She worked at Lloyd's Lunch, which was a counter, a diner thing. And those are the two. I know. And so. But she had six kids, right? So there's not a lot of working you can do there. And then she. I think she mostly just hung out at. What's the name of that bar? I can't remember the name of the bar, but yeah, so that's the, the bar where the pool table was that I. The one memory I have there, can't remember. But

[Ryan Sickler]

all my parents were her parents.

[Jackie Cation]

Her. Her mom. They. They disowned us when she died. Oh, they blamed. There was a big fight at, at the funeral where they blamed my dad for her death.

[Ryan Sickler]

At the funeral?

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh, they're blaming him?

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, he, he. His. His marriage plans are. Here's a stack of money. I gotta go fuck something. And you're just like. Yeah, you're just like, dude, I know you're 11 years old too. I mean I look back at all these people, they're just so young. And they're such children, and they don't,

[Ryan Sickler]

you know, 17 and 15 and 18.

[Jackie Cation]

My grandmother hated my mother. Yeah, my grandmother thought that my mother had trapped my father. And I was like, oh, did she just fall onto his dick when you bought him a car when he was 16? Are you out of your mind? Like, when one of my nephews turned 16, my dad was like, you should get him a car. Car. And my brother looked at me, said, yeah, that didn't work out for you. Yeah, we're not getting him a car. So. Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

So that's it, huh? Not much of Nancy for you.

[Jackie Cation]

So. No.

[Ryan Sickler]

Well, Nancy, I'm sorry, Mom.

[Jackie Cation]

For you. And Ryan. And Ryan. Good egg, I think. Tried as hard as she could, honestly. Did the best she could.

[Ryan Sickler]

And wait, the Herald guy, Harold, the motorcycle guy never shows up again? That's what I was gonna ask you. Have you ever heard from him or anything?

[Jackie Cation]

No. No.

[Ryan Sickler]

Even in your world now, where you're popular out there? Yeah, we haven't heard from here.

[Jackie Cation]

We got nothing. We got nothing from here. And I'm okay with that. Phil told me that Harold was okay. Like, Phil talk about my mom sometimes.

[Ryan Sickler]

So Phil had met Harold?

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah, Phil. No, Phil. Phil knew Phil. Everybody knew Harold.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay.

[Jackie Cation]

I had met Harold. Here's the only Harold story I've got is I was probably 4 or 5 and Darl was probably 6, 6 or 7. And Harold was offering us rides on his Harley. And Daryl was like, don't be ridiculous. Because my sister was born 42 years

[Ryan Sickler]

old,

[Jackie Cation]

she has always wanted to own land and she wanted to be a land baron. This the only person, the only nine year old I ever knew who looked at the. The real estate, she was outstanding. And so. So he. And I was like, can I go? Can I go? And I was like 4. And my mother said, no, you cannot go. You are too little. And so, I mean, she wasn't nuts. She was just overwhelmed. I mean, I just. I could cry for these people.

[Ryan Sickler]

How was she when she passed 33? So you're looking at a younger. I mean, from her half of her life.

[Jackie Cation]

Gone.

[Ryan Sickler]

Gone and now and then dead. That's what I'm saying. Like, the first is I could cry

[Jackie Cation]

for all of them, you know, for Nancy and just falling into this thing and. And really just doing the best. I mean, we all. It. It worked. You know, structure does help.

[Ryan Sickler]

Do you have kids, Jackie?

[Jackie Cation]

Absolutely not.

[Ryan Sickler]

No. It's part of the reason. Because the way you grew up.

[Jackie Cation]

I never met anyone I wanted to have. I never really wanted kids, and I never met anyone I wanted to have kids with until I met my husband. And that I always assumed was something genuinely genetic because we got married when I was 39, so I had, like, four eggs left, and they were marinating in, like, extra chromosomes, so. But I looked at him, and I was like, you. I was like, I want.

[Ryan Sickler]

Are you both the same age?

[Jackie Cation]

Ish. Okay, yeah, we're the same age. And so I was like. When I fell in love with him and we got married, I was like, I would like a tiny one of that. That's how much I like him. I would like a tiny one of that. But it never, you know, I had a miscarriage and it never took again, so that's. And it's fine. There are 8 billion people on the planet. I have 14 nieces and nephews.

[Ryan Sickler]

Beautiful.

[Jackie Cation]

I have seven great. I have six great nephews and one great niece.

[Ryan Sickler]

Do you really?

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah. So the genetics. The jackass Jane runs true. You ever run into some of my brother Terry's sons, you're gonna want to get yourself a juke. Keep all your wallet.

[Ryan Sickler]

I keep a ridge wallet in my front pocket.

[Jackie Cation]

That's it.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay. So we talked before. Obviously, you sat down in that chair, too, so you also talked about dealing with eating disorders.

[Jackie Cation]

Oh, right, right. Which I have only recently realized. I think I've always known that I. I don't eat normally and. What do you mean?

[Ryan Sickler]

I'll just preempt that by saying I have a very unhealthy relationship with food. I.

[Jackie Cation]

That's what it is.

[Ryan Sickler]

Celebrate. Let's eat. A good thing, a bad thing happened. Let's eat. I'm bored. Let's eat. Eat. It's the comfort of that.

[Jackie Cation]

Right. It's. It's the thing that stops my brain from spiraling. From spiraling. It's something to do.

[Ryan Sickler]

I understand, you know, completely. And unfortunately, I understand that.

[Jackie Cation]

Right. And it was. You know.

[Ryan Sickler]

And when do you look back and when do you think that really started for you then?

[Jackie Cation]

Well, I think it's always been there because there has not been a lot of healthy eating. And Nancy. Nancy was. I'm pretty sure she was bulimic, because I remember her teaching me how to throw up.

[Ryan Sickler]

Nah.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

After a meal. She taught you that?

[Jackie Cation]

Well, I was. I was. I was sick. And she was like, well, you should just throw up because you. Yeah. And here's how you do it. And. And I mentioned to Darla, probably a decade or so ago, do you think Nancy had an eating disorder? And Darla Goes, what is wrong with you? Yes, yes, she had an eating disorder.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay. Not what is wrong with you? Of course.

[Jackie Cation]

She never, she never ate with us. She would.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh. So dinner time was for everybody but her.

[Jackie Cation]

And she would just sort of perch on the side and then she would later eat some ice cream and drink a Coke and you're like, wow. And you look at the food sheet. It was not. It wasn't great. So. Yeah, but. So, I mean, it was a weird relationship with food with her. And then it's just, it's just a way to stuff feelings to some extent. And I really wish. I don't know, I know that there's like, there's. There's groups, there's like 12 step groups and stuff. Overeaters Anonymous under either anorexics. And I don't know what it is,

[Ryan Sickler]

but whatever told there's an Anonymous for everything.

[Jackie Cation]

There's a. There's a group for everybody and there's a group for. If you don't want to be in a group, there's a group. If you're in too many groups, in too many groups, we'll get you a group. And I'll tell you something about the 12 step groups. Cheaper than therapy because they're free. Yeah, they're free. It's a buck if you got it. And if you like Debtors Anonymous, my friend Maria Lovely loves debtors.

[Ryan Sickler]

Gamblers. What is that?

[Jackie Cation]

There's Gamblers Anonymous. Debtors Anonymous is paired sometimes with Under Earners Anonymous. And it's just if you have crazy

[Ryan Sickler]

relationships with money but you're in debt.

[Jackie Cation]

So if you are in debt, afford that money. Well, if you. Right. If you were in debt or if you feel like for some reason you're not making enough money or you just feel like you don't deserve to make money and then you deserve. And then you buy, you know, you buy things that are weird and you use money sort of addictively as opposed to just. And with Debtors Anonymous, from what I've heard is you can't have unsecured debt. Like you shouldn't have credit cards and you shouldn't have. But you should definitely buy. You should definitely treat yourself. Like it's not about deprivation. Like if you have. You owe somebody a hundred grand, it's like, it's like what? My cause my father's a big gambler.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh, he is?

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah. But he also is aware of the fact that when you go into the hospital, they send you a bill. And if that hospital. My father and my sister have both explained this to me at length. If that hospital gets any kind of federal funding, they have to do a certain amount of sliding fee scale billing, certain amount of prorated billing, and they don't want to give you the paperwork. You have to ask several times to fill out your income and then they can give you a sliding fee scale bill. And most times I remember I broke my wrist and I didn't have insurance and it took a month to get that paperwork and I filled it out and the woman looked at it and said, yeah, you will not be owing us any money because you are poor. But if you end up owing money to them, you can pay them back two bucks a month forever. And they can't put a lien on anything you own. They can't put a lien on your income. Medical bills and credit card bills you can just blow off entirely.

[Ryan Sickler]

Well, I've been watching. I know a lady that told me she went to the hospital, just refused to give them her identification. It's illegal for them not to treat you. They insist. Ma', am, we need your id. Don't have it with me. What's your name? Not gonna give it to you. Or you can give them a fake one.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

And then there's no one to send the bill to.

[Jackie Cation]

There's no one to send the bill to.

[Ryan Sickler]

And all the hospital people are telling me that although it's obviously unethical and illegal, that by the letter of the

[Jackie Cation]

law you can do it.

[Ryan Sickler]

Anyone can do that.

[Jackie Cation]

Right. And hospitals are private organizations that are profit making things. So suck it up.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah. What hospital do you know is bankrupt? That's right.

[Jackie Cation]

Fix a person and. But you can. Like my dad lives in this old people apartment building now. And there was a guy many six years ago or so that was freaking out because he had some $35,000 bill. And my dad was like, can you believe people are upset about a bill? And I was like, yeah, it's a bill, dad. People pay bills. He's like, not a hospital bill. You die owing a hospital money, that's a win.

[Ryan Sickler]

And now, is that right? It doesn't carry over to your family or anything like that? No, I didn't know that.

[Jackie Cation]

And. And you can. And Debtors Anonymous is like, yes, you want to pay your debts, but you can't. You have to prioritize. Food, shelter, you need to be able to eat, you need to be able to live indoors. And then. And if you send them a buck or five bucks a month forever, you are paying off that debt and that is realistic. And Then Under Earners Anonymous is, I believe, where you figure out how to ask for a raise. I don't know. Have you ever asked for a raise? How'd that go the first time?

[Ryan Sickler]

No, not good at all. It's like, yeah, now you want more money, get another job, pays more.

[Jackie Cation]

Was that what it was? So the first time I asked for a raise, the guy made fun of

[Ryan Sickler]

me, so hardcore made fun of you?

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah, because I didn't know how to do it. I was talking to him, I was like, mark, you got me at this T shirt shop I was in college. And I said, I genuinely need like 35 cents more an hour. And I said, I just, I'm looking at my bills, I need like 35 cents more an hour. And he said, what's that got to do with me? And I said, well, you're my employer, I need a raise. But I sort of stumbled over the words and I didn't have it, you know, I hadn't practiced or anything. And he just laughed. And he was like, that's the worst way of asking I've ever heard of in my life. And I said, it can be bad, but it doesn't change the fact that I need the raise. And he was like, what? And I said, I still need the raise. And he was like, ah, fine. And so he gave the raise. Now the other time I asked for a raise, see, I'm raised by my dad, the sales guy. He's like, he doesn't ever have a problem asking for what he wants. It is one of his most charming attributes. Because then he's like, well, you might as well ask. Like, he's always said, do whatever you want in life because I'm gonna make fun of you either way.

[Ryan Sickler]

That's a good point, right?

[Jackie Cation]

He's just like, if you're super successful, I'll be like, hey, big shot. And if you don't try, be like, why would you try? Scare something. And so he's like, so just try. Who gives? Who gives a damn? And so my last day job, when I went in, I was going to perm, and I needed an extra dollar an hour. And the woman was like, well, we might be. I said, I need to. This needs to. This is my nut. So I need to. I need to net $450 a week, which was my rent at the time. And she goes, the HR person said, well, I don't think we can raise your rent, your wage to that. I think we could only do like $0.70 instead of a dollar. And I said, I didn't come up with that number arbitrarily. That is the actual number I need. And she was like, what? And I said, yeah, I mean, I. That's what I need to work here. And she said, well, I don't think we can do it. I said, okay, I guess I can't. I guess we'll just, you know, keep paying $27 an hour to the temp agency instead of paying me $15 an hour and well done. And she was like, well, I don't have the kind of authorization. I said, I'll just go ask the boss. I'll be right back. And so I go and I find the boss.

[Ryan Sickler]

You did.

[Jackie Cation]

Deborah Schuster, who had been my boss and wanted me to be perm. And I said, she wants to give me 70 cents more than I need it to be this amount. And Deborah Schuster goes, oh My God, yes, $15 an hour. And then she just went to HR and they were like, okay. And so you have to, I mean, especially in this market, you have to know in Los Angeles that there's another $20 an hour job because that's the minimum wage.

[Ryan Sickler]

Is that where we're at now in LA? 20?

[Jackie Cation]

Pretty, pretty sure. And it's because. But you can't get an apartment. My apartment was $450 a month with off street parking. It was a one bedroom in 1999. And that bedroom, right. That, that apartment right now has got to be 15, 1600 dollars. And I don't think I could make 1600 dollars a week at 28 dollars an hour. What is that? It would have to be 14. It would have to be 80. It'd have to be 80 bucks an hour.

[Ryan Sickler]

41 6.

[Jackie Cation]

No. 40 bucks an hour. Yeah, it'd be 40 or 45 bucks an hour at 40 hours a week. Nobody's paying that. I mean, that's Maria Bamford does.

[Ryan Sickler]

You got to go make that money yourself.

[Jackie Cation]

Right? You got to go find that. You got to go find that money. And it's. And I do like I try to Maria Bamford, I opened for her doing stand up and she pays me.

[Ryan Sickler]

Also came to see Brian Reun, must ups on years ago, who you opened for.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah, he pays super fair. These are people who are successful and pass on that success to the people who work for them. Brian Regan, he's downsizing, right. He got rid of his bus, which cost him something like 150, 200 grand a year. And he passed on that money to the six or seven of us that opened for him.

[Ryan Sickler]

Hell yeah.

[Jackie Cation]

He added to each of our paychecks. He's like, it almost doubled what I make from him. And I mean, some of the other comics open for him more, but I work so much that I don't think I can open as much for him, just scheduling wise. But I open for Maria a fair amount, and she pays very fair. And so I have tried to. I don't make that kind of money, and Maria doesn't make Brian Regan kind of money. But we all, to our extent, try to. And Maria's this great joke about how there's. She's heard over her talk to people and they're like, well, we pay the woman who cleans our house 20 bucks an hour, so she's pretty happy. And then Maria goes, are you. Have you made eye contact with her? Because that blows. If I'm making 20 bucks an hour and I'm cleaning your house, I'm definitely siphoning off your conditioner.

[Ryan Sickler]

Steal a watch. Something's coming too. Yeah. Yeah. He's using our conditioner.

[Jackie Cation]

We're going through conditioner.

[Ryan Sickler]

So when do you realize then that you have an unhealthy relationship with food? When do you realize that?

[Jackie Cation]

Seriously? About a year ago.

[Ryan Sickler]

Really?

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah. Off and on. Like, I've done Weight Watchers, I've done. I mean, I've always known it.

[Ryan Sickler]

But the, Our credit, though, in our. In our defense, weight can be from a various. It can be a new drug you take that's put weight on and things like that. When do you realize the food is the issue, though? You know what I mean? Like, during a long exercise.

[Jackie Cation]

I don't exercise, but the, The. During lockdown, there was a raised and menopause and all of the sort of the aging process where you don't lose the weight as quick because your body changes, makes you more aware of the fact that when you eat what you're eating, it sticks around more and you're using it because of the anxiety of the world to try to numb out what's happening. Right? But if we're honest, there's. And it's not like there's. Even when I went to Weight Watchers 20 years ago, Weight Watchers entire plan is you can eat whatever you want. You can eat all the carrots, you can eat all the grapes, you can eat. You can totally eat like a crazy person, and you won't gain weight and you'll lose weight. And so they added to it. They don't create a good relationship with food. Those. Those things because you're like, that's why people eat fat free stuff or locale or no sugar or whatever. A thousand popsicles instead of just a piece of food. And.

[Ryan Sickler]

And I buy points and things like that.

[Jackie Cation]

Points, yeah. And no point food. And then I'm counting calories or anything you're doing like that, where you're like, oh, I get to eat this amount of grapes. Or I could have this sandwich and this sandwich has 300 calories, but these grapes have 70 calories. And I could probably eat three of these then. And then all of a sudden you're eating a thousand grapes like a weirdo. And so it feels like an emotional eating. It feels like you're eating to prove something that you can. That you're just like, I'm just gonna. It's like smoking, right? Where you're just like, I'm putting something in my face to keep my mouth busy, to keep my brain busy so I'm not sitting in my own. Do you ever do the artist's way? You ever hear about that? Yeah, absolutely. So week four, I just did an episode of the Dork Forest with Berea, came out today. So it'd be a couple of months ago, but she. Week four is the week you can't read or watch tv.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh, is that right?

[Jackie Cation]

Remember that? It was. It's. It's a deprivation thing where you have to sit with your own mind, your own thoughts, and you can write, but you can't read and you can't watch tv, can't listen to music, can't listen to the radio.

[Ryan Sickler]

Social media.

[Jackie Cation]

No social media. If you have a job where you have to read and do things like that, so be it. But keep it to the eight hours a day or whatever it is, and then you're done.

[Ryan Sickler]

So we're getting no outside stimulation. We're working on least our head only,

[Jackie Cation]

right for at least whatever that would be 12 hours or 14 hours a day. And then you could only sleep eight hours a day. So now you're six hours for seven days. You are present. Nobody wants that. I mean, what am I, a Buddhist? You know? But when I did it and I don't know if I made it the whole week. And they talk about that in the, in the task part of the chapter. They're like, what made you. Did you binge? Did you just slip once? What'd you do? And how'd that make you feel? And what'd you do and how do you. What do you. And. And you know, it's not pejorative. Like the artist's way is the most Hippie skippy. You know, it's fine. Don't worry about it. Believe in yourself. That's all the book is. Right. So. But just. But just think about that with food, because you would want, you know, because there are things that I do to check out. It's certainly not calling my congressman. Right.

[Ryan Sickler]

You're right.

[Jackie Cation]

It's not marching right. It's not.

[Ryan Sickler]

Not writing a nasty email to somebody.

[Jackie Cation]

Right. It's.

[Ryan Sickler]

It's starting a movement.

[Jackie Cation]

Right. It's. It's right. Okay.

[Ryan Sickler]

French fries right now.

[Jackie Cation]

Right. I'm just going to eat some French fries. I'm going to reread this book for the 30th time because I know how it ends.

[Ryan Sickler]

Comfort.

[Jackie Cation]

It's just comfort. It's comfort food. It's comfort book.

[Ryan Sickler]

It's combr. All of it. I'm not trying a new food either. I just want the. I know that I like. You know what I mean?

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway. But what to do about it? Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

What are you doing about it so far?

[Jackie Cation]

Just admitting it. Saying it out loud. I've never said it out loud publicly. This is it. This is me doing that. I don't know what to do. I don't want. The thing is, is when you look like this and you're a woman, for 40 years I've had people tell me how to lose weight and to lose weight. And famously, Mitch, fatal to not lose weight because I wouldn't be funny anymore. At which point you want to go, hey, Mitch Freital, why don't you eat a dick?

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah. Fuck yourself.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah. Why don't you fuck yourself? Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

For real.

[Jackie Cation]

And so. But, like, there's a lot of advice. Do you worry about that being funnier?

[Ryan Sickler]

No, just if you lose weight or you look different, that somehow that is going to affect your personality or it used to.

[Jackie Cation]

I stopped drinking and I thought for sure that I would.

[Ryan Sickler]

Couldn't be funny.

[Jackie Cation]

I might. It might not be funny. More worried about socializing. And I was like, if I don't party, man, I'm not going to get to work.

[Ryan Sickler]

Right.

[Jackie Cation]

Turns out you get the work. You get the work. You get the work. You get the work, you're going to get. Anyway, I got different work because I don't party. That's right. And the work I got is good work, so. And there's nothing wrong with the work that I got.

[Ryan Sickler]

Can I ask you personal questions?

[Jackie Cation]

Well, here we are.

[Ryan Sickler]

Well, with the weight and everything is more. Are you. Are you. Do you know your cholesterol? Are you taking care of your blood work, your.

[Jackie Cation]

Oh. Like pressure problem.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah. So for a lot of health. That's it for a lot of people. They realize I have a bad relationship with food because my doctor's telling me that I need to lose weight. I have diabetes, whatever it is. Is your health okay?

[Jackie Cation]

I have, I take a statin because my cholesterol.

[Ryan Sickler]

Me too.

[Jackie Cation]

So like, I'm always laughing people and, and, but that, but I will say that one of the things is as you get older and I, and I remember being like. Because I've probably gained 40 pounds in the last three or four years. And I remember being less heavy, like lighter, and it was easier to move and it was easier to.

[Ryan Sickler]

For sure.

[Jackie Cation]

And just I think not hauling around an eight year old. Like, you know, an eight year old weighs about 60, 70 pounds. If I could lose 60 or 70 pounds, I wouldn't be carrying an eight year old around with me at all times. And I'd probably have a little more energy, a little more stuff I think about.

[Ryan Sickler]

I mean, the older we get, the harder it is to carry weight on your frame anyway.

[Jackie Cation]

Right. You know, so I'd like. So that's what I'm more interested.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay. And are you scared of the, these, the reaper, what are they, GPL ones or whatever these things are pills and the shots and all that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jackie Cation]

I'm not in favor of that. Just because. Remember olestra?

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah. I was.

[Jackie Cation]

Anal leakage. Come on.

[Ryan Sickler]

I was gonna say we are of the era where everyone had this food. Then all of a sudden, here come tab and olestra and you're like, wait. And it says on the bag can cause anal leakage right there. But hey, these are baked lakes and they're 35 less calories per bag. Yeah. Yeah. I'm wondering about all these people that are shooting themselves now and in 10, 20 years, is it, what's it going to do to your body?

[Jackie Cation]

And they're losing weight so fast and you know. But I also have a friend of mine who's lost weight through eating less and exercise. Huh. Come on.

[Ryan Sickler]

Bingo. That's the thing. Like I, I, but you could see

[Jackie Cation]

that she's older now because if I lost that £60, you could tell exactly how old I was. Was. Because this is filling in a lot of wrinkles and a lot of lot. There'd be a lot more sag. But it doesn't. It, it would.

[Ryan Sickler]

That's interesting. You're saying it's an idea. She looks older because of the weight loss and, and the skin.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah. Huh. Or less. I mean, she doesn't. Not from every angle. Right. She. Every angle. I'm like, when we are making l love. No. Anyway, so when. When. But I think I would look a lot older if I lost a lot of weight.

[Ryan Sickler]

But you don't look your age.

[Jackie Cation]

Well. And it's because the 40. That 40 pounds will fill in some wrinkles. So. And it doesn't really. You know, I know people my age who have always exercised and are. And have always been relatively thin who don't look their age either. But if I were to lose this 60, 70 pounds I'd like to lose. I'd have to get all this business tucked away somewhere. I don't know what. I don't know what would happen. And I probably wouldn't because I don't even want to put makeup on. So whatever, you know. But I would like to be healthier.

[Ryan Sickler]

That's it.

[Jackie Cation]

I would like to. I would like to carry less weight so I could move easier. And I think clothes would look better on me because mostly I'm just wearing. And I only wear jeans and a T shirt, but I think the jeans and T shirt would look better on me. But you can't. You can't. I don't wanna. I don't want. And I don't want to be a dick about it. Right. Like, I don't want to feel bad about myself.

[Ryan Sickler]

Right. I missed today. I'm beating yourself up over that.

[Jackie Cation]

Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

It's a lot that goes in.

[Jackie Cation]

And I. And I don't.

[Ryan Sickler]

Now I gotta something because I.

[Jackie Cation]

Right. And I don't want any feedback.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah.

[Jackie Cation]

You know, I don't need. I don't need. Need gym Internet piping up and going. Here's what I'm just saying. If you were to work out for one minute a day and move your feets and you're like, no, no, you're not. You don't have to explain how to read and write to me. I'm familiar with the idea of diet and exercise. It's. And I have a bike. My husband. I asked for a bike, got it two years ago. I've ridden it like six times.

[Ryan Sickler]

That's okay.

[Jackie Cation]

But. But it's like. And, And I take pilot. I do Pilates with this woman. But I'm on the road so much. And though I will say the last couple of weeks, I have looked at. In the, in the, in the hotel. I've looked at the, like the workout room because I. I was a member of the gym for people. Yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

I mean, look, I try Well, I have a blood disease. I found out when I was 42. So I clot and I need to keep my machine in motion. Okay. So if I work out with a physical therapist a couple times a week and then I make sure I get out, move my machine.

[Jackie Cation]

Okay.

[Ryan Sickler]

Like that's what I have to do for my health.

[Jackie Cation]

Right.

[Ryan Sickler]

But the food is always going to be something because yeah, today I do want to go to McDonald's.

[Jackie Cation]

Right.

[Ryan Sickler]

You know, and now on the road too. After the pandemic, even the big cities like Philly and everything that had great late night dining, I'm not seeing it anymore after 10pm it's fast food and fast food. It really is. It's pizza, fast food and the mini

[Jackie Cation]

marts, man, I have to tell you, it was probably 15 years ago, I had a bit about TaskRabbit and Big Dot and now. And I was like, why would anyone have food delivered that wasn't pizza? Doordash instacart. And everyone's like, I'm gonna spend $40 on a McDonald's meal. And you're like, have you lost your goddamn mind? Go to McDonald's. And except for the fact that at like I stay at a lot of Hilton's and there's always a closet of weird food next to the check in. But it's always like a Lean Cuisine.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yep. And it's been there for quite a while. It's Lean Cuisines, Hot Pockets and burritos.

[Jackie Cation]

Right. And then there's a triangle sandwiches at the airport.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah.

[Jackie Cation]

And I'm just like, I don't want to eat this crap, but I don't want to eat another banana that wants to be banana bread.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yes.

[Jackie Cation]

You know, I'm just like, this is an old banana. I'm not psyched about it. And now I have to get rid of a banana peel. So but, and I go to like the Delta Sky Club. They will have healthy food, but they will also have desserts. Of course they'll have a bunch of bullshit. And so I drank. So what I do is I end up drinking too much coffee in an effort to not eat too much food. And then I eat too much food because I forgot to eat because all I did was drink coffee. So the whole thing, I'm a project is what I, this is my current project is trying to figure out how to have a decent relationship with food and exercise and size and health. That where I can spend the last 20, 30 years of my life. Not, you know, I'm watching the Para Olympics. I'm Watching the Paralympics going, holy. That woman does not have an arm and has no leg and has a prosthetic leg and she is on a snowboard. You are my hero, lady. And nobody stopped you. You, nobody stopped you and you didn't stop yourself and holy hell. So yeah.

[Ryan Sickler]

Well, I love you. I think you're fantastic.

[Jackie Cation]

Thanks.

[Ryan Sickler]

I love Project Jackie 2026 and beyond. Please take care of your health.

[Jackie Cation]

I will.

[Ryan Sickler]

Before we let you go. Advice you give to 16 year old Jackie Cation.

[Jackie Cation]

You're hot. You were so hot. Look at that rack. Look at that rack, lady.

[Ryan Sickler]

Did you have one at 16?

[Jackie Cation]

Oh, yeah. It was, it was actually very, very disturbing and uncomfortable. I don't think you know this about because, I mean, I suppose it. It's got a rival. Like when guys start getting boners all the time.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh, because it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing. You don't even know the first one hits you in sweatpants in high school or middle school and everybody's laughing, everybody's pointing at you.

[Jackie Cation]

Try to, try to live your goddamn life. When you, you get boobs. It happens. It feels like overnight you get boobs.

[Ryan Sickler]

That's all I ever hear. I went to bed with no boobs. I woke up with humongous boobs.

[Jackie Cation]

You would wake up with giant boobs. You wake up with a boner and you're like, oh, shit, now everybody knows that I am a person. And so. Or. And it's. Yeah. So I would say like, I think when I was 16, I wanted to be a history teacher, a forest ranger or a lawyer. And I didn't really want to be a lawyer. My sister wanted me to be the lawyer. It turns out my sister's the boss of me and she was great. And still is. Still is. She's great. I'm going to Berlin because she wanted to go to Berlin and she's like, come with me to Berlin.

[Ryan Sickler]

All right.

[Jackie Cation]

And I was like, all right. So I'm doing a couple of sets in Berlin.

[Ryan Sickler]

Oh, good. All right.

[Jackie Cation]

Andy and I are going to Berlin in April and. But altercation, right? You can watch that on YouTube for freeze, dork, Forest. Jackie and Laurie show a couple of pods. Super fun. You can listen to those for freeze and then your dates.

[Ryan Sickler]

Where do I find your dates?

[Jackie Cation]

Your website, Jackiecation.com has the tour dates, the Instagram. I'm constantly pitching about it. The Pandora. I'm always doing the mini ads on Pandora. So if you listen to. And my new album is going to be on Pandora starting March 27th. So it's there.

[Ryan Sickler]

Is that through Blonde Medicine?

[Jackie Cation]

It's through Blonde Medicine.

[Ryan Sickler]

Dominic got the pickle. Boom.

[Jackie Cation]

Get a tickle. It's. It's up high, down low. Cut the pickle.

[Ryan Sickler]

Cut the pickle.

[Jackie Cation]

Get it. That's it. Get a tickle.

[Ryan Sickler]

Okay. And then that's a new one.

[Jackie Cation]

I'm a hit with toddlers.

[Ryan Sickler]

I can tell you that's.

[Jackie Cation]

You don't really take tickle anybody. The stickling, of course, is abuse.

[Ryan Sickler]

Yeah.

[Jackie Cation]

I have five older siblings. There was some brothers doing some tickling till I wet myself. They thought it was funny, those guys.

[Ryan Sickler]

Maybe that's the origin story of the whole wet in the bed. Here we are.

[Jackie Cation]

Could have been, could have been.

[Ryan Sickler]

Well, thank you for doing this.

[Jackie Cation]

Hey, thanks for having me.

[Ryan Sickler]

Go see Jackie on the road, watch her specials. Check out our podcast. As always, Ryan Sickler on all your social media. We'll talk to you all next week.