In this week’s episode, both of our storytellers transform into someone they admire—one quite literally, the other more figuratively.

Part 1: While juggling climate science studies and a budding comedy career, Rollie Williams finds an unexpected niche impersonating his environmental hero, Al Gore.

Rollie Williams is a Brooklyn-based comedian, video editor, and guy with both student debt and a Climate Science & Policy degree from Columbia University. He is the creator and host of the digital comedy series Climate Town. In the past few years, the channel has amassed 600,000 subscribers, several millions views, and a handful of awards. Rollie is also the co-creator and co-host of podcast The Climate Denier's Playbook. Formerly, Rollie performed a monthly comedy show 'An Inconvenient Talk Show' doing sketches and comedic deep dives by pairing comedians (SNL, The Daily Show, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, etc) together with climate scientists (NASA, MIT, Harvard). When he's not doing climate stuff, Rollie plays an unhealthy amount of billiards and recently achieved his dream of commentating for the World Cup of Pool in England.

Part 2: Scott Acton longs to follow in Hemingway’s footsteps, but when his English teacher squashes his writing dreams, he reluctantly accepts his role as “the computer guy.”

Scott Acton is Professor and Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Virginia. He did his undergraduate studies at Virginia Tech and graduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Scott’s laboratory is called VIVA – Virginia Image and Video Analysis. They work on image analysis problems from imaging for Alzheimer’s disease to analyzing classroom videos for improving elementary math education. Scott also recently worked for the National Science Foundation as a program director for programs in signal processing and artificial intelligence. When he’s not doing research at UVA, you will find him in the mountains on his purple mountain bike.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

PART 1

I moved to New York in 2013, because I wanted to be a comedian. Very soon, I found out that I was not that funny. I could be the Rudy of comedy, though, so I just pounded the pavement. I did, honestly, hundreds of shows. I was doing two shows a night sometimes. I performed in every bar basement in the three boroughs that are nearest here, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. I've been to every single one of them.

And I'm not saying like a bar basement. Not like this. This is a basement bar. I'm talking about the basement of a bar. This is like a five‑star Ritz experience. The place I was performing had, like, more rats than people.

I, one time, performed in a basement where the bar above had a fire alarm go off and no one told us in the basement. That was the dogshit‑style venue I was performing in all over Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Rollie Williams shares his story at Caveat in New York, NY in January 2025. Photo by Zhen Qin.

And I was getting a little bit better and a little bit better, but after about five years of that, I started to burn out a little bit. Was this really what I wanted to do? Did I really want to spend my one free weekday evening in the basement? Present company excluded, obviously.

So when I got the opportunity to pitch a show to this very theater, the Caveat Theater, it sort of felt like it might be the last pitch I was going to get. At some point, I might have to pivot and do something else.

Like, what do you do? What's your job? IT? That sounds great to me, dude.

Maybe I'd pivot into IT. I'm not really sure, but I knew it wasn't going to be comedy if I couldn't make something work. So I was trying to think of a good pitch for this venue. And if you know anything about Caveat Theater, it's got to be funny but it's got to be a little educational, like a little edutainment‑y. Case in point, this thing right here.

So I was in the bastion of human intelligence, that is the Union Square Barnes & Noble. I was cooking around the science section thinking, “What's my pitch going to be?” And I saw a book and it was An Inconvenient Truth, the book, by Al Gore. I thought this could be a good premise for a comedy show. I'll play Al Gore doing like a late night‑style talk show and I'll have all my comedy friends on. And to make it Caveat, we’ll get a climate scientist on at the end. I'll interview them in character. I'll tell a bunch of jokes. Bada bing, bada boom, that'll be the pitch. That was the thought. I was going to call it “An Inconvenient Talk Show”. That was the idea.

Caveat picked the show up and I knew I just really had to put everything I had into this. I was working regular 40‑hour weeks. I would stay until five, and then people would slowly trickle out. I would go get dinner and then come back to the office and work until 2:00 AM on this show.

I was studying climate science to try to come up with jokes. I was looking into the IPCC. I was reading books about disinformation. I was reading about the life of Al Gore. I was trying to craft the perfect comedy show that would still have a little feeling of science‑y education so that Caveat would let me keep doing the show there.

Against all odds, it started to do pretty well. People would show up to it. We were getting climate scientists onto the show, many of whom knew the real Al Gore. So I was in character as a person they knew, interviewing them, and they were like, "This is really weird, my friend."

I was like, "I know, but I really want to be a comedian."

And so we'd go out, we'd do the show. They were always really good. They were funny and interesting people. And at the end of the show, we'd go out to the Donnybrook Bar. It's one block south. They do a pretty good whiskey soda. I know all the ingredients. They do too.

So we'd go out to that bar with the scientists and we'd hang out. We'd get drinks with them and a thing started happening where we would start asking them about climate change and climate science. They all had a different version of this darkness where they were unanimous in their opinion that we did not have this under control. We were not doing the things that science said we needed to do in order to stop climate change, or even mitigate climate change or even adapt to climate change. It was pretty tough to hear, like, eight completely unrelated climate scientists say the same thing.

At that moment, I thought, “Well, I guess my part can be I'll just make the show really good.”

So, I quit my job and I applied to grad school. I got into Columbia for Climate Science and Policy. Yes, what's up, Lions out there. The most original mascot, the Lion. You know the name of the lion mascot? Roar‑ee. What a fucking call, Columbia.

Anyway, I get into Columbia and I am effectively making a $70,000 bet with Columbia that Joe Biden will cancel our student loans. Which, I don't know if you know this, I did lose that bet. But it was a great school for one semester, and then the pandemic hit and then it was a very expensive University of Phoenix, which was kind of a bummer.

But I was still trying to do the show, but of course the coronavirus shut down live theater. So, this thing that I uprooted my life to learn about is now I can't do the show anymore. So, I pivot to YouTube.

I started this YouTube channel called Climate Town. Is this the thing anyone has heard of? Okay. Great. Awesome. Thank you so much. It's become my full‑time job, mine and three other people's full‑time job. We are researching. We're calling experts. It's a really amazing experience. We're having a great time doing this show.

Then a couple of months ago, I got an email from a place called The Climate Reality Project. If you guys have heard of that, that is one of Al Gore's companies that teaches people about climate change. They were asking, "Hey, would you want to maybe come to the next conference and teach like a breakout session in one of the rooms about climate change because of your YouTube channel?"

And I said, "Hey, have you ever heard of An Inconvenient Talk Show?"

And they said, "No. What the fuck is that?"

And I said, "Oh, I dress up as your boss, Al Gore. And I am in the basement and I kind of am doing bits and spoofs about climate change, and it's really fun.”

And they're like, "Oh, that doesn't sound like something we would want."

I was like, "Well, hear me out. What if, instead of this breakout room, what if I interview Al Gore in character as Al Gore?”

And they said, obviously, no to that. “No way. What are you talking about?”

I was like, “I mean, is there any way?”

And they're like, “We can ask, but I'll tell you what the answer is going to be.”

And I said, “Please ask and then, of course, I'll do whatever you want.”

A month after that, I got an email and it said, “Mr. Gore is in. Please prepare your questions for a 6,000‑person audience with Al Gore at The Climate Realty Project.”

I lost my mind, obviously.

I wrote all my questions, I submitted them. I was waiting around and then the day of the show pops up. I get there. I get there like, honestly, 11 hours early. The call time was 11 hours early. It's at the Javits Center. It's not a convenient location to go somewhere 11 hours earlier than you need to be there.

So, I'm there and it's super early. We do the sound check. Of course, Al Gore is nowhere to be found. Of course.

I'm a really big billiards fan. There's actually a billiards shop nearby. So, I went and talked to the owner of the billiards shop for two hours. And he was like, “So are you going to buy a stick?”

I was like, “Uh-uh,” and then I went back. It's about time for the conference to start. It's a long conference.

I get to go into the green room and then I'm immediately kicked out of the green room because they needed the green room for the fucking EPA administrator.

Sorry, I really thought that was going to get a big pop out of you guys. This freaking dork audience, come on, now. The EPA administrator. Thank you. That was forced, but I'll take it. We'll edit that around. We'll edit. We'll cut that part out. All right.

Anyway, I went into the hallway and then we're ready to go. It's the time. It's the moment.

So, I get backstage and it's pitch dark. This giant, giant conference room, the backstage is dark and there's like a little tent. And they're like, “Al Gore is in this tent. Are you ready to meet this guy?”

I was like, “Are they pranking me? What is going on here?”

So, it's a tent. They open up the tent and I look in, and Al Gore is poring over a bunch of charts spread out over a table, because he just got the latest IPCC special report and he's looking at the data and memorizing it, basically. I was like, wow, of course he's doing that.

He turns around and I'm like, “Oh, my God.”

And he's like, “Oh, Rollie Williams, Climate Town, 508,000 YouTube subscribers. Great work out there.”

And I was like, “Oh, my God.” I was trying to play it cool. I could not play it cool. I was like, “Thank you so much, sir. I love your work.”

And he's like, “Oh, yeah? It is what it is,” like, folksy Tennessee Al Gore. It's awesome.

And then I was like, “Did you have any questions about the questions? Do you want me to do anything when I'm out there?”

And he's like, “Nah, fire away. Let her rip. Let's have fun out there.”

I was like, “Okay. Great.”

So, I go out there. It's the biggest audience I've ever performed in front of. The bit was I would welcome Al Gore into the stage. I welcome him. He comes out. He is crushing with this audience.

He's funny. I'm asking him questions, he hits me with a zinger, a one liner right off the top and then a really important thoughtful answer.

And I'm like, “What about this thing?” And he'll just spike it. It was amazing. He was so funny. Seriously. I know you guys are like, “What? The internet computer guy?” Yes. Yes, that guy, crushed it.

30 minutes went by in a blitz. I don't even remember this. That was the end of the evening, so we did a big bow. Big applause. It was awesome. We get ushered off of stage and then they're taking our microphones off.

And he said, “That was really fun,” and then he left.

I got to say, never meet your heroes. Dress up as them in a basement for two years. Meet their friends. Pretend to be the hero. And then wait two more years. Start a YouTube channel. Make it into a career. Wait. Still wait. Then they'll reach out to you and then you can judo it into a meeting with your heroes. That's how you should meet your heroes.

Thank you so much.

PART 2

I have a secret. I have a secret fantasy that I've never revealed to anyone before tonight. My fantasy was to become a writer.

I was born to a bookish family. My parents gave me books before they gave me a slinky or green slime. Those are ‘70s toys, by the way. My parents named me after Scott Fitzgerald, and my sister after Lady Brett Ashley, who was a character in The Sun Also Rises.

Scott Acton shares his story at Carr’s Hill at UVA in Charlottesville, VA in April 2025. Photo by Meredith Cole.

And I had an accompanying dream. I wanted to become a writer. I wanted to become a novelist. I wanted to fly over the Serengeti, to chase German submarines, to befriend matadors, and to crank out masterpieces in French cafés. I wanted to be Ernest Hemingway.

Going into the eighth grade, I found out that Mrs. Winifred Campbell was going to be my English teacher. And if your name is Winifred, you're going to be a tough teacher. That's facts.

Winifred Campbell was tough. We were quaking in our boots. I was perhaps a little more confident, because I just told you. I was going to become a professional writer. And I just aced the seventh grade.

When Winifred Campbell asked me for a poem, I gave her a book of poems on the Beatles. I illustrated it. I wrote it down on green crepe paper and three‑hole punched it and put it together with yarn. Winifred Campbell made that green book come back like Christmas, because she bled all over it.

One of the more salient comments that I'll never forget from Winifred Campbell, Mrs. Winifred Campbell, was, “Not worthy of the art form of Byron and Keats.” A little harsh for the eighth grade, don't you think?

Inside, perhaps a little fairer, was, “Lacking rhyme, rhythm, and meter.”

I still don't know what meter is, but then she wrote C. And I thought, "Who tries really hard in middle school and gets a C?" I did.

Second assignment was a personal essay. I had the perfect personal essay, because I knew this guy, Duke, who actually escaped from Vietnam at age six.

So I wrote about Duke, handed in this essay, and Winifred Campbell put on the cover, “Your personal essay is impersonal. I can't trust the narrator.”

So inside, another comment that I think I've passed on to my own students is, “Sentence run‑ons and fragments will not be tolerated in this class. C.”

So my C in eighth grade English was in cement. I was going to be put in the normal English in high school and my dreams of becoming a writer were fading.

Same time, my dad brings home this interesting toy, the Commodore PET. The Commodore PET was an early personal computer. And I started tinkering with it. I started playing with it. I programmed my first program, which was to organize my grades, including my C in English. It was called Grade Organizer, and I let my teachers actually use it.

Somehow, a local software company found out about it and told me, "Hey, spruce it up, write a manual, and we'll sell it." So I did, and they did. It didn't make any money, but it really felt good to just have something that was good that was outside the criticism of Winifred Campbell.

This same software company told me there was a new computer coming out. It was called the Commodore 64. The Commodore 64 would be the first mass‑marketed personal computer. It would be sold in Toys R' Us, right next to green slime, and it was going to come out in the holidays. The only problem was there were no programs for it.

So the software company asked me, "Could you make a video game for the Commodore 64?"

I was totally intimidated because, think about it. Number one, how do you make a computer program for a computer that doesn't exist? And two, how do you make a video game if you've never made a video game?

So, I spent the summer, I spent the fall, I ignored my classes, I worked on this video game and I called it Space Raider. Space Raider was your typical ‘80s stuff. You fly around in a spaceship, you blow up other spaceships, you kill some aliens, you bust up some asteroids. And Space Raider was ready when the Commodore 64 came out at the holidays. The most surprising thing is it made a ton of money.

And Space Raider, I was still getting royalty checks for Space Raider eight years after that Christmas. It paid for college expenses. It paid for my first two cars, and it felt good. It wasn't my dream, but it felt really good.

Going into high school, I then became known as the computer guy. It was a little restrictive to be the computer guy. It wasn’t really what I wanted to be, but the options were, in high school, to be the computer guy or to be nothing, and I chose computer guy.

I got another chance in my love, which is English. I wanted to become a writer. I got into the AP English class in senior year. The teacher this time was Mrs. Leach, and I'm not making up that name.

Mrs. Leach's first assignment was an essay on the book Quo Vadis. Quo Vadis is some book about ancient Rome. I didn't understand it. I didn't have ChatGPT to explain it. I didn't have Cliff Notes. The young people, you can ask your parents what that is.

I wrote a horrible essay. Mrs. Leach was nice, though. She didn't write anything disparaging on my essay. She just wrote two words, two words that set a chill through my spine of anxiety, “See me.”

I went to see Mrs. Leach. She wasn't looking at my paper. She was looking at a different paper. She shoved it over towards me and said, "Scott, if you really want to know what we're looking for in this class at this level, read the essay of Martha Church."

Martha Church wrote this essay on Sienkiewicz, the author, comparing him to a Renaissance painter. It's five pages. It's concise. It's beautiful.

“This is what we're looking for. Your essay shows that you don't have the preparation or, frankly, the skills to be in this class.”

Then she looked up and smiled at me and she says, “But don't take it too hard because I hear you're really good at computers.”

So, I was put in the computers bucket. I wasn't going to be in the writers bucket. I took it well. I took it like the baseball player that sees the third strike go by and I walked away from the plate. I wasn't going to be a writer. I wasn't going to be Ernest Hemingway and, heck, I wasn't going to even be Martha Church.

I took the cash from Space Raider, went to college, got a degree in computer engineering and I've never looked back.

Three decades in college and I'm a professor who makes computers see with computer vision. Like any other professor, when I started out, I was working in the morning, I was working in the evening. Some of the professors here know what I'm talking about. My life didn't really slow down until my two sons were born, one of which is here.

So when my sons were born, I felt like I had a little extra time and I wrote a vignette, a vignette about the academic life. That vignette became a short story which became a longer story, which became sort of a novella, which became an 80,000‑word novel that I called Jefferson Oklahoma.

Now, Jefferson Oklahoma was set in the Midwest. It had themes of Mormonism, love, science, murder, and, of course, computer vision. I wanted to get some feedback on the novel, but I didn't really want to put myself out there, so I submitted it to a novel contest under a pseudonym.

Then months later, I went out to the mailbox and opened an envelope. And there was a cheesy piece of paper printed on a laser printer that said that I had won in the new novelist category. That little piece of paper was probably worth five cents, but it could have been worth any more to me. It was like somebody tapping me on the shoulder and saying, “You wrote something good.”

For the first time, I felt like I was a writer. I was a novelist. All of a sudden, I was running with the bulls in Pamplona, I was closing down the Ritz in Paris, I was Ernest Hemingway. I had lived my fantasy.

After the contest, I've never shown the novel to another living soul. I think I know there's a Winifred Campbell out there, a Winifred Campbell out there who's ready to shoot it down, but she won't get the chance, because I have my novel and I've lived my fantasy life.