Kris Reeves — stage name Kris Raves — is the first stand-up comedian on Quality Values, recorded in his living room eighteen months into living in Nashville. He started comedy in 2016, the year his dog River died and, a few months later, his wife left him. Did it partly out of spite — figured he could get a room full of strangers to like him faster than she ever did. Nine good months, then the rest of the grief caught up as a drug problem, then rehab. Came back to stand-up in 2021 and has been at it since, minus a year off. Got a set on Kill Tony somewhere along the way. He's also spent three years working a strip club, has "810" tattooed on his face — numerology he only understood after the fact, infinity divided by zero is undefined, zero divided by infinity is one, so nothing contains the infinite, so nobody's definable — and has a sacred geometry tattoo on his chest meant to represent the universe that, per the tattoo artist, actually represents water. The conversation covers billionaires, AI, simulation theory, religion, Quakerism, a strip-club-to-stripper "pipeline" bit, and a cartoon he's building called Space Hippies — Rick and Morty by way of Star Trek, a crew where each character carries a different piece of the human condition, built on the tension between order and chaos. His best actual advice, buried under all of it: skip the after-show drinking circle and pay for structured comedy classes instead. Friends won't tell you a joke's bad. A room you paid to critique you will. Kris Raves:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@krisravesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/krisraves/ Quality Values:YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcDYjJATsN-Nn0Fs5HLuIq5EIzDcA9tggPodcast: https://jacobconlanshields.com/pages/podcast/Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5xzOcAP2agwcVVAdu7vztc 0:00 Intro0:53 First comedian on the podcast1:58 Billionaires, and why nobody should have that much money4:54 Asking ChatGPT to start a revolution6:12 AI, self-driving cars, and trusting machines over humans7:47 Simulation theory and self-aware photons8:40 Every religion saying the same thing11:25 The show's actual question: values in context13:09 How comedy started — a dead dog, a divorce, rehab16:43 Skipping the drink-with-comedians scene19:10 Obsession, self-promotion, and fat-tail careers21:00 A residency for artists, athletes, entrepreneurs22:24 AI breaking work into a million pieces24:08 A Google Earth for human history25:11 Lie detectors built into smart glasses29:53 Peace Corps, conscientious objectors, a Quaker childhood39:56 Face and hand tattoos, decoded50:04 Three years working a strip club, and the "pipeline" bit58:12 Getting tattooed out of the white-collar track1:05:18 Pitching Space Hippies, his order-vs-chaos cartoon1:14:16 Set up, punchline, tag — how a joke works1:20:02 Why paid comedy classes beat advice from friends1:24:56 The meaning of life, kept simple1:33:13 Focus through chaos — closing thoughts #QualityValues #StandUpComedy #Comedian #KrisRaves