Bert Kreischer is a comedian, actor, and podcaster. Check him out on Bertcast, 2 Bears 1 Cave, Something is Burning, and the new movie The Machine. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Bert's Instagram: https://instagram.com/bertkreischer/
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Books mentioned:
Life of the Party (book): https://amzn.to/42lHjKg

PODCAST INFO:
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OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
1:27 - Hemingway
4:54 - Putin
8:13 - Churchill
10:34 - Kim Jong Un
12:34 - Drinking with Joe Rogan and Tom Segura
21:02 - Father
24:52 - Shirtless
26:57 - Tom Segura
37:47 - Joe Rogan
40:36 - Dating advice
48:43 - Key to success
58:56 - Sleep and working out
1:08:11 - History podcasts
1:13:34 - Road trips
1:20:06 - Beer
1:29:34 - Exercise
1:35:15 - Life of the Party
1:42:58 - Drinking
2:01:31 - Greatest comedian of all time
2:04:18 - Advice for young people

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Well, you don't have to tell me a thing about Winston Churchill.

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.

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.

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.

There's a quote, there's nothing to writing.

All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

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.

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 they're like, yeah, but no, the Sun Also Rises.

And they're like, no, the Sun Also Rises.

And I went, oh, 0, yeah, that is fucking bad-ass.

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.

Yeah, he was so good with just a handful of words.

The simplicity, the choice of words, like basically his process is carving down.

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.

So for you, editing is destroying the original genius.

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.

He goes, yeah, and I just told it and I went, done.

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?

It was simple that your daughter didn't know how they'd figure out where deaf kids lived.

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 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.

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.

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

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 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.

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, 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,

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, 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.

And you're like, oh yeah, that's the way the world works.

What world leader would you drink with if you could?

Of course Yeltsin would have been a good 1.

Like He drank wine with a spoonful of sugar in it.

Well, You don't have to tell me a thing about Winston Churchill.

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.

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.

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

was 1 of the most heroic figures in human history.

The queen was like a window-licking idiot, right?

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 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.

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?

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 actually don't like drinking with rich and powerful people often.

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

then I go, oh, that's not the way I like to do it.

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.

I just go, why don't we just get drunk and feel really good about ourselves?

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?

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.

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?

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.

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

Like I used to think this is like performative or something like this, but it's not really.

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.

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.

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.

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'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.

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 everyone goes, I don't know what that is.

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.

I ordered and they're fucking refreshing.

It's not too much, because it's just a little bit of champagne and some Campari.

And then a couple of them, and then they kind of disappear.

And then you're just walking around again.

There's other people, but they're strangers, right?

Keep going, don't walk me through all the alones, and then I'll tell you

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

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Bert Kreischer: Comedy, Drinking, Rogan, Segura, Churchill & Kim Jong Un | Lex Fridman Podcast #382