Talk is Jericho, baby.

Talk is Jericho.

Talk is Jericho, Mama, talk is me.

All right.

We are here with Derek Stroop.

Kind of a last minute booking.

Yeah, man.

Shall we say?

But that's how the biz works.

That is how the biz works. And you're here in New York City, which is crazy because it took me so long to get here with this freaking traffic. Yeah, it was terrible. And you're not a native New Yorker, shall we say. No, no, you can tell immediately that I'm not a native New Yorker. You are from Alabama. Yeah, originally. I am.

So how did you end up here? Well, I went from Harvest Alabama to Denver, Colorado. Yeah.

Live there for about a decade and then moved here about 15 months ago. Okay. And I just really came here

to challenge myself. And like I'd been in Denver for quite some time, and I enjoyed it. But I just felt like I was in witness protection. Like, I wasn't on anybody's radar. Alabama to Denver? Yeah. Yeah. What's the deal with that? Well, I mean, I was, you know, I was dating somebody at the time, and they moved out there. Right. And then I kind of looked into the comedy scene. I saw comedy works. I just did a quick little search online and I was like, well, that's a decent club. But I wasn't really doing comedy until I moved to Colorado. I'd never been to an open mic. So, but me coming here was just kind of challenging myself. I got passed at the cellar. I love that club. And if I can be funny as a southern comedian in New York City, then my jokes are going work anywhere. Because when I come into the room, as soon as they hear me talk, they're like, you know, this guy is like Blake Shelton got stung by bees, you know. Yeah.

I don't know why that got me.

Yeah, it gets everybody.

It's a pretty on point reference.

So, we've got lots to discuss here.

But so you moved to Denver and you weren't a stand-up comedian until you moved to Denver.

Yeah, well, I mean, I had done it a few times, but not like in a scene.

Right.

Not like an open mic. Not like hanging out with other comics. I ran a bar in Alabama, and it was just like in the same town I went to college in. And I was like, if I hear a wagon wheel one more time, I'm going to kill myself. So I just got up and started doing comedy. And I would do like 45 minutes, and that's back when I drank. So I would take like seven Yeagerbombs and four bourbons, and I would get up there and just rant. And I just did it for me and my buddies. It was just fun. I wasn't chasing a dream or anything. But when I moved to Colorado, there's a comedy scene, open mics, a hierarchy, a process, and that's when I dove into it.

So then you decide I got to go to New York to kind of increase my visibility?

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