COLD OPEN:

Ron Bennington: Well, when I first got diagnosed, the first doctor, he wasn't involved in this kind of world, so he just gave me a time, you know what I mean? A finite amount of time. And I was just like, "All right, cool. Thanks."

Matteo Lane: Yeah.

Ron Bennington: Boy, that's...

Matteo Lane: The alarm's going off.

Ron Bennington: Yeah.

Matteo Lane: Does that happen? What does that mean?

Ron Bennington: This is the first time I've ever heard it.

Matteo Lane: Do you think it's warning that there's a homosexual in the room?

Ron Bennington: This

Matteo Lane: Is - No good can come of this.

Announcer:

Fortcast is recorded during Ron Bennington's cancer treatment. Abrupt cuts or visual changes may be necessary to protect the privacy of patients and staff. And now, Hortcast with Ron Bennington.

Matteo Lane: Well, how many times are you coming in here? Am I asking the hack questions?

Ron Bennington: No, no, no. : There's no such thing as -

Matteo Lane: It’s like people asking comics, "Have you though of SNL?" It's like, shut up. Shut up.

Ron Bennington: Yeah, you're doing the hack bits where how... Let's say it's every two weeks, Tuesday every two weeks, and then it's just ongoing like that. And I stopped having a lot of the bad stuff that would happen after this. When I first started doing this, I would feel sick for almost a week and they keep kind of tweaking stuff and now I feel fairly normal, except for there's a thing going straight into my chest.

Matteo Lane: Straight into your chest. Is it permanently in there or do they put it in every two weeks?

Ron Bennington: No, here it is. I don't know if you can see it because of this, but it's actually under the skin. It used to be like you were plugging into a guitar, but now it's just this weird, almost like small tit that I have.

Matteo Lane: Do you think gays are going to somehow use this technology to keep K in their system? Can I tell you the truth? Anytime I see something medical, I'm like, well, gays will figure out some way to make it a party drug.

Ron Bennington: I'm glad if they finally get away from poppers.

Matteo Lane: No, that's like a staple. Poppers are like... Because I don't do any drugs, but I'll do poppers every once in a while.

Ron Bennington: Yeah. Because you're high for what, eight seconds?

Matteo Lane: Even less than that.

Ron Bennington: Yeah.

Matteo Lane: It's like a quick, and it kind of helps things out.

Ron Bennington: Right. While you're cumming? Is that it?

Matteo Lane: Just anal in general.

Ron Bennington: Oh, anal itself. I didn't know.

Matteo Lane: I figured we're sitting here. We might as well be technical.

Ron Bennington: Yes.

Matteo Lane: Do you think the other people are having conversations about anal right now?

Ron Bennington: They're probably listening in.

Matteo Lane: They should be so lucky.

Ron Bennington: You know what? This is the funny thing too, is I remember at The Stand years ago that all the young comics would ask you, all the straight boys would ask you about gay sex. They were all so...

Matteo Lane: Curious about it.

Ron Bennington: Yeah, curious.

Announcer: Due to treatment, we'll be right back.

Matteo Lane: You think I've ever held a microphone in my entire life?

Ron Bennington: Are these even microphones? They're all ridiculous.

Matteo Lane: It looks like a Star Wars character.

Ron Bennington: It does. It does. So you're doing good. You're on Broadway.

Matteo Lane:…..Sure.

Ron Bennington: Does that feel crazy to you yet?

Matteo Lane: You're such an interviewer. How can you sit here getting chemo and an EKG and then be like, "Now tell me about Broadway."

Ron Bennington: I will be totally honest. I'm much more interested in everything but this. Gail told you about numbers of mine or whatever.

Matteo Lane: Yes.

Ron Bennington: I have no idea that. I told them, I go, "Don't even tell me."

Matteo Lane: Oh really? Oh shouldn't have said anything?

Ron Bennington: No, no.

Matteo Lane: Leave it to a gay Italian to...

Ron Bennington: Yeah. You come in, "I heard the numbers were great." But no, I don't want to feel good or feel bad based on some numbers that I don't even understand. You know what I mean? So I'm just like, I'll just go through life and then one day I'll either Mitch McConnell or I won't.

Matteo Lane: Well, Mitch McConnell, that's... No, you don't want to...

Ron Bennington: I don't want the lingering.

Matteo Lane: He's being propped up at this point.

Ron Bennington: I know. But that's kind of what happens to people now. How many people in your family have you seen in that bed, in the room that doesn't have a bed and they're just there for months?

Matteo Lane: Well, my grandparents right now, I told my nana, I was like, "You guys should have been dead years ago, but you have the air on in January." So I think you're cryogenically freezing yourself. They will survive anything. They had gas leak fine. My grandpa had one kid fine. There was a fine. At this point I'm like, "Well, the house could explode and they would be sitting there in their chair. They have the bed in the basement. They're fine." How are you two... There's been a million calls, this is it.

Ron Bennington: Yes.

Matteo Lane: They're fine.

Ron Bennington: They're okay. And yet I don't want that kind of extended life. Like this whole thing, the trial drug and all, the idea is that I'll ever get cured. I'll just keep extending. How long do you want to extend for?

Matteo Lane: I agree. I think life isn't so much about how long, but so much is the quality. And it's like you're somebody who's out and you're writing material and you're interviewing people. So if all this kind of comes to a head, I understand. Don't prop me. I don't want to Terry Shivo myself.

Ron Bennington: Here's the thing too. If you do that, if you have someone in your family that will help move you to the next spot, everybody's family has had somebody that's done that for... Now you're like, "I don't want to get anybody in trouble." You know what I mean? But I think New York has a suicide thing. And I'm like, "Well, I don't want it now, but give me your card." You could drive there, I guess. You sign some papers and then that's it.

Matteo Lane: But isn't that just the feeling of just moving to New York?

Ron Bennington: That's the suicide.

Matteo Lane: I'm trying to connect the dots here. I'm like, "Yeah, that was ever when we moved to New York." And I was like, "Now where do I sign up… for suicide?"

Ron Bennington: Is anything more exhausting than when you first moved to New York?

Matteo Lane: It's traumatizing.

Ron Bennington: It's unbelievable. I started to sleep like 14 hours a day because the other six hour... Your head's on a swivel, you're meeting people. I think I have a job, but I'm kind of afraid that this is mob related. It's insane when you get here.

Matteo Lane: Yeah. I lived in a tenement apartment on the sixth floor walkup with a bathtub in the kitchen. I lived like a Polish immigrant in 1940. I should have been making pierogis and I was like, "This is great. It's New York." Walk around the city with a baker. I looked like a failed Pokemon trainer for about six years when I first moved to New York. But you're just trying to absorb as much as you can. It's impossible.

Ron Bennington: It's really, it's also impossible to explain to some people why that gives you an energy that you never had and it feels like life because for them they're like, "You don't even have a yard. There's no mall around you."

Matteo Lane: No. That's why people in LA believe in astrology because they have time to think about these things. We don't have time to think about our brand. You ever go to LA and it is shocking. People who have three okay jobs are like my brand and I'm like, "I'm going to stop you right there. Mattel is a brand. You're a barista on Sundays. You're a DJ on Saturday. And for the rest of the week you were an influencer, which I don't even know what that means. What is your brand? Brands aren't brands anymore.

Ron Bennington: No, they're not brands. You're right.

Matteo Lane: New Yorkers, we just don't have time to think about anything besides...

Ron Bennington: Surviving. That's the beauty of it. It's like living in a jungle. But yeah, the other thing about LA is wherever you're going to go out for dinner, I got to call you. We're going to meet there and that'll be the end of the night there. Where in New York, you stop at a place and it's the beginning of a night.

Matteo Lane: That's right. Well, New York, as you open your door, the adventure begins.

Ron Bennington: Yes.

Matteo Lane: Because you don't have to drive 40 minutes. I mean, there's no... Even on the train, taking the train up here. Actually I spilled my iced coffee, such a fag with iced coffee. It's like I did not need it. I spilled it, but I was getting off and I just though, New York and I walked off and some tourist will be like...

Ron Bennington: My coffee.

Matteo Lane: Every other New Yorker was just reading and they just lifted their feet and then went back down. So whatever.

Ron Bennington: That's why people are like, "Well, how can you do this?" It's just another inconvenience to me. It's just another New York inconvenience that you live with.

Matteo Lane: Yeah. There's so many... I'm sure having lived in New York for so long, there are more things you would rather... You'd rather get chemo and relive some of your moments.

Ron Bennington: 100%. Dating alone. You know what I mean? But that's why I think people are like... Well, when I first got diagnosed, the first doctor, he wasn't involved in this kind of world, so he just gave me a time, you know what I mean? A finite amount of time. And I was just like, "All right, cool. Thanks."

Matteo Lane: Yeah. The alarm's going off.

Ron Bennington: Yeah.

Matteo Lane: Does that happen? What does that mean?

Ron Bennington: This is the first time I've ever heard it.

Matteo Lane: Do you think it's warning that there's a homosexual in the room?

Ron Bennington: This Is...

Matteo Lane: No good can come of this.

Announcer:  Due to treatment, we'll be right back.

Matteo Lane: The comics complain way too much about our jobs. They're literally saving lives and we're that drunk in the front row.

Ron Bennington: I swear I never met anybody in this line of work that wasn't on their way to heaven. I know. You know what I mean? The things that you meet people, a part of this, it's just insane.

Matteo Lane: You know what David Letterman said to Joan Rivers once? He goes, "Joan, you don't exactly look like the Joan that I remember." And she goes, "I take that as a compliment."

Ron Bennington: She was the best, man. She was -

Matteo Lane: So jealous you got to interview her and hang with her.

Ron Bennington: Yeah. I got to know her on a couple different levels and it was just remarkable. You never really saw somebody who'd been doing comedy that long that was still grinding. You know what I mean? Because people that were her peers, most of them were still doing stuff that they did in the 50s.

Matteo Lane: Right. I also was at the cellar once and we were discussing top five comics, blah, blah, blah, and only Jim Norton backed me on Joan. He was like, "Absolutely Joan."

Ron Bennington: Norton is a gigantic fan of hers too.

Matteo Lane: Well, I find Jim always... I'm always lining with his sensibility because he was like, "She's the only woman doing it for that long. She was funnier than everyone. She went into territory that nobody else would go into, just admit it that you guys don't think she's as good because she's a woman." And then, "Oh, that's not true, blah, blah, blah." I'm like, "No, it kind of is true. She really was top comics of all time."

Ron Bennington: Also, I will tell you this. When the seller used to be a little rougher with Patrice, she would have been able to handle herself fine in that because she could cut deep, deep. Also, one of the first things that she would say, "Who acted like a piece of shit?" She always, if there was a limo driver, "Who's the worst person that you had to drive?" She loved to hear that.

Matteo Lane: Have you ever asked that question?

Ron Bennington: No.

Matteo Lane: Oh, I've asked that before.

Ron Bennington: So who did you hear?

Matteo Lane: Tyra Banks.

Ron Bennington: I can imagine.

Matteo Lane: Who I worked with once and she was great.

Ron Bennington: Yeah.

Matteo Lane: Yeah.

Ron Bennington: But she has kind of an awful reputation, right? Being a hard ass.

Matteo Lane: Well, I think this recent Netflix top model documentary certainly didn't shine any kind of good light on her.

Ron Bennington: Right.

Matteo Lane: But we all watched it.

Ron Bennington: Yeah.

Matteo Lane: By we, I mean women and homosexuals of that time.

Ron Bennington: Yeah. It's a good demo. It's a great demo. It's a good demo. It's a demo that spends money.

ANNOUNCER: Due to treatment, we'll be right back.

Matteo Lane: Italians are the exact opposite. They don't want to think about the hospital. They deny that they're even sick.

Ron Bennington: 100% right.

Matteo Lane: They don't even want to... They're trying to tip the doctor.

Ron Bennington: Right. They're good if you need to get a gun that...

Matteo Lane: Jiminy Glick once asked Idi Falco, he goes, "Why do Italians try not to kill?" She goes,

Ron Bennington: "What?" Do you see the documentary on his life, Marty Short? Matteo Lane:

No, I can't. I would be too pain... I don't want to think of him in pain. I did meet him. I met him a year ago and I know every Jiminy Glick interview, I do an impression of him, the whole thing. And I was doing some show in Canada. It was an outdoor show, me and Fortune Feimster. She knew him and I saw him walking around backstage and I said, "Oh my God." Top three people that I would want to meet. I've already met one, Barbara Streisand. I mean, Mariah Carey. I want to meet Barbara Streisand. Martin Short's up there. Because I'm obsessed. And I said, "Oh, I wouldn't even know what to say." So I get off stage and she texted me because she had to go and she goes, "Martin Short's waiting for you in his dressing room." And I just didn't even know what to say. I walked in and he was trying to talk to me and I just was panicking. I was like, "Thank you so much. I don't want to bother you." The fact that I met Martin Short... I mean, I watched Clifford, that horrible, terrible movie. Oh, when he can't make that face.

Ron Bennington: Yes. People of a certain age, that's their favorite movie of all time.

Matteo Lane: Oh, it's the best.

Ron Bennington: That and Hook.

Matteo Lane: I loved Hook.

Ron Bennington: I know. I know.

Matteo Lane: I loved Hook.

Ron Bennington: Gail's the same way. If you

Matteo Lane: Rufio…

Ron Bennington: When Rufio died.

Matteo Lane: I never liked Robin Williams as Peter Pan, but I mean -

Ron Bennington: Yeah, it was a mistake.

Matteo Lane: Yeah, it was a mistake. Well, Michael Jackson was trying to get the role of Peter Pan, could you imagine?

Ron Bennington: But at least he had the body for it, where Robin was kind of beefy at the time, pale, freckles.

Matteo Lane: They gave him that shit blowout at the end. I was like, "Ugh, God."

Ron Bennington: But that's the funny thing. If you love a movie when you're a kid, even if you find out it's the worst movie ever, it doesn't change the way you feel about it.

Matteo Lane: Yeah. There's a few movies where I'm like, as an adult, I'm like, "Oh yeah, it is bad." I didn't think about how bad Independence Day was until I saw it as an adult. I heard Jim Norton talking about it with Patrice actually years ago, and I could not stop laughing. I was like, "Oh yeah, it is a bad movie."

Ron Bennington: Oh, they were both hating on it?

Matteo Lane: Well, Patrice loved it, of course. Jim ripped it in half and Patrice is like, "God damn it, you're right. It is a bad movie."

Ron Bennington: Even the fact that you know those two, it's like you end up knowing the funniest people in the world. I mean, it's insane. Most people would feel about Patrice or Jim Norton the way you feel about Martin Short, and yet you see it as somebody to talk to for 20 minutes before your set starts. I will have people ask me about Patrice almost every week of my life because I did the only long form interview that he's ever done. So people come to me as if I know him deeply. I go, "Well, you saw everything that I know. It's right there. Just go back and watch it again."

Matteo Lane: It's funny doing Broadway and being with theater actors because Chicago, the musical, it's unlike other Broadway shows I'm finding out where the quarters are quite close. We're just with each other all the time and how people in the theater talk to each other and they're nice to each other. If there is a kind of competitiveness, I think they tuck it away. They're very professional about it.

Ron Bennington: But here's the thing. I think a comic is okay with being hated by some people. I don't know it for anywhere else in show business.

Matteo Lane: No, people want to be liked.

Ron Bennington: Yeah, they want to be liked, but a lot of comedians are like, "I'm going to come out and drill this place. I'm going to destroy this." When you see Tim Dillon’s whole thing is going to a town and tearing down the thing that these locals love.

Matteo Lane: It's crazy to think my first open mics was grizzly pair 4:00 PM, me, Tim Dillon, and Michelle Wolf all waiting to sign up.

Ron Bennington: Unbelievable.

Matteo Lane: I just saw her in Barcelona, by the way. I was doing shows there and I asked if she wanted to just come do 15 minutes, honestly, just to hang and she's so funny. It was so nice to be with her, me and Emma Willmann together in Spain doing this big theater show. It was so funny.

Ron Bennington: Unbelievable.

Matteo Lane: I know. And I was like, "We were at the grizzly pair with six people watching us."

Ron Bennington: Emma Willmann is so funny.

Matteo Lane: The funniest.

Ron Bennington: And the thing that she does about sperm donors, have you... It's the funniest thing maybe ever.

Matteo Lane: I don't want to even say the punchline because I don't want anybody mature, but it is so fucking... And by the way, truly the nicest, most loyal friend. I said to Emma, I said, "Emma, if I called you and said I killed someone, I need to bury the body, what would you say?" She goes, "Well, first of all, I would say hang up and we're going to pretend that this phone call didn't happen, and then I would find another way to contact you, and of course I would help you." She's a loyal, good friend.

Ron Bennington: She's a great, great person. She really is. And she's probably closer to being a gay guy than she is a lesbian.

Matteo Lane: Oh, 100%. Absolutely. Yeah. She's gayer than me. I'm more of a lesbian than she is. I'm emotional. I pride at Fool's just coffee commercial. I like relationship. I bring her with me on the road a lot. She's a headliner now. All my friends are now. So I find weekends where I'm like, "Hey, do you want to come do this theater with me? We can hang out this weekend." So she came to Europe with me. She did Barcelona and Hamburg and a bunch of other places with me.

Ron Bennington: It's so fun. A theater is such a different experience, right? Yes. You go into a theater and you're like, "Before anything happens, I just want to walk around for a while." And you feel the history and you feel actual culture where you don't get that in a bar in Oklahoma City.

Matteo Lane: No. Me in Tulsa

Ron Bennington: Yes, Tulsa.

Matteo Lane: Now it's almost... It's 18 years of standup for me. So I've only been doing theaters for maybe three years. So for the rest was comedy clubs, but I learned through Aziz how to do them. I mean, I was just doing comedy clubs. I remember the worst show I ever did with me and Liza Trager. We were co-headlining at the Dayton, Ohio Funny Bone. There was seven people in the audience all wearing camo. It's a crushed red velvet room. We were just bombing terribly. I remember going in the kitchen and then coming back out and Liza was screaming at the audience. "You're all fucking losers. You'll amount to nothing." And then all of a sudden you're at Radio City.

Ron Bennington: Right. Before you know it, you get to fight your way out of this place. Liza Trayger is also ridiculously funny.

Matteo Lane: I say that she is... There's a few comics in my mind that are just untouchable that we know. Liza to me is one of these comics. I think maybe the most naturally funny person and the most unique in the sense that a sigh is a punchline. A breath is a punchline.

Ron Bennington: You know you've been judged when you hear that sigh, but she also is a person that you bring up a topic, she can bring it up, she can go with you. But high culture, low culture, she loves them both. But you've always had funny women that you hung out with. Christie Sommers when I first met you, you used to come in with her. And then it was Liza Trayger. You're always comfortable in that world.

Matteo Lane: I think my best friends, especially in comedy are like Marie Fauston and Sydnee Washington and Aminah and Rosebud. I think coming up with the open mics, I mean Evan Williams is my best friend and we did all our open mics together, but I just related more to women I think in the open mic bar show days. So to think naturally I just went that way. Not that I don't have male friends. I do obviously. I hang out with Sam Morril all the time. I hang out with Stavros, but it's like I just kind of line with the women more. I think the experience is maybe more similar.

Ron Bennington: How surprised were you when you saw Stavros doing movie roles comfortably?

Matteo Lane: Honestly, Stavros, I guess I wasn't. I don't know. I'm in my mind, "That makes sense." I just think the world of Stavros. I'm like, "Yeah, he's talented. That makes sense."

Ron Bennington: His talent is crazy. I mean, he's on tires, which is... I brought this up before. It's a much more brilliant show than people get because I'm from that part of the world. But then Stavros comes in and plays this really awful guy and it kills. It's so funny and you don't want to see the guy loose, you know what I mean? But he's terrible.

Matteo Lane: Well, comics are good actors because I think we are writing our own material and then we have to act it out every night.

Ron Bennington: Right.

Matteo Lane: I mean, how many times have you said a joke and the audience is laughing in your head like, "I know how to say it. I know how to time it. I know how to emphasize. I know how to..." And so even when I got to Broadway, they were like, "Oh, you seem like a very natural actor." And I was like, "Well, because I'm acting out my own material."

Ron Bennington: Yeah, your whole life.

Matteo Lane: I mean, I did a movie last year where I played faggot and it was called Maintenance Required. It was like an Amazon rom-com. I had the best experience filming it, total fun. But if you watch it, I am literally... I look like Michael's Arts and Crafts released into the streets. Whatever the costumes they put me in, I looked so... Even for myself, I was like, "This is kind of gay." And people were like, "You did a good job." I was like, "Yeah, I've been studying for that role since I was three." But acting, I think comics are natural actors because we have to be able to... When you've been on stage for that long, even when you're dealing with a heckler, we know how to hold ourselves, you know how to defend yourself, you know how to deal with the anxiety. So I don't know.

Ron Bennington: How do you do in real life? Coming into a situation like this or you have somebody in your family that you lost, are you able to still let those emotions in or you put up the comedy shield?

Matteo Lane: My uncle Mike, who basically raised me. I had my mom and dad and then grew up... It was very communal how I was raised. My aunt Cindy, my uncle Mike, and all my cousins were all the same age. I mean, he was my other father. And people say, "Oh, my uncle this and that." No, this was someone who was a pillar of my life and we lost him two years ago, very much similar process. I don't think I've ever talked about it. It's horrible.

Ron Bennington: I know. It's tough.

Matteo Lane: Yeah. It's not fun to watch someone go.

Ron Bennington: Yes.

Matteo Lane: It was a long process and it was terrible. It's not easy. I still make jokes though. I go and make jokes. Yeah, of course.

Ron Bennington: But that thing, people don't truly talk about it much, but we're all living this.

Matteo Lane: You know what I mean?

Ron Bennington: One of the reasons that I guess came out as cancer is that I really think it has a lot to do with your family and what they're going through. I mean, Kayla's the most unorganized person I've ever met in my life, and she has got everything down on paper that I have to do all the time. She made a complete change in her personality and it's like, how do you even thank somebody for that?

Matteo Lane: Well, I think they're thanking you, if you think about it that way. My uncle Mike was going through this. I remember my dad got really sick from a disease called vasculitis, which actually as of late, they think came from the chemicals in Vietnam that they were exposed to

Ron Bennington: Agent orange.

Matteo Lane: And so when I was in first grade, he was dead. I mean, he was basically dead. He was in the hospital. He was a hundred pounds. We came. They gave him his last right. I mean, he was in the hospital for months. I remember being in first grade, walking in all... It looked like a million... He looked like Ash or whatever his name was, an alien when he died with all those cords. And they were saying, "Say goodbye." And he made a recovery. We don't know how, but the one person I can remember above all of them was my uncle Mike who got us through everything. I think when people are in situations like this, Gail's thinking you. It's not your responsibility to say thank you to her because what you're getting from her is a response to how you raised her. Do you understand?

So there is no need to thank. You just now get to accept the love that you gave somebody else. It's a reflection of you. Right.

Same with my uncle. We all figured out what we could do to help, and everyone is good at something that someone else is not going to be good at. Some are good emotional support. Some are good at giving gifts. Some are good at taking stress away from other people. You kind of have to find your way. I remember my family doesn't have a lot of money, and I remember when my uncle Mike was brought back home, it was like this, a million things. And my poor aunt Cindy was trying to figure this out. She was basically playing a nurse. She was having anxiety attacks, and I though, "Why don't we have a nurse? We can't afford it." So I called her up. I said, "Well, I'm paying for a nurse," so Italian, screaming at each other.

Ron Bennington: Right.

Matteo Lane: "I'm paying for a nurse." "No, that's your money. And you do with it. "I said," I'm just going to get more Botox. You think I need a new Jen? "I said," I'm paying for that fucking nurse. Uncle Mike did my fucking diapers. You're getting that goddamn fucking nurse. "We love each other. Sure. But that's what I did. I was like," Here's what I do. I'm making a lot of money right now. You get a full-time nurse at that house to do everything that you don't want to do. Take the stress off my Anthony because she should be spending this time with my uncle.

Ron Bennington: "Yeah. That's why I say this whole thing, it's

Matteo Lane: Surreal,

Ron Bennington: But it's

Matteo Lane: Natural.

Ron Bennington: Even when I heard the news, I'm like," Of course, it's natural. "But I feel like the way you feel about your uncle is probably tougher than the way I feel about myself right now. You know what I mean? That part of it is, I think, much harder. And love is a very strange thing that we're kind of tough for us all to express, even with what we do.

Matteo Lane: Especially comics.

Ron Bennington: Yes.

Matteo Lane: We don't know how to be vulnerable like that in those moments. And we're used to, like you said, how do I thank somebody? Because we're used to being, not in control, but we're used to sort of directing and usually not directing for ourselves, unless you're arguing with your agent about a gig that you want to do.

Ron Bennington: So yeah, these things, the good thing that we're able to talk in ways that we wouldn't before. I don't know if you would have told me about your Uncle Mike before this came up.

Matteo Lane: I haven't spoken about it at all actually.

Ron Bennington: Yeah.

Matteo Lane: And he was the closest... Yeah, it is interesting, I guess you're right, because I sound like I'm in LA, you brand yourself in a little bit, but in a way it's like my only job I feel is make people laugh because I get messages of people saying, "Thank you for your podcast. My dad passed away. My this, that." We do forget we're not curing cancer, but we are -

Ron Bennington: You're an escape.

Matteo Lane: You're escape.

Ron Bennington: For people that are suffering.

Matteo Lane: Yeah. Joan Rivers always said it. She said, "You make someone laugh, you've given that person a little vacation." And I do believe that. So I just see it as my job is just make people laugh. So I didn't talk about my uncle. I didn't talk about my divorce. I didn't talk about any of that stuff because it was like, "Well, what does that serve me?" I'm just trying to make people laugh, and then in my private life, I take care of what I need to take care of. But yes, I think this is the first time I ever talked about it.

Ron Bennington: Well, I mean, even before, even when I met you, I've always thought that you were a beautiful person. I always though that you brought a lot of great energy in. We talked about the friends that you have feel safe and good with you, and to watch what's happened with you and see you on Broadway right now, I mean, there's a pride that a lot of us have just to see how we kind of knew you could do this, but it's a shock when it happens. So I'm really, really proud of you.

Matteo Lane: Well, I'm very thankful to you because I think I'm sure every comic has told you a million reasons why they love you. But when you're a young comic, especially someone who's gay and there's just so many people ready to kind of just put you in a box, I remember that it must have been 2016 the first time I went on your show.

Ron Bennington: Yeah, it was a long time ago.

Matteo Lane: It was a very long time ago, and you guys were the only show I can remember where you were open, welcome, no judgment, and you just let me be myself, which was so rare to just go Be yourself. It was such a supportive, wonderful way to be able to feel I could express myself and your show and you and your family have always been wonderful and warm and great. And it's like what comedy needs. You've always been a pillar for people in comedy. And I'm not just saying that because you're hooked up to a million things and we're in front of a camera, but it is the truth. It really is the truth. And the second they were like, "Do you want to come talk to me?" I was like, "Yes, I'll be there. I don't care. I'm clearing my schedule. I'll come." Because now I'm thanking you because you did things that I wouldn't been able to do for myself and I can't thank you enough.

Ron Bennington: I love you, buddy.

Matteo Lane: I love you too.

Ron Bennington: All right. I'll see you.

Matteo Lane: Yeah.

Ron Bennington: Hopefully in here somehow.

Matteo Lane:Pretty soon we're going to turn this into a showroom. We're going to bring audiences. The nurses are going to be like, "Did someone say they had two drinking tickets?"

Again, pop pop.