Carney Saves the World

EP20 Tom Stewart: Tragedy, Comedy, and Paranormal Stories

• Episode 20

Share episode

Comedian and podcaster Tom Stewart joins us to share his incredible journey from a 20-year stint in broadcasting to finding his true calling in stand-up comedy. Tom opens up about his experiences in comedy competitions like Last Comic Standing and performing alongside luminaries such as Jim Florentine and Mark Norman. With a million downloads of his podcast, "My Paranormal Story," Tom's storytelling magic is undeniable, blending humor and eeriness into a must-listen experience. We also reminisce about our quirky past working at McCoy Stadium, and Tom's unexpected adventure at a hip-hop radio station despite his rock music roots.

Venture backstage with us to a Hot 106 concert for a memorable encounter with LL Cool J, where we share some humorous near-miss moments and personal stories. As we navigate through past traditions like "New Food Friday," we touch on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and how these experiences left a lasting impression. The conversation takes a poignant turn as we reflect on surviving the Station Nightclub fire, grappling with survivor guilt, and how Tom has found healing through his work with the Station Nightclub Fire Foundation.

Our spooky journey doesn't end there—Tom invites us into the world of paranormal investigations with chilling tales from Belcourt Castle and his eerie experiences on Cemetery Street. We explore the comedy world through Tom's eyes, where he embraces his passion for comedy while supporting charitable causes with Funny for Funds. From performing with icons to navigating the comedy circuit's demands, Tom's story is one of resilience, humor, and camaraderie, painting a vivid picture of his multifaceted career.

Millie & J - We miss you.❤️

To listen to Tom's podcast, My Paranormal Story:  https://open.spotify.com/show/10B7wHKiLHVnHEFAbPL7KT?si=9dd83bd05ff34c61

For shows:  https://tomstewartcomedy.weebly.com/

Click HERE to let us what you think! Or, suggest a guest!

Finnleigh would like to remind everyone that a 5-star rating from each of you would be a huge push for the podcast in the algorithms that suggest podcast to listeners.  Please take a second to give us a 5-star rating when you get the chance!  Thanks so much!

Support the show

Scott:

The next guest is comedian podcaster Tom Stewart. After spending the better part of 20 years in broadcasting on radio and TV, tom easily transitioned into the next phase of his career as a stand-up comic in 2010. Since that time, tom has been a finalist in numerous national comedy competitions, including the Last Comic Standing, the Boston Comedy Festival and the Burbank Comedy Festival. Along the way, tom has also appeared at top comedy clubs in Mohegan Sun Casino, catch a Rising Star and Stand Up New York, while appearing with National Acts' Jim Florentine, dom Herrera, mark Norman and Boston's own Joe List. In 2018, tom started his podcast, my Paranormal Story, featuring stories from his old ghost hunting days, and this summer, my Paranormal Story just hit one million downloads, and that's insane for an indie podcast. So congratulations, tom Stewart. Welcome to Carney Saves the World. Thank you, thank you, hey.

Tom:

Scott, it's very good to see you, hear you.

Scott:

Another 30 years it's been, I've been busy.

Tom:

How about you? Yeah, 30 years, yeah, now, first of all, are you okay Because you were in North Carolina where I hear they had a hurricane. Are you? Were you in that area? You're not Western, are you?

Scott:

No, no, I'm on the other side of the state, we're in Wilmington, so we avoided that, but it's an absolute tragedy. I don't know if you've been to Asheville. Asheville is an absolutely gorgeous, or was a gorgeous, city. I haven't Awesome people. My wife and I went there for vacation the year COVID hit. We were actually driving home from Asheville and we heard on the radio that someone in Seattle had this crazy flu and that was literally the beginning of COVID. Asheville is beautiful. It's very hilly, like extreme hills, like thinking to ourselves we're like this must suck in the wintertime because they do get snow. We don't get snow on our side, but they do get snow in the West and I mean I can't imagine those hills. They're so steep, people must slide down them on their ass all the time ass all the time.

Tom:

But yeah, it's a beautiful area and, as we speak, florida is about to get hit. Man yeah.

Scott:

It's crazy. I was really bummed out when we moved down here because I was like I'm going to miss the snow, and I really don't miss the snow.

Tom:

I thought I was going to, but I'll ship you some if you want.

Scott:

this winter I don't like it either, so we've been here eight years almost and we've had like four hurricanes and one we had to go to the middle part of the state. It was pretty crazy. So you, my friend, are out of control. You are world famous podcaster, world famous comedian, all kinds of good stuff happening for you.

Tom:

So you and I I can barely walk down the street. It's so, it's so much, it's just world famous. I'm like in the top 10, in like Slovakia or something which is true.

Scott:

So weird so I wanted to start off. So which is true? So weird, so why don't we start off? So, when we worked together at McCoy Stadium, another McCoy Stadium alumni in Pawtucket, rhode Island, that's right.

Tom:

And when we were working together. You were a big, hot DJ in town. Well, I don't know if I'd say that, but yeah, when you know, growing up that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a radio DJ. So you know, I was just starting to get some DJing jobs here and there. Like I can remember working all night at McCoy Stadium for a game, setting up for a game and everything, and then leaving, going home and sleeping for an hour or two and then going to do the midnight to 5 am shift at the local radio station. Like it was insane, but that's what I wanted to do, yeah, yeah.

Scott:

And that's where you got to start out and kind of cut your teeth Right. You start out and kind of cut your teeth right you start out in the shitty shit.

Tom:

Back then, yeah. In radio. Back then, yeah. Now they don't even have that shift anymore. Now it's all computers and voice tracking and all that stuff. There's never a live DJ at a radio station anymore.

Scott:

One of the funnier not really funny things, but like you were known, you know, anybody that knows you knows you're a huge rock fan. Oh sure, huge rock and roll fan. You've been forever right, for sure, I think it was. I'm not sure what point was. When we were in college, like 21, 22, you ended up DJing on the like the hip hop station.

Tom:

Kix 106. Yeah, that's where I was starting out was the hip hop station. Yep, yep, it was Kix 106 and then it became Hot 106 and I was DJ Tom the Bomb. Yep, that was my on air name and I still go by that. Sometimes there are still people who call me that. I'm still known for it because, you know, I guess it sticks, I don't know. Yeah, and that's what I was working hip hop. So I was, like you know, a white guy working on a hip hop station. I got to meet all the famous rappers of the day, um, hip hop artists and everything. Uh, what a trip. Yeah, what a trip trip. It was fun, though I had a blast doing, met a lot of great people to hear you on the radio.

Scott:

And you know, like you know, if you know tom, you know he's big rock fan well, I did secretly like that music though too.

Tom:

You know I did like my rap music and hip-hop and everything. Yeah, um. But what's funny is I've worked at I don't know 15 16 different radio stations over the years really, and very few of them had any kind of rock music. They, they were always something else. For some reason I never got in at the rock stations. I've done Top 40 and I've done classic stuff and you know hot, ac and hip hop, and I've done all that, but I never got into like. I always wanted to work at 94HJY, the rock station we grew up listening to. I got to work in the studio next door to it for a while at WSNE, but I never got to work in the studio next door to it for a while at WS&E, but I never got to work at the rock station, which is funny because I was such a rock fan. Did you ever put a glass against the wall and just listen in?

Scott:

Occasionally I'd sneak in, you know, to listen to a Van Halen song, but then you know they'd kick me out. You know, back to your studio. So one of the fun things about following you on social media is you have a, like you do, a shout out for celebrity birthdays. Oh yeah, folks, anybody out there find Tom Stewart comedian on Facebook. Just follow him. He's got these great stories about celebrities.

Tom:

Yeah, they're like. Anytime I see a celebrity's birthday and it's a celebrity that I have some sort of a story about. Maybe I met them or maybe something happened involving them, I just tell the story because, you know, working in radio all those years and then working in comedy, and I've been around a lot of different celebrities over the years, and so there's lots of silly stories to tell. So I, you know, I tell some of those stories. I treat social media almost like a morning radio station. I have like benchmarks and bits that I do regularly and then I do them for a year and then I move on and I do something different. So that's what I've been stuck on this year is doing these celebrity stories.

Scott:

What's your favorite celebrity story of all of them? You've got a lot of them. Some of them are great, like there's a Will Smith one and a Hogan.

Tom:

I don't think I told my LL Cool J one because I think I started doing it right after his birthday, so I think his birthday is like in the beginning of the year. So I was working for Hot 106 and we had a big concert. It was like every year we'd do this big concert at the Dunkin' Donuts Center called Hot Night, and I forget which one this was. But LL Cool J was the headliner and I was super psyched because I'm a big fan of LL Cool J. I'm backstage before the show has started and I see LL Cool J standing outside his dressing room, just kind of standing there, just kind of taking it all in, getting ready, you know. And so I approach him and I tell him you know, LL, I work for the radio station. I'm a very big fan, I'm very excited to see you perform tonight and I would love it if I could get a picture with you. And he goes come see me after the show. You know we'll get a picture and I'm like all rightid, actual picture. You know, whole show goes on, he crushes it, he kills it, Unbelievable live performer.

Tom:

I go backstage, I go to his dressing room and it's just full of people like all kinds of people listeners and radio and industry record people, Everybody's trying to get five minutes with LL and I'm just kind of like standing off to the side. I'm like you know, I don't, I don't want to push and shove my way through all these people and you know he's not even going to remember me anyway. So then finally, at one point LL Cool J says to his manager all right, that's enough, I want the room, you know. And so the manager's like all right, everybody, thank you very much. Everybody has to leave L, that guy can stay. I promised him a picture and points to me.

Tom:

So everybody was gone and it was just me and him just chilling for like a good half hour in his dressing room talking, just shooting the shit with LL Cool J, and he couldn't have been the nicer guy, like just talking about his family, and he's asking me about my life, Like it matters. You know what I mean. And he was not to be cliche, but he was so cool, Like he really was just the coolest guy. He was offering me something to eat, Cause he had like this huge spread of food and everything and and I got my picture with him and uh, it was probably one of my favorite moments of of being in a radio and meeting someone famous. It's so cool yeah.

Scott:

Yeah, it's so funny. You say that it's pure coincidence. I also have an LL Cool J picture story. Oh good, it's not as good as yours, but basically I was out in LA with some friends for work.

Tom:

Why did you do air quotes when you said work? I don't know why you did that yeah.

Scott:

Business. So we go out for drinks one night and grab one drink here, one drink here, and we ended up going to just a hotel bar. And as we're walking into this hotel and it's like one of the trendier ones in LA there's this guy and he's walking out in a full LA Clippers sweatsuit, like velour sweatsuit thing, with a Kangol this is before the Clippers were even remotely good and he comes out. She's like hello, can we take a picture together? He's like yeah, yeah, yeah. And he does a little cool J lip lick thing, you know that smooth thing you always do and she hands me the camera and she puts her arm around him and waits for the picture to be taken. And now I've got to take it. My claim to fame with him was I was like who the fuck am I, herb Ritz? And he laughed hysterically.

Scott:

And I was like all right, I still got it. But I took picture and then he just walked off and I never got a picture with him and I was kind of pissed off you were one step away from getting a picture with ella, and only he could pull off that outfit.

Scott:

Man, I only could oh yeah, it was ridiculous. So that they bring his car around and he gets in a gold 1996 toyota camry and we were like what is that? So just like hunk of shit. And the mater d guy comes over and he was like that's his getawayaway car and he put it in quotations. Oh yeah, I was like really Like he drives like a shitty car. He doesn't get caught by paparazzi and stuff, but it was pretty wild. Your story is much better, though, but also do the celebrity birthdays One of your other things that you used to do that you no longer do, which upsets me to no end. I think you know where we're going. I do. You used to do a segment on Instagram called New Food Friday. Yeah, and you no longer do that.

Tom:

I did that for a few years. That bit lasted for a few years. Well, you know what ruined that bit was COVID. Everything got shut down so there was no new foods. I couldn't really go shopping and so it kind of no one could taste them. Yeah, no one could taste it anyway. Yeah, you know, when everything shut down, it kind of ruined. You know they weren't making 15 different Twinkies anymore, yeah. So then I just kind of said, well, you know what, I've done this bit for a long time.

Tom:

It was starting to get to be more of a chore than fun anyways, and I tend to do that to myself. I come up with these ideas and then I do them, and then I get obsessed with doing them so well because I'm my own worst critic that I end up just making it not fun anymore for myself and I ruin it. But but, that was fun for a while. And people still bring it up all the time. There are a lot of people still send me pictures of something they see on a shelf Like Tom, have you tried the new Oreo Coca-Cola? And I'm like no, I don't do that anymore, I'm not trying all this crap, no more.

Scott:

So I would get home from work on Friday and I'd start scrolling through Instagram and you had a page for it specifically and it was also like tied to your regular page, Yep, and the theme music was just it got me going. I forget the song now, but it just got me so excited. I was like this is the weekend, Like I'd go and grab a beer, sit down, crack a beer at like five o'clock in the afternoon and I was like this is the weekend and that was like the beginning of my weekend 60 seconds of me eating or drinking something stupid.

Tom:

Well, the theme song was just some independent band who put their song up available for you know, license, free use, and I just thought the song sounded good for the intro and I stuck with it for a while. But you're making me wish I still did it. Now, there you go, because I have so many other friends who guilt me about it too. Yeah, I have so many other friends who guilt me about it too. I have one friend who his two kids. They used to watch it together every Friday faithfully. His two kids loved it. They looked forward to it. They thought I was a rock star. They were like, wanted to meet me and all this other stuff my daughter would watch with me. So I ended up meeting them and actually doing an episode with them to just to make their day. But that whole idea like I was saying, I use social media like it's a morning show, like a radio morning show that started on my morning show when I used to have my own radio morning show. I used to just talk about goofy things and one of the goofy things I used to talk about was all these weird foods when they would come out and I started calling it New Food Friday. And then I was like, well, we should be eating these things, not just talking about them. So I started forcing my co-hosts to eat these things with me every week or drink them, whatever it was. And everybody at first was like that's dumb, because they don't even get to see it. It's radio. And I'm like, yeah, but we'll paint the picture. That's what you do on radio. You know you paint the picture, so you know if it's a potato chip, you're going to hear me crunch it. If it's a soda theater of the mind. And it was like the biggest bit I did on my whole morning show for three years was that New Food Friday every Friday. It was stressful because the pressure was on to find something every Friday.

Tom:

After that, oh God, yeah. And then I started doing it with people who would come in the studio. I'd have guests in the studio, I'd make them do it. And then, when I stopped doing that morning show, I was like I'm going to keep doing this, I'm just going to do it on video and put it on Instagram and Facebook. And uh, yeah, it was popular, but it wasn't popular enough to really keep doing it, although today it would probably be pretty big on, uh like Tik TOK, cause this was before Tik TOK was around. Oh yeah, you know, and it would probably be. A lot of people are doing it now, though I see a lot of like, and I wasn't the one who came up with it either. I'm sure there were people doing it before me.

Scott:

Not as good as you, though, tom.

Tom:

But I see a lot of people doing it. Now, every time there's a new food, I see a bunch of people doing it on video. So it's like, well, I did it Moving on.

Scott:

It wasn't anything like if you didn't like it, you didn't like it. You know you were eating like snake eyes or anything like that.

Tom:

You weren't eating. Like disgusting, yeah, like Oreos always got some new weird flavor, or Twinkies has got a new flavor, or there's a new flavor of Mountain Dew or something. And that was what I was trying, you know it wasn't like oh, you're going to eat a beetle, no, no, this isn't. You know Joe Rogan's show. This is real food. I'm not going to go eat a bull testicle or something. I'm actually eating stuff you can buy off the shelf, although that would be pretty good too, although those are pretty good if you cook them right.

Scott:

So I've heard, and that was in quotes. We're going to keep needling you on New Food Friday and hope to get that back, or at least just one. I mean you did do that one.

Tom:

Yeah, I did do a special one recently. What was it for, though? I can't remember now. Oh, I got to do this one on video, so I actually did one for that. It was so good, which was like in the springtime, I think, but I haven't done it other than that they're still up there, though, if people want to look at them. The Instagram is still there. There's, you know, there's hundreds of them up.

Scott:

Is it just?

Tom:

like New Food Friday. Yeah, new Food Friday IG or something. I think it was Something like that. Yeah, I'll put it in the show notes so everybody can follow.

Scott:

I've known you forever as being a massive, massive rock fan, huge Van Halen fan, Yep, you have the unique distinction of being one of the station fire survivors, and so for any of the folks they're not familiar with the station fire, that was God how long 20 years ago, 21.

Tom:

It was 2003. So what, 21 years ago?

Scott:

21 years ago. Okay, I don't know, tom, you, you obviously can speak to it more, but if you could just kind of briefly tell that story, if you don't mind.

Tom:

I mean it's um well, I mean, I've told it a million times so I don't mind, this will be the serious part of the podcast. So I mean, like you said, I love rock. All my life I've been going to concerts. I love concerts. I mean I go to dozens. I mean not as much nowadays but in my younger days dozens and dozens of concerts yearly.

Tom:

And in 2003, the band Great White was coming to town. They were going to play a small bar in West Walworth and they were one of those bands that I really liked a lot back in the day, but I never went to see them live. Of all the bands I've seen, I never got to see them and it was always because something weird happened. Tried to see them in the past and I got a flat tire once and another time my date cut her knee and we ended up going to the show later and missed Great White because they were the over. So now this was like oh, this is my chance to finally see Great White. I mean, it wasn't the original band, it was just the lead singer in a new band, but it was still going to sound like Great White. So literally like at the last minute, like, I think, a day or two before the show, called up a friend. I was like, hey, you want to go see the show? And he's like, yeah, why not? What the hell? And I went to Strawberry Records yes, this tells you how long ago it was. I actually bought five tickets because there were a couple of people that we knew that wanted to come to.

Tom:

The night of the show was a night right after a huge snowstorm. It was still like a foot of snow on the ground, like a real February snowstorm, you know, in New England. So we all met at my friend's house and we had a couple of drinks and then, you know, we took a couple of separate cars and went to the show. It was basically starting off just like any other night. You know what I mean? It was a crowded, dark rock bar. So there's a stage but there's no like seating or anything like that. Everybody just kind of stands wherever they can. You know, it's one of those places where they took all the tables and chairs out and they pushed the pool tables against the walls so that they can squeeze as many people in as possible, and it was kind of crowded. I didn't think it was overcrowded. I'd been in more crowded situations than that one that night. I'd been in more crowded situations than that one that night. But I'm a claustrophobic person as it is, which is strange because I go to so many concerts but I always try to find a place away from the crowd when I go to a show, even before that happened. And so that night I kind of just gravitated towards the back of the room where there was a second bar and there was less lines waiting, so we were able to get our beers quicker and we were just out of the fray of all the traffic and all the people just kind of packed in and I was like you know, it's great white, I don't need to be in the front row. I mean, I'm in a bar, I can see them fine from the back. You know what I mean. I don't need to be up front, and so that probably is what saved my life, because I wasn't stuck in the middle where everybody was. You know, everything was going fine.

Tom:

I actually was talking to Dr Metal from 94HTY. He was a DJ at 94HTY. I'm sure you know who he is and you know him and I have worked a lot of places, same places together and stuff, and I just happened to see him and we were. I bought him a beer and we were chatting and all of a sudden he's like no-transcript. That's what started the fire. And as I stood there watching the show start, I see the sparkles go off and then I see this weird glow above the stage and I just remember thinking to myself that's weird, I've never seen that effect before. And then I started seeing flames coming from the wall behind the drummer and I'm like, oh, a fire started. And that's when I was like I just kind of stood there and was watching, cause I'm thinking somebody's going to come out with a fire extinguisher and put that out and we're all going to have a good laugh, the band will joke about it, or something.

Tom:

But then it just started getting bigger and bigger and bigger really fast, and people started running everywhere and panicking. And that's when my claustrophobia kicked in. I was like shit, I need to get out of here before I get tramped. So I started making my way towards the front door where we went in, because this was my first time in the place, so my natural instinct was to go out the way I came in. That's where everybody tried to go out and there wasn't enough room. It was like a small hallway big enough for like two people side by side and there was like 400 people trying to filter through it. So that's where a lot of people got stuck and passed away in the fire.

Tom:

But for me, somewhere, somehow, I took a few steps towards that door and behind me I heard a voice that said no, tom, this way. And when I turned I saw a side door that was open and I kind of remembered that that door was there because I remember before this all happened, the bar back kept going out that door to go dump out barrels of bottles and stuff into the dumpster and every time he would we'd all like shiver because it was freezing cold outside. But I heard that voice no, tom, this way. So I turned and I went that way and I went out that door and got out the side. I ended up even with that door. There was a bunch of us pushing all at the same time. I ended up falling forward, but I fell forward enough to land in a big snow bank and I got up and the first thing I did was try to look for my friends, because I was there with four other people and I got across the street and I found two of my friends and they said one of my friends and they said one of my friends he's going to look for somebody. He got out and he's going to look for somebody. And my other friend. They said he got out, we saw him but we don't know where he went. And I said okay.

Tom:

So now my instinct was to go back to that door that I got out of and try and help more people find that door, because at this point it's pitch black, there's no lighting in the building, the lights had gone out and the smoke that was in the building was so thick and black. It was like a tidal wave of darkness that just came at you and it was right behind me. When I got out and I went to that side door and I saw inside how dark it was and I can just hear people screaming and glass breaking and just alarms are going off. So I'm like people need help finding this doorway. So I got on my knees and started pounding on the floor and screaming come to my voice, come to my voice, if you can hear me, come this way. And there was another guy next to me in the doorway doing the same thing. So the two of us together kept screaming into the door and we'd reach into the darkness and if we felt somebody we'd grab them, grab a sleeve, grab a belt, whatever and pull them and literally just throw them into the snow. Yeah, and we did that, you know.

Tom:

However, you know it seems like an hour, but it was like two seconds or something. You know, we helped three or four people get out that way and then I was like I turned to the guy and I said we got to get out of here. I could feel the heat coming from the fire. It reminded me the pizza ovens at McCoy stadium when you got too close to one and you could just feel that heat coming out of it, especially when you open the door. Yeah, it kind of felt like that. It just was a blast of heat coming at.

Tom:

I was like we got to get, we got to go. We can't stay in this doorway. It's like a thickness, yeah. And when I turned and looked at the guy, I realized it was my friend. It was my friend who I was looking for, the one who had gotten out and they didn't know where he went. He had gone to the same door as me to help people out, and so that was basically how I got out. Dr Metal, who I mentioned, he didn't make it out, and there were a couple of people that I was acquaintances with who didn't get out, and I had some close friends who got hurt but made it out, and I had some close friends who got hurt but made it out and uh, you know everybody's got a crazy story from that night.

Tom:

That was my story. That was how I got out. It was some voice that I heard. Um, it wasn't any of my friends voice, because I asked them all and none of them said that. They said it and the one friend who was in the doorway with me at the end he had gotten out after me, so it wasn't him. So to this day I don't know whose voice it was. You know, some people say it was a guardian angel, some kind of paranormal thing, maybe. You know some people say, oh, maybe there was another.

Tom:

And you specifically heard Tom no-transcript other, and they couldn't get out. Yeah, they were all stuck, you couldn't go back, but you can go forward. You had the weight of all the people on top of you holding you down and, um, devastating, and you know, and, uh, you know, we stood there for like the rest of the night just watching the whole thing happen. Just the whole place went up in flames in like minutes it seems. And you know there were, you know, fire trucks everywhere and I remember there was a long line of ambulances, all, just one by one, on the street, all taking a turn, coming down, taking as many injured people as they can, turning around and going back down the street, and then the next one and all going to different friend. That blue tarp means that those are people. Those are people who can't be saved, and they're covering it from, you know, the media and you know, because by then there were news cameras everywhere and you know this was like 1130 at night.

Tom:

You know this was after the 11 o'clock news, so most people didn't know about it until the next morning.

Scott:

Yeah, so it was a hundred people died.

Tom:

A hundred, even 100, even 100 even died, Not all that night Only, like 92 or 91, maybe 89 died instantly that night. The rest ended up dying later on in the hospital. You know days and weeks later. Injuries, you know, because a lot of people suffered really bad injuries and we're not talking just burns either. It was a lot of serious burns but some people were blind because of some, people went deaf because of it. Yeah, you know just lots of different. You know physical injuries, broken bones and stuff. You know people were jumping through glass plate windows, getting thrown through windows, stuff like that. So it was devastating.

Tom:

I mean it was only a couple of years after 9-11 had happened, you know, and it was kind of like our little 9-11, because everybody in Rhode Island knew somebody who was there, or they were supposed to be there that night and they didn't go for some reason. Like that was what I always heard from everybody. If everybody who told me they were going to go had gone, there'd have been 6,000 people there. Yeah, you know, it's just so weird how so many people were going to go and you know, and didn't and they're lucky.

Scott:

So I was in Boston when it happened. But you know, as a Rhode Islander, you hear the news, you see the news and I talked to my mother about it and it dominated the Rhode Island news for months. Yeah, oh yeah, casualties and everything. So you talk about this in your podcast. We'll get into that in a second. You mentioned, you know, the survivor guilt. I can't even imagine that aspect of it, just knowing that you could have been closer.

Tom:

You could have been more constrained or trapped in there. And how did you deal with that? Survival guilt is more of a why did I live? And those people didn't Like what reason? You know what I mean. Is it just luck? Is there a bigger meaning behind it? Do I owe it to these people to live my life in a great way? Now you know what I mean. Like it was. It's just.

Tom:

All those things go through your head. You know like, wow, you know they're never going to have a chance to go on a vacation now. They're never going to have a chance to do this or do that. And you just beat yourself up. Every time you don't take advantage of a situation or you don't do something for yourself, you beat yourself up like, oh, those people never even got the chance. And here I am turning it down. Yeah, so you go through that. So you know it was a lot of. You know did the Irish thing and self-contained, you know. But over the years I've discovered that I do suffer from depression, adhd, ptsd. I've got all the letters. Uh, so I I have to do certain things in my life to uh, to deal with those.

Tom:

But the fire is a lot to do with the PTSD, you know, and the survival guilt from it.

Tom:

But I was able to also put my energy into helping people too. You know a lot of the people who, not only people who were injured in the fire but a lot of the families who were affected by people who were lost in the fire. So with my ability working in radio I was able to do a lot of stuff to raise money and raise awareness to make sure people didn't forget it. You know, on the one year anniversary, two year anniversary. And then I got involved with the Station Nightclub Fire Foundation who basically were there to raise money to help these people because it wasn't considered a national disaster, so we didn't get any kind of national funding or anything. All these people who were affected by that fire had to rely on charities and local people. So they started a foundation and I helped them out a lot. They actually let me perform on a couple of comedy benefit shows and you know. So I was able to kind of give back as best as I could.

Scott:

Yeah, that's, that's great. I can't even imagine what you went through, but yeah, I remember hearing it when I started listening to your podcast, my paranormal story. You've got two episodes on it and they're fantastic. I suggest everybody go download it and check those episodes out and check the other ones out too. But I will say I personally find your podcast scary as shit.

Tom:

Well, that's good. That's the point. Yeah, thank you.

Scott:

Yeah, I don't do well with ghosts and shit, so if anybody's out there that likes scary shit, go listen to this, because it's pretty scary. I actually was doing more research in the car today driving and I was listening to more and felt like someone in the back seat. I was like this is bullshit. I got to turn this off. It's a little spooky.

Tom:

It's spooky. Yeah, for those who don't know, my podcast is every episode is just me telling a spooky story of something that I experienced in my life. It's based on paranormal things because I was a paranormal investigator for a while, but I've also had a lot of personal experiences with paranormal events. So every episode I decided to tell a story. Because I started the podcast, because I kept finding myself telling people stories and people would be like Tom tell them the story you told me and Tom tell them this story. And so I was like why don't I just make this a podcast and I'll just tell stories? Like you know, most people think a podcast is like this people interviewing each other, talking.

Tom:

And I said I'm just going to do like an old timey radio type podcast where it's a story that I'm telling. I'm just narrating a story with some spooky music, maybe a few sound effects to give you a jump scare or two. And that's what I've been doing and I love doing it because I love the paranormal. It's a big thing of mine. Since I was a little kid I've loved it. You know, I was 15 years old, sneaking into cemeteries at night and stuff. I mean it's then when I became a paranormal investigator, I got to really see some wild shit, yeah, so I just tell a different story on there and, yeah, some of them are spookier than others. Yeah, it's kind of like I wanted it to feel like you're sitting around the campfire telling each other spooky stories. That's what I wanted the feel to be. And I have a friend who says that he can't listen in the car anymore because he's missed his exit too many times, because he's so enthralled by the story that he's not even focused on the road.

Scott:

I haven't missed anything, but I've almost drove off the side of the road because it scared the shit out of me. I'm like that's just not necessary anymore.

Tom:

Like I gotta.

Scott:

I gotta go back to call her daddy.

Tom:

Yeah, uh, well, that's a little scary too. Um, I keep it family friendly, which was one of my things. I wanted to make sure of it. So there are a lot of people who listen to it with their kids, which I absolutely love, because I get lots of emails from people who listen and I love the feedback. But I also wanted it to be a little bit educational too. Because I'm so into the paranormal and because I was researching it for so long, I kind of wanted to also just let people understand it a little bit better, because when you watch these TV shows like Ghost Hunters or Ghost Adventures, they don't necessarily explain it as much, they just want you to have the thrill, and so I kind of wanted it to be a little bit educational too and kind of tell you what's happening and why, or why we believe it's happening, things like that. So it's a little bit of a paranormal education too.

Scott:

Yeah Well, one kind of hit home. I just listened to the one about your pet. Yeah, oh, the one pets died.

Tom:

Yeah, yep, which we both just went through. What was your cat's name? My cat's name was Jay Jay.

Scott:

Just the letter J. We lost our little 15 year old Millie. Brutal, absolutely brutal.

Tom:

It's so, so tough. We're still grieving here in the house.

Scott:

Yeah, it's absolutely crazy. My wife pulled her bowls out today and I was like, well, that's where her food went, yeah.

Tom:

It's those little, every little step. It's like, yeah, it hurts, yeah, because we're doing the same thing here with the cat and we've got another cat too and that cat was a little bit younger. So that cat's only known that other cat, her own life and that's it. And now it's gone and she looks lost. Sometimes she's being very vocal all of a sudden, and now all of a sudden she's the alpha, because he was always the alpha over her and now she's the only one. We're going through that change.

Tom:

But my episode on the podcast is about the paranormal stuff that can happen when you lose a pet, because you start noticing things that are happening that the pet would do. And that's what I do. I tell two stories on this episode one about losing my cat when I was younger and then one about losing my dog and the dog it was about how I kept hearing all the noises that he used to make and then about the cat. The cat one was about a crisis apparition kind of a story where I feel like the cat came to say goodbye to me before he died. But there's no way he could have, but for some reason I felt like he did. Yeah, and so we're going through that a little bit of that right now with our cat that we just lost, because we're hearing strange noises.

Tom:

The wife and I are both hearing it. At first I was hearing it and she was like, stop it, you're going to spook me. And then she's like, oh, I heard it too. I think they stay with us. That was the whole premise of that episode is that even when our pets are gone, they're still with us and I think they, in my heart and soul, I think they stick around to make sure we're going to be okay. And once we start moving on and start feeling okay with our lives again, I think that's when they kind of fade off and go to rest, you know. So when they pass away, you're going to notice things. You're going to hear the noises your dog used to make. I don't know what noises she made she made out a squeaky toy or something or you're going to hear signs that they're still there and you're going to feel their presence for a while.

Scott:

Well, she used to fart a lot. She's an old dog. She farted a lot.

Tom:

Yep Dogs do that.

Scott:

Yeah, and now my daughter now has taken up that mantle already. So, oh, okay.

Tom:

Well, I was going to say you can't blame the dog for the farts anymore. So now, yeah, I know.

Scott:

Now you're going to blame your daughter. It's her, it's all her. But yeah, definitely everybody. Check out my paranormal story from Tom's. It's creepy as hell but family friendly, like. It's not like blood and guts gory, it's just.

Tom:

No, no, yeah, no, the kids can listen to it. You know, absolutely, the kids can listen to it. You know, I think actually adults get more spooked than kids, because a lot of my situations are adulthood situations, so the kids may not even associate with it yet. Yeah, so it might be something like that, but there definitely are some stories that happen in my childhood too that you know, might give scare, but there's nothing wrong with that. You know, everybody loves a good scare.

Scott:

Keeping their toes. Yeah, you just hit 1 million downloads. That number is insane, that's crazy. Congratulations.

Tom:

Yeah, that's insane. Yeah, I couldn't thank you. Yeah, I couldn't believe it. I saw it coming up and I was like I can't believe.

Tom:

Like when I started this podcast, I was like a few of my friends are going to listen, you of listeners or anything, yeah, and I, and I just watched it slowly build like every episode, a few more and a few more, and and then I'm getting lots of emails from people saying how much they like it and they can't wait for the next episode. And there, and so many people email me telling me about their paranormal stories, really, like they were just so happy to tell somebody their story that wouldn't make fun of them or mock them or something. And and I reply to every single one of them and I and I put that call out on every episode If you have a story and you want to tell it to me, please do, and I'll give you my opinion. If you want it, I'll tell you what I think is happening, or I'll just be there to listen. And I get so many of those emails and I love it. Um, I feel like the podcast might even be therapeutic for some people in that way, which is a positive thing, but a million downloads. I never expected that. And that's nuts Like a hundred different countries. I was like this is insane, but I love it. I love that it's reached that many people. Yeah, congrats.

Tom:

It actually is paying for itself, which is good, because podcasts aren't free. You know that, yes, so at first, before I was able to get any advertising, I was just asking my listeners hey, if you want to make a donation, you know this podcast is free. You didn't have to pay for it. So if you really like it, you want to help me out, support me? I got a Venmo link on my website and, sure enough, money was coming in. I was like wow. I was like people really do like this to the point where they're willing to go on their computer and go. And then I was able to start advertising, which helps a lot because podcasting you have to pay for the server that your podcast is on and you have to pay for your audio editing software. And then if you're going to have a website, which I have you have to have a website server. So you know it can cost you like up to a hundred dollars a month just to have a decent podcast oh yeah, you know, um.

Scott:

So I didn't believe. I'm not gonna lie here. I was not a ghost story believer. I did not believe in ghosts until I went to go visit my cousin in Phoenix. And we went to have you ever heard of the Hotel San Carlos? That sounds familiar. It's supposedly a haunted hotel. So we go down there and my cousin and I we want to go out and drink beers. My cousin's wife and my wife. They're like let's go do something fun and then let's go get scared at a hotel. And I'm like I really don't want to do this, like I just want to go drink some beers in Phoenix. Like hang out, we negotiate, redo that first and then go drink beers. So we go to the hotel and they give you a guided tour in one floor that the major spookiness happens on I think it's like the sixth floor or something. But they take you all over the hotel and they take us downstairs into the cellar where there's a lot of storage and they said take a bunch of pictures. You're going to see orbs. I'm like all right, whatever. So I started taking pictures and I had an app on my phone that took photo bursts. So I just kept hitting that and just taking photo bursts. So take, you know, 20 pictures here, 20 pictures there, and I just kept doing that and then they're like all right, let's go upstairs. So I never got a chance to look at my pictures.

Scott:

We go upstairs and we're in the foyer by the elevator and I'm kind of bouncing and leaning against a wall but I'm not on the door. So, like I know, the door is behind me. One of the rooms was right behind me, but I'm off the side of the door, on the kind of on the on the frame. My cousin is on the other side of the door, so if someone opens the door they could come through between us and they're talking. And all of a sudden I felt something hit me in the leg and my left leg moved to bottom of my leg, moved my shoe, moved across the floor. So what the hell was that? And it felt like that, like a pencil eraser, like on the end of a pencil, like somebody stuck that right in my calf, and I've saved the shit out of me. I turned around and I looked at my cousin. I was like you, jackass, and he's like what. And I looked at him and he was so far away that he actually could not have reached me there or like touch me or done anything, and I was like, oh my God, oh my gosh and I'm a believer, it scared the shit out of me.

Scott:

I was get on the plane coming home and my wife and I are looking at the pictures and I look at the burst pictures and none of them came out. They all were black or brown and like tan, nothing you could see, like it started out as a picture and I just pointed the camera and then just took 20 shots directly and all of a sudden here's the wall and then nothing Black, black, black, black, black, blue, blue, blue, green, green, green, brown, brown, brown. Oh, interesting, like 20 pictures. It was so freaky and I showed her and she was like holy shit.

Tom:

I was like I believe, I believe that used to happen all the time on investigations Cameras don't operate right, Video, all kinds of weird stuff like that happens when a yeah. Now orbs? I don't believe orbs are anything paranormal, but your phone, camera, whatever malfunctioning, that definitely can be.

Scott:

And I'd used the app a hundred times on other stuff before at night, during the day, like you know, all sorts of different lighting and I had no problems with it. This one time, in this dungeon of this hotel, it just completely shit. The bed scared the hell out of me and then I got pinpricked in the back of my calf by a ghost and that was it. I'm done.

Tom:

It is October we should be telling some spooky stories. So that reminds me of Belcourt Castle, which is in Newport, rhode Island. Okay, famously haunted place. It's been on TV shows and stuff.

Tom:

And I was with a group called Rise Up Paranormal. I was a paranormal investigator with them for several years and the owner of Belcourt Castle reached out to one of the members. She basically said would you guys like to host some ghost tours during the summer? You know, we'll pay you a little something whatever. And we were like, ok, you know, that sounds like it'd be pretty cool. I mean, any chance you get to spend some time in a haunted mansion in Newport is kind of cool, you know, especially when you're a paranormal investigator. Yeah, so we basically told her we'll do it and just donate some money to our group so that we have money to buy equipment and things, you know. So we're not trying to make money off of this, but our thing was we want to have the place to ourselves for like a full weekend, like a Friday and a Saturday night. Nobody else allowed in, just us investigating the place. Let us just get a real feel for the place, you know. And so she agreed to that and we had the whole place to ourselves and we had so many really interesting experiences.

Tom:

And then every weekend for the summer there'd be groups of people who would come in and we would take them on little investigations. You know, we would break off into small groups and investigate a room, and for an hour or so, and then we'd come back, regroup and then we would head off into other rooms, and every weekend that would happen. Sometimes they'd be paranormal groups, sometimes they'd just be regular tourists who wanted to see a haunted mansion. Every weekend, when these people would go to these different rooms in the mansion, afterwards we would have them fill out a little questionnaire Did you feel anything? Did you hear anything? Did you experience anything, whatever you know, just to get a little rundown of what they were experiencing.

Tom:

And there was one room in the mansion called the music room. This was the room where the original family from the mansion, their kids, used to learn how to play music in this room. So the room still had like a small organ, a harp, a lot of different weird instruments in it, and we would bring a group of people in there and we would do an EVP session where we try to record a ghost talking. So the room would be dark and we'd all kind of sit in a circle. We'd have a little audio recorder with us but we always kept an infrared video camera in the room filming the whole time.

Tom:

And every week, week after week, a woman would be in the room just any random woman with long hair, and her hair would get pulled Weekend after weekend, a different woman every weekend. They'd go in that room, boom, someone pulls their hair, and half the time they would turn and slap their boyfriend or husband thinking it was them playing a trick on them. And it's not. Something in that room kept pulling on girls' hair in that room all the time. Really, something in that room kept pulling on girls' hair in that room all the time and we had to dismiss it as not a coincidence because it was literally happening week after week.

Tom:

They would write it down that it happened. We would see them reacting on the camera footage from it. You know one of us would be in the room with them and hear them reacting to something and we would never tell them about it. We would just see if it's going to happen again. And it would happen week after week. That kept happening. Other things like that too. There were a lot of different paranormal groups from around New England would come to take this tour and a lot of them kept catching EVPs, electronic voice phenomena, recordings, basically of a ghost's voice, and a lot of them caught the same. It sounds like the same exact voice in the same room, but different people, different weekends catching the audio of the same voice of a ghost.

Tom:

Yeah creepy and the evidence we were catching was undeniable. Yeah, you know, it's one thing to go into a place and something spooky happens, that's fine. But to go a whole summer, long weekend after weekend, totally different people having all the same experiences of paranormal things in the same places that the people the week before had, it's just you know. It can't be explained away.

Scott:

Yeah, it's so weird. Like I said, I didn't want to believe until I got poked and that physically my leg moved and it was. I didn't do it and I'm like God damn, that's the craziest thing that's ever happened to me. Like this is real shit, like I don't know why or how, but it's just real stuff.

Tom:

I don't know why or how, but it's just real stuff. Yeah yeah, I was always a big believer, and that was basically. Stories like that are what was the reason why I started the podcast. Because it's like I want to tell these spooky stories to people. I'll tell you the one. If you want to do one more spooky story, yeah yeah, the one that I always ended up having to tell people.

Tom:

I'm not going to sleep tonight anyway, so Okay, all right, and this is on the podcast too. The Belcourt Castle stories are on there, but also this story. I was in my thirties and I was living in a house in Providence on Cemetery Street this is a real street in Providence, by the way, and there is a cemetery across the street. The cemetery was literally across the street from our house and I was living there with three roommates. Now I had been to that house a bunch of times previous from moving in, because I was friends with one of the guys who lived there, so I used to come over and visit all the time and he had a bunch of different roommates. Two of his roommates were these young girls who lived upstairs and they used to always talk about the ghost upstairs and all the spooky things that were happening. And this is before I was ever a paranormal investigator.

Tom:

And then cut to. A year or so later one of the roommates moved out and I needed a place to live, so I moved in and I moved into one of the bedrooms upstairs and now it was me in one of the bedrooms and another guy in the other bedroom. Then there was another guy who lived on the main floor, in the bedroom on that floor and then one of the girls was still a roommate. She stayed. She had been in the bedroom. I was in no-transcript. Things started happening and they started getting weirder and weirder. Everything started to escalate. The first things that I was noticing things were being moved in my bedroom, and one of the things that got moved was Roger Clemens still have the baseball. And so that baseball, I had it in a protective case.

Tom:

You know one of those square plastic cases that you put an autographed baseball in and I would keep it on my bureau on the back end of the bureau, right up against the wall. And more than once I would come home from work and the baseball was moved to the front edge of my bureau and it's like what's that doing there? Like it didn't roll, cause it's in a square cube, you know, yeah, and I used to be like who was in my room? And my room is really nobody was in your room and I'd be like that's really weird. And I'm type of person where I'm a little bit OCD. I always close things. If I go into a cabinet, I close it. If I go into a closet, I close it behind me. And one morning I got up to go shower, to go to drawer or something, got some clothes, went and took a shower, came back to my room, closet doors wide open, and every drawer on my bureau is pulled open, whoa, which I didn't do because I didn't need to go into every drawer. You know, I went into probably one to get some underwear or something, yeah, so that was weird. And then there was one morning where my alarm didn't go off and I was late for work. Now I had a digital alarm clock on my bureau that had a battery in it as a backup in case you lose power. I remember it didn't go off. And I also had my cell phone with its alarm set and that didn't go off either, because that was my backup backup. So none of my alarm situations went off, which was strange. But all three of my roommates none of their alarms went off either. All four of us slept through our alarm clocks because none of them went off and they all had the same situation. Cell phone or battery backup and everything like that Couldn't have been a power issue. My cell phone still had life to it. So that was weird, that none of our alarms worked.

Tom:

One day Then I started noticing more things happening in my room. I started having weird dreams. My girlfriend at the time she hated sleeping over because she kept having weird dreams and she kept seeing weird shadows in my bedroom. And then one day I'm sitting in my bedroom at my computer desk and off to my right from the computer desk I had this, um, this big standup mirror. It's like a big oval on two legs I think they call it a shovel mirror or something and you know, you can kind of adjust it up and down.

Tom:

I'm sitting on my computer it's like two in the morning I'm playing video games or something. All of a sudden, to my right, out of the corner of my eye, I see the mirror moving and it's just kind of going horizontal in front of my eyes, tipping forward Just slowly Like somebody's. Like somebody's moving it forward, yeah. And I'm just sitting there watching it and I'm thinking to myself you know, if this is a horror movie, I'm going to put that mirror back up and I'm going to see something in the reflection standing behind me. Don't put it back up, don't do it. It's going to be a skeleton or, you know, an old nun or something scary. Don't do it, but I'm like I got to do it. So I in the mirror.

Scott:

God, that could suck.

Tom:

But at that point I was like all right, maybe there is something happening up here. I'm having more dreams. I kept having dreams of people really close to me dying, me witnessing close friends, family dying in front of me. And then I was having dreams that I was dead and I would wake up laying on my back with my arms across my chest, like I'm in a coffin. I'd wake up literally crying. I'd have tears all over my face and then the big one happened One night I go to bed and I feel something sit down on my bed, on my mattress.

Tom:

I dismissed it at first because my roommate, who now lives in the basement she had a cat who lived in the house with us and the cat still thought the upstairs bedroom was his bedroom. So he would come in the bedroom a lot and sometimes would sleep in my bed, which I love animals, so I didn't mind. So at first, I think in my head I just thought, oh, the cat just got on the bed with me. But then, whatever it was that sat on my bed, I felt it straddle me and sit on my chest and then, when I opened my eyes, I could see what looked like an old man in like this black top hat kind of a thing, had like a scruffy white beard kind of similar to yours. Wasn't me, I promise you, wasn't you, okay, chest sitter? And he was swinging at me like he was trying to punch me in the face, like he was trying to hit me. And so naturally I panicked and I jumped up out of the bed, flew out of the bed, turned on the lights really quick and there was nothing there. There was no old guy there, there was no cat there. Holy shit, there was nothing there. And I was like, wow, that's crazy. So I talked to my roommate in the basement about it and I asked her. I said, hey, it was an old guy. He had this sleeping and I would all of a sudden wake up, open my eyes and his face would be right in front of my face Like he's very angry. Oh man.

Tom:

So that was when I started studying paranormal. I was like I need to know more about what's going on here. I started reading books and watching documentaries and that's when the TV show ghost hunters started coming on. Yeah, I have all this knowledge now. I have all this paranormal experience. And here are people from my own state of Rhode Island on TV helping people who have hauntings with the experience and knowledge that they have.

Tom:

I was like I need to do this and so I reached tough guy, you know, whatever work on cars, stuff like that Never the type that would say anything about a ghost, you know. And one day I sit down in the living room with him and I'm like telling him about the ghost that sat on my chest and tried to attack me and all of a sudden his face just went blank and he looked at me. He was like holy shit. He's like years ago that was my bedroom. He goes and I swear to God, the same thing happened to me. He's like I thought I was just drunk and was dreaming it. He goes, but I've, literally he goes.

Tom:

It felt like a guy jumped on me and was trying to beat me up. He goes and I was like no-transcript. And he introduces me. He's like, oh, tom, tom, this is Dwayne. Dwayne, this is Tom. And he goes. Dwayne used to live in the house he lives and the first thing he says to me is have you seen the old man? Yet? Just like that Yep Didn't even have to bring it up or anything, he just knew about the old man and I was like wow, so that's the creepiest house I've ever heard.

Tom:

That house is what really. I had had experiences before that, but that was the house that like really made me invested in that. There's something else going on around. We need that address. Yeah, I still know where the house is.

Tom:

It's funny about, you know, six months later or something, I moved out, I ended up with a job in Connecticut or something. I moved, and all my roommates from the time they had all moved on to other things, so none of us were living in the house anymore and I was a year or two into being a paranormal investigator now. So I was like, oh, I would love to go back to that house with all the equipment and knowledge I have now and really, like, try and figure it out. I don't want to just go knock on these people's doors and say, hey, you got a ghost. So I wrote them a letter, I typed up a letter, printed it out and mailed it to them with my email address in it and it just said, hey, I used to live in the house that you're living in now and we used to have these experiences with a ghost and I told him about the old guy and stuff like that.

Tom:

I was like I've since become a paranormal investigator because of it and I'm very invested in this, and if you have a situation where you need to talk to someone or if you'd like to have somebody come into the house to help you with it, I'd be happy to do it. Here's my email address and my phone number. Feel free to reach out A few. And they said thank you very much. We are believers in that type of stuff, but luckily so far we've been fortunate. Nothing's happened in the house. But if something does, we'll reach out and let you know, and I never heard from them again.

Tom:

Because, they're dead. That was the story about Cemetery Street. You can find that on the podcast too. I think that was my first episode.

Scott:

I'm definitely not going to sleep tonight. This is miserable.

Tom:

I'm definitely not going to sleep tonight. This is miserable. Hey, it's spooky season. Baby, this is my time of year, good Lord.

Scott:

It's good to shit out of me. We haven't even talked about your comedy career yet, so we were kind of like ships in the night in the comedy scenes. Yeah, I don't know how we missed each other. When did you stop? I stopped in 06.

Tom:

Okay, see, I started doing comedy, people were like telling me, hey, did you know Scott Carney's a comedian? And I'm like, yeah, and it's like how did I not know that? You know, because it was like mutual friends from McCoy Stadium. I guess some of them had gone to see you perform. And when they came to see me perform, you know, because I remember doing my very first show in 2010, february 2010. Yeah, like a bunch of them came to my first show, which was cool. Where was your first show? Catch a Rising Star at Twin Rivers, oh nice, I used to do a lot of shows there.

Scott:

That was a good club. That was before my time. Yeah, I started right out of college, I started in 96. And I had a blast. I burnt myself out. I mean it's such a tough job? Yeah, it is, it's grueling, I give you all the credit. And between that and then I was acting and doing some other stuff and I was like I just didn't have time for myself and I was just burning out. So I took a little time off, but thinking about getting back into it, it's been a while, but I really do love it.

Tom:

It's become more of a job now for me because it's kind of what I do, like I don't have a nine to five job, I don't have a real job. I have a lot of side hustles, but comedy is my main source of income. Now I do a lot of fundraisers with a company called Funny for Funds. You've probably seen me post about those. Yeah, absolutely.

Tom:

Which is great because Funny for Funds is a company that a couple of comedy friends of mine started, where we basically get to book comedy shows for people who are trying to raise money for an important cause Could be a youth sports league, it could be for cancer awareness or whatever Anything someone's trying to do a fundraiser for. Instead of doing a car wash or standing outside the supermarket or something, you book a comedy show with us and we help you raise thousands of dollars. So I get to help people with their cause for fundraising, but also make them laugh too. I'm able to make a living doing it. So it's so awesome to be able to do that.

Tom:

And then, plus, as you know, doing comedy in New England is probably the best place to do it, because there's so many places that are drivable that you can go do comedy literally every weekend. Yeah, I don't really put as much effort into it as I should, but I still easily do 75 shows a year. Yeah, and you won't be able to do that anywhere else. You can't because you know, one weekend I'll be in Hartford, another weekend I'll be in New Hampshire, another weekend I'll be in, you know, somewhere in Boston or Worcester or Providence. There's so many places close by to do comedy, you know. So I've been doing it. You know I'm going into my 15th year now. Awesome, and I still love it. I mean, I always want to do comedy, yeah, even when I was back in McCoy State and writing my little top 10 lists and trying to do.

Tom:

You know creative things. I was always trying to be creative and stand up with something. I always wanted to try and do and I just it. I wish I had started younger. You know what I mean. Who knows where I'd be today? You know what I mean, because it's hard to be a guy in his 50s trying to make it in comedy. That's just not what they're looking for in the world of comedy. So I don't expect to have a Netflix special or anything anytime soon.

Scott:

Yeah, you never know, you never know.

Tom:

What was your first like? How did you get into it? Did you just jump up at an open night, Mike?

Scott:

Oh no. So I took a class in college. I kept telling my girlfriend I'm going to do stand-up one day and she's like, yeah, sure, whatever Graduated. And I'm like I'll show her We'd broken up after we graduated. I'm like I'll show her, and remember the old Phoenix New Paper in Providence in Boston, phoenix, yep, oh yeah, there was a listing for comedy classes and I took it with Frank O'Donnell. Okay, I took it with him and at the end, me and there was 10 or 11 of us and I was the only one that took a booker's number. He said I've got a booker that you guys can use. Just give him a call, tell him you finished my class, you want to get on stage. I was like, all right, great. And it was John Parada. Yep, johnny P, god I love that guy.

Scott:

He's one of the greatest human beings in the world. I got to get him on the show. Such a nice guy. Oh, you definitely should. He runs a comedy factory in Rhode Island. It's all over New England and he just books all these shows in every single venue possible.

Tom:

He booked shows everywhere you can go to the ATM and there'll be a comedy show that he's booking. He does them everywhere.

Scott:

It doesn't matter Absolutely. Men's Bathroom of Dunkin' Donuts.

Tom:

You know. So our story is similar. I took Frank O'Donnell's class, you did too. All right, yeah, I did. Yep, the way that happened was I dabbled in comedy before that. I was writing comedy bits for morning shows for different radio stations around the country, and I had secretly written like five minutes of material to do an open mic. One night I was just going to go up and do it and I kept going to open mics and chickening out. I just couldn't bring myself do it.

Scott:

Yeah.

Tom:

And then, uh, frank Santos not junior, but the old, the old guy who's passed away since. Frank Santos, he's a comedy hypnotist. He used to come on the radio morning show all the time to promote his shows. And he started saying you know, if you want to come and tell a couple of jokes, just to get your feet wet, come introduce me at the comedy connection. So I did that for him a couple of times and I, oh, that's class, wow.

Tom:

And she had no intentions of being a comedian, she just did it as a bucket list thing. You know, she took the class, she did one show and then she never did comedy again. But she told me you need to take that class. Like she was adamant You're way too funny, you should be around those people. He'll show you what the next step is. Like I will pay for it. If I pay for it, you don't go, you're wasting my money. And eventually she talked me into it. I didn't make her pay.

Tom:

I ended up taking the class with Frank and I literally haven't stopped since. From there I went to the Sunday night open mic that John Parata was running and John saw me and he was like hey brother, he's like I, like your voice on stage. He's like why don't you come do some shows for me? And he was the first one to pay me 50 bucks to host a show at you know some bar in North Providence or something. Yeah, I've been working with them nonstop. I love them to death. Yeah, so great. I caught on at Catch a Rising Star almost like a house comic. There, like every weekend, I was hosting shows for national guys meeting comics out of New York.

Tom:

A couple of them kind of took me under their wing and worked with me with my jokes and my stage presence you know, and from there I just started booking my own shows, my own rooms, networking, and for a while there I was, you know, four nights a week. You know how it goes. Five nights a week. I was always performing, I was doing contests, I started doing festivals and I'm starting to get hungry again. Now I I'm looking at some of these younger comics moving up the ranks and I'm like you know what? I need to get back on the ball, like I've gotten comfortable at this plateau that I'm at and I'm like I know I can do better than this. I don't expect to be the next big thing, but I know I could do better than this, and so it's like I'm kind of getting hungry again. I've got new material because I recently got married, so there's plenty of material there.

Tom:

Tons tons right and you know how it is. I've got reams and reams of notebooks of jokes that I've never even tried yet, yeah. So I'm trying to get back on the ball, but you know it's time consuming when you've got life and you've got a million things going on. To try to get stage time, to try to sit down and actually write jokes and perfect them and rewrite them and work them out. It's such a fun experience. It's such a fun experience going through, uh, the whole comedy thing.

Tom:

people laugh, yeah the ultimate thing come up with this idea for a joke, you finally put it all together and then finally it's working. And you know, night after night you tell those jokes and people are laughing.

Scott:

Yeah, it's great it truly is one of the coolest feelings in the world to be standing there by yourself up there and have 10 to 1000 people just going nuts over what you just said and what you just did you go inducing, but not Well, not just that.

Tom:

It's good if you're somebody like me who doesn't like being around people, because you can just be on the stage away from all the people. I mean, a lot of people don't believe it, but I'm actually a bit of an introvert, like I don't go anywhere unless I'm supposed to be somewhere. I don't just go and hang out. I don't go visit people, I don't. I really became introverted as I got older and it's the best job for an introvert because you can just go in, go on stage, tell your jokes and leave and you don't have to be part of like the crowd. And you know, I mean you want to say hi to people. You know you don't have to worry about there being other people involved, it's just you, it's you, it's your jokes in your performance and that's it. There's no one to blame, there's no one to worry about. You don't have to carry anyone else, just it's all you.

Scott:

Yeah, so I was looking at your bio. You were with Mark Norman and show list was list still in Boston when you were.

Tom:

I think I think they were both in New York. Oh OK, but I got to be on a show with them at Foxwoods. I opened for the. It was the two of them. They were actually both on the show and I was the opener at Foxwoods back when comics was at Foxwoods, back when comics was at Foxwoods. It's at Mohegan Sun now, I think, unless I got it backwards. But no, I think it was Foxwoods and yeah, I got to. They weren't really like household names yet but they were definitely up and coming. So I mean, I knew who they were but I didn't like they're a lot more famous now than they were back then.

Tom:

So yeah, so I got to open for them too, because the crowd sucked. It was just one of those crowds where you could just tell they weren't there. Yeah, for the comedians they were just there to be there. They just didn't seem to give a shit this crowd, and so it was. It happened to all like all three of us just not really bombed, but just like just could tell that they just weren't playing along, and so we all just kind of like phoned it in. You know, I remember joe list was like halfway through his set. He's like what guys, I'm not even going to give you my A material because you don't deserve it. And I just remember off to the side laughing.

Scott:

So he was just starting out. He'd been maybe doing it a couple of years when I stopped. But you know, I'd taken some time off and I moved down here and hopped back on social media and I saw him and I'm like holy shit, he blew up. Yeah, it's fantastic. So I reached out to him a few times. We've talked through messenger and stuff trying to get him on the show. But there's no way, like I I like begged him one time. I was like, come on, man, you hook a brother up. That was after like his second time on two rogans. It's gonna be tough, yeah, and I mean absolutely.

Tom:

He's probably super busy anyways, but not only that, but if he does your podcast, then everybody's gonna be bugging him. Oh god, every comedian he once worked with as a podcast is going to want him.

Scott:

Every single one of us clowns. But yeah, he's such a good guy. I'm super happy for him. I'm just out there crushing it and he's doing great.

Tom:

I mean, I only worked with him that one time, so I can't say that I know him. I'll use him as a stage credit. Absolutely I do. Why am I doing that?

Scott:

I think I've hosted open mics that he's been on. I'm like, yeah, I brought this kid up.

Tom:

Yeah, exactly, tom, this has been awesome and I'm so happy to reconnect with you and hear all about all the crazy stuff that there's been going on over the last 30 years with you. Same here, and it was. We were off air reminiscing for like a good hour before we even started the podcast. It was good to catch up.

Scott:

The crazy antics at McCoy Stadium over kids and I can't believe it was that long ago.

Tom:

How are we this old, Like we weren't just at McCoy Stadium a few years ago working there, Like that's so weird to me how time flew by.

Scott:

So what are all the social handles and all that kind of fun stuff that folks can get in touch with you and catch up on your stuff?

Tom:

Social media. Just look for Tom Stewart, you're bound to find me. For my websites, the podcast is myparanormalstorycom, for the website, and then it's called my Paranormal Story. Anywhere you listen to podcasts, you're going to find it. And then my comedy website is tomstuartcomedycom. I keep things pretty simple when it comes to naming things.

Scott:

And once again, what is that Instagram page for the New Food Friday?

Tom:

Oh, I think that's newfoodfridayig Excellent. It might have like an underscore or something somewhere in there, but there can't be too many of them, so you're probably fine.

Scott:

Everybody go like immediately stop what you're doing. Well, don't stop now, but, like when you're done with the podcast, then go right to Instagram, look it up. You're going to be amazed by the music. You're going to be amazed by the tasting.

Tom:

There's all sorts of fun stuff that were tasted. It's I'm about to get Because I haven't used it in so long. I don't even think it's on my phone.

Scott:

It'll be a million.

Tom:

It'll be a million.

Scott:

Awesome. Tom, thank you so much for being on. I'm so happy to catch up with you and again wish you all the best with everything, and I'm super happy about all your 1 million. Holy shit, that's crazy. Um, your stand is killing it and it's just, uh, it's great to see you and great to see that, uh, you're just doing great, so, um, really happy for you.

Tom:

Thank you for all that and thank you for inviting me to do this. This was so much fun. I was. I was excited when I saw you at a podcast. I was like that's cool. You know I want to be on it. I know We've got to pack this kid up and we've got to get up there soon at some point.

Scott:

Yeah, come up. All right, Tom. Thank you so much, man Dude, this has been a blast. Thank you, Awesome. I've had such a great time and continued success. Guys, everybody go out and check out the podcast and Tom Stewart comedy and comedian his pages and go check out his shows because he's great All right, take care, man, you too Are you dying, you okay, professional Wrong pipe. Don't drink water during. Okay, I'm good, I'm good, sorry.

Tom:

Yeah, see, that's what it is. The ghost went right to your chest, jesus Christ, all right, sorry.

Scott:

Get this man some oxygen. I'm good, we only have one epilogue at the end of every episode, but in this particular instance, in this particular episode, we have two, the second one's coming up right after this. I just want to preface it by saying these are clips that were taken from Tom and I our recording and just didn't make sense from where they came from. Just take a listen. Happy Halloween everyone. Thanks for listening.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Scott Carney

Host