- [Dusty] I got your own pepper right here.
- How much money did you just save
when you go to the grocery store?
- Easily 50 cents.
I'm Dusty Slay, and I'm a stand-up comedian.
How many people thought my hair was attached
to this hat?
(crowd laughs)
And my favorite thing is gardening.
- [Steve] What is that?
- It's a pepper plant that didn't do well.
(Steve laughs)
Not that I'm any good at it.
If I had to survive off the food I grew this year,
I would be dead.
We're gonna talk to some experts today
about gardening, grounding, and homesteading,
and I brought my friend Steve here
along to check out the garden.
- When Dusty first told me he was into gardening,
I thought, how quick can I hang up
and delete his number from my cellphone?
- Let's get into it.
(exciting music)
Every beautiful thing that you see out here has been
done by me.
- [Steve] This is a gardening show,
and you have one plant.
- Well this is a...
Well listen, this is November.
- Right?
You don't have anything to show me.
- I'm getting to it.
- Got it, okay. - Well, this is
edible right now.
(chimes ding)
- [Steve] What is that?
- [Dusty] Collards.
- I just eat it?
- [Dusty] Yeah, you can eat that right now.
- He didn't even wash his hands.
He didn't even wash it to think, "Hey, it's my guest."
No, fuck it.
- No need to wash it when it's organic.
There's no pesticides on this.
(pleasant music)
- It's great, buddy.
- I think it's pretty clear at this point
that I won't be living off my land
and what I'm growing any time soon,
but Shaye Elliott of the Elliott Homestead
does live off the land
and so I'd like to go talk to her now
and see if she could help me out.
Thank you for joining me here.
It's so exciting.
I appreciate you coming on here
and it's great to meet you.
- Yeah, nice to meet you too and you're welcome.
- So, just for people listening,
how would you describe what a homestead is?
- A homestead is really anything where you're kind
of focused on being a producer of something
and not just a consumer.
So, we bought our dairy cow off Craigslist
like responsible people.
We had an hour to get to know her
and then we had to get up underneath this thousand pound
cow that had no idea who we were and try to milk her.
Have you ever milked a cow by hand?
- I have not milked a cow, no.
- Well, it's an experience.
And you realize we either have to jump in the deep
end of this thing or we're gonna sink.
The cow will get mastitis if we don't milk it.
And I think that that kind of attitude really
unites homesteaders.
I wanna produce something and I'm gonna figure it out.
- Steve, have you ever hunted an animal, milked a cow
or killed your own food?
- No, I've not killed anything other than my career
by appearing here today on your show.
(both snicker)
- My grandfather was born in 1900 in Alabama
and he plowed a field with a mule and a hand plow.
And then, here we are 120 years later
and I just do comedy for a living
and I feel so disconnected from the food that I eat.
- How often do we just shovel food in our mouths
or we, you know, go out, we have drinks with friends,
we do whatever and we don't even really think
about what we're doing.
And when you're eating food that you grow,
you don't, that's not an option.
You have to think about it.
- And I made my pizza with the fresh
vegetables from my garden.
- I called Domino's.
They brought it within 30 minutes and I watched a ball game.
It was the fucking greatest.
- But, when you eat your own fresh vegetables,
your body says, "Hey, you have energy.
"Let's live our lives."
- I'd rather live to 60 and die early
by eating like an 8th grader than being healthy.
- Is there something funny or gross or something
that you didn't realize about homesteading
that really sticks out to you that you discovered
once you were into it?
- Having a milk cow is really, it's a steep learning curve.
Any woman who's had mastitis knows how painful it is.
It's just equally as painful for a cow.
But, the disgusting thing is you still
have to get the milk out.
That's the only way to get the mastitis to go away.
So, when you squirt milk out from a cow that has mastitis,
imagine a latex glove, you know, like your dentist wears,
with a little, small hole in one of the fingers.
Now, imagine that glove is filled with cottage cheese
and your job is to squeeze all the cottage cheese
out through that little hole in that one finger tip.
It's the grossest thing.
- Yeah, it is.
- [Steve] Let's see what we got here.
- Oh no.
There is no real ginger root here.
- This show should be called "Come Back Next Week."
(Dusty laughs)
That's what it should be called.
I'm gonna have, I used to have, I should have.
Come back next week, Steve.
- All right, well look.
Jalapenos.
- There we go.
That's good.
Are you gonna bite that on camera?
Are these hot?
- Let's see.
(tense music)
It's not so bad.
- Okay, let me have a hit of that because I like peppers.
- Yeah.
- I don't give a shit.
Buddy, what are you talking about?
- Has that got a lot of spice?
- Holy fuck.
(Steve spits)
That's really hot, dude.
- It does got a bit (coughs).
It does got a bit of spice to it as you get on up in there.
- Holy shit, dude. (coughs)
- Are you okay?
Do you need something?
- A newspaper and a toilet that your wife isn't gonna use.
- It seems like it's really changed the mood of the day.
- It changed everything, Dusty.
- [Dusty] Let's take a break from being outside
in the garden and step inside to chat with...
- Hey!
She love to garden.
- I do comedy, you do comedy
and now we're both gardening.
So, that's very exciting.
- Right.
- So, I always tell people that it's kind
of like growing a garden is like a slow
social media dopamine hit.
When the seed starts to sprout, you're like, "Yes!"
And it is the same as getting likes except it's harder.
- It is a lot harder.
It is a lot harder and you have to have
a lot more patience, but it's so much more rewarding
at the end of the day.
Just like, I guess, with a kid, you know?
Okay, I need to feed this baby three times a day
or four or five times when they're brand new.
I need to change this, do that, you know keep it clean.
I would also suggest, before you plant anything,
what I like to do before I plant anything is
baking soda is my friend.
- Okay.
- So, I treat my earth first with some,
I put down baking soda for like maybe a week
or so before, because it kills bacteria and stuff
and plants get infections just like we can get infections.
Right? - Yes.
- I don't think they get gonorrhea or anything,
but they definitely get--
- That's a wild plant.
- That's one of them passion fruits.
- I mean, without the dressing,
a salad is just fucking awful.
- What's the best thing you've grown
that made you the most happy?
- Everything I grow makes me very happy.
I grew some okra.
Oh, it was so delicious! - Oh yeah.
Yeah.
- I grew some artichokes.
I got a whole bunch of jalapenos.
- Oh yeah.
- I'm very proud of my jalapenos.
I pickle them.
Delicious!
Oh, I'm super proud of my bell peppers.
- Oh yeah. - I love bell peppers!
- Oh, I grew so many bell peppers.
I love that.
When you grow a bell pepper, you can really eat it
right off the tree and it tastes delicious.
Delicious.
What about a failure?
What's something you wanted to grow,
but weren't able to grow?
- (groans) I wanted to grow one of them bonsai trees.
- Oh yeah?
- Never works for me.
- The one thing I tried to grow was bonsai trees.
Yeah, I spent $50, $60 on like five
or six different bonsai trees.
- Yeah?
- I did the more difficult thing in gardening,
which is I killed them.
- Here's a question.
Now, I don't know if there's say,
how does your gardening connect
to your life as a comedian?
- I run a lot of my jokes on my garden.
- Okay, all right.
- I like to call it plant-based comedy.
- Yeah. (both laugh)
I've been so excited about these carrots.
- Okay, carrots.
- Wait until you see this.
There it is.
(both laugh)
That's my carrot.
- Come on, buddy.
- It's delicious. - Come on.
You're not even gonna wipe the dirt off?
- Microorganisms.
- This is like a travel sized carrot.
- All right, even though it's November,
I'm not growing much.
We're gonna go to a guy who grows year round.
He understands each step of fall and winter
and summer harvesting and it's amazing
and the guy blows me away.
Let's take it to James Prigioni.
Hey James, I appreciate you joining me.
I watch your videos all the time
and there's so much information that I feel like
every video when I start I go,
"I'm about to rock this garden,"
and then, by the end of the video, I'm like,
"It's too much, I can't do it."
But, if you had some quick thoughts, what might they be?
- It sounds simple, but grow the stuff you like to eat.
For me, I grow all the, you know,
all different kind of stuff which is interesting and fun
and draw some people in, but when it comes down to it,
there's never a strawberry and a blueberry
and like an apple or anything that ever goes,
that gets inside almost because they just get
eaten up immediately.
So, sometimes when people get into the stuff
and they wanna do immaculate and amazing things,
but sometimes it's just easy enough
to grow strawberries which are easy to grow
but they're delicious too
and then those little things excite you
and then kind of continue to move on a little bit.
And then, you grab a fruit tree.
- My neighbor used to have a six foot privacy fence.
- Okay.
- And then, he tore it down, so I--
- And then he saw the show and he said,
"Fuck it, eight foot fence.
"Fuck this shit!" (both laugh)
- I don't know if my neighbor would like it,
but I want this yard to be a food forest.
- I think he'd like it as long as you can manage it nice.
A food forest that looks nice,
you can't even tell that it's growing food, really.
So, in a food forest, instead of having something
like a big oak tree in a regular forest,
we would have a hazelnut tree
and instead of having poison ivy that's climbing up,
we would have grapes that are climbing up.
So, it's like we look out at the natural forest,
we try to mimic that. - Aw yeah.
- And then, we try to bring that model
and then replace those elements with food
and then it's kind of a food forest.
- And I do love to get down in the dirt
and just dig around in there.
I would dig right here, but I actually have
the fall crop coming in.
In a matter of months, I'll be eating cabbage.
- You wanna see a new hour from him?
Naw, fuck that.
Hey man, you wanna see him rip up on "Late Night"?
No.
Guys, who wants to see Dusty eat cabbage?
Fuck yeah!
Wait, in January?
Yeah!
During his fall crop.
- Cabbage rolls, cabbage soup.
- Keep going.
- Coleslaw.
- Walk me through it.
- That's about all I know that you can do with cabbage.
What would you say benefits are
of growing your own vegetables?
- This first one is simple,
the flavor and the taste is like, you can't even compare
how good this stuff is when you grow it yourself
because a lot of the things that grow in stores,
they'll use the basic nutrients of nitrogen,
phosphorus and potassium.
When I grow stuff, I'm using all the natural things
which have a lot more minerals which build up
a lot of the flavors and stuff
so that my things have so much flavor
because not only are they grown organically
and with all the minerals, but they're also ripened
at the peak freshness, so whenever they're ripe,
you get to taste what real fruit tastes like
and then I think it encourages you to grow more
because you can tell the stuff from the store.
It appears like food and it tastes like food,
but it's not as good as it gets.
I think that's one of the really fun things about gardening.
- Now, I have a new game plan.
Next spring, I'm gonna begin to grow things in the house
so that when the weather warms up, they come outside.
Boom, it's gonna be popping.
- To hear the excitement in your voice--
- Yeah. - It gets me pumped up.
It's like "Avengers: Endgame",
Dusty's ginger root, the new "Dune".
It's all right there.
- Another thing that this show's been about,
it's been about grounding and earthing.
- Okay.
- They always say that our bodies are like electricity.
You know, we're electric beings.
Grounding pulls a lot of negative electricity out of you.
Fills you with positivity.
- Do you ground in earth in your back yard?
- Oh, all the time.
- This is what happens when you start
making money in show business.
- This is what you do.
You just
you stand here,
you just touch the tree.
And then, a full cycle.
- [Steve] And what's, what's happening here?
- Just pull the negativity out of you.
I feel very positive right now.
Touch the tree.
Feel that thing.
How do you feel?
(throat music)
Our next guest, Clint Ober, is the innovator
behind the Grounding Movement and author of
"Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever".
Hey Clint!
I'm very excited that you're here.
- Well, thanks for taking interest.
One day I was at the computer that was kind of crashing
and I knew it was from static electricity,
so I figured out a way to ground myself
before I touched the computer to fix the problem
and intuitively I just asked myself, I said,
"I wonder if there's any consequence to us humans
"no longer being naturally grounded."
Now, I didn't know and I went through a process
and used my logic from the communications industry
that the reason we ground is to prevent charge.
When I started grounding myself, my pain went away.
I didn't know what it was, didn't know why,
didn't understand it at all.
So, I just pursued that path over 25 years.
- Well, that's amazing and what I like
the most is that although very complicated to explain,
it's very easy to just do.
Right?
It's very easy to just take your shoes off
and walk around in the grass.
When I cut the grass, I just cut the grass barefoot.
- That's smart, because as the propellor blade
flips shit out like little rocks and stuff-
- Yeah.
- That's perfect when you don't have shoes on.
- I know. - You just honk up your feet.
- It feels great.
- That's a nice run to the emergency room.
That's cool.
- It is nice when you're walking on rocks or thorns
to have that rubber underneath,
but you're also, how tough would our feet be
if we actually just walked barefooted all the time?
- That's true.
Your calluses build up quite quickly.
- Yeah.
- I have heavy calluses on my feet,
but I walk at least a mile a day barefoot,
sometimes a lot longer.
- What do you think a common misconceptions
about grounding is?
- All living things on Earth are electrical in nature,
so anytime there's an electrical disturbance
from an unnatural source or a man-made source,
then it's going to perturb electrons in the body
and cause them to do something, not necessarily harmful
but it's going to, you know, create anxiety.
- Yeah, and whether people believe it or not,
it's so simple that it's worth giving a try.
- What happens if I'm right?
- Right!
- Prove me wrong.
Do your own experiment.
Do your own study.
- Well, I'm gonna have my mom and dad over for Thanksgiving
and I'm gonna make them get out and do that.
I think it's gonna be great.
- Okay, super.
- Well, thank you.
I appreciate it.
I really appreciate what you're doing.
I appreciate the documentary and I'm honored
that you would come on here and join me,
so I really appreciate it.
- Well, thanks for the invitation.
It's a lot of fun, appreciate it.
- Yeah.
All right, well, take care.
- I mean, you think about all the comics
that have moved here to Nashville, right?
It's you, Kathy Madigan, Nate Bargatze,
Josh Wolfe, Angela Johnson, Steve Burns,
Theo Von, John Crist
and I'm the only one that came here to do your show
and you asked me will I ground
and now I know why everybody else turned you down.
- Well, to be fair though--
- Yeah.
- You are the only person I asked.
Of that big list, you're the first person I asked.
- You're too kind, you're too kind.
Now I'll fucking do it.
What do you want me to do?
- [Dusty] Let's ground, let's earth--
- Okay, what do...
Okay, what do I do?
- You're doing it right now.
All right, this has been
"Netflix is A Joke Radio's My Favorite Thing"
and I've been your host, Dusty Slay.
I'd like to thank all my guests Clint Ober,
Shaye Elliott, Tiffany Haddish,
James Prigioni and my friend, Steve Burn.
(Steve coughs)
Check out my special on "The Stand Up" season three
streaming now on Netflix and Steve,
did you have a good time?
- I love you, absolutely.
- [Dusty] All right! - Always, buddy.
- We're having a good time.
(both laugh)
(cheerful music)
- There's a lot of things I'd like to tell you
about our friendship.
I'm jealous of your hair.
You look like an Amber Alert.
Did I ever say that to you?
- Okay, all right, okay.
(swanky music)