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 three 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 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 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 podcasts for many years. And I highly recommend you watch him on BirdCast, Two Bears, One 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 Bird Crusher. 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. 'Cause I can't write standup, like I can't write a bit, but if I journal, I'll find something that I go just write. Kind of writing where the pen's 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 so 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, oh yeah, that is fucking badass, yeah." And then I'm always late to the party with anything.

And then that night we were all doing Coke and it was like five in the morning and we ended up on the roof of my apartment in Greenwich Village. And 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." (laughing) - Yeah, he was so good with just a handful of words. - Yeah. - 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. (laughing) It's the best one 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 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 Louis 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.'" Louis CK says he likes the joke, it's fucking, it's in the special. 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?" 'Cause I can't get it to work anymore. He goes, "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, 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 there's a much longer story and escape room for this one.

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 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 one believed and they told their friends and their friends, or they experienced that with a friend like that.

And I think, I think that's gotta be it. I really don't know. I think there's a part of, I think there's a part of the, like our community of comedy fans that were that early death squad that 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 night that got out of control that they've probably had too. I think, I don't fucking know. - Do 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, you know, 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 kind of hope so. That would be fucking cool. And I look, I know he's a bad, I guess he's a bad dude. I don't follow politics, Don, but it'd be cool if like one day someone's like, he's on his computer and some guy goes, (speaking in foreign language) And he's like, (speaking in foreign language) And he's like, (speaking in foreign language) And he's like, and he shows it to him.

And then he's like, fucking 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 like small the world is. I've gotten to meet some incredibly like interesting people. - 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 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.

That are like, they're like some pitcher in fucking Florida that I follow the kids. I like, it's fun to watch them 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 will 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. - Yeah. - Zelensky drinks more, but also not much.

- Boris Yeltsin would have been a good one. He would have been a fucking good one. 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? - 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, do you want 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 three hours and he'd hold morning breakfast. And that's, 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, and then, I mean, and then he'd take a nap. And like, 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. - And lived like 94. - And was one of the most heroic figures in human history. Never, never surrender. I mean.

- What a fucking badass thing. You know, he taught, he taught the queen. The queen was like a window licking idiot, right? Like she was, 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 is 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 the, 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 like, they like come in and she'd be like, Winston, what did we do in Africa? And he's like, this is gonna be a tough one. And so, yeah, so, but Winston Churchill's the badass.

But if I had to drink with someone living, like drink, and there's like, there's a two obvious ones. Like, obviously it's fucking Kim Jong-un, right? You kind of want to. - He drinks. - No, he does. (laughing) You 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.

- Yeah. - Not all of them. - And I don't like a drinking meeting. Like when someone goes-- (laughing) - What's a drinking meeting? - Like 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. Our lives are very different. - You and I? - Yeah. We're in a fraternity? - No. (laughing) We could start there, no, it was not. - Okay. (laughing) - And the differences continue from there, I'm sure. - So when you get your pledge of 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? Like I never took mushrooms to see Jesus. I just wanted to enjoy Rain X on a windshield. So that for me is one 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? 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 'cause 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 gotten less regular the more millions of dollars he has.

(laughing) There's parts of him where you're like, like where you're like, oh wow, we can do this? - Yeah. - But he's a regular, he'd be like Jack on the Rocks or like probably Buffalo Trace or one 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. - Ah. - Like David Cross, I would never sit down with David Cross 'cause we don't run in the same circles, but it's nice, he has something to promote, and then he comes to my house and then we can sit down for an hour and talk, and then, or Kevin Smith.

Like people I would never really hang out with. Tom, I enjoy being alone with Tom more. - 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 like 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, 'cause 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 one of my favorite drinks in the world. - I don't even know what that is, 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, it was an old commercial, but man, it's fucking like sucking the green giant's dick. It is earthy. - What's earthy? - It's like, it tastes like roots.

It's just-- - Oh, nice. - It's not, it's not, there's a bitterness, and like a, 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 one 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, "Oh, what are we doing "with the rest of the day?" And you go, "Hey guys, it's Europe.

"Does anyone want a Campari Spritz?" And everyone goes, "I don't know what that is." And you go, "Four Campari Spritz." It's a minor in alcohol, so it's not gonna 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 an," and they're fucking refreshing, and the buzz is perfect. It's not too much, 'cause it's just a little bit of champagne and some Campari. The buzz is perfect, and then a couple of them, and then they kinda disappear, and then you're just walking around again.

That's a great fucking drink. - You ever drink alone? (laughing) - So there's two kinds of alone. One is alone at a bar. There's other people, but they're strangers, right? They're kinda 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 alone on a train, like transporting someone. - I've drank alone on a train, yeah. - A train, plane, and then there's just alone in an empty home. - Or a hotel room. - Hotel, or 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 six Heinekens?" "Six Heinekens?" "Yeah, my wife wanted one too." "She's not up there." You murdered her.

And you just say to yourself, "I'm just getting six, "so that if I have four, I just know I have two extra ones." And then you go through six, 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 I opened it and drank it, and he's like, "Dude, we're in a fucking helicopter.

"You don't think I'd smell 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 one, sneak it, sneak it.

And then you're-- - And you're 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 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 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 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, like 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 anxiety, I land all the time. - But depression, heartbreak, all that, you just sit in the feeling. - Yeah. Heartbreak's a weird one for me. So like the last time I got my heart broken, Leanne dumped me. We were dating for like four 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 them what was going on, and my buddy Cory was like, "Let's get a cocktail." And I was like, "I don't want one. "I gotta figure this out, 'cause I want this chick.

"And if I start drinking, I'll be like, 'Ah, fuck it.'" So I gotta figure it out. Like I wonder, I'm gonna find out my dad dies one day, or my mom, but my dad will be the rough one. My mom will be equally as rough. My dad and I were 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 everything I get to do, I feel like is extra. And so 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 that from him. And I was like, "That's a little icing on the cake." I did, 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, I think 74.

So yeah, that'll be a tough one. - 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?" And he was shaking. He goes, "I just underestimated you. "I didn't know you were this, whatever." It was really hard to understand him, to be honest with you.

I don't know totally what he said. He might've just not liked the movie. (both laughing) - 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.

'Cause all I care about is you come and see me do standup. So whatever I gotta do to get you there. But the number one thing, my one 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 gonna 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 at 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 gonna wish me "happy birthday." And so in that speech, he told me if I wanted something, I had to go at it and I had to go after it as hard as I could.

And I had to do whatever I could do to achieve that. In this case, it was offering to do anything at the comedy club to get on stage. 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 gonna be fine." And so I went and I ended up getting a job at the door, but it's humbling. It made me feel uncomfortable. And so that humility, it's the first time I really understood humility and I've applied that in many respects in getting to be a paid regular at the comedy store that happened late in life for me.

And which I think most people would give up and be like, "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 just humbly went after it. And then I think I still apply 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 selling things, 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 'cause the thing I'm good at, the one 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 "who's gonna, 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 in the Speedo.

- Yeah, it's like, "What are you gonna do?" Funny people make fun of me for taking my shirt off, like I guess behind my back, no one ever does it to me. Like no one would ever. 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. 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 'cause it just rubs me wrong but yeah, I'm more comfortable shirtless. I can never wear what you're wearing. - 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 'cause it looks good.

- It feels like an escape from convention. - What, you or me? - Both of us. - Yeah. - 'Cause 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, 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're 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 of times by really close friends.

And I'm not someone who can't, I have a mantra that, I don't know if people have heard it or not, and I hate sharing it, but it's true. The mantra is, "So you think I'm weak." That's my thing, 'cause I feel like people take advantage of me, and I go, "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, 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 one of my best friends. And me and him had to work through that, 'cause 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 out of thing, and all my managers and agents, both Tom and our managers and agents would like to either separate us, or one 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 one time, and Leanne said, "Do you think Tom would do that?" I said, "I don't know how faith works.

"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. "If I don't trust him, then I am so fucked." And it wasn't him.

It wasn't him, and it's a cool feeling to know that you could blindly trust someone, blindly have faith in someone, know that 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 need friends." I couldn't understand why Rogan was interested in me, and I said to someone, I was like, "Is he gay?

"What the fuck?" And then he was just a nice guy. He was just a nice guy. (laughing) - That'd be hilarious if Joe was sexually attracted to you this whole time. This whole time is 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 in a Scotty J way from "Boogie Nights," where he's like, "What, do you like my car?" - Yeah, you know nobody would believe that story. - No one. If I was Joe, I would kiss dudes all the time, and then when they didn't kiss back, oh, you know no one 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-- - So all in your head, on a treadmill, in your head, just fighting. - Just fucking fighting, and then, yeah. And then one day you get past it.

Like one day you just go, "Eh, fuck 'em. "I'm not gonna let him give 'em real estate." And then you just forget about 'em, and then they reach out, and they'll try to be a dick or a bully, 'cause 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 the, "You're not weak," you still wanna be able to be fragile to the world and appear weak almost. - Well, 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. - Yeah. - And so, but it sucks when you watch your friend see something in you that you go, where they go, "Ah, 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 him, 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 and 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, you know, 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 one 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 really like a solid moment where both of us were like, "That is how we should run this." - Yeah.

That's the interesting things, like with bands, you have like popular bands that split and even. - Yeah. - 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, like I said, we're on a handshake deal with two bears, and no one likes that. But we're like, "Hey." To the point where 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 know him, I just know him. - Yeah. What do you love most about Tom Segura? - We saw a gay couple one time. - Mm-hmm, it was a good start. - And there was one guy who was in khakis, and one guy was in jean shorts with a python around his neck.

- Yeah. - And Tom goes, "If we were gay, which one 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." And 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.

- Yeah. - 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 one weekend. - Yep. - And one 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. 'Cause 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 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, 'cause 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's 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.

'Cause he has so much love that he doesn't need reciprocated at all. Like he can just love, and then it feels good for him to give and to take care of someone. And he started the whole birthday gift thing, 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 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 one was like, "Hey man, come on on the road with me." They brought you on the road 'cause they wanted you to suck.

And they put you in bad scenarios. Joe Rogan wanted you to shine. He gave so many people beautiful careers, 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 gonna be the funniest guy in the fucking room.

I know some guys that have done that. It might be me. 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 eight of them are doing arenas right now.

They're all doing theaters. All his friends do theaters. He is just, and he won't accept this compliment. I tried paying it to him in Austin, when I was in Austin last night. - 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 "'cause 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 three podcasts. Like, I mean, all these things are things he not just, he didn't just take me to the water one 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 one of the 10 most important people in standup 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.

- Yeah. - 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. Oh, 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, 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 Benaflex House, and the sun was setting, and I just said, God, if you're listening, just give me this chick back. I'll never fuck it up. This is the one. I won't fuck it up.

I won't cheat. I'm not gonna be a bad dude. I won't 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. And I was like, oh, fuck you.

I didn't know he was real. I was like, shit, man, give me like one 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. Like, when you know, you know, and like 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 four meals.

I didn't know which one you'd want, so I got four different meals for you. I ordered them, they're up in your room, and just let me know whichever you want, and 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 four 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, 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, you know? That's the hardest part, is just being available for it. 'Cause so many people just wanna be busy just dating. I just wanna have someone in my life, I don't wanna be bored, I don't wanna, what if I die alone?

I don't wanna, 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, well, yeah, but it's lobster. If 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, and 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. - Meh. - 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, your ears pierce, and you feel a little prick, and it's over. - Yeah. - I don't know if I've done a great job keeping her happy. I think I keep her interested.

Like, I think I keep her occupied. I'm like a little bit of a rodeo clown. Like, I don't know, I mean, 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. Like, she's always been a gangster.

Like, 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 two weeks at a time.

I left for the movie for three months. So like, I don't know that I've ever done a bang up job. I buy it, like, I go, I remember one 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 a really good fighter.

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 right." - Oh, in the moment.

- 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." - Yeah. - "I'm giving you a heads up." 'Cause I don't want, 'cause I got really confused as a kid 'cause my dad always made sure I knew I was wrong.

And sometimes I wasn't. - Yeah. - 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, and then parenting Georgia taught me a lot about self-correcting.

- Self-correcting was that? - Yeah, self-correcting was 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 collars on their necks?" And so with Georgia, I had to learn through therapy that if the consequence is here and the highest it goes is here, then why the fuck wouldn't they lie and do everything?

'Cause they go, "Well, I know what it's like to hear, "you know, the consequence with a child "and find some conversation in it." Then all of a sudden they're like, "Well, fuck. "Well, I don't wanna lie 'cause 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, just to-- - Yeah, let 'em 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 one 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. We should go ziplining. Well, Ida, why don't you do, what shoes are you wearing? 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." - Yeah, 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, podcasts, all that stuff. - I think the number one thing is don't be afraid to suck. No one 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, one 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, "Hey guys, swipe up." And then I just showed him in 10 minutes, look, this is how many people swiped up.

It was 145 people. That'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, and he kept going, "Hey, okay, hold on, hold on." I was filming him from the couch. I was filming all these attempts. - The whole thing, yeah. - I filmed every single one 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, "Man, if he had just posted that one." He never posted anything in his stories. That one, 145,000, 5,000 people would have gone to his story to see that cup of tea being made and see which one 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 one 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 three. Like, and I'm talking even like in the dance video I did, where I did the hip hop dance, I did two takes on that. When I had the marching band come to my house, I did two takes on that. Once you start doing more takes, you lose the fun of it, I think.

And then the fun ones, I mean, my favorite one I've ever done without a doubt, my favorite promo I've ever done is I needed, 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 like tomorrow, I need to sell tickets.

So I said, real quick, girls, meet me outside. And Leanne's like, girls are doing homework, I gotta go take five 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 the American flag. I have Bob Seger playing, rambling, grambling man. - Yeah. - And that night, Larry the cable guy texted me, and he goes, this is fucking genius. And I was like, it was just like, yo, let's just shoot something, who gives a fuck?

Like just shoot something, just say something. 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 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 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. Whatever my ass is on Instagram, fucking million views guaranteed, a million views.

- Your ass. - And it's an active post. Like people are like, I did the best one 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 I 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 am 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 "Tops Off" 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 gonna take a break. I'm gonna 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 three 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. One of the things that-- - Nope, nope, nope. - One 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. 'Cause you're right, less is more.

How often does he do it? Like once a month? No, he does it three times a fucking week. More is perfect. - But for example, when he does like a story or something like this, he does one 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. You have to really admire that. 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, 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 it for 20 minutes and he lowered his core temperature by like two 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 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, Tim Kennedy, there are a lot of guys that are 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, I ran eight miles today. I listened to an audio book, I was running eight miles. And then I came and I worked for about three 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 four hours focused on a single task?

- Me? - Yeah. (laughing) - Oh, I have a hard time sleeping for four hours. - Yeah. - Like I don't have that, I don't have a brain that like, I really admired it when I listened to you do it. 'Cause 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 'cause I was like, it does, for someone like me, it does feel cool to add a little bit of control into life.

- So you, 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 gonna get on the treadmill and it's not gonna be all at once, but I'm gonna 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 five miles and then know that we started there. And that was really fun to like, 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 'cause 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, 'cause Isla's like me, like a person of her fluids, impulse.

I walked in on her one 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.

She has a hard time waking up. So I go, "Isla, come in here. "I want you to see this clip from Jocko." She goes, "Who's Jocko?" I say, "He's a Navy SEAL." She goes, "He works at the zoo?" I went, "No." (laughing) I said, "He'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 I hit the thing and Jocko goes, "First thing you do when you hear that alarm clock, "you could roll over, you could go back to bed, "you could 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 can 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, "Are you listening to this, Isla?" And she goes, "Yeah." And he goes, "And then when you go to the work, "now you've got two 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, "I love to watch that brain work and go, "I don't hit snooze.

"I don't hit snooze now." I go, "Fuck it, 'cause 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, 'cause 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 out of the belt. - Have you ever had, I had, so this morning I didn't work out. I'd press at like five in the morning until about six. - You're going hard right now.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I had a podcast. - I saw you flew to Austin. I was like, what? Just run around theaters and now you're back. - Yeah, run around theaters to promote the movie and then, look, you only get one 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 six, did five or six to seven, did press, and then I went and I said, and I'm really into history podcasts right now, and I was listening to this one 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 seven hours last night. Boy, that 30 minute nap, it felt like five 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, one 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, like meaning like in a bunk. - No. I've taken a lot of buses in my life though. - Like you mean like just like 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 one time, I was on a Greyhound one 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." He said, "You?" And he goes, "Yeah." I said, "You go to school with Fam?" And he goes, "Fam, you and Floris, "they're the two 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's stabbed a man, "they're yours now, I guess." And then I just sat next to him and I was like, "Is he, are you 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, five o'clock, like we work out from like up until like five o'clock, 5.30, show starts at seven, but that five o'clock to six, 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 5.00, 6.00 p.m. for a 7.00 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 5.00, 6.00 p.m.

to get 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 like late at night after a nap. I think I fucked up my podcast rhythm 'cause we're doing them in the day.

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, my favorite is, I used to do this a lot, I haven't done it in a while, is a 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. - 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 just got a little spigot and you just sit there and just put on like guys' grocery games or like just something.

It's like a-- - You walking or are you running? - I walk, I walk at like a 3.5. So what'll happen is if you start at three, start at three, casual walk, 20 minutes, you're gonna mile in and then you're gonna feel loose. You get up to a 3.5, you can do seven 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 like watch Game of Thrones. And you just like 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 one where 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, 'cause 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.

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, "Just so you know, Cleopatra wasn't as hot "as everyone says." I was like, "Why are you saying that?" Yeah, tell me she's a six, she looks like Snooki.

Like, let me dream that she looks like Kim Kardashian. And then I listened to that one today. I listened 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 Lennon, it was Lennon, right? - John Lennon? - John Lennon. - Lennon was World War II, right? Or was it Stalin? - Stalin. - Stalin. Stalin thought him and Hitler would be friends. I think that's so cute that he was like, "We're gonna be buddies." Like, "We're boys." 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, we'll be friends." - Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. And then, "Call me, call me. "Better yet, I'll show up in winter." How's that sound? (laughing) - Yeah. - And I find all of that so fascinating.

When I was a kid, I had a hard time understanding how, 'cause 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 the World War II, I got really into the Pacific shit for a while, but I'm really deep in 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. "This is, and it's just so insane." And then to see the, it's pretty intense. I don't know why I got into history late in life. I was kind of into it, but I'm really into it now.

And I love just learning a little something about, today I listened to the, Noiser has a great history stuff. It's like history for dummies, I think. I can't listen to the really smart stuff. It starts losing me. Too many names and I'm gone. - Yeah, but Dan Carlin's always the best.

Your podcast with Dan Carlin was so fucking good. I only know about Martin Luther because of Dan Carlin. I only know. 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, we all quoted the same shit about Genghis Khan about how he could shoot a dove off a horseback, but we knew that all four 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. - So good. - Things that we'll never know what happened. - 'Cause he liked you. - Oh boy, did he like, no, I'm just kidding.

I'm really running with it. (laughing) Yes, we did, we got along really. 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 weigh on him, like they're going to judge him or something like this.

- Really? - In his mind. - I talked to him about Daniel Batali, and I guess his thing is, I guess his hangup is, Carlin's is, he's not like this, he doesn't feel like he's a real historian, but he is. I mean, 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 it 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'll ever take in 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 one 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 five dudes. We drank, one person drove.

I wasn't a big drinker, 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'd get somewhere, and we'd get a hotel room. And it was one 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 five people. - Five dudes. - Versus throwing yourself into meeting strangers and this kind of stuff. - Yeah, and it was when I was trying to be a poet at that time.

And so we were-- - Actual poetry? - Yeah, it was a really bad part of my life. - Well, music is there too 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, someone showed me throwing out the first pitch the other day at 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 one. The best road trips I ever took was during the pandemic. During the pandemic when we were, when we were doing that drive-in movie theater tour. I created a drive-in movie theater tour when no one was working.

And the very first one, we all, no one had left their 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, and no one 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 then we just, 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 'cause we had a big crew and I made sure, I was trying to make sure everyone, 'cause no one 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, it'll, 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 five 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 at 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, I got it. - That's the fear I think that really like took hold on people. That's why they were way more cautious than perhaps they needed to be.

It's 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?" And she goes, "I think I have COVID." I go, "Bitch, six feet.

"The fuck you doing?" Back it up, Fauci. Like fucking, and then she, we went, we went, oh, and then she had it and it went away and we're all fine. And we're like, "Okay." We're like, "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 I was, 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.

Isla just looks at me, you know, the best. The one thing we miss are the eyes over masks. The, 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. One of the best beer buzzes I ever had is, we had bought a new house, but we weren't building it.

And over COVID, I didn't drink for like three months, four 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 two tall boy, German pilsners and cracked them. She goes, "Let's have a beer." And I was like, "Fuck yeah." And man, that second, that beer buzz is different than anything.

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 one?" I'm like, "Fuck yeah." And then we have another one. And then that beer buzz is, especially 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 I'll 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 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 one time. It was 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. And I had a growler of IPA. It's about six in the morning. I have to fly that day to Vegas to jump off the stratosphere.

All I need is a little bit of a buzz to get myself on this fucking plane. I have anxiety going through my fucking head 'cause I'm gonna be the first person to jump off the stratosphere. And so I'm drinking an IPA out of a growler in a bathtub at six 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. 'Cause 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? - I was 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 touch Southern Comfort. - She's just drinking straight? But Southern Comfort is at 40%. That's hard, right? - 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, 'cause I felt sick. And man, he walked up and he goes, "Double Jack on the Rocks, lots of 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.

- Yeah. - People fight, people just feel, people experience life in a deep way. You just get too drunk for a reason. But I don't see that as drinking drinking. That's like a journey towards a destination. To me, drinking is like whiskey neat. Or beer, like you said, ice cold beer.

- Yeah. - There's that afternoon beer. For a person like me, who's extremely regimented and disciplined, sometimes you get to a situation. I just remember, I mean, I remember there's a bar at MIT where I just remember in the afternoon, there was a business meeting. I sat down, we started with a beer.

And they were really crisply cold, some kind of lager. And then just one beer and two 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, 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 all of that. - See, you're describing something I'll never get. 'Cause 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 gonna 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 bus full of kids, kid's gotta drive itself home. Fuck it. I couldn't even tell you, you know what's so interesting about me and you is like, 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 if it has some electronics in it. - Yeah, if it has electronics it's-- - No, I don't think a dildo classifies as a robot. - 'Cause I thought that's how they were gonna take over fucking mankind. Well, they start with the fucking womanizer that knows how to eat a pussy and then they're like, we don't need men anymore.

But 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 'cause 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 nine to five job, right?

- Do you work nine to five? - No, but I work much more than that. But there's no, every kind of lifestyle has its complexities. I think nine to five means you have to wake up at a certain time every day. - Do people tell you to pull it back and they're 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. 'Cause 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 one 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, when my wife wants me to take August in, whatever the, August, whatever the fucking other 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 gonna like sit 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 gonna fucking, do you want me to like, like, I don't understand people who don't, I don't understand people who don't have the drive to work all the time. I don't understand that.

I envy it. I envy it 'cause 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'd 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 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 six, working out, and then going until like two in the morning or one in the morning, and then going to sleep, and then getting up at six, working out, getting on a plane, going to another place.

Like, that's what my working, it's just a lot of travel in mind. 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, 'cause you and I seem to have a similar relationship with running.

I like this idea of a slow treadmill. I like running slow. 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 know, but apparently there's some science that kind of focuses the mind and so on.

- It's funny, 'cause I think sometimes what people don't get about running is they go, they get on and they put it on like a six 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 six 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 two hours the other day before my workout, or no, hour and a half before my workout, where I started at 3.5 walking, and then I get my jog up to like a five, and then I'm like 5.5, then I go six, and then I go, and once I'm at a six, my body's really loose.

And so then I'll 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 four, let's jog at a five. I 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. And it's like, street food Asia, and they're just watching them make street food in Asia. There's one 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, this is Asia. - South America, Asia. They do one on pizzas. I've watched this one on pizzas, that I've watched it. There's like four 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. - She's there. All right, well, I usually run outside, but I do this. - Oh, I can't. I don't mind hiking. And I like, I do, like, you know what my fun thing, the fun thing I would do, and this is ripped off totally from Kam Haines, is I like to go, there's a great hike called Framing Canyon out in the valley where I live.

And I'd be like, all right, I'm gonna run to Framing Canyon, I'm gonna jog to Framing Canyon, I'm gonna hike Framing Canyon, and then I'm gonna jog back. And then I go, I wonder 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 eight 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's Hyde Park. It was, get this, it was 80% downhill. - Wow. - So this jog, you start at 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 nice lower back pain, and you're like, okay, okay, and then the jog was perfect. And you did it four times, it was four miles.

I loved it. And then the very first day I did it, a butterfly got in front of me, it's like six in the morning, yeah, six in the morning, and 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. - 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, six in the morning, and it rained, and as I'm doing this steep 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 one of the best jogs I've ever had. I could do that, I could run that park every single day. No one jogged that park in Serbia. - I actually recently had Condom on my doorstep, and I wanted to ask whoever is up there above what that means, what the story behind that is.

- Yeah. 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 what the message is exactly. - Do you use Condoms? If you had a one 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 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. "Burke Kreischer is one of the great American wild men. "A gonzo warrior driven not by cynicism "or a desire to reveal a dark truth, "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 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, you know, like, I wanted to be wanted by chicks and respected by dudes. And, you know, 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, 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 lean towards that. We would go on a bus trip to like Clemson and I would get on 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 gonna drink." And you get that one group of girls that wasn't gonna 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 then once I, 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's called, it was called Cafe Europa or maybe Cafe Americana. There's 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 dvuchka that ran the floor." - After all this time, the fact that you're Russian sucks is awesome. - Yeah, it's-- - 'Cause you keep mispronouncing words horribly. - Horribly, I'm so fucking bad. 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. - Yeah. - And I said I'm a car. - Yeah. - And they just were like, "Huh?" And so I came into the room one night with a top pocket full of tampons. - Yeah. - And they were like, "What are those for?" I said, "Girls, we're gonna 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 make-believe now to say it 'cause it's been in the movie. And 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?" Like it was just so foreign that you would need lemon for them.

- Yeah. - And so I think, and I made friends with those guys. Like 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. - 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. I learned all the currencies around the world. And so I'd challenge people to a currency game. I 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 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, like legit 30 minutes until my friends walked in and they're like, "What the fuck's going on?" I had this ability to, without humility, I didn't mind looking like a fool and doing, and they were really stupid jokes at the time, just very base American frat boy jokes.

But I had a spark and when I came back, I feel like I learned how to do that and do funny things that were fun. We'd go to a football game and I brought a camera around with me a lot. I like to take pictures. And I remember one of the jokes I'd go is, I'd 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.

So I think in watching this serious Bert get chipped away at until my six 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 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, that same little path you take gets convoluted in New York 'cause you wanna be a serious comic and you wanna be taken seriously and you wanna be edgy and you wanna 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 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 that I've, 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 I was working, I was legit working. I'm trying to sell the movie to outlets, media outlets and busing 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 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's like, like I wasn't supposed to drink last night. And she was like, "You wanna 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 gonna talk wild? "Are we gonna say crazy shit to each other? "Like fuck yeah." - In the front yard. - Front yard, yeah. - What are you doing in the front yard? - Let the dogs play. 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, glass. - Red wine? - Red wine, I'm all back. Keep our sulfites low. - Yeah, wine is a whole 'nother one too. I feel sophisticated. - Oh, yeah. - I traveled, before Ukraine, I went to Paris for the first time and I drank wine there. And I felt like I was a sophisticated man.

- Dude. - 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 gonna start writing poetry, reading Hemingway. - There's a glass of wine in Italy, and we went, oh, the most beautiful fucking day of my life.

Just outside Florence, they have all the vineyards and stuff and we took a Vespa tour. - Nice. - 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. And it's beautiful. My wife hasn't been drinking. Georgia's too young, Isla is too young.

But 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 wanna hear? And then she just starts going, ooga, shocka, ooga, ooga, ooga, shocka, ooga, ooga.

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 two daughters are singing it. We're all on 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, Isla, what are we missing?

'Cause you know, 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.

Yeah. Even up girl. And then we stop at the light and all of us are looking and it's pouring rain. Ah, ooh, ooh. 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 one 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 with Whitney. In the pushup concert contest. With David Goggins. The only time I met David Goggins in person, one 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 pushups with him as a challenge. I didn't, 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, 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, I'm, 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 telling 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. 'Cause 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 that really, you're right. I haven't thought of it that way. There's an intimacy to that.

That is a gift of like 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 one drink and then I'm done. I don't want it, no, no, no, no.

And you're like, oh, show me a little more. And then like, it's cool. And I never like, and 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. - Yeah. - Not at all.

That's the coolest thing. - And some people, bad people will leverage that over you. 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, they 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 one 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 like, what about the, I know I had a couple beers, but like, I wasn't that fucked up. - Well, Whitney's really good at that 'cause she's the person, I woke up next morning and she said, yeah, you were wonderful.

You were eloquent, you were 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. I 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 like caring and loving human being. So interesting. - She is the most nurturing sensibility. She sends my daughters gifts out of nowhere, just out of nowhere, just 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 five of them. - You and Whitney, I would love to sit in a fucking room and watch you two 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, softcore porn, like full on porn porn. - Full on like the dude like, she's like, hi, welcome inside. You look tired, do you need a drink? Oops, I'm stuck in the dryer. - What's the promotion you're most proud of that you've done?

- Without a doubt, it's gotta 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, so I was like, absolutely not.

- You 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, 'cause 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, 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 let's do hip hop dance. And Joe adamantly was like, that's a horrible idea, I will not do that. And then Tom and Ari 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 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 for hip hop dance lessons for a month or whatever, for a couple 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 kinda good, but kinda funny.

But 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 like something silly. What's up guys, it's your boy, Bert Kreischer. And then that one 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 one 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 one like that, and put his tour dates on it.

- Yeah, went over the top. - He sold out his tours. And he was like, whoa. He's like, dude, I sold out every fucking show. We've added shows, I'm doing 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 gotta be, and then I was like, I don't mind spending a little money.

And then the next one I did was the marching band. And I was just like, but it was real crazy. I just said, can you guys get me a marching band? And they were like, yeah, it's like 2,400 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 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, lifting weights, I'll walk out, and then I'll blow a whistle. And then you come out with the (imitates drumming) And then we got like two videos out of that, and that sold out dates, and I was like, fuck.

And then the real baller one, the fucking real one, the real one was I tore all the muscles in my arm going into 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 under?

And I was like, what? And he goes, you can pick your music going under. I said, wait, hold on, is it like, 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 gonna count backwards.

I'm just gonna do a promo read until I pass out, and my phone's gonna 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, 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, I was terrified as I go into surgery, I want you to know one thing. I'm playing Red Rocks 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 Leann's like, I've already watched it, it's good. And I went, for real? And so that was a big one. That was a big one 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 kind of 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 one minute videos. - Really? - 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 'cause 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 one 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 an arrow. And I went, what? He was like, 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 Cruise did in a helicopter 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, one 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's 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 five?

- Outside of my friend group? - So like for me, probably Norm MacDonald, Mitch Heidberg, George Carlin, Tom Segura, number one. - Oh yeah? - No. (laughing) I just wanted to say that. - That's an interesting pairing. (laughing) No, Mitch Heidberg, Dave Attell. - Dave Attell. - Dave Attell.

- Everybody deeply respects Dave Attell. 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, Chappelle and Bill Burr are the two 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. Those are guys, Stan Hope is the same way, just fucking genius.

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 forgetting 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, Robin Williams, which is a whole 'nother thing. - Oh, yeah, Sarah Silverman, fucking, I love Janine. I'm a fucking big Janine fan. I love her brain. Maren's fucking hilarious. Patton's brilliant. David Cross, I mean, there's like, 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 Maren or Joe that have podcasts, it's interesting. It's an interesting pairing 'cause you get to know everything about them, but then they're also comedians. And I've gotten, I've gone to Joe's club a lot. Listen, 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 'cause 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 nine 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 one 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 nonlinear 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, 'cause 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. (laughing) - Yeah. - And 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 Bert Kreischer and Joey Diaz left?" (laughing) - Just standing there in October, super October, just the two 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 next time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)