We recently connected with Johnny Rodriguez and have shared our conversation below.

Johnny, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

One of the best risks I have ever taken is getting up on stage to do stand-up comedy. It is kind of like how people are afraid to go skydiving but after they do it, they are so happy they did it because it was the experience of a lifetime. For me, the skydiving was going up on stage to do stand-up comedy for the first time ever. I had been wanting to do it for many years and I didn’t have the balls to do it because I was prescribed a drug called Adderall, which actually shrinks your nut sack when you take it, but then when I got off of it, my Nutsack blossom into a beautiful normal sized nut sack! And then I got up on stage and I ate shit, but I didn’t care because all that mattered was that I got up on stage and took the risk. And here I am almost a year later still doing stand-up comedy every week as much as I can. It is my passion there is nothing in the world better than laughing and making other people laugh as well..

Johnny, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started out doing a comedy podcast, which I still do called JROD POD, and I’ve been doing that for about five or six years now, originally I went and bought a mic from Best Buy for $60 to just record conversations with my friends because the conversations we had were always hilarious, and then I decided to take it more seriously and buy two mics so that I could interview/have a conversation with an individual of my choosing. I would do this out of my apartment closet. Which I made into a small little studio. Fast-forward to now, I have a actual studio in Dearborn, Michigan and I have professional podcast equipment now, with all sorts of guests, ranging from fellow Detroit comedians to 20 year prison convicts, as well as other creatives, and sometimes just friends.

I went to school for digital media production, but I honestly didn’t even learn anything there, because podcasting is such a new medium. I had to teach myself everything I know. This includes editing audio, and video in Adobe premiere Pro as well as using AI to help with the process. I had never thought about producing other people’s podcast until someone came to me, asking if I could do it for them. And now I have a small business producing podcast for people as well as my own.

The combination of hosting a comedy podcast and doing stand-up comedy has made me into a better comedian overall. There are so many Podcast producers that overcharge the hell out of their clients because they don’t know how to edit and I didn’t like that because they were taking advantage of them and I know how much work goes into editing a podcast, and some of these bozos are charging anywhere from $100 – $145 per hour, and they’re not even good at editing, their mediocre at best. So I decided I’m going to charge $85 as a fixed price for unlimited recording time and then I edit the entire podcast for them, as well as providing extremely high-quality clips from the best moments of their episode that they did. This is all still only $85.

I don’t enjoy seeing people get ripped off or taking advantage of so it definitely feels good to be able to help people who really want to do a podcast but can’t afford it or don’t know how to start, and I will even help coach them if it’s their first time and they are nervous I will give them advice and remind them that I am going to be editing it so don’t worry if you mess up.

If anyone reads this that is interested in starting a podcast, you can always reach out to me on my Instagram page, which is – jrod_pod

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

When I first started doing Comedy, specifically stand-up comedy, I bombed for about a month until I finally got a few laughs. Here I am almost a year later still doing the damn thing and definitely way funnier and every time I go up, I will always get at least a few laughs at the worst.

Like anything in life the more you do something with quality, purpose, and intent you get better at it. That’s just a universal law with anything. And this is something I knew going into it and I would remind myself this because it’s important to remember that to become great at anything in life takes time and effort. It is a marathon, not a sprint.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

This is a funny question because I happen to be somewhat immersed within the NFT space, which is a culture on X (formerly Twitter). Follow me on X @lumpycatnft!

What many people don’t understand that aren’t Familiar with NFT’s is that not all NFT‘s are the same thing. Some have fantastic utility that provides the holder of it access to something exclusive and cool, Some NFT’s are very community based and provide the holder access to be a part of the NFT collections community. And Majority of NFT’s are just bullshit “rug pulls” Which is a term used in the NFT space that means that the creators of the NFT Just up and leave never to hear from them again, Which sucks because those people are pieces of shit and they will still get paid royalties for every time one of their NFT’s gets bought or sold.

I only have one NFT I really care about and it is a very rare one as well, from a collection called Alien Frens Evolution, which has 10,000 of them With different traits, but also similar traits. The one I have is 1 of 65 within the 10,000 and it’s called a Blue Yeti. But that’s where I’m going to stop talking about it because if you’re not familiar with NFT’s, none of what I would say would even make sense.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/jrodpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jrod_pod?igsh=MWdraGVjdGJ2aTVybQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/12EWMAv4XDt/?mibextid=wwXIfr
• Twitter: https://x.com/lumpycatnft?s=21
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@jrodpod?si=p4L7PYwhwADlbwNC
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@jrodcomedy?_t=ZT-8tdnqukV1mY&_r=1