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You know who drank? It's Churchill.

That's my, hold on, that's my guy. Yeah. You know that's my guy, right?

So he did champagne.

Well, you don't have to tell me a thing about Winston Churchill. He, I found out about his daily routine. Yeah. So his daily routine was a big breakfast, cigar, coffee, eggs sunny side up, toast, bacon, sausage, tomato, beans, fruit, orange juice, soft scotch, cigar in bed, and he'd sit there for 3 hours. And then he'd get in the bathtub and drink champagne.

And then he'd go to lunch and have some goose with more champagne and then he'd take a nap and like I love that So every year on hit the day of his death things January 24th I celebrate Winston Churchill's life by living the way he did And so I have breakfast in bed with a soft scotch and I just party all day. That would be the guy to drink with.

The following is a conversation with Bird Crusher, a standup comedian, podcaster, actor, and a man they call the machine. I've been a fan of his comedy and podcast for many years, and I highly recommend you watch him on BirdCast, 2 Bears, 1 Cave with Tom Segura, his cooking show called Something is Burning, and finally, the new movie that tells the story of the man, The legend, the machine. This is the Lex Friedman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Bert Kreischer.

I read somewhere that you like Ernest Hemingway.

Love him.

There's a quote, there's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. Do you agree with that?

I agree. I agree. Well, I agree with that with journaling. I can't write stand up, I can't write a bit, but if I journal I'll find something that I go just write Kind of writing where you're the pens moving faster than your brain and they're kind of like doing it together The thing I liked about Ernest Hemingway, this is so stupid I'm a little dyslexic. I'm not a good reader.

And so he wrote very simply. And it wasn't until after I read a bunch of Ernest Hemingway, I was working at Barnes & Noble, and this person said, don't you love his titles? And I was like, yeah, Sun Also Rises. And they're like, yeah, but no, the Sun Also Rises. And I was like, yeah, Sun Also Rises.

And they're like, no, the Sun Also Rises. And I went, oh, 0, yeah, that is fucking bad-ass. Yeah. And then I, I'm like always late to the party with anything. And then that night we were all doing Coke and it was like 5 in the morning and we ended up on the roof of my apartment in Greenwich Village.

And it's like, I'm a sunset guy, I grew up in Florida, but sunrises in New York are electric blue, like electric blue. And I was like, the sun also rises.

Yeah, he was so good with just a handful of words. The simplicity, the choice of words, like basically his process is carving down.

Write drunk, edit sober. Write drunk, edit sober. Yeah, but he was good at like a small amount of words to get a point across, I'm the exact fucking opposite.

Well, he's also said the first draft of anything is always shit. Is that true for you?

I think so. That's the best 1 I have.

It goes downhill from there. So for you, editing is destroying the original genius. The first time

I tell it, it's perfect. It's perfect. It just, it works. And then I go, great. And then I take it and I try to fix it and make it better and jazzier.

I just joke and razzle dazzle about my daughters and I drive them past a deaf child sign. And I just told it on stage, it just happened. And Louie was in the audience. He goes, I love that joke. I said, really?

He goes, yeah, and I just told it and I went, done. Louie CK says he likes the joke. It's fucking, it's in the special. Mm-hmm. And I tried to fucking razzle dazzle that joke into like a 15-minute bit.

It got to the point where it was so bad that I told him, I did a podcast with him, I said, What did you like about that joke? Because I can't get it to work anymore. Because it was just simple. It was simple that your daughter didn't know how they'd figure out where deaf kids lived. I went, that's it?

He's like, yeah. I was like, nothing about gun control? And he was like, huh? I was like, oh, fuck, man. I really fucked that joke up.

And then I had to go back to the beginning of it. But that first time, that's when the joke comes out purest for me. And then it's always chasing back to get that first telling. Some jokes are different, like the machine obviously was a much longer story and like escape room for this 1. The longer stories take a little work, but the simple ones, like the deaf child in pajamas, and those first times are perfect.

What do you think is it about the machine story that works that was so captivating for people?

I think it's a, I think, I don't know. I really wish I, I don't know. I think it's a good story. I think it's a good story. I think everyone has something similar that happened in their life where they had a crazy night and that no 1 believed and they told their friends and or they experienced that with a friend like that.

And I think that's gotta be it. I really don't know. I think there's a part of our community of comedy fans that were that early death squad that it was fun to watch someone take something from the podcast and turn it into a bit on stage. I think there was a lot of that, but I think People identify with a wild, crazy knight that got out of control that they've probably had too. I think, I don't fucking know.

You think Putin knows who you are because of that story?

I hope so. I fucking hope so. I hope so. But there's a part of me that you gotta understand is like I'm not I Say stuff like that. I'm sure there's someone hears that and they go who is this fucking narcissist?

You're like, no, that's not it I'm just telling you the truth. Like I understand what I'm supposed to say. Well, you know, I don't know I do you know, I I don't know that's hard to say But I don't fucking give a shit about that guy. I'm not that guy. I'm telling you everything that comes out of my mouth, the second it comes out, I'm gonna be 100% honest, I don't know any other way to live.

I kinda hope so. That would be fucking cool. And then look, I know he's a bad, I guess he's a bad dude. I don't follow politics a ton, but it'd be cool if like 1 day someone's like, he's on his computer and some guy goes, shto eto? And he's like, ee, ya masina?

And he's like, da? Konechno, poydem? And he's like, and he shows it to him, and then he's like, fuck it, this guy, huh?

It's not out of the realm of possibility that Putin has watched it. I mean, this podcast has kind of made me realize how small the world is. I've gotten to meet some incredibly, like,

interesting people. Oh, yeah, especially the people you've met. Like that's, I mean, that's the thing where I go, it's gotten really crazy. The internet's really insane and Netflix is really insane and the reach of like people that like, this is really simple, but like I'm a big fan of the show, Drink Champs. I didn't think in a million years Nori would ever know who I was.

And then he offered me to come to his podcast. And then when I got there, he told me he was a fan of mine. And I went, like, I remember moving to New York, listening to you and Capone. Like I'm sitting there going, wow. Like, and then, And the phone calls I've gotten since the movie came out and since Razzle Dazzle came out have been really insane when you realize As much as I know about people and I like there's people I'm fans of that don't know who I am But that like that are like they're like some Pitcher in fucking Florida that I follow the kids.

I like I was fun to watch him pitch There was a softball player in Tempe that she's do catching drills and I was really into softball with my daughter and we watched her catching drills. There's a girl, Dee Glazer, who me and my daughters would watch her dance videos and then I hit her up. She's like, you know who I am? And you're like, oh yeah, that's the way the world works.

What world leader would you drink with if you could? So you mentioned Putin. So Putin doesn't drink much. Zelensky drinks more, but also not much.

Of course Yeltsin would have been a good 1. He would have been a fucking good 1. I mean like I go, Hitler was a pussy. Like He drank wine with a spoonful of sugar in it.

You know who he drank? What? It's Churchill.

That's my, hold on, that's my guy.

Yeah.

You know that's my guy, right?

No, I don't know that's your guy. So he did champagne.

Well, You don't have to tell me a thing about Winston Churchill. I found out about his daily routine. So his daily routine was a big breakfast, cigar, coffee, eggs sunny side up, toast, bacon, sausage, tomato, beans, fruit, orange juice, soft scotch, cigar in bed, and he'd sit there for 3 hours. And he'd hold morning breakfast, and they'd come in and he'd run through his day. And then he'd get in the bathtub for fucking an hour and drink champagne.

And then he'd go to lunch and have some goose or whatever the fuck they ate back then with more champagne. And then he'd take a nap. And I love that. So every year on the day of his death, I think it's January 24th, I celebrate Winston Churchill's life by living the way he did.

And

so I have breakfast in bed with a soft scotch and I just party all fucking day That would be the guy to drink with that would be the guy if you could pick anyone to drink with

he drank every day throughout the day

it looked like 94 and

was 1 of the most heroic figures in human history. Never, never surrender. I mean.

What a fucking badass thing. You know, he taught the queen. The queen was like a window-licking idiot, right? Like she had a third grade education. So like her dad dies and she's like 10 or 12 or whatever the first thing they do is they pull her out of school They're like you're done learning.

You're just gonna be the queen. You gotta know this what you need to learn Don't make let people make eye contact with you put your hand out like this. Don't let people touch you So she like she had like a really I saw that by the way, I didn't do this research I just watched the crown. Okay, and Winston Churchill kind of taught her about world politics and was that they like coming She'd be like Winston. What did we do in Africa?

He's like, This is gonna be a tough 1. And so yeah, so, but Winston Churchill's the badass. But if I had to drink with someone living, like drink, there's 2 obvious ones. Like obviously it's fucking Kim Jong-un, right? You kinda wanna.

He drinks.

No, he does. He think my IVs are good in the morning? You know Kim Jong-un's IVs are next. You're like, I feel up. And he's like, it's amphetamine.

He would be a badass to drink with.

I think he drinks hard liquor. I think it's scotch,

Johnny Walker blue. That's what I've heard.

I don't know where you heard this, but I like this.

Okay, so I say things like that, but then I'm sure, I don't know if you've ever partied with someone who just parties a little different than you, and then you notice like, sometimes celebrities, like athletes, and then like you're at a strip club, and then they talk weird to a woman. You're like, oh, that's not me, I'm so sorry. So that'd be the thing, the atrocities would be hard to get past with them.

Not just the atrocity, but the way of being. I agree with you. I actually don't like drinking with rich and powerful people often. There's something weird about them. Not all of them.

Mm-hmm. And I don't like a drinking meeting. Like when someone goes... What's a

drinking meeting? What's that?

When people go like, hey, I'm taking you out tonight, we're drinking. Yeah.

And

then I go, oh, that's not the way I like to do it. It gives me anxiety. Like, our lives are very different.

You and I?

Yeah. Were we in a fraternity?

No. We could start there. No, it was not. Okay. And the differences continue from there, I'm sure.

So when you get your pledge pen, they take you out and their whole thing is we're getting you fucked up. That energy is not my energy. I don't like that. I just go, why don't we just get drunk and feel really good about ourselves? I never took mushrooms to see Jesus.

I just wanted to enjoy Rain X on a windshield. So like that for me is like 1 of my things. So if Kim Jong-un flew me to North Korea to drink with him, I'd be like, I'd have to start really getting blackout drunk on the plane to enjoy drinking with him that day.

What's your favorite, like different occasions, what's your favorite drink? What's your favorite way of drinking?

I've got, It varies. So what

are the different contexts here? It's like one-on-one. One-on-one? Like you sit down with, I don't know, Rogan invites you like it's a godfather to sit down and finally have a talk about something.

It's gonna be whiskey. It's gonna be like a nice whiskey. Neat? No, I like it on the rocks. I like lots of rocks It won't be something expensive cuz Rogan is not he's not a fancy boy, you know, like he's a real regular He's a really regular dude He's got less regular the more millions of dollars.

He has think there's parts of him where you're like, oh wow, we can do this? Yeah. But he'd be like Jack on the Rocks or like probably Buffalo Trace or 1 of the, maybe a little whiskey he's buying. Rogan would be whiskey, rocks, And then like, that's a good, I haven't hung out with Joe by ourselves. I take that back, I was with him the other night.

But like, it would be cool, my times with Joe's are always on podcasts.

Yeah. And

his, I miss the times where it was, where you just have you and him at the store late night.

Yeah, I'm okay with podcasts. Like I used to think this is like performative or something like this, but it's not really. No. It's just a chance to really sit down.

I enjoy it because of the people I could never sit down with. Like David Cross, I would never sit down with David Cross Because we don't run in the same circles and but it's nice he has something to promote and And then he comes to my house and then we can sit down for an hour and talk and then I and then we're Kevin Smith like people I would never really hang out with Tom I enjoy being alone with Tom Moore.

Off mic. Tom Segura.

Yeah. We have a lot of history. There's a lot of things, secrets we know about each other, and there's a lot of secrets going on in each other's lives that I would never share on podcasts that I can talk to him about. And I really appreciate his, and I know this isn't on brand of us beating each other up, but I really appreciate his insight as a dad and as a dude and as a son. But he makes me giggle harder than anyone, so doing a podcast is fun.

So there's something on a podcast that's performative for you with him, and then there's a part- With

me and him, because we're trying to make each other laugh. But I'll tell you, if we're going back to drinks, I'll tell you, like a great Afternoon drink is a Campari Spritz. It's 1 of my favorite drinks in the world.

I don't even know what

that is. Oh. Campari Spritz. Campari is an interesting alcohol because I think it's a bitter or it's a liqueur and it's got a weird, rooty, earthy taste. It's red, so it looks like Kool-Aid.

That's why I got into it. I thought Campari on ice would be oh so nice There's an old commercial but man is fucking like sucking the green Giants dick. It is earthy.

What's earthy?

It's like it's it tastes like roots.

It's all nice.

It's not it's not it's there's a bitterness and like it's just not great And then someone introduced me to a Negroni, which is Campari and gin and a little soda water, and then Campari Spritz. Campari Spritz is Campari, Prosecco, and soda water in like a wine glass and it is So enjoyable it's got so many different profiles to it where you get the bitterness But the sweetness of the Prosecco and then it flattens it out with the soda water and it looks like kool-aid so I love it. That's 1 of my favorite drinks.

To share in what context?

Oh, you're in Italy, and you've been walking around Venice, and everyone went their own ways, and the whole family comes back together, and you meet at a statue, and your wife's sweating, and she's uncomfortable, and your daughters are 16 and 18 and they're like, what are we doing with the rest of the day? And you go, Hey guys, it's Europe. Does anyone want to come party spritz? And everyone goes, I don't know what that is. And you go, for come party spritz.

Now it's minor in alcohol, so it's not going to light them up, but it gives them a little bit of a buzz where they're like, dad, these are nice. Isla didn't drink hers, so I drank hers. Georgia had hers. Leanne had hers. And we ordered another round.

I ordered and they're fucking refreshing. And the buzz is perfect. It's not too much, because it's just a little bit of champagne and some Campari. The buzz is perfect. And then a couple of them, and then they kind of disappear.

And then you're just walking around again. That's a great fucking drink.

You ever drink alone? So there's 2 kinds of alone. 1 is alone like at a bar. There's other people, but they're strangers, right? They're kind of like out there.

Okay, I've done that. Keep going. Keep going, don't walk me through all the alones, and then I'll tell you

the rest. There's all kinds of, there's a loan on a train, like transporting someone.

I've dragged a loan on a train, yeah.

Train, plane, and then there's just a loan in an empty home.

Or a hotel room.

Hotel, oh, hotel room.

And it's Sunday night.

Sunday night.

And you're packing your bag, and you got a flight at 6 a.m. But roadhouse is on, and you're like, shit. So you get out of the front desk and go, is the bar still open? And they go, yeah, can I order some to take to my room? Sure.

How about 6 Heineken's? 6 Heineken's? Yeah, my wife wanted 1 too. She's not up there. You murdered her.

And you just say to yourself, I'm just getting 6 so that if I have 4, I just know I have 2 extra ones. And then you go through 6 and you're like, oh man, I'm not done yet. Dude, I've drank in every alone scenario you can possibly think of. I've drank alone in a helicopter with a dude who didn't know I was drinking. He was like, can I drink in here?

And he was like, absolutely not. And then I poured it into a flask and opened it and drank it. And he's like, dude, we're in a fucking helicopter. You don't think I'd spell that? The best alone drinking you can ever do, in my opinion, now we're getting into the weeds on it, is alone behind someone's back.

What do you mean?

Like when they don't know you're drinking, but you're drinking. Like Christmas shopping. And your wife says, all right, let's all split up. And you go, cool. And it's like 11 o'clock on a Sunday, and they just opened that bar by the elevator in the Beverly Center, and you just sneak over and you go, hey man, can I get a double jack on the Ross Oxford Rots?

And they're like, sure, and you just have it, and you just go, let's just, and then you're off, and then you're like, Yeah, and then you just, little sneak 1, sneak it, sneak it, and then you're in there.

Buzzed and nobody knows. And then

your wife's like, wait, have you been drinking? You're like, do I? Yeah, I'm drinking by myself in a fucking mall. Yeah. On Christmas.

How sad do you think I am? And then you go, yeah, I am.

What about mood? Do you ever drink in a dark place?

So I broke I had a chick break up or a chick cheat on me When I was when I came back from Russia and she slept with my best friend And I didn't know how to deal with the emotions I had and my buddy Mike Osborne said I can tell you this If you drink they go away and I went okay, And that was the first and kind of last time I ever did that because I did it, I've done it, I've done it a couple of times, but I try to avoid, I try to avoid if there's emotion going to alcohol. Like meaning, not when it's anxiety, but like depression. I kind of sit in the depression, or anxiety. I lean towards alcohol, like anxiety about flying or just like getting worked up over something. But with depression, I try to avoid alcohol and just sit in it.

Because I've gone there before. But anxieties, I land all the time.

But depression, heartbreak, all that, you just sit in the feeling.

Yeah, heartbreak's a weird 1 for me. So like the last time I got my heart broken, Leanne dumped me. We were dating for like 4 months and she broke up with me. And my instinct was to have a drink. My friends went to this Middle Eastern restaurant and I told him what was going on and my buddy Cory's like, let's get a cocktail.

And I was like, I don't want 1. I got to figure this out because I want this chick. And if I start drinking, I'll be like, ah, fuck it. So I got to figure it out. Like, I wonder, I'm going to find out my dad dies 1 day or my mom, but my dad will be the rough 1.

My mom will be equally as rough. My dad and I are really close. And I wonder if, I've thought about this a lot, if I'll have a drink dealing with that. Like I think about that a lot. I keep saying everything I get with my dad is extra.

My dad had a 100% blockage in his Widowmaker twice and both times they saved his life and he got a stint I think 12 or 13 years ago and then he just got a stint this last year. But so I, everything I get to do, I feel like it's extra. And so, you know, he was just at the premiere of my movie and he got to see that and he had a very emotional response and I got to, I got that from him. And I was like, that, that's a little icing on the cake. I did, you know, the arena in Tampa was the first time he ever saw me do standup.

That was like a little extra. So all these things I'm getting with him are all extra. So I have, you know, at least 74. So Yeah, that'll be a tough 1.

Well at the premiere. He was what proud

yeah, he came out He was sobbing crying, and he goes I've underestimated you your whole life And I was like what news like I need just and he was shaking He goes I just underestimated you I didn't know I didn't know I didn't know you were this I didn't know whatever it was really hard to understand them to be honest with you I don't know totally what he said. He might just not like the movie

I think you were hearing what you wanted to hear. What'd you learn about life from your father?

It's not gonna make sense. I wanna feel like sometimes I'm like a professional fucking wrestler. Because all I care about is you come and see me do stand up. So whatever I gotta do to get you there. But the number 1 thing, my 1 takeaway from that man's humility, and I've applied it in different ways throughout my career.

On my 26th birthday, he gave me a really aggressive speech. I was hungover and I just thought he was going to say, happy birthday. So I picked up the phone and I was like, hey, and he was like, you are a tremendous piece of shit. And he broke me off. You have no humility, you have no this, you've never succeeded in anything.

You're lying to yourself, You're lying to everyone around you. You're not doing what you're going after your dream. I broke you. I failed you as a father. This and that." I was like, I thought you were going to wish me happy birthday.

And so in that speech, He told me if I wanted something I had to go at it and I did go after it as hard as I could And I had to do whatever it could I could do to achieve that in this case It was working offering to do anything at the comedy club to get on stage He told me I told him that's not how it works and he said no that's how it works for some poor kid from Harlem, because that kid needs it. He goes, you've grown up with privilege your whole life, you don't need it. You think you're going to be fine. And so I went and I ended up getting a job at the door, but it's humbling. It's really like, it makes me feel, it made me feel uncomfortable.

And so that humility, uh, is, it's the first time I really understood humility and I've applied that in many respects in like, in like getting to be a paid regular at the comedy store that happened late in life for me, which I think most people would give up and be like, oh, fuck that. I'm already a touring comic. I'm on TV. I don't need that, but it's something I wanted and I knew I wanted. So I, I just humbly went after it.

And then I think I, I still apply it when it, when it comes to Selling tickets or selling a project to the fans Or even to doing podcasts I try to be as honest as I can about whatever I'm going through whatever I'm dealing with But when it comes to like selling things, I don't have I don't have a problem trying to make fun of myself or get in front of people so that they know that I have a show. Because the thing I'm good at, The 1 thing I know I'm good at is stand up. And I say that humbly, but I want them to come there. So I've heard people make fun of me before. They're like, yeah, I'm not some clown in a Speedo.

I'm a real comic. And I go, okay, but I want them at my shows. And you can be that guy and I'll be this guy.

Yeah. The clown and the speedo.

Yeah. It's like, what are you going to do? Funny people make fun of me for taking my shirt off. Like I guess behind my back, no 1 ever does it to me. Like no 1 would ever comics aren't comics, aren't comics, aren't that manly.

Yeah. Yeah. But I always go like, what do you care? What do you care?

And you love taking your shirt off?

More than anything.

You know, when something becomes meme and becomes super popular, it becomes easy to not love the thing anymore, to get tired of it. You still love it?

Well, more than anything. I like being shirtless more than having a shirt. I'm very uncomfortable in a shirt.

Yeah.

Like right now, and I have tactile issues, like I have legit tactile issues. I'm most comfortable in stretchy jeans with a loose fitting belt and then these shirts exactly, but I like more like a V-neck. I can feel this on my neck right now and I can feel it on my arms. And so I'll sit a certain way because it just rubs me wrong. But yeah, I'm more comfortable shirtless.

I can never wear what you're wearing.

Uh, yeah, well, this is my shirtless. Each of us have to find our place in this world in terms of fashion.

I would love to be able to wear what you wear. Yeah. Because it looks good.

It feels like an escape from convention.

Well, you or me?

Both of us. Yeah. Because nobody wears this unless you work security for somebody.

Yeah, but it looks good on you. Does it? I don't know. I think people think, I don't know, like they would say, like, what if you lose weight? You can't take your shirt off anymore?

I go, no, I can't fucking take my shirt off.

You fucking out of

your mind, I'm gonna take my shirt off all the time.

You mentioned early on heartbreak after the Russia trip with a girl who slept with your friend. Let's go back to Hemingway quotes. The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them. So to go all in with the trust. I love Hemingway so much.

Have you been betrayed in your life?

Yeah. What do

you think about trust?

That's an interesting question. I've been betrayed in my professional life a couple times by really close friends. I'm not someone who can't... I have a mantra that... I don't know if people have heard it or not.

I hate sharing it, but it's true. The mantra is, so you think I'm weak. It's like, that's my thing, because I feel like people take advantage of me. And I go, oh, so you think I'm weak. You forget, everyone that, like when I name the people that have betrayed me, I'm a larger man than all of them.

And so that's what really fucks with me is I go, so you think I'm weak? Like where I grew up, when you do stuff, there was physical consequences. I grew up in Florida, like I've been beaten up a bunch. I'm not saying I can fight, but I'm not scared of getting beaten up. And the times that I've been betrayed, and I know even by Ari, which people see that drugging as a betrayal, and I did for a period, but it was only because it was Ari and he was 1 of my best friends.

And me and him had to work through that because I couldn't not love him. Like I couldn't not have him in my life. He means a lot to me, he really does. He's a great friend to have, But he's also, I don't know what was going on with him at that time, but he made a bad decision and I had to forgive him for that because I knew he knew my mantra. I think I'm harder to trust people now.

I'm not as apt to trust people at all. But there was a moment, I don't know if I've ever shared this and I don't know how this will sound, but there was a moment that information got leaked about a thing and all my managers and agents, both Tom and our managers and agents would like to either separate us or 1 of them get both of us. It's just more lucrative for them. So they have always kind of pitted us against each other a little bit and they do it subtly. They'll do it to me and my team, and then his team will do it to me, and then my team will do it to him and his team will do it to him.

And there was a moment where information got leaked about this thing I was doing. And my team was like, just so you know, your boy Tommy is the rat. And I had to... It was the 1 time, and Leanne said, do you think Tom would do that? I said, I don't know how faith works, like I'm not a super religious person, but I will tell you that I believe in Tom and I don't think he did it.

And I will stand by that ignorantly. And I will ride or die with him because I cannot live in a world where I don't trust him. Yeah. If I don't trust him, then I am so fucked. And it wasn't him.

It wasn't him. And it was, it's a cool feeling to know that you could like, that you could blindly trust someone blindly, have faith in someone, know that they're, they have your best interest at heart. But yeah, it took me a while to get there. Rogan helped me get there. Cause I wasn't trusting him or Joey or Tommy or anyone.

I wasn't trusting anyone. I'd gotten in a bad thing and I just wasn't trusting anybody. And Rogan was like, yo man, we're trying to be your fucking friend. And I was like, yeah, I don't, I don't need friends. I couldn't understand what, why Rogan was interested in me.

And I was, I said to like someone, I was like, is he gay? Like what the fuck? And then he was just a nice guy. He's just a nice guy

I'd be hilarious if Joe was sexually attracted to This whole time this whole times the reason he keeps inviting you back.

I would be more excited I would be more excited if just if he tried to kiss me on the lips once just and just and like in a Scotty Scotty Jay way from boogie nights where he's like, what do you like my car?

Yeah, You know, nobody would believe that story.

No 1. Yeah. If I was Joe, I would kiss dudes all the time. And then when they didn't kiss back, oh, you know, no 1 will ever believe you.

Yeah. When you trust people like that, and they fuck you over, that can Really, really, really hurt.

You end up on a treadmill in a hotel room, fighting with them. You fight with them all the time. You fight with them all the time. You fight with them constantly. And I have this thing where I ruminate on an idea and I can't get it out of my head and I hear the words they say and I and I am

So all in your head on a treadmill in your head just fighting

just fucking fighting and then yeah And then 1 day you get past it. Like 1 day you just go, eh, fuck them. I'm not gonna let you give them real estate. And then you just forget about them. And then they reach out and they'll try to be a dick or a bully, because they're bullies.

They're bullies is what they are. Don't ever forget it. They're fucking bullies. And they got bullied. It's not their fault, they got bullied, and then they try to bully you and you don't have any connection anymore, and you're like, oh, you can go fuck yourself.

You can actually go fuck yourself. You're not my boss, you're not my wife, you don't fuck me, you don't pay me, get the fuck out of my life.

But this kind of mantra of that you're not weak, you still want to be able to be fragile to the world and appear weak almost.

I am, I am. I mean, that's the problem is I think I am pretty fucking weak. Like, I'm not the strongest dude out there. I have really thin skin. My feelings hurt all the time.

And so, but like, but it sucks when you watch like, your friend see something in you that you go, or they go, fuck him, he's not paying attention. Fuck him, Let's just fuck him, let's take his money. You know what, fuck him. He doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. Look at me, he's a drunk alcoholic, and you go, oh no bitch, I pay attention.

Like I'm wide awake, I'm here, I'm working my ass off. You're not gonna fucking.

Well that's the tough thing about like you and Tom Segura. You're at the top of your game on top of the world, some of the most famous comics in the world, and you could see money start to creep in, like business decisions.

Yeah. I

don't know, it's a tough place.

It's really tough, it's really tough, especially as we're growing. And I'll tell you what, I don't know how much I'm allowed to say, but I can tell you this. We had a business deal where feelings were getting involved and money was involved in that and the money was causing the feelings. And 1 of us said to the other person, our feelings are more important than the money. So let's just split the money.

And it

was, and it was, and it was, and, and it was, it was really like a solid moment where I, where both of us were like, that is how we should run this.

Yeah. That's the interesting things with like with bands, you'll have like popular bands that split and even, Even though it's clear that the contribution is not even. It's like there's a front man and all that kind of stuff, but it's ultimately the right thing to do, to say fuck you to the money for the most part and prioritize the feelings.

Yeah, especially because like, I couldn't do it without him. He couldn't do it without me. We do it separately. We'll have guest bears on. Some will blow up, some won't.

You can never figure it out, but when we're together it does well. And so we need each other for it to work. And we've, you know, like I said, we're on a handshake deal with 2 bears and no 1 likes that. But we're like, hey, I mean, we, I don't like, to the point where I like, he'll call me and go, yo, we have a deal to do this for X amount, are you in? And I go, yeah.

I don't check the books, I don't need to. I don't, I know him, I just know him.

Yeah. What do you love most about Tom Segura?

We saw a gay couple 1 time.

It was a good start.

And there was 1 guy was in khakis and 1 guy was in jean shorts with a python around his neck. And Tom goes, if we were gay, which 1 would you be? I said, I'm fucking Python. And he was like, yeah, I'm khaki. And I go, really?

And he goes, yeah, that's why we work. And he goes, all relationships are for pythons and khakis. And I went, really? And he goes, look at you and Leanne. Who do you think you are?

I go, I'm Python. And he goes, she's khaki. And he goes, me and Push? I go, Oh, she's Python. He goes, and I'm khaki.

He goes, I'll always be khaki. And sometimes I'll have a relationship around the python, but I'm usually a khaki. And I was like, yeah, I am a little bit of a lunatic. I'll tell you, a moment that explains me and him, the world will never see, It was just a great moment. We got stem cells with Rogan 1 weekend, and 1 day.

And I'd had surgery in my arm, and I didn't wanna do it. I was terrified, and Tom just said, just come out and meet up with us. Tom knew he was gonna make me get them. And so I got them, and he, you know, Joe's there, and so we're just all talking, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Tom can see that I'm spinning out a little bit and I get in the car and, you know, Tom's got a Porsche, so We're like right next to each other.

And I just wanna feel if it's swollen. And it is a little swollen, because I just got an injection. And then, and Tom's driving, and he's got his hand on the thing. He just puts his hand on my arm, and he goes, you're okay. He just, he's watching, he knows me so well, that he knows that I'm spinning out of control.

He's like, you're okay. And then I was like, and I felt okay. I was like, you're right, I'm okay. What the fuck am I doing? My brain's that brain.

Man, that guy got so much love in him.

Dude, he does. He has, you know, he had a fantastic relationship with his dad. And I think whatever that dude did to create that dude, He hit it out of the fucking park because he has so much Love that he doesn't need reciprocated like at all like he can just love and Then he feels good for him to give and to like take care of someone and like, you know he started the whole birthday gift thing cause, and he didn't need to, he just was like, hey man, I had this bike, I thought you'd like it. And then of course I've turned it into a fucking bit. And now we're upside down, I'm 120 upside down on a fucking race car that we can't make our money back on.

I love it.

What do you love most about Joe Rogan?

Oh, that dude. I could go on and on about Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan is the most selfless individual I've ever met. He doesn't care if he has you on the podcast. He wants you to be the funniest person in the room.

He wants you to be the smartest person in the room. Let me tell you something. Joe Rogan is 10 times smarter and funnier than me. He wants you to shine. He wants you, He wants to put you over to his fans.

That shit did not exist before he started doing his podcast. People didn't share you with their fans. No 1 was like, hey man, come on the road with me. They brought you on the road because they wanted you to suck and they put you in bad scenarios. Joe Rogan wanted you to shine.

He gave so many people beautiful career, gave them careers, gave them. Joe could have looked at his podcast as his thing. This is my thing. I bring on these guys. I'm going to be the funniest guy in the fucking room.

I know some guys that have done that. It might be me. It might be time I talk over people and not listen really well. Joe did the opposite. Now, look, I've tried to learn from Joe on my podcast and do the same.

That guy, when you think about it, you name 10 of his friends, I bet 8 of them are doing arenas right now. They're all doing theaters, all his friends do theaters, all his friends do theaters. He is just, you know, and he won't accept this compliment. I tried paying it to him in Austin, when I was in Austin last night.

Well, he's not good at accepting compliments.

I gave him a gift too, and I said, hey, I need to show you. I can't just tell you this because it's gonna fall on deaf ears. I need to give you a minute so you have something so you know that I think about you and I'm grateful for having you in my life a lot, for many reasons. I have more friends in my life because of you. He taught me how to trust people again.

I have a career because of you. I have a major motion picture because of you. I do arenas because of you. Without you in my life, a lot of these things maybe never would have happened. I never would have told the machine on stage.

I wouldn't have gotten, I would have never started a podcast. I wouldn't have 3 podcasts. I mean, all these things are things he not just, He didn't just take me to the water 1 time and give me a drink. He gave me a machete and he said, this is how I get to the water. You gotta put your own path, but just give me a heads up, you can also use my path whenever you want.

I mean, he is the most selfless individual. He will go down in history as 1 of the 10 most important people in stand-up comedy, without a doubt. He changed the game. It didn't exist like this before him. And he won't accept that compliment.

What was the gift you gave him?

I can't tell you.

Is it a dildo?

It was a dildo. It was a double-sided dildo. I go, hey, when you get free time, can we scissor fuck each other?

You're happily married for 19 years. So I think you're a good man to ask, how do you find love? How do you find, how do you date in order to find a love of your life, of a lifetime.

This is gonna sound off. But don't tie yourself down, meaning like don't spend time fucking with those little mini shrimp and peeling them every night when you know you're looking for a lobster. And so I think what happens to a lot of guys, they're so busy and just getting pussy and going from here to here to here. I was never that guy. I always wanted to find someone who understood me.

I always wanted that. And so, granted, I haven't had sex with a lot of chicks, but that's... And it's not by choice. I'm saying maybe there was times I would have done it, but I know that I was always looking for someone to figure out to get me. And then I will say this, when you know, you know.

When you know, you know. When you think there's, I can't imagine a life without this person. That happened to me, And I can only say my experiences, I had Leanne, I loved her, and I didn't even realize it. And the second she dumped me, I went, oh, no, no, no, no, no. I don't get to live a great life without her.

She's the thing that's gonna give me a great life. I knew it, undisputed. I went for a run and she dumped me. I went to my shower, I cried, I went to Barnes & Noble, I bought Men Are From Venus and Women Are From Mars, I watched Fight Club in my closet, I didn't drink, I drank a lot of NyQuil to sleep. And then I went for a hike in Runyon Canyon.

I was running back down Outpost by Beneflect's house and the sun was setting and I just said, hey God, if you're listening, just give me this chick back. I'll never fuck it up. This is the 1. I won't fuck it up. I won't cheat.

I'm not gonna be a bad dude I want to have kids with her. I'll be there. I'll be a great fucking dude I'll take her out on dates like I'll love this chick and I got home and she was in my room in a sundress Yeah, and I was like, oh fuck you. I didn't know he was real. I was like, shit, man, give me like 1 more night.

Let me get some strange tail real quick before I commit forever. But I think when you know, you know. This is so silly, but I follow that in business. When you know, you know, and my assistant's with us, and someone goes, how do you find a good assistant? I go, when you know you know.

Like people will show you who they are. I can tell you when I fell in love with my assistant. We were doing a TV show And we worked past dinner and all the dinner places were closed. And he just said, hey, I got like 4 meals. I didn't know which 1 you'd want, so I got 4 different meals for you.

I ordered them, they're up in your room, and just let me know whichever you want, I'll take care of the rest of

them.

And I was like, oh, that dude thinks about other people before himself. He didn't even get himself dinner. He just got me 4 dinners and I was like, fuck. I did the same thing with my social media manager. The way she was operating was I was like, I feel like she's thinking about me.

And we connected on so many levels, on so many levels. I could talk to her about things and ideas I had. And then I was like, okay, I want her, I want him. I want, I think it's gotta be that thing when you know you know. And it can be so simple as like a personal trainer or like a jujitsu class or like just where you go, oh, I'm connecting right now.

But you have to allow yourself to notice that person.

You, I think you do. I mean, I think you have to put yourself out there and you have to be available for it. That's the hardest part is just being available for it. Because so many people just wanna be busy just dating.

I just

want to have someone in my life. I don't want to be bored. I don't want to, what if I die alone? I don't want to, I like, just be available for it.

What is it you said, peeling the baby shrimp? Yeah. When you could be having a lobster? Lobster's still a lot of work, I have to say.

Yeah, but it's lobster. This is a fucking baby shrimp, or like, you ever get the ones in Brazil where you just go, fuck it, I'll eat the shell, I don't care anymore. Like I'm so fucking hungry, you just handful a lobster like it's popcorn or baby shrimp like it's popcorn. I've done that in Vietnam, I've done that, where I just go, it's too much work.

So when you're in it, what's the secret to a successful marriage? What do women want, Burk Reischer?

Oh fuck, I'm the wrong guy to answer that. I think.

How to make love to a woman by Burk Reischer.

How do you make love to a woman? I'll tell you how I do it. I go down on her first. Make sure she has an orgasm. Yeah.

And then I get my turn and that's over pretty quick. It's like, it's like your ears pierce. It'll feel a little prick and it's over. Yeah. I, um, I don't know if I've done a great job keeping her happy.

I think I keep her interested. Like, I think IIII keep her occupied. Like I'm like a little bit of a rodeo clown. Like, I don't know. I mean, like, I know we're happy right now.

I know we're really happy, but I don't know if I ever did as good a job as she did. She's always been a gangster, did everything, just does everything. She does it all. She does everything. Like fucking everything.

And she loves it. She just does it. And then she shows love for you by taking care of you. And so like, I have a lot of times just been this like, almost like step and repeat husband where it's like I come in to take a picture, like, hey, Monday, Tuesday, all right, I'm on the road Wednesday, take care, guys. Or like Travel Channel, I'd leave for 2 weeks at a time.

I left for the movie for 3 months. So like, I don't know that I've ever done a bang-up job. I buy it, like, I go, I remember 1 time I was just like I don't cheat on her. I don't hit her I don't yell at her. I'm a pretty good fighter.

I'm really good fighter like like I'm good at like Going like hey, we're on the same team.

Oh, you mean de-escalation?

I'm really good at like I'm very self. I'm very accountable I'm very self-correcting like if we're in a fight and she points something out and I go. Oh, you're right I go fuck you're right about that. You're right. You're totally

wrong in the moment. I'm really

good at that And my wife's not she's not a good apologizer Like she needs to sleep on an apology and then she can do it. I can apologize in the moment if I realize I'm wrong and I'm really quick to find my fault. Yeah. I look for my fault. Cause I go, tell me what I did.

Adversely as a parent, I have pulled my daughters aside and been like, yo, that wasn't you, that was mom. I'm giving you a heads up, because I got really confused as a kid because my dad always made sure I knew I was wrong, and sometimes I wasn't.

And then

as a kid, you're kind of fucked up. And you're like, well, how do I know if I'm wrong? And I think that raises, so I was really good with my girls going like, yo. And then parenting Georgia taught me a lot about self-correcting.

Self-correcting was that?

My oldest. I'd only, I parented like my dad parented. Like just like, raise your voice, get up to here. That's it, no, that does it, fuck this. How come the dogs don't have goddamn leashes or the collars on their necks?

And so with Georgia I had to learn through therapy That if the if the if the consequence is here And it and the highest it goes is here Then why the fuck wouldn't they lie and do everything because they go well, I know what it's like to hear but if you can vary your consequence with a child and Find some conversation in it and all the sudden they're like well fuck Well, I don't want to like this does this does suck. I like this I like where we talk and he says write a thousand words on why driving around your kids in a car is bad.

So threaten extreme violence every once in a while.

Yeah, let them know the dog can fucking bite. The dog can bark, the dog can bite. But if you pet him on his belly, he'll wag its

tail. Yeah. Do you worry about being away too much? I mean, you're 1 of the most creative content pushers and creators out there. You're just constantly innovating, constantly putting stuff out there, but do you worry that pulls you away from the mundane experience of life that can bring contentment and happiness?

Yeah, I feel like sometimes it cannibalizes your real life where you start going, you start thinking in promo videos, or you start looking at a vacation as a bit. Like we should go zip lining. Well, Ida, why don't you do, what shoes are you wearing? Like, it can definitely cannibalize your life. My wife's really good at going like, no, like no phones.

The girls are really good. The girls, when I started Instagramming stuff, they started saying stuff like, dad hits mom. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, guys. They're like, no, put your phone away. Dad and Les boys.

And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop, stop,

stop, stop. What are some secrets, words of wisdom you can say for how to be successful online and everything you've learned. You're kind of like the Mr. Beast of comedy, just innovating constantly in terms of how to promote stuff, in terms of how to present stuff across the different social media, across YouTube, podcast, all that stuff.

I think the number 1 thing is don't be afraid to suck. No 1 sees the shit that sucks. Doesn't get views.

It just gets forgotten.

Yeah, it gets forgotten. The good stuff they remember, and then that's all they bring up. The stuff that sucks just goes away. And they're like, oh yeah, did you do that? I don't even think I saw that.

Fuck it, who cares? You know, it's like I watched, 1 of my favorite stories about this is a guy named Sean Patton. I was explaining Instagram stories to him and Ari and Mark Norman and I was explaining that you can now sell tickets on Instagram stories. It was back when they swiped up instead of tap the button, swipe up. And they didn't understand it.

And I said, let me show you. And I put up tickets for sale And I said, you know, hey guys, swipe up. And then I just showed him in 10 minutes, look, this is how many people swiped up, it's 145 people. It's a lot of people to buy tickets for a fucking comedy club. And they were like, whoa.

And they're like, what do you do stories about? I go, fucking anything, who gives a shit? Just anything, and some things work, some things don't. And I watched Sean Patton, shout out to Sean Patton, try for about 15 minutes to do an Instagram story about his cup of tea. He was making a cup of tea, and he was making it, and he kept going, hey, okay, hold on, hold on, let me.

I was filming him from the couch. I was filming all these attempts.

The whole thing, yeah.

I filmed every single 1 of them. I have like 15 different stories of him trying to do that. I had 145, 000 views on each story. He never posted it. He never posted it.

And I was like, I was like, man, if he had just posted that 1, he never posted anything in his stories. That 1, 145, 000 people would have gone to his story to see that cup of tea being made and see which 1 he finally went with. And so sometimes I think the biggest mistake you can make is just not doing it. Just do it, just post it. Turn the camera on, the idea will show up.

And that's the number 1 thing. Just turn the camera on and it'll come up. You'll figure it out.

Do you do multiple takes or no?

Maybe I do 3. Like, and I'm talking even like in the dance video I did, where I did the hip hop dance, I did 2 takes on that. With when I had the marching band come to my house. I did 2 takes on that once you start doing more takes you lose the fun of it, I think and and then The fun ones. I mean my favorite 1 I've ever done without a doubt my favorite promo I've ever done is, they added a second show in some city, and they added a second show like Friday and Saturday, and our third show.

And I said, they just told me, I was like, fuck, I'm leaving tomorrow, I need to sell tickets. So I said, real quick, girls, meet me outside, and Leanne's like, the girls are doing homework, I gotta go take 5 seconds. I put on a Speedo, I got the American flag. I gave Isla the hose, I gave Leanne the leaf blower, and I gave Georgia the drone. And I just had Georgia drone it back to reveal the leaf blower and the mist you were seeing was coming from Isla and Leanne.

I'm in a speedo with American flag. I have Bob Seger playing, rambling, grambling man. And that night, Larry the cable guy texted me and he goes this is fucking genius And I was like it was just and it was just like yo, just let's just shoot something who gives a fuck like just shoot something just just just say something and and put a little just do a little movement into it. And those are my, back in the, I used to be, I watched a bunch of my promo clips back from back in the day. I used to be really good.

Now it's like, I'm promoting so fucking many things. I'm just like, I'm almost like, I'm exhausted about my promotions.

Yeah, because you know, the well can dry up in terms of ideas

Yeah, and it's like how many times am I gonna show a picture of my ass my ass sells really good That's whatever my ass is on Instagram fucking million views guaranteed a million views

your

ass and in an Internet and it's and it's an active post like people are like I did the best 1 I did the other day was where I superimposed my ass on my front and it just looked beautiful.

Yeah.

No views.

Oh, so you-

I think it got reported.

Oh, I see.

It looked like a front vagina.

Oh, is that what it was?

Yeah, I think so. But like, but yeah, my ass. Ass sells. Like I'm at a place right now where I am promoting I'll be promoting this movie. I'll be promoting this movie until it goes to a streamer.

I'll be promoting it Shamelessly, I'm proud of it. I had a great time shooting it. It's in theaters. It'll be on video on demand. It'll be on a streamer, I'm sure.

I don't know, but I'm sure. I'm promoting Fully Loaded, my summer festival with 19 different comics. I'm promoting the Topsoft World Tour that starts again this fall. I'm promoting my cruise, the fully loaded cruise. I'm promoting Red Rocks.

I'm promoting so many things that today was the very first time in my career where I said, in January I'm going to take a break. I'm going to take a break and go like, hey man, let's get your resting heart rate down. Let's get some sleep. Let's maybe take off like 3 months from drinking. Like let's just really slow it down.

And also not think, when you're thinking in promo all the time, it can be a little exhausting. I mean, you think it's exhausting to look at my feed. It's exhausting to be my feed. I'm my feed.

And sometimes less is more. 1 of the things that.

Nope, nope,

Nope. 1 of the things that inspires me about Rogan, for example, is he almost never does this kind of stuff.

Yeah, yeah. And how seldomly he does his podcast. Because you're right, Les is more. What does he do it like once a month? No, he does it 3 times a fucking week.

Less, more is perfect. But for example, when

he does like a story or something like this, he does 1 take. It's kind of shitty.

It's the same take, it's elk with a bunch of jalapenos, a knife that he had sent to him by a fucking knife maker, and him going, look at this, look at this Traeger smoker. I reverse seared this, this is what's great, look at this, I'm about to put it in the butter. This is grass-fed butter, This elk really raises my testosterone. Rogan is, you're right, with guys like Rogan, when he does do a story, they're a little precious.

Yeah, and I don't think he's ever done a second take at any of those stories. No. And you have to really admire that. Like, if the shot is framed poorly, if the audio sucks, doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter. Do you remember when he, this is like, I can get in the weeds on Rogan But and especially when it's Instagram Do you remember when he got his polar plunge and he couldn't sit in it in a minute. And then the next day, and then he must have gotten it on the internet bad. He must have gotten it bad. The next day, he sat in for 20 minutes and he lowered his core temperature by like 2 degrees.

And It took him like a month to get that back. That is that fucking man. What an interesting, you know, I told you at the beginning, we were just talking, I like, I really enjoy, I draw inspiration from men I'm not like. You, David Goggins, Cam Haines.

Andrew Huberman.

Huberman I love. Fucking, I mean there's so many guys like that. Rogan, you know, Tim Kennedy. Like there are a lot of guys that are like just very different men than me and I love Jocko Wilnick. Like I love reading their stuff or listening to their audio books or listening to their podcasts because I'm so not like that.

But that for me when I add a little bit of that in my life, like, I remember you went, I don't know what you were doing, but you were walking us through your day and it was so fascinating. It was like, it was like, I ran 8 miles today, I listened to an audio book while I was running 8 miles and then I came and I worked for about 3 hours straight on AI stuff and I'm like, and I was like, wait, you sat at a desk? Like you like sat at a desk and like, and I actually, I wouldn't even know what to do. I would start doing crafts. Like I wouldn't, like that you went, I was like, is your computer, like.

Yeah, have you sat for like 4 hours focused on a single task?

Me? Yeah. No. No, I have a hard time sleeping for 4 hours. Yeah.

I don't have that, I don't have a brain that like, I really admired it when I listened to you do it, because then you were like, you were fasting at the time, you were doing your fast, and then you talk about what you ate. And I was jealous, I wanted to be able to be like that. And I think at that time we started, I think you were doing maybe bone broth or something? And we started doing bone broth pretty religiously and adding that into a fast, because I was like, It does, for someone like me, it does feel cool to add a little bit of control into life.

To my life. So integrating a little bit of a way of being from another person that you're not like.

Yeah, like so David Goggins is consistently pushing himself. I love, I did it over the pandemic more, but I loved going, today I'm running a marathon. I'm going to get on the treadmill and it's not going to be all at once, but I'm going to get through a marathon today. So let's get up, get a six-ounce of coffee and let's see if we can do like 5 miles and then know that we started there." And that was really fun. Cam Haines does that too where he goes like, he almost just sets the limit and then achieves that.

His son Truett is really fascinating because his son Truett right now is trying to get the, and like, I bet people would never think that this is who I watch, but I get real inspiration from those people because I showed Jocko, I showed a clip to Jocko to Isla because Isla's like me, like, like a person of her fluids, Impulse. I walked in on her 1 time, she was in the pantry in a bathrobe in the dark drinking a root beer.

Yeah.

And I opened the door and she went, I said, what? She goes, I thought you were mom. Shut the door. And I shut the door To let her finish the root beer.

Yeah,

she has a hard time waking up. So I look come in here I want you to see this clip from Jocko. She was who's Jocko. I say he's a Navy SEAL She goes he works at the zoo. I went no It's a Navy fucking SEAL.

I go. It's a badass job. She goes. It's a silly name and I went no It's not It isn't a silly name. These guys are the toughest dudes in the world.

She goes- She's kind of

right though about the silly name. I never even realized that.

Well, yeah. You talk to a child. Yeah. And so I go, watch this, what he says about waking up. So he hits the thing and the doctor goes, first thing you do when you hear that alarm clock, you could roll over, you could go back to bed, you could hit snooze, but you get out of bed and that's your first victory.

And Isla hits pause And she goes, how great is that nap right after you hit snooze though? I went, it is pretty fun. I go, hang on, you're missing the point. You need to listen to this whole speech. He's with Casey Neistat when he's telling this speech.

He's with Casey Neistat. And so I hit it and then he goes, and then you've got a victory under your belt. Then you go to the gym and you work out and I go, you listening to this, Isla? And she goes, yeah. And he goes, and then when you go to the work, now you've got 2 victories.

You've worked out and you've woken up on time. You didn't hit that snooze button. So when you go into that break room and you see Donuts and she hits pause, she goes, if he's about to say no to Donuts, I'm done listening. I go, he's definitely gonna say no to donuts. Do you think he's gonna have a donut?

And she goes, you like this guy? I go, I fucking love him. And she goes, do you think he'd like you? And I go, what do you mean? She goes, dad, you hit snooze, you skip working out and you love donuts.

And I'm like, yeah, you're making a good fucking point. I go, but I do love that, like, I love to watch that brain work and go like, I don't hit snooze. Like, I don't hit snooze now. I go, fuck it, because I'm up. And then I go to the gym every single morning.

I go to the gym every single morning. And today is National Donut Day. I didn't have a donut. And so I try to apply these a little bit. I mean, the other side of me is like, tonight, after we do this, I'll do another podcast and then I'm gonna call Leanne and go, yo, we're in Beverly Hills, meet me out here.

Let's go have drinks. Let's go have fucking couple Campari spritz. Ida's over at her friend's house in Oberlin, let's get some edibles and let's fucking have a night about it. Get some sushi, Go have sex in the hot tub. And I gotta work out at fucking 10 in the morning.

I gotta tell you, that nap, when you press snooze.

Is the sweetest.

That's my victory, first victory, is pressing snooze and getting the nap under the belt.

Have you ever had, I had, so this, this morning I didn't work, I didn't work out. I'd press it like 5 in the morning until about 6.

You're going hard right now.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got a movie.

And then I had

a podcast. I saw you flew to Austin. I was like, what? Huh? Yeah.

What? Just run around theaters and now you're back.

Yeah, run around theaters to promote the movie and then, look, you only get 1 shot at these movies so you might as well do, and look, it's really hard to get people to go into a movie theater right now. And So I woke up at like 5 or 6 to 7, did press, and then I went and I said, and I'm really into history podcasts right now, and I was listening to this 1 about the conquistadors, and I was like, when I woke up, I was like, I wouldn't mind going back to that. And I said, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna take a little nap and go. Now I slept good last night, I slept like 7 hours last night. Boy, that 30 minute nap, it felt like 5 hours.

And I woke up going, I gotta readjust my sleep score. That has to be in the 97. That was the best fucking nap. Those little snooze naps are monsters.

You know, there's, I don't care. That's probably for me 1 of the peak experiences of life is those naps. I don't know what that is.

Have you ever slept in a tour bus?

A tour bus versus a regular bus?

Like a tour bus, meaning like in a bunk.

No. I've taken a lot of buses in my life though.

What do you mean, like just like a Greyhound?

A Greyhound.

Those are very different. And public transit.

Listen, they, that's just part of life in a Greyhound.

I was on a Greyhound 1 time. Don't put stuff in your pocket. I was on a Greyhound 1 time, right, when Notorious B.I.G.'s album came out in college. And I was going from Tallahassee down to Tampa. And the dude got on the tour bus, got on the bus next to me, black dude, And he sat down, he said, where you headed?

And I said, Tampa. He said, you grew up in Tampa? I said, yeah. I said, you? And he goes, yeah.

I said, you go to school at FAM? And it comes with FAM, U and Florida State, the 2 schools, one's black, one's white. And he goes, no, I just got out of prison. I said, you got out of prison? And he goes, yeah.

Yeah, man, I got out of prison. I stabbed a dude and I've been in prison. I just got out today. He goes, what are you listening to? I said, Notorious B.I.G.

And he goes, oh shit, that's out? And I went, yeah. And he goes, I wanna hear it, can I hear it? And I was like, yeah. And he used my headset to the whole bus ride to Tampa.

I didn't have the, I was like, he stabbed a man, they're yours now, I guess. And then I just sat next to him And is he enjoying it? He's like, this is good No tour bus naps. Yeah When you're in a bunk, it's ice cold. Bus isn't moving.

05:00, we work out from up until 05:00, 5.30. Show starts at 7, but that 05:00 to 6, 6.30 nap, it's pitch black. It's like a coffin. And it is ice cold. And you got all your pillows and blankets in there and you put a little history podcast on in the corner and you just listen to like Kurt Mombashi or like oh my god,

so you're talking about like 5 6 p.m. For a 7 p.m. Show.

Oh, it's the best nap you'll ever have. You wake up so refreshed. Yeah. Like I've woken up from naps, like where I'm like, fuck yeah. Like those tour bus naps are the best naps.

Yeah, I think having a full productive day and then like 5, 6 p.m. You do a nap and then you do something really stressful after that, like really hyper, like a show, but if I do, like I really like doing podcasts late at night, after a nap.

I think I fucked up my podcast rhythm because we're doing them in the day. Yeah. And so sometimes I'm just like, like if I work out in the morning, I'm good on a podcast, but if I don't work out, I suck on a podcast. I'm just like, uh-huh, yeah. Yeah.

That's cool. No, I, I, I'm, my favorite is, I used to do this a lot I haven't done it in a while is Full busy day nap at home Box of wine on the treadmill and do that until like midnight. Watching TV, box of wine.

Box of wine on a treadmill.

It's the best.

Wait, how are you sipping it, Jake?

You have a glass, but you have a box. The box fits on the corner on the treadmill. So you got a little spigot and you sit there and just put on like guys' grocery games or like just something...

You walking or are you running?

I walk. I walk like a three-five. So what'll happen is if you start at 3, start at 3, casual walk, 20 minutes you're gonna mile in and you're gonna feel loose, get up to a three-five. You can do 7 miles on these things and you're just enjoying your night. Especially like my wife, back in the day when we lived in our old house, my wife would come into the man cave and she'd sit on the couch and we'd watch TV together and watch Game of Thrones for an hour and you just get on the treadmill and do it.

Oh man, I loved, haven't done that as much lately. That was the fucking best. So you

can lose yourself, you can forget yourself.

You forget you're on a treadmill and you just are like walking and you're sweating and you're having wine. And then at certain points you're like, like you start jogging, especially like, we were watching, not all quiet on the Western Front. What's the 1 where they've gotta, they've gotta get the message to the front line? I would run like I was in World War II. I would run when they would run, and it was fucking awesome.

And I would be like, because they were doing drinks, they'd be like, take a drink, you gotta run up there. And I'd be like, okay. Yeah, I'm really into history podcasts right now. Like I've been in them for a while.

20th century or everything?

Everything, everything. I listened to, was it Marcus Aurelius and Cleopatra? Today, in the middle of the podcast, they're like, you know, just so you know, Cleopatra wasn't as hot as everyone says. I was like, why are you saying that? You're gonna tell me she's a 6, she looks like Snooki?

Like, let me dream that she looks like Kim Kardashian. And then I listened to that 1 today.

I listen to World War II

a lot.

A lot of books on World War II, a lot of podcasts about it.

What's your favorite theater, the Pacific or European?

No, European. Pacific, well, because my family, so much of it has died in that theater.

So, it's personal. So much of it.

I hate to sound cliche, like a Marlon Schwartz thing in an 80s movie, but it's personal Well,

you know what I find funny about that. Yeah is Lenin It was Lenin, right?

John Lennon. No, no 1

was it Lenin was World War 2 right or is it Stalin? Stalin Stalin Stalin thought him and Hitler would be friends. Yeah. I think that's so cute that he was like, we're gonna be buddies.

Yeah.

Like we're boys. Yeah. And then Hitler's like, oh, fuck you. I'm Hitler, bro. This is what I do.

Well, at first he was like, fuck yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll be friends.

Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Hey then, call me, call me. Better yet, I'll show up in winter. How's that sound? Yeah.

That, I find all of that so fascinating. When I was a kid, I had a hard time understanding how, because we were always at war with Russia when I was a kid, and I had a hard time understanding how we could be on the same team as Russia in World War II. And I was like, wait, how did that turn south? And then you listen to podcasts. Yeah, all of that, all of that, all of the World War II, I got really into the Pacific shit for a while, but I'm really deep in the in and the whole We went to Normandy from the cliffs of Dover and to think, so that's the fucking beach.

That's the fucking beach. Oh shit, this is cold as fuck. These dudes jumped in ice cold water. And this isn't like a cool beach. Like this is, and it's just so insane.

To, and then to see like the, the, it's pretty intense. I don't know why I got into history late in life. I wasn't, I was kind of into it, but I'm really into it now. And I love just learning a little something about, you know, today was, I listened to like the, Noiser has a great history stuff. It's like history for dummies, I think.

Like I get to, I can't listen to the really smart stuff. It starts losing me. Too many names and I'm gone.

Yeah, well Dan Carlin's always the best.

Your podcast with Dan Carlin was so fucking good. I mean, I only know about Martin Luther because of Dan Carlin. I only know, like I made a joke about some Lutheran the other day and everyone laughed and I was like, did you guys listen to the same podcast I did? Because I just am quoting Dan Carlin. His podcast, I mean, we all quoted the same shit about Genghis Khan about how he could shoot a dove off a horseback, but we knew that all 4 hoofs had to be off the ground at the same time they shot.

They would sometimes take their meat and stick it under their saddles And that, I mean, Dan Carlin is, he is the motherfucker. Yeah. God, those were, man, discovering podcasts was the coolest time of my life.

And the interesting thing about him is, It's audio, and so it's the voice. So for me, I mean, everybody has a story with a prostitute in a motel. Dan Carlin was my prostitute in the motel. I invited him to a motel. I don't even remember, in the middle of nowhere, he shows up with that voice, and the rest is history.

Things that we'll never know what happened. Oh boy, did he like, no, I'm just kidding. I'm really running with it. Yes, we did, we got along. I mean, he's an incredibly kind and thoughtful person, constantly self-critical, thinking he's not good enough.

He just works on those episodes

forever. Forever.

And he just thinks that there's these, just like with Goggins, there's these other historians that I think like weigh on him, like they're going to judge him or something like this in his mind.

I talked to him and then, but Daniel Petelli, and I guess his thing is, I guess his hang-up is, Carlin's is, he's not like this, he doesn't feel like he's a real historian, but he is. I mean, it's the way he shares the story. Look, we had a history teacher in seventh grade who was a con artist, and he came and taught our seventh grade, and he was a total con artist. All he taught us about was barnstorming. Barnstorming and the JFK assassination.

I walked away having such an appreciation for barnstorming. A very small blip on Americana, but I know a lot about barnstorming because of this guy, and because he was passionate about barnstorming. It was the funnest seventh grade history class I've ever taken my entire life.

You mentioned tour bus. What's the best road trip you've been on? Have you driven across the country, just you?

No. We had 1 road trip in college where a bar had burned down and we found out that the alcohol was still in the bar. So we took my Jetta over to the bar and we emptied out the bar of all the burnt up liquor. We didn't know what anything was. We threw it into the trunk with no clothes, like no clothes.

And we said, let's just start driving. And we drove from Tallahassee and ended up in West Virginia and just drove, just drove. It was like 5 dudes. We drank, 1 person drove. I wasn't a big, and this sounds crazy, I wasn't a big drinker in college until I went to Russia.

And so I drove the majority of the way, and then we get somewhere, and we get a hotel room, and it was 1 of the most epic fucking weekends of just debauchery and chaos. And I think we took mushrooms, and we went down a river in tubes.

So it's most about the bond between the 5 people

5 dudes

versus like throwing yourself into Meeting like strangers in this kind of stuff

Yeah, and it was when it was when I was like I was trying to be a poet at that time And so like we were

actual poetry.

Yeah, it's really bad part of my life I was just

well you were like is like music is there to somewhere?

Yeah, I tried to be in a band too. That didn't work out the way I wanted it to. I just was never, I always was, I was never the, I'm not a good serious person. Like I'm a good funny person. I'm good to be the fool, but I'm not good, when I try to be serious, it looks foolish.

And so even like, you know, someone said, showed me throwing out the first pitch the other day as something and all I could see is my gut flying everywhere. And I was like, that's why it went viral. I was like, fuck, I thought it was my throwing style. That was a pretty epic 1. The best road trips I ever took was during the pandemic.

During the pandemic when we were, when we would, we were doing that drive-in movie theater tour. I created a drive-in movie theater tour when no 1 was working. And the very first 1, we all, no 1 had left our houses. We all went to my house, we got my tour bus. We had just wrapped, the day the tour bus showed up, we just wrapped the cabin.

Just wrapped doing the cabin on Netflix. And we got COVID tested, We got in the tour bus and we said, let's create our bubble and stay safe. And that night we drove, I think just outside Gallup and we stayed in a, no 1 had been outside and we stayed at a KOA, camp on arrival, and we watched thunderstorms come in on a lake. And we were all smoking cigars and drinking IPAs. And it was fucking mad.

And that whole road trip, we road tripped across the country to start the tours. And we were outside for the first time and we were, and it was that period of my life. I'm so grateful. I didn't make a ton of money because we had a big crew and I've made sure I was trying to make sure everyone, cause no 1 had paid bills in a while, But that fucking tour was the funnest. We took up pickleball, we took up disc golf, everything was wide open.

In the middle of the country, you could do things, but we were still in our bubble. And we lived in that tour bus. And at night, we'd just get back in the tour bus by ourselves and get fucking wasted. And I mean, that fucking run, nothing will ever be like that.

Yeah, because you like rediscovered the humanity, the camaraderie, because the pandemic kind of killed that. They suffocated us from like the basic connection.

Yeah, and there was this, you always had an anxiety attack halfway through that you got COVID, and this is when COVID was killing people, and you were like, I know I've got COVID, And then we'd come in to Sedona, and this is also why I didn't make a ton of money, we'd come into Sedona and we'd get a house in Sedona for 5 days, an Airbnb, and we'd all isolate there before we went home to our families. Yeah. I remember The first time we did it, we didn't isolate. We just pulled back into LA and all our families were freaked out. So I had to stay, live on the tour bus in a different house.

And it was 4th of July and I came in and they were doing an egg toss. And they're like, well, you can do an egg toss. Then This is how bad my anxiety gets. You can do an egg toss with your daughter, Isla. So Isla and I did an egg toss, and we fucking got it to like legit, like

40

fucking feet where I was throwing overhand, lobbing them to her. And the egg cracked in her hands and it broke over her face. And I got in bed that night, high on weed, fucking drunk, and I went, what if I gave my daughter COVID from an egg toss? I go, that would be the most horrific way to kill a child. And she got it from an egg toss.

It broke in her face. Her dad did COVID, yeah.

I mean, that's the scariest thing about COVID I think is not you dying but because of you somebody else dies.

Oh my god

That's that feel that's that that's the fear. I think that really like took hold on people That's why they're they were way more cautious than perhaps they needed to be. Just like, I don't wanna be the guy that's responsible for killing somebody I love or somebody that somebody else loves.

Leanne gave everyone in our family COVID. She came up to me and she gave me a hug after Christmas and gives me a hug. I said, what's the matter? She goes, I think I have COVID. I go, bitch, 6 feet.

What the fuck are you doing? Back it up, Fauci. Like fucking, And then she, we went, and then she had it and it went away and we were all fine. And we're like, okay, we can still go to Park City. So we all go to Park City, then Georgia gets COVID.

And then Georgia starts crying and she goes, I think I gave you COVID. And I was like, I'm fine. She goes, you're at high risk. And I'm like, what? She's like, you're a fat alcoholic.

I'm like, whoa, easy. Where the fuck, what about feelings? And then Georgia got COVID. Me and Isla were still in Park City. Leanne had it.

My tour bus came up, picked George up. George and Leanne took him back to LA and Isla and I were there and I tested. And then we get on the plane and I cough and Isla's got her mask on and Isla just looks at me, you know, the best. The 1 thing we miss are the eyes over masks. And then we get home and I had COVID and Isla's like, if you gave me fucking COVID.

And then she never got COVID. She never got COVID.

You mentioned IPAs, what's the lay of the land of great beers in this expansive world of ours?

I like Pilsners, I'm a Pilsner guy, I'm an ice cold beer guy.

Ice cold Pilsner.

I like an ice cold beer. I like an ice cold. 1 of the best beer buzzes I ever had is, uh, we had bought a new house, but we weren't building it. And I, and over COVID I didn't drink for like 3 months, 4 months until we decided to go back out on tour and we figured that out. And I was in the backyard and Leanne came back with like 2 tall boy German Pilsners and cracked them.

And she goes, this type of beer. And I was like, fuck yeah. And man, that second, that beer buzz is different than anything. Yeah. Because the second it touches you, you feel the sparkle and you're just like, yeah, baby, I'm back.

And then she's like, you want another 1? I'm like, fuck yeah. And then we have another 1. And that beer buzz is, especially an afternoon beer buzz, is just so pretty. It's different than a night beer buzz.

A night beer buzz is like, oh, I guess we'll have a beer and then have a couple, I gotta go to work tomorrow, all right. But that afternoon irresponsible beer buzz, Pilsner. Pilsner, I don't mind an IPA, but it's gotta be at, I gotta be at somewhere. I gotta be at somewhere. They gotta have an IPA, like a local IPA.

There's gotta be food involved. And then I'm enjoying an IPA. I threw up an IPA in a bathtub in Salt Lake City 1 time. It was a bad.

What do you mean, oh, you threw up in the bathtub, okay.

No, no, no, I was drinking in the bathtub.

Like bathtub with some water in it?

No, no, no, no.

You're sitting in a bathtub.

No, I'm getting ready to take a shower. I had a growler of IPA. Yeah, it's about 6 in the morning

Yeah, I

have to fly that day to Vegas to jump off the stratosphere

Yeah,

all I need is a little bit of a buzz to get myself on this fucking plane Yeah I've anxiety going through my fucking head because I'm jump I'm be the first person to jump off the stratosphere. And so I'm drinking an IPA out of a growler in a bathtub at 6 in the morning, and it just didn't sit right, and I threw it up, and I was off IPAs for like 10 fucking years. I didn't have another IPA until I was like 46. Because I was like, all I could think about was throwing up that IPA in a bathtub, in a shower and being like, I'm gonna throw up thinking about it. But yeah, I didn't fuck with IPAs for a while.

And then during the pandemic, I got back into IPAs.

I was that way with Jack and Coke, Jack Daniels and Coke. Really? Got so drunk many, many years ago that just couldn't look at

it for a few years. I can't touch, What's Janis Joplin's drink? Southern Comfort, I can't tell Southern Comfort.

She's just drinking straight? Well, Southern Comfort is at 40%, that's hard.

No, it's almost like a liqueur, honestly, it's really sweet. Jack, Double Jack on the Rocks, Lots of Rocks.

I

mean, I had a quote that, I got a video that went viral about, I'll never quit drinking. And I have not gotten on a plane since that without having a flight attendant not even ask what I want. Walk up with a double jack on the rocks, lots of rocks. I mean, it happens. So, on times I don't wanna drink.

Yeah. I flew to Austin the other day, I was like, I'm not drinking. On the plane, well, cause I felt sick. Yeah. And man, he walked up and he goes, double Jack on the rocks, lost the rocks.

I was like, fuck, you know it.

Yeah.

But yeah, That's my drink. Wait, what's your drink? I thought you'd be a vodka guy.

Well, vodka I associate with a lot of moments in my life of happiness, because vodka is associated with shots and camaraderie. And there's Eastern Europe in general, a bunch of guys get together and you celebrate life intensely. People fight, people just feel, people experience life in a deep way, just get too drunk for a reason. But I don't see that as like drinking drinking. That's like a journey towards a destination.

It's like, to me, drinking is like whiskey neat. Or beer, like you said, ice cold beer. This is that afternoon beer. Like for a person like me, who's extremely regimented and disciplined, sometimes you get to a situation. I just remember, I mean, just, I remember there's a bar at MIT where I just remember in the afternoon there was like a business meeting.

I sat down, we started with a beer and they were like really crisply cold, some kind of lager, and then just 1 beer and 2 beers and all of a sudden you say, fuck it. Let's just, the rest of the day, this is what this is. And you said, Bright, like, you just, life and nature is beautiful out there. And you just said, fuck it to all the meetings, fuck it to everything else, just the camaraderie, the just talking about life, being silly, being, you know, all of that.

See that, see, you're describing something I'll never get because I'm not regimented. I would love, I would love, I would love, only for the moment that you get to have, you get the most precious little angel's breath that anyone's going to get because you live this life that's dialed in and it's scheduled. And so when you say fuck it, it's like, that's like me doing Coke. Like, it's like, Oh, fuck it. And you can just do that with beer.

That is fucking amazing. I would love to live a regimented life just to get the chance to go, Hey guys, I'm not performing surgery today. Fuck it. Hey guys, this, this bus full of kids, kids got to drive itself home. Fuck it.

I couldn't even tell you, you know what's so interesting about me and you is you know I'm a fan of yours. I couldn't even, I don't really know what AI is, other than like, dildos are AI, right? Like.

-. Like if it has some electronics in it.

It's a 5 by 6.

No, I don't think a dildo classifies as a robot.

Cause I thought that's how they were gonna take over fucking mankind. Just. Well, they start with these, the fucking womanizer that knows how to eat a pussy, and then they're like, we don't need men anymore. But like, it's so interesting that I couldn't even, like I can barely tell you what my dad does for a living. He's a lawyer, I could kind of, like he's called me and said, hey man, you gotta stop talking about what I do because you're not doing it right.

I go, what do you mean? He's like, whatever you're saying I do, I don't do. And so, but like I couldn't even begin to explain your job to my daughter.

Well, I think there's the way you do the job, which is the way you experience life, the regimented, even just a 9 to 5 job, right?

Do you work 9 to 5?

No, but I work much more than that. But there's no, every kind of lifestyle has its complexities. I think 9 to 5 means you have to wake up at a certain time every day.

Do people tell you to pull it back and then like hey, you're working too hard?

Yeah, a lot of people. What I want in my life, what I love in my life, especially people close to me, are the ones that say work harder. Because everybody.

How do you get them? How do you get them? I don't have anyone in my life that does that.

Everybody's always worried about me.

Yeah, everyone's worried about me. Everyone's always worried about me. The only thing, no 1 ever says, if I showed you my DMs right now, my texts, All it is is like, hey man, I'm worried about you. Like Joe, I love Joe to death. Not once has he, he always, I don't know if you've seen the caring Joe eyes where like, I'm worried about you.

Where it's like, And you're like, hey man, don't do that. And he's like, I'm worried about you. And you're like, don't fucking worry about me. I'm working, I'm just working. I love working, I love what I do.

I love what I do. I can only imagine that you love what you do as much as I love what I do, because that's all I ever wanna think about, it's all I ever wanna talk about, it's all I ever wanna be like, I, when my wife wants me to take August and whatever, August, whatever the fuck another month is.

September, that's

coming after August. No, but like July and August off, after we do fully loaded. And I was like, no. I was like, what do you mean? Like, so like, well, I'll just, am I like sitting in a chair and stuff?

She's like, no, you can do, like take up a hobby. I go writing jokes. Can I get on stage? Can I do sets in the city? Cause I'm not going to fucking, do you want me to like, like, I don't understand what, I don't understand people who don't, I don't understand people who don't I don't Understand people don't have the drive to work All the time.

I don't understand that I envy it. I envy it cuz I go I would love To just be like I'm gonna play video games. I can't play a video game If I did I'll be on Twitch trying to make money. Like, I love, how do you find someone who goes, you need to work harder?

Yeah, especially when they see, like, I don't know what you look like, but I look tormented when I'm working very hard. Like, it means, like, it's easy to worry for my wellbeing. It's not like I'm a happy-go-lucky, but I'm happy underneath it.

My working too hard is like on a plane every other day or every day, getting up at 6, working out, and then going until like 2 in the morning, or 1 in the morning, and then going to sleep, and then getting up at 6, working out, getting on a plane, going to another place. Like that's what my working, it's just a lot of travel in mine.

If I

didn't drink on planes, I don't think anyone would probably worry about me at all. They'd be like, no, you're doing great.

But the working out is there. So I gotta ask you, because you and I seem to have a similar relationship with running. I like this idea of slow treadmill. I like running slow. You know, like a 10 minute mile or something like this, I'll just run forever.

Just listen to an audio book, listen to brown noise, think, I love it. What's brown noise? It's actually brownian noise, but short brown noise. It's kind of like white noise, but deeper. So it's just noise like shh, that.

Oh wow. It kind

of sounds like a waterfall. And I'll just listen to it and something happens to me. I think there's, you can ask Huberman about this, I don't, but apparently there's some science that kind of focuses the mind and so on.

It's funny because I think sometimes what people don't get about running is they go, they get on and they put it on like a 6 right away, on like a treadmill, and they go, I can't do this for fucking 30 minutes. But you can if you build yourself up to your 6, And you play games, I play games with myself a lot. Like I'll play games where I go, and I can do this, I can do this, I can do this almost, not all day long, but I can do this a lot longer. Like I did it for 2 hours the other day before my workout, or no, an hour and a half before my workout, where I started at 3.5 walking. And then I get my jog up to like a 5 and then I'm like 5.5 and then I go 6 and then I go...

And once I'm at a 6, my body's really loose. And so then I go, all right, bring it down to a 3.5 and then I go punch it to a 7.5 for a quarter of a mile. And then let's walk at a 4, let's jog at A5I can do that. I love, they're called fartlets, I think. And I love those, like where it's like, it's regimented running and sprinting at certain levels.

I love that and I love also when I work out to listen to music but put on foreign language cooking shows on Netflix.

Can you explain that?

They just put it on mute, you don't need to hear it. For some reason they're sexier, the way they're shot they're sexier.

Yeah.

And it's like Street food Asia and they're just watching them make street food in Asia. There's 1 called broth It's called broth the nation of broth and they're just making broths and you're like fuck. I want some broth

So this is South America's is Asia

South America Asia They do 1 on pizzas I've watched this 1 on pizzas that I've watched it there's like 4 episodes I've watched every episode so many times that my trainer goes, God, that's that fucking, I could watch that again. I love watching foreign language cooking shows on mute

when I work out. While blasting music.

While blasting hip hop.

You dare? All right, well, I usually run outside, but I do

this kind of thing. I don't mind hiking. And I like, like, you know what, my fun thing, the fun thing I would do, and this is a, this is ripped off totally from campaigns is I like to go, uh, there's a great hike called Framing Canyon out in the valley where I live. And I'd be like, all right, I'm going to run to Framing Canyon. I'm going to jog to Framing Canyon.

I'm going to hike Framing Canyon, and then I'm going to jog back. And they were wondering how long that is. And I go, don't think about it. Just know that that's your thing. Just know that that's your thing.

And then all of a sudden you're like, shit, that was 8 miles? You're like, that's a fucking beast. The hike doesn't even feel like anything. The hike, once you do the jog, is the hard part there. The jog home is a fucking cakewalk.

I had the best jog when I was in Serbia. I had the best jog, I think it was in Hyde Park. I think the name of the park is Hyde Park. It was, get this, it was 80% downhill. Wow.

So this jog, you started the park and it was like, and I'll do it like this for you. You went like downhill like this, Downhill like this, downhill like this. And then it was like a little steep incline to get to the beginning of it. So it was like a little like nice, like lower back pain. And you're like, okay, okay.

And then the jog was perfect.

And you

did it 4 times, it was 4 miles. I loved it. My very first day I did it, a butterfly got in front of me, it's like 6 in the morning, yeah, 6 in the morning, a butterfly got in front of me and it ran the whole first mile in front of me and I just, it was like so surreal. It would disappear and then it would show back up in front of

me. Yeah, you sure it was real?

Yeah, Definitely real. And then the next day, and so I go, I'm on the right path. I'm on the right path. The next day I go for a jog, 6 in the morning, and it rained. And as I'm doing this deep uphill incline, a tree collapsed in front of me.

Just went... And I went, whoa, a tree fell in the woods and I was here to see it. Shut the fuck up. I was like, that's crazy. And it didn't hit me.

I'm on the right path. And then I started getting over thinking it like the next day I saw Condom and I was like, this is a good place to go. I was like, people fucked here last night. But yeah, that was 1 of the best jogs I've ever had. I could run that park every single day and no 1 jogged that park in Serbia.

I actually recently had a condom on my doorstep and I wanted to ask whoever is up there above what that means, what the story behind that is.

Just a pissed off UPS guy. Was it compromised?

What do you mean compromised?

Like was there stuff inside it?

Oh, I didn't look.

I mean, very few people put on the condom and go, it's not for me, I'm gonna take it off. It's a little tight.

Well, it could be to send a message, like a horse's head kind of thing.

Oh yeah. I don't know. I

don't know what the message is exactly.

Do you use condoms? If you had a 1 night stand, would you use a condom?

I don't know what a condom is. I never heard

of it.

Good call. I'm learning. Good call. I've learned about sex from you today.

If my wife dies, there's no condoms in my future. I'll get it, I don't care. I'll have babies, I don't give a shit.

You're a man of principle, I like it. Mark Maron wrote something about your book many, many, many ages ago, Life of the Party. I think there's an interesting question in there. So first of all, wrote eloquently about you. Bert Kreischer is 1 of the great American wild men.

A gonzo warrior driven not by cynicism or a desire to reveal dark truths, but instead by a deep, almost essential need to have a good time, no matter what. His stories track the trials and tribulations of a big hearted dude trying to fit in, help out and party and find himself. After all is said and done, we arrive with him at the true humility of joy. So when was this desire for pure joy born in you? It seems like you are driven towards this joy.

Yeah.

I think, I think I arrived at it in college. I wasn't always the guy I am. I was really a pretty serious dude like when I got to college.

Like dark brooding serious?

Yeah, I wanted to be like Eddie Vedder. I wanted to be like a poet and a fucking lead singer and I wanted to be taken seriously and I wanted to be attractive and I wanted to be, I wanted to be wanted by chicks and respected by dudes. And slowly but surely, I think the bird-eye really am chipped away at that and was like, hey man. Like I would say funny things that would surprise me they were so funny. Meaning like in my fraternity I'd say things that were the funniest thing that I go, how did I think

of that?

And then slowly I was like, and I remember as I chipped away at that And as I got older, I would, I would, I would lean towards that. We would go on a bus trip to like Clemson and I would get on the, the, the, the walkie talkie on the bus and I would do standup for like an hour. I just make jokes for an hour. And I loved the impulse of like, you know, you get on the bus and everyone's like, we're going to drink. And you get that 1 group of girls that wasn't going to drink and then to break them.

And they're like, oh, fuck it. Fine. Let's drink. And then that, to watch that happen. And I think, and then when I went to Russia, this is so cliche for me to say, but interacting with those young banditi, they were pretty serious dudes.

They didn't have like, they were pretty stoic dudes. And when you could make them laugh it was like a real, it was a real joy. The silliest things. I remember, you know, we were told there was a club, it was called Café Europa or maybe Café Americana. That was where everyone really hung out, like all the real dudes, the real dudes, in St.

Petersburg. And they had told us that, like they told us in our class that Russian women didn't have tampons. So they were like, bring tampons to give to the babushka, the dabushka that ran the floor.

After all this time, the fact that your Russian sucks is awesome.

Yeah, it's-

You keep mispronouncing words horribly.

I horribly, I'm so fucking bad. Yeah. I am so bad. You know that's how I got the name of the machine, right?

Yeah.

I was trying to say I'm

a man. Machina, yeah.

And I said I'm a car. Yeah. And they just were like, huh? And so I came into the room 1 night with a top pocket full of tampons.

Yeah.

And they were like, what are those for? I said, girls, how are we going to pick up girls? And the look on their face was so, it was so pure joy. I remember the first night I pulled out lemons and this is, it sounds, it sounds make believe now to say it because it's been in the movie. I brought out lemons, we were in lemon drops.

I had vodka and lemons and sugar and a pocket knife and a fanny pack and I put out lemons and this guy Igor goes, oh, the machine runs on lemons? It was just so foreign that you would need lemon for them. And so I think, and I made friends with those guys, friends, whatever you can, but definitely me and that guy Igor were legit friends, legit friends.

But from a place of joy, like rejoicing in life.

Yeah, it was like real...

Seeing them light up.

And then I remember backpacking through Europe after that and realizing I could bring a spark of fun to like a campfire. And I had little tricks, like I learned all the currencies around the world. And so I'd challenge people to a currency game. I'd go, let's go head to head. You say, you name a country in the currency and I'll name a country in the currency.

And I would slow roll them. I'd just do all the dollars, right? The Chinese dollar, the American dollar, the Australian dollar. I'd run through all the dollars and they'd be like, you only know the dollars. And then I'd start getting really deep.

I could make an event out of a night. In Europe, I could make an event. I remember we were in Strasbourg and the bar was supposed to close, but I had friends coming to the bar. The train hadn't gotten in yet. And I said, don't close the bar.

I'll stand on the bar and I'll entertain everyone in this room. I'll dance, I'll do whatever if you just keep the bar open. And the guy goes, if you can keep me laughing, I'll keep the bar open. And I danced and made this guy laugh on a bar for legit, I'm not even saying, like, legit 30 minutes until my friends walked in and They're like, what the fuck's going on? I had this ability to, to, without humility, I had my looking like a fool and like doing, and there were really stupid jokes at the time.

Just very like base American frat boy jokes. But I had a spark. And when I came back, I feel, I feel like I learned how to like To do that and do funny things that were like fun Like I would we go to a football game and I'd I brought a camera around with me a lot I like to take pictures and I remember 1 of the jokes I'd go is I go. Hey everybody I told my parents I have a lot of friends. Can you guys gather around and we'll take a picture?

And so 50 people would lean around like, hey, and just the dumbest, silliest things. And I wasn't a big self promoter, So these would happen and I was just doing them for me and my friends. I'd bring a guitar out and I'd just make up songs. And so I think in watching this serious Bert get chipped away at until my like 6 and a half year of college where it was just this silly guy and then Rolling Stones written about me and I'm like and then I'm like well and I remember a couple serious dads going yo you got a chance to turn this into something you need to go to you need to follow your dream And I tried to stand up the first night and I was like, maybe not, wasn't the funniest guy, but man, they laughed and we had a good time for 30 minutes and it worked and it was stream of consciousness. And I was like, yeah.

And then of course, you know, That same little path you take gets convoluted in New York because you want to be a serious comic and you want to be taken seriously and you want to be edgy and you want to say the, and then slowly but surely the real Bert chips away at it and he's like, yo man, just fucking take your shirt off and kill a beer. Like fucking tell the machine a story. Tell a story about your stupid kids. Like just, you don't need to be the fucking edgiest dude in the room, leave that to the good ones. Let Bill and fucking Joe and Tom, those are the legit fucking gangster comics.

I mean, those are the fucking, You're never gonna out fucking Chappelle. Those guys are fucking gangsters. Do what you do, have fun. Make life fun and seize the day and fucking try to bring a spark to people and let them forget about their fucking day.

And the interesting thing about alcohol, I don't really like drinking in terms of the actual physical like how it makes me feel, but there's the camaraderie that happens. I wish there was another way to get there, but I don't think there is. That joy you get of just everybody getting together and taking shots or drinking, not the polite kind of drinking, but just everybody just the fuck it kind of drinking.

Yeah, and when someone goes, all right, I'm in. Like that's the funnest. And then especially when you have a big group and there's like a big group. And like we were at the premiere the other night and and uh and I was working I was legit working. I don't I'm trying to sell the movie to outlets media outlets and Bustling with the boy bustling with the boys My wife flew them in to surprise me and they're over on the red carpet and they're like, yo, let's let's scuttle beer, let's kill a beer.

And I was like, oh, and then I'm like, oh, fuck it. I don't give a, this is what life's about. And that moment where they're like, yeah, that's the funnest fucking, especially when I can get Leanne to do it. When I get Leanne to get a drink and she'll, and she's like, like I wasn't supposed to drink last night. And she was like, you want to just, we should go have a glass of wine in the front yard.

And you're like, oh, my heart skips a beat. I go glass of wine in the front yard. Are we going to talk wild? Are we going to say crazy shit to each other? Like, fuck yeah.

On the front yard.

Front yard, yeah. What are

you doing in the front yard?

Let the dogs play. Oh. Big trees in the front yard.

Why are you sitting on the, where were you sitting?

Sitting in the Adirondacks on the front porch, letting the dogs play, letting the dogs rest in the front yard, maybe go over, pick some cherries, look at the fucking trees, hear the wind going through the front yard, and then you go to the backyard, that's where the cigar comes out, a little more privacy. But yeah,

red wine,

red wine, I'm all back. Keep our sulfites low.

Yeah, wine is a whole nother 1 too. I feel sophisticated.

Oh, yeah.

I've, I went, I traveled before Ukraine, I went to Paris for the first time and drank wine there and I felt like I was a sophisticated man, you know? Dude.

I mean.

I didn't speak much French, but.

You don't need

to. You don't need to.

Just start smoking too, just have a fucking cigarette. I was

going to start writing poetry. Dude, Hemingway.

There's a, like a glass of wine in Italy and like, uh, like just out in, like we went, we went, ah, the most beautiful fucking day of my life. Just outside Florence. It, they have all the vineyards and stuff. And we took a Vespa tour and, uh, And it was fucking, and Isla's too young to ride, so she's on the back. And now everyone can drink there, you know?

You're not supposed to drink and drive Vespas, but they go, a glass of wine is nothing. And you're like, okay, I guess I'll have a couple then. If you think one's nothing, then I think two's nothing also.

So this is drunk Bert on a Vespa?

Not even drunk, but just lightly feathered. Yeah. And it's beautiful. My wife hasn't been drinking. Georgia has, Georgia's too young.

Isla is too young. But I had, at dinner we had a couple and we're going through these hills and it starts raining. And it starts raining. And I go, Isla, what are we missing? And she goes, music, big boy.

And I go, what do you want to hear? And then she just starts going, Ooka, Shaka, Ooka, Ooka, Ooka, Shaka, Ooka, Ooka. I can't stop this feeling. She's screaming it behind. And then I hear Georgia screaming it, and then Leanne singing it, and then Sandy and her 2 daughters are singing it.

We're all in these Vespas and we're all singing it. And I swear to God, if I hadn't been lightly feathered, I don't know if I would have been like, I don't know, what are we missing? Because alcohol will give you that thing like, what's next? What's bigger? How do we take this to the next level?

And then I got this little girl who's still my little girl at that moment when she's singing, sing it. All the good times, even up so high, even up girl. And then we stop at the light and all of us are looking, and it's pouring rain.

Ah! Yeah.

Uh, uh, don't do the feeling, don't. It is, I mean, I remember sobbing, crying, sobbing, crying, sobbing, crying. And then I was like, let's get these fucking Vespas up and get to a vineyard. And then we went to a vineyard and all the girls tried a little wine. No 1 got buzzed or anything, but you're just sitting there with your family going like, fuck, dude.

And I'm not certain you get that without a little bit of.

A little bit, but then a lot is also interesting. I had a lot of whiskey with Rogan once.

I think I saw that.

Yeah.

I think I saw that with Whitney too.

You was Whitney.

In the pushup concert contest.

With David Goggins. The only time I met David Goggins in person, 1 of the great embarrassments of my life is trashed out of my mind. I'm trying to say how much of a fan I am, and I could tell by the look in his eye that what is actually coming out of my mouth is not good. It's not good. And his wife is embarrassed standing right there also.

Just everybody's embarrassed for me. Man, I'm trying my best. And then somehow I find myself a minute later doing push-ups with him as a challenge. I just, it wasn't counting. All I knew, I'm not stopping.

And he was polite enough to stop. I think probably like 50, I don't know.

There's a gift someone gives you when they get drunk and they allow you, they get drunk and they lower their guard and they allow you to see them that way. It's a gift, It's a real gift. It's just as cool as like pulling someone aside and going yo, I'm into anime Like are you cool with that? And then they're going? Yeah.

Oh, yeah Can I show you some cool anime and then you're like that's not my thing, but it's like a cool thing It's like sharing cool music with someone or like tell them something about your childhood? When you get drunk, like real drunk around someone, you're giving them a gift, and that gift is, I want you to see me for everything I am. You're not gonna get any lies, you're not gonna get any bullshit. This is me at my absolute worst. I have a rule, I will never, never get mad at someone for getting too fucked up.

Because they're giving you a gift. They're saying like, yo, I did this on accident, but I trust you enough to let you know that this is who I am and this is what you're getting. I love it, I love it, especially when it comes from someone you don't expect, like you? Shut the fuck up. David Goggins should have hugged you and said, thanks for showing me this.

Yeah, I guess, you're right, I haven't thought of it that way, there's an intimacy to that. That is a gift of fragility, like this is me, I mean I'm a very loving drunk, but boy am I a dumb drunk.

I'm just dumb. I bet you haven't seen dumb drunk.

Well, dumb in terms of the eloquence of the words that are coming out of my mouth. So like you're just not stitching words together correctly to make sentences. No. I turn into Hemingway lost in translation. Like I'll start saying random words, but like translated to Japanese and back to English.

It's not making any sense. But there's love. Like I think what you feel is this kind of desire to connect that I think I always feel towards other people, but when I'm drunk, I'm just say, fuck it. I don't need to be polite. I'll just be loving fully.

Yeah, yeah, it's cool when people let you see that in them. Cause some people are really like measured, like no 1 drink and then I'm done. I don't want it now. No, no, no. And you're like, Oh, show me a little more.

And then like, it's cool. And I never, like, I love, my favorite moments in the next morning when they're like, did I make an ass out of myself? And you get to say, not at all. Not at all. That's the coolest thing.

Because some people, bad people, will leverage that over you. Yeah. You can see it's a bully tactic. They'll leverage that. The bad interactions I've had in this business that we were talking about earlier, there were people that when you got fucked up, they used it against you.

They held it over your head and they said, listen, man, I don't know what the fuck, but if you want, and you're like, hold on. And then they made you, they gaslight you into thinking you were the only 1 that was fucked up. And you're like, okay, I guess I know who you are now. And I was like, didn't you get fucked up a little bit too? Like, I know we smoked weed and I thought we ate Xanax, but what about the, I know I had a couple beers, but I wasn't that fucked up.

Well, Whitney's really good at that, because she's the person, I woke up the next morning and she said, you're wonderful, you're eloquent, you're great. I'm sure she was making that up completely.

It was funny, I got blackout drunk at Whitney's roast of me, like blackout drunk, don't remember any of it. And don't remember any of it, don't remember speaking on the microphone, I don't remember talking in the microphone. And I did the set apparently. Yeah. And I said to Whitney, like in a real moment of vulnerability, Whitney's like a sister to me, like a legit sister.

My daughters call her Aunt Whitney, Leanne's like a sister to Leanne. If she comes over to do a podcast, Whitney will show up an hour early and sit with Leanne out in Leanne's rose garden and just talk. And Whitney, I said the next day I called Whitney and I was getting on a plane and I knew I was hungover. I said, how bad was I last night? She goes, you were fucking fantastic.

And just didn't let me sit with it. And then I watched the video and I was like, oh, I was fucking out of control. I was way out of control. Thank you for lying to me.

Yeah, so while being a wild out there comic, she's also this caring and loving human being.

She's so interesting. She is, she has the most nurturing sensibility. She is, she sends my daughter's gifts out of nowhere just out of nowhere They're send Georgia gifts up at college. It's just a gift box. Like she is just she takes care of people

That's her love language. And she's also the person that taught me what the hell love language even means. Apparently there's a book and there's like 5 of them.

You and Whitney, I would love to sit in a fucking room and watch you 2 talk.

Yeah, she has a robot that looks like her. And that's the future, that robot.

I told her she should have that robot do porn. Let someone fuck that robot. And then, and she can deep fake the face if she wants, but I go, promote a special that way.

Like a full on, not like Showtime soft core porn, like full on porn porn.

Full on like the dude like, he's like, hi, welcome inside. Yeah. You look tired, do you need a drink? Yeah. Oops, I'm stuck in the dryer, you know,

what's the promotion you're most proud of that you've done

Without a doubt. It's got to be when I took dance lessons

Yeah, that was epic

because I tried to get Joe and Tom and Ari to do it for sober October

I was rooting for you

and they said no just like absolutely not I

knew Joe was gonna say no,

but Joe's a legit dancer like he can legit dance He took like dance lessons for a movie and is apparently an amazing dancer.

And so. You're right, he could have said yes. He could have said yes, because I remember listening to that podcast where you really made the pitch.

Yeah, and I said, we all take hip hop dance lessons. Your cardio's through the roof. And you do an hour dance lesson, and then we all do a hip hop dance, and then we all put our hip hop dances against each other, and we see who has the best hip hop dance. It's different than the typical stuff we do. It's fun.

And we can also work out, we can do everything, but like, let's do hip hop dance. And Joe adamantly was like, that's a horrible idea. I will not do that. And then, and then Tom and Ari just, you know, just whatever. They were like, yeah, I side with Joe, we'll do something else.

And then I was like, but I knew I liked hip hop dance. And so I was like, I'm gonna take hip hop dance lessons anyway, I'm gonna just do it over Sober October and I'm just gonna, I'm gonna fucking do it. And then maybe I'll do a hip hop dance video and then show it to them and let them rate me. And then we did it and it was $1, 200 and I, for hip hop dance lessons for like a month or whatever for like a couple of weeks. And then when we did it, I thought, you know what, I bet we could put tour dates next to this.

Cause it turned out being like kind of good, but kind of funny. I bet we could put tour dates next to this. Because it turned out being kind of good, but kind of funny. I bet we could put tour dates next to this. And it was the beginning of me figuring out the whole, my promos were short and quick, and they were always something silly.

What's up, guys? It's your boy, Bert Kreischer. And then that 1 blew up and immediately I was announcing the tour and immediately every tour date sold out. And then every, we added shows that day we added shows and every 1 of those sold out. And I was like, whoa.

And then Tom was like, the fuck was that? And I was like, I think I just sold out my whole fucking tour. And then when Tom did his 1 like that and put his tour dates on it.

Yeah, Went over the top.

He sold all his tours and he was like, whoa, he's like, dude, I sold out every fucking show. We've added shows. I'm doing like an arena here. And this is before we were doing arenas. I was like, shut the fuck up.

And that changed my game where I was like, all right, so everything's got to be. And then, and then I was like, I don't mind spending a little money And then the next 1 I did was the marching band and I was just like and but it was you know It's real crazy. I just said Can you guys get me a marching band and they were like, yes, like it's like 2400 bucks I go cool and they're like, What do you want them to do? And I go, I don't know. We'll figure it out.

And they came over and they had outfits and they were like, so where did, what did, what do you want us to play? I go, what song do you guys know? And then they didn't even know each other. They were all hired people and they were like rubber band man. And I was like, Oh sure.

Yeah. And then we just scripted it out. I was like, all right, I'll pretend it's a regular thing. Let's do weights I'll walk out and then I'll blow a whistle and then you come out with the doom-doom-doom-doom and Then and then we got like 2 videos out of that and that sold out dates and I was like fuck And then and then And then and then and then and then and then the real baller 1 the fucking real 1 the real 1 was I tore all the muscles in my arm going into and shooting the movie and I ripped all the tricep muscles off and they were retracted, so I had to go in for surgery. And the anesthesiologist said to me the night before, he's like, what music do you want going in, going under?

And I was like, what? And he goes, you can pick your music going under. I said, wait, hold on. What is it like? What do you go?

I go, is it like casual? And he was like, yeah. I said, I'm doing a promo read going under. He goes, what do you mean? I said, I'll explain it to you tomorrow, but I'm not going to count backwards.

I'm just going to do a promo read until I pass out.

And

my phone's going to fall on the ground. All I need you to do is hit stop record. And so they rolled me into surgery. I had red rocks. I'd only sold like 75% of red rocks, which is the biggest 10, 000.

It's the biggest venue I'd ever played in. And I rolled in with my thing, with CCR playing in the background, and I just was like, as I lay here on this mat, or on this steel pile, I was terrified as I go into surgery, I want you to know 1 thing. I'm playing Red Rock, September 10th. And then I started doing my promo read, and he was like, yeah, I go, Jimmy Buffett's there the night before and the night after. He's like, for real?

I go, yeah, you wanna come? He's like, hell yeah. He's like, all right. He's like, you're going under. And he hits it.

I go, oh, sure. And I dropped the phone, woke up out of surgery, and the first thing I said is, where's my phone? And he goes, you got it. And Leanne's like, I've already watched it, it's good. And I went, for real?

And so that was a big 1, that was a big 1 too.

Yeah, that was genius, but that was sort of opportunity kind of jumping at an idea. Have you ever met Mr. Beast, Jimmy? No. So I got to hang out with him for a day, listen to him brainstorm with the team ideas.

He kind of sounds like you, but on steroids in terms of like, first of all, willing to spend any amount of money on an idea. Like anything, anything is allowed. Anything is allowed. I love that energy. The only thing is no like rated R stuff.

So he's really trying to go like for the broader audience, for kids and so on. So that's the limitation. So you can't do, like most of the ideas that pop into my head when anything's allowed is kinda dark. But the point is to really aggressively brainstorm every single day at the whiteboard, like what, and he does that for YouTube Shorts too, for 1 minute videos. And just like really, like what is the coolest thing we could possibly do?

I love that, I love that energy.

And that energy, most people don't do that, and they should. Basically YouTubers do that because they're obsessed about this particular YouTube algorithm and so on and Jimmy is the best at that. But like, that can benefit you if you're a scientist, if you're a comedian, if you're whatever. Just go all out.

There's something really authentically fun about just coming up with a really stupid idea and just going, let's see what happens. Who gives a fuck? We've had those, like, I thought I could catch an arrow 1 time and my wife's like, absolutely fucking not. And I go, I really think I can. I go, let's just get really close, shoot it, and then I'll see if I can catch it and She's like no That's not what you're doing and then my cousin's like hey We could cheat it to make you look like you caught narrow and I went what he was just okay Let's do it like this and so we did it They got sold a ton of tickets.

It looks like I really caught it. Everyone knows I didn't catch an arrow I mean for the movie we did a promo Legendary was like you do all the promos and we did a promo and I thought I could slide out of my car like Tom Cruz did in a in a helicopter yeah, and with roller skates and get behind the car and then skate behind the car. And we just ran over my foot. And it was real and it was scary, but we just caught it all. And in doing it, my cousin's like, give me the read.

And I'm like, duh, my movie comes out Memorial Day weekend. I think we have to go to the hospital. And then we went to the hospital and I'm in the Speedo with a helmet on, 1 broken roller skate. And then that did really well. And so like, I said, the whole thing is just turn the camera on.

You never know what's gonna fucking happen.

And don't be afraid to look stupid and all that kind of stuff, just go all out.

Fucking ego is the death of comedy. Like when you really give a, like it's hard to be the coolest guy in the room and still wanna be a comedian. It's just let yourself be whoever you are. And you'll see the great ones, they're like that. They don't, they're just regular fucking dudes.

And you get some real slick ones. Like Dave's probably might be the coolest guy in the fucking room. He really might be. But I think that's just who the fuck he is.

Who are the, outside your close friend group, who are the greats to you, top 5?

Outside of my friend group?

So like for me, probably Norm MacDonald, Mitch Heidberg, George Carlin, Tom Segura, number 1.

0 yeah?

No. I just wanted to say that.

It's an interesting pairing. No, Mitch Hepburg, David Tell.

David Tell.

David

Tell. Everybody deeply respects David Tell. More than even his comedy, I love the show where he was...

Insomniac.

Insomniac. He's so good at just the natural comedy of human interaction.

He's a brilliant comic, he's just a brilliant fucking mind. Norm Macdonald's a fucking genius, an absolute genius. I mean, look, you know, Chappelle and Bill Burr are the 2 best in our generation, in my opinion. And that's understanding that I'm still friends with some of the best in our generation, but just the way their brains work is really on the next level. Like, you know, those are guys, Stan Hope is the same way, just fucking genius.

You know, Rogan, Segura, those are my friend group. That's my really close friend group. But those other guys I'm friends with, but they're not like, that's like... Yeah.

Louis C.K.

Oh, Louis C.K., fuck, he's amazing. It's hard to do because you start like forgetting the people and then it's almost like people go, oh, so you didn't like that person? You're like, no, I fucking love that person.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's, for me, like Robin Williams, which is a whole nother thing.

Oh, yeah, sir Silverman Fucking I love Janine. I'm a fucking big Janine fan. I love her brain. Maren's fucking hilarious You know Patton's brilliant David cross I mean there's like it's you know It's really to ignore those guys and those guys were like the whole forefront of the alternative comedy front. They're fucking amazing.

Yeah, and the people that have like Marin or Joe that have podcasts, it's interesting. It's an interesting pairing, because you get to know like everything about them, but then they're also comedians. And I've gotten, I've gone to Joe's club a lot. I listen to Joe and just that whole group of comics do comedy and go to the same set over and over and over and to see how it changes. It's really cool.

It's the coolest thing when I first started to watch, someone like Attell was really brilliant at it because you'd watch him tinker with a set. Yeah. And he'd have an idea like hitting someone over the head with a hammer from behind and then he'd work it 9 different ways, you know, and you'd be like, whoa. So the hitting hammer in the head is the thing that he's working on.

I hope Eddie Murphy comes back. He's 1 of the greats. Chris Rock.

Chris Rock's fucking, Bring the Pain is like the reason I got into comedy.

Yeah. Do you have advice for young folks? You seem like a stellar example of a successful human being. Or more seriously, a very kind of non-linear life. Do you have advice for young people in high school and college how to have a good life they

can be proud of? Don't worry too much about what you do when you get older, but when you do start worrying, Find the thing you love and it'll never feel like work. To fucking, I can't imagine what it must feel like to be a lawyer and have to read papers or whatever they do all day and know that that's my day. I mean, It must feel like what school felt like for me. If you find that thing you love to do, you will work endlessly, effortlessly, and hard as fucking shit every day, and you'll love every day of your life.

Find what you love and let it kill you, Bukowski said that.

Then that's the fucking thing, because that's what I'm doing. I'm letting it fucking take, I'm on that fucking bullet train to fucking nowhere on this fucking comedy journey. I love it, I love it.

So it's like the Hunter S. Thompson thing, what is it, however you put it, basically you're not supposed to be, end up in a well-preserved box, you slide in sideways, smoke, just beat up. Yeah. Just a giant mess.

I love those guys that can really live that life that are like, yeah man, I'm breaking it. I'm breaking it down like a guy like Tony Hawk or Matt Hoffman, who's like, yeah, if I don't fucking break the fuck out of this thing before I, then I'm not doing it right.

Then again, there's also Churchill who tried to break the thing and he couldn't. Lived into his 90s a bad motherfucker.

Just a bad motherfucker.

So I guess the only hope we can have for Bert Kreischer is that you're gonna be the Winston Churchill of comedy.

My life is lived perfectly If I'm 95 years old and all my friends are dead. Yeah. Yeah. And they're like, they're like, can you believe that wolf got Rogan? Yeah.

Can you believe Segura, 600 pounds and they had to carry him out in a crane out of that house. Can you believe that it's just Burt Kreischer and Joey Diaz

left? Just standing there in October, super October, just the 2 of you left, Just laughing.

October is just, I'm 95 at the Mark Twain Awards and they're like, Bert Kreischer's still fucking here. Who saw that coming?

I hope so. Bert, I'm a huge fan of yours. It meant so much to me when you said that you knew who I was, like we were talking about. It just, it's so cool, it's so cool. Thank you for putting so much joy and love out there in the world.

I'm a huge fan, and thank you for the love you've given me.

Thank you, man, I am a huge fan of yours. You keep doing you, I'll keep doing me, and then let's see if we can meet in the middle sometime and have a cold beer in the afternoon.

Love you, brother.

Love you.

Thanks for listening to this conversation with Bert Kreischer. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from Hunter S. Thompson. Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skin in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, wow, what a ride.

Thank you for listening. I hope to see you