Episode 224: Bert Kreischer Part 1: Florida Life, Comedy & Marriage

My dad just very flatly said, buddy, you don't have what they have. When they do it, it's effortless, like they don't have to try, and they're just amazing. He said, you're always gonna have to work extra hard to get as good as them. He's like, key to life is finding the thing like they have for baseball. Find your thing, Find your thing, and that'll be And the first time

Calm Down with Erin and Carissa is a production of iHeartRadio.

We are as informal as it comes, because well, calm the fuck down, you know what I mean. So this man introduces himself on his own website as stand up podcast host machine. He needs no introduction because he's absolutely everywhere. Burt Kreischer, ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together.

Thank you for joining us.

I just lost them.

Uh oh, and you said you're we're at the tip of the iceberg. We're not going anywhere. I mean with Wi Fi like that bird shit you are do WiFi cut out? That's okay, So Will we have a successful show. If our Wi Fi cuts out, I'm asking for a great question, my best friend. How are we both from the same area? You know this right?

No? I did not wait. Where are you from?

I was so I moved to Brandon.

No, you realize Brandon is the Hoboken of Tampa.

You realize I went to Bloomingdale where you did not.

Go to Bloomingdale. Yes, no, one good comes out of Bloomingdale. You did not go to Bloomingdale. You didn't wait, No way. You know we used to play you guys in baseball. I just we won, right, I No, blooming is back. Back in ninety eighty nine, ninety ninety one, they had this dude named Cherry something. But it always always thought his name is Terry Violence like the Outsiders. But it wasn't Cherry. It was like Buck Cherry or something. Real redneck, real redneck, overweight.

Cherry wasn't a musician. Bert, I'm in the middle of fucking nowhere. Is my WiFi back?

Is it good? Now?

Yes?

Well, that's like being part of brand in Florida. We'll do this intro again because we're professionals.

Are you ready?

And Bert is worthy of not only doing the intro once but twice on your website you say stand up, podcast host and machine. You are everywhere doing all the things Bert Kreischer, Ladies and gentlemen, as.

He what are we eating?

Is that Bailey jew I'm putting a zin in Guys, Come on.

Yeah, I just listened to all about this with your podcast with Julian.

Yeah, Julian's Julian Edelman's he still dips. Danny M. Mondola introduced Julian Edelman into Dip.

Danny A. Mondola might be the canary in the mind for everything. That guy was the reason that we watched Hard Knocks. He's the reason Julian Edelman dips. He's the reason Gronk like there's he was like a little firestarter for a bunch of things.

We'll call him doura F. He's also the reason why Greg Olsen didn't get the Men's Health cover, because apparently Greg Olsen tells a great story about how he was like there was an opportunity. He didn't win this super Bowl yet lost it, but he's like, there's an opportunity for me to be on the cover of Men's Health. And every time he tells the story, he's like it gets fa it gets better, and so he's like, so I'm just like working out hard and I am like

Can I tell you what Greg Olsen's story? Sidebar please? So love.

We're at super Bowl, me and Tom's girl. We're launching our bod Kaporo. So so we're rolling around and we're kind of just steamrolling shows. Rich Eisen's, we bum rush grondk and Edelman.

I mean, we're just having fun. Uh.

Sidebar, big apologies to Pat McAfee. We definitely bum rush his show in the middle of an interview with c. J. Stroud and it was it was not cool and we should have We should have We know fat for a long time. We should have checked first. We had to send apologies. Here's the other thing. So randomly we see Cam Newton. Cam Newton loses his mind, recognizes me were doing an interview with him. Greg Olsen shows up and Tom and I proceed to tell Greg Olsen a story

Nope.

But so Greg Olsen never got to hear our great story of us seeing a dominatrix gimp for our two.

Ways you had me at Dominate Trix. We'll just start and stop right there.

You are so busy.

We appreciate you having your shirt on, but also are excited that tops Off World Tour is happening.

You're back on the road March seventh.

Yeah, I mean Grand Rapids, then Toronto, then then on Ottawa and and some of the in Canada. Right now, we're cleaning out my bus. We're cleaning out all the drugs from my bus.

There you go, Dare, what would heavy sweep? Well, you know what.

We're happy that you're keeping things clean, but how often are you actually home?

Very seldomly, I uh like, like comically and personally tragically seldom.

Mentally I'm not here right now, don't talk to me. I'm not here.

I'm not at home right now. By the way, I take naps in my bus.

My bus is a mile and a half from my house, and I drive to my bus to take you.

I don't even like my house. My house has.

Nowhere comfortable to You're crazy.

Your bus, by the way, is like the Madden Madden two point zero to bus.

It's incredible.

My daughter designed it. Uh yeah, Well, I knew I wanted a bus. I knew I wanted what I wanted because I live in my tour bus. I really live in it. All joking aside, I'm probably home maybe Monday Tuesday, and then leave Wednesday night if that.

Sometimes with do and two bears.

Well, I'll stay on the road usually two weeks straight and go to Austin for a week for like Tuesday Wednesday and then and then I'm home like maybe four days a month roughly. And so I live in my bus. I know, well, listen, make hey while the sun shines. I didn't have a career when I was twenty three. I had to wait until I was forty four, so I got to make all the money I can, and so I knew what I wanted in my bus.

I wanted my I love. I don't like the rear bedroom I like.

I liked sleeping in the bunks, but I wanted a bigger bed, so I cleaned out the second rack of bunks.

Put a bed there. No one does this. I put a bed there.

I put my bathroom in the way back, became myself a full bathroom, which I like living on a bus. I don't like getting off the bus. I don't like hotels. I don't like any of that.

And I love hotels. But I'm a big snob that I was going to ask you that. But you have your bathroom in the back. Okay, talk about your bathroom.

Go on subway tiles in the shower, big, full sized power. My daughter designed it all all my power colors blue and dark maroons. And we put the closet in front of the engine so it muffles the sound. Because what happens when you live on a bus is you do the arena. Bus cralls around two in the morning. Everyone has drinks, smokes, we whatever have a scar and then

Like, huh nice, that's so sweet. Yeah, I love this. Okay, wait, number one thing in your fridge you have to have on your bus. I was going to say that you have at home, but you're never at home, So what does it matter?

Okay? Exogenous keytones and lement Are we supposed.

To know what that? I know what element is. I don't know what that is. I'm a non flavor. I'm in orange girl too.

Oh I love. Have you ever gotten the bland one where it's just salt and.

You're like, yeah, it's great, I have it now, it's great. Wait tell me what it is. Fill me in. You've had it.

Lemon tea is a yeah, go ahead, you tell.

Them you've had it. At Yellowstone we have it all there. It's the little electrolytes packets.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, there's are I thought it was just something that was like a Florida thing.

Since both of you guys originate from the same area, so we leave.

You're from Florida. That is, so that's something I should know.

Yeah, no offense. I was a little I was like, oh my god, he's going to have all this great Florida scoop. He's even going to be like we've met before. Okay, look there, we get it. There's a lot of Florida jokes out there. We get it. I mean when Florida ask you where are you from? I always say Tampa. I know there's a joke.

You can't say that. You can't say that, I can't say that. You know, that's like people saying I'm from Hoboke. I love living in New York and you go, were in New York. Well, they're like just outside New York and Hoboken.

You know that's Hoboken, Damn from Tampa.

No, you can now because Brandon has grown up. But when I was a kid, Brandon was not grown up. Brandon was just to stop just outside Eboor.

So wait for those of us that don't know the area. So where did Aaron grow up?

Tell me?

You know, I want to know your hometown Erin According to Burt Okay, oh sorry.

Oh no, no, I'll explain. I'm gonna explain. I'm gonna explain. All I do is all my podcasts to smoke weed and listen to history podcasts. Brandon was it is where the term cracker comes from. It's the that is No, I'm being dead serious. Lord of crackers. Were like they they smacked.

The whip on the cattle. They're all cattlemen.

And so from Brandon was the last bastion Brandon o'calla odessa. Uh there's there are these last bastions of cattle grazing land before they started developing them. And now Brandon's developed and there's a huge mall in Brandon. Brandon's like a grown up town now, but it was not when I was a kid. That's where you went and got mushrooms. Who yeah, because if it rains in Florida, if you go to the cow patties and in the afternoon, there's.

Uge, yeah. Huge.

This is before you knew anything microdosing.

You would just go a cow pastor, hope you weren't eating poison, and swallow a mushroom. We didn't even have bottled water to rinse it off. We didn't even have bottled water then. So you just eat eat it out of the cow patty and be like, let's hope we all trip today.

And then you get on.

What town are you from?

It?

I love you so much I.

Know you would.

Wait wait, wait, what does that town mean? What is that?

For those of us that don't know, that's a river, that's not even a tower, It's a.

River with alligators and rednecks, and you just get on a tube, eat mushrooms and float down the It's the tuckny A river runs through it.

Okay, okay, where are you from?

No, I'm not really from Tampa either. I'm from Loots, just outside in Tampa.

When we moved to Loots.

When we moved to Loots, my parents are from the north, from New York in Philadelphia, and we we drove out to see the art.

We bought land.

My dad bought land and loots to build a house. And I was ten years old. This is nineteen eighty one, probably eighty two. Yes, And we as we crossed over Bears Avenue, the radio station switched from Q one O four two.

S's right, Q and O five My life ninety four point nine. I feel like third on a date right now. This is amazing, This is this is real Florida deep cuts hereson Dicks.

I just, I just I just talked to someone who worked in Mason Dixon.

By the way, I listen, no sight to Mason Dixon, No select Q on five. But this is way before woke radio. This was where they had the chooky. The was the bird.

If you do it, you could win, you could win, like tickets to go see Rush.

Or the bucks. Wasn't that on like Fridays to this.

Day when I'm at work at my office, I have like a bunch of women at work. I will say Friday, Friday, Friday.

Why was that on weekend?

For the weekend. Everybody wants a new romance? Yeah, what was.

The big am talk radio show? I interned with Chris Thomas at w fl A Channel eight. Remember on Friday nights he wore the big so borrow when he did his broadcast. I don't know if you know, because my dad worked for w FLA. But what was the AM station? It was sixty nine or something like the Animal.

What was it it was?

Oh, my dad only listened to the AM And by the way, Ted uh he went to Jesuit, the guy who he was.

Just the hot boys went Jesuit. I never dated a Jesuit boy. Oh, I like, I won't say what I liked, but yeah, I never I never know.

I want to go, who did you know?

I feel like, well, I grab you guys dated. It feels like you have a lot of a lot of things.

League.

Our big hangout was Regency Center, for like, do you know the Regency Center?

No? But it just wreaks from a Brandon hangout.

It does so bad. Everybody wonders why I was the biggest square in the world because I lived in Brandon.

I got to do a deep dive on you can someone, please please don't do a do a biography so that I can find out you're younger, because now you got to understand she is you are absolutely beautiful.

You are you are, you are, you are, you are, you are no, but you are.

What would you say like a Sunday morning beautiful when you when when we see you on for football, your Sunday morning beautiful.

You look gorgeous.

But there is a redneck inside there that had there with crimps and and that I'm sure was screaming.

Would never let me get a firm, which really pissed me off. And I got my haircut down at where did we get it done? I'm going to text my sister. It was down in Bloomingdale Square, by Bloomingdale, Floris and buy the McDonald's. What was it called? But I had bangs from here to here. It was like the beaver bangs. It was so bad.

But anyway, so wait, I want to know. I wanted to just so I can watch a gator. No, I was just gonna.

Say, you don't know that. Yeah, but my sister went to FSU.

Really wait's sister older younger, older, younger younger.

Okay, I gonna know where?

Wait?

How far I want to understand how far away? Since you guys all you know everything about each other from your hometowns, how far is Bert is your hometown from Erin's.

Oh my Loots is probably a good forty minute drive from Brandon, but Tampa is minute drive. Well, hold on, we're not talking La thirty minutes. This is clear open road thirty minutes where you're driving seventy five miles an hour. You go down to seventy five, get left on five on I four, and then you start driving out I four and Brandon's got you got to got like by Theanona Sassa. You gotta get through. You gotta get through some real redneck talents to get to Brandon Lake Lakelyn.

Where I performed in an for the Strawberry Festival, and I performed like whenever the fair was there with my dance studio. But Bert before like we lose everybody when we were going down memory lane. I want to tell you I shared this on the podcast A couple of weeks ago. My summer job for like three years when I went to UF Adventure Island, red bathing suit and all girl, get it down the Tampa Typhoon. Cross your legs,

It was Oh my gosh.

Adventure Island was like was next level. Adventure Island was probably the funnest time I've ever had in my entire life. At Busch Gardens and Adventure Island were owned by the same company, and they were both off of Bush where Bush Beer. Busch Beer own bus Gardens Anheuser Busch and Adventure Island was like that was I remember when that opened and I was like, this is gonna.

Get you yah yah And.

What is that the theme song?

Oh yeah, yeah it was so it was so cool.

I went there as an adult because I had a show on Travel Channel called Bert the Conquer not as fun.

Oh God, you have had such an incredible career and I know you are self deprecating and saying like, oh, you're just now famous and you had to like capitalize like you've been doing this. What did Rolling Stone call you the best part of your in ninety seven, what was your your claim to fame?

Ninety seven voted the number one party animal at the number one party school in the country.

How do you get that title? I was my first year was ninety six at Florida. But how do you get that title?

No way, I I was just they were trying Rollstone was trying to write an article about Florida State. So they had interviewed a bunch of people that were like the five top heads of like the all the big organizations, and each of them had partied with all of them the night before randomly, and then and two of them thought that it was a prank call that I was doing, and so they all ended up giving him my number.

Wow.

I started doing radio interviews and TV interviews and and and then I said in the article I wanted to do stand up and they and some radio station in Tallahause put together a stand up show that night.

At the at pot Bellies. And that was your first show show.

I did twenty minutes at the end of the show, very stream of consciousness, and and it went really well, and H and I moved to New York started stand up. Will Smith discovered me six months later, and I had a TV.

Show Smith did well Smith, Yeah, that's amazing. Holy shit.

Did you always know that you were like Aaron and I always knew we wanted to work in sports since we were little because our fathers, like we always just like grew up watching sports and knew this is what we wanted to do. Did you always know that you wanted to do this? Were you naturally always funny, like you were the class clown? Like, how did you know that this was going to be like your thing?

No? I was very I was a very serious athlete growing up in Tampa. I really all we did was play baseball. We played in Florida. You play baseball year.

Round, you have to seeing your banners everywhere all over the cities.

Absolutely yep, and so I I.

And then when I got to Florida State. I was supposed to walk on and play at Florida State. And the very first day, coach Martin saw a pledge pin on my shirt and was like, that comes off. We don't party here. And he told me I could be a bullpen catcher. And I just walked off field, and uh, it was like, I'm done sports. It's kind of you know, there's so many people I probably were that listen to this. I probably relate to that more than the pro athletes

And I made it was hot at Florida State. Yeah that was the hot one. Yeah, okay, Hi.

Fi DJ, Theda, Katie.

They were like it was always good, yeah, always good.

Yeah, and uh and so uh, I made a joke in chapter I made a joke and everyone laughed and then everyone stopped and Eddie's like, all right, stop, I'm being serious. I got to tell you about homecoming, and I made another joke and everyone laughed a get harder, and the president of the fraternity said, that's it. No more jokes. Okay, We've got to get through this. I don't really hear one more joke about Theda or homecoming at all. Do you understand that? One more joke and

It's the dumbest joke.

You write them in the hope that they find a place in your act and and uh, and so I just at that moment I realized, oh, I'm and everyone always said you're You're the funniest guy I ever met, like you should be, you should be a stand up. I just didn't know how that worked. And then after the article, I got the balls to do it once I got on stage my dad. When I was growing up, I played at Forest Hills, Uh baseball, and and we would play.

Town and Country. And there was this guy, Brad Radt, who ended up going pro. It's had mall. They had a really good Okay, they had a really good ball.

She gotta keep asking Florida questions.

And I remember saying to my.

Dad when I was like twelve maybe eleven, I said, how come no one talks about me playing baseball the way they talk about Brad or Ryan. But these guys and end up going pro.

And my dad.

Ryan Valarius, he was the best player on our team, and then Mark Valdez, Tony Krasco, like all these guys went pro. And I said, my dad just very flatly said, buddy, you don't have what they have. When they do it, it's effortless, like they don't have to try, and they're just amazing. He said, you're always gonna have to work extra hard to get as good as them. He's like, key to life is finding the thing, like they have for baseball. Find your thing, find your thing, and that'll

How do you?

And Aaron and I are constantly in this like, you know, dodging what could be the landmines of cancel culture, and every time we say something, we then get like this like panic of like oh my god, we're you know, gonna get fired or whatever.

But it's like, how as a comedian do you navigate that?

Because the sensitivity levels on any number of different topics, the ebb and flow of that, or as a comedian do you not like how do you how do you deal with that, well, you've.

Got to remember your intent. Like if my intent is always comedy, so like my intent is always to make you laugh. My intent is never to have anyone come into a show and have them have the worst day of their life. So as long as your intense pure, I believe your audience is, your audience will follow you listen. I can't I can't say whether or not people in the South, are people in on the coasts are going

I mean why. I remember doing an episode with them one time and it got pulled down.

By Spotify and our areas and they edit it and put it up in two parts, and I was like, what did I say?

And Rogan's like, don't worry about it. It's fine, man.

That's got Aaron. Can you imagine being able to say whatever you wanted? Now?

What?

How liberating? It you're unemployed. I'm gonna say, fun.

Listen, here's here's the biggest problem is you have corporate entities on top of you right now that are watching you, and they're and they're kind of saying hey. And I had that a travel Channel, they'd be like, listen, you know, we're brand friends. Travel Channel is owned by Scripts, which was a Christian based company out of Knoxville, and I was I was always scared i'd lose the Travel Channel

Very long time.

For a very long time, it was just us white guys doing stand up that had all the podcasts. And then people were like, I want to hear something different. Cam and May Cameron and Mace are my favorite podcasts to listen to, and they talk wild shit, wild shit. But the next I'm telling you, and I said this to you, you guys are the shavings, just the snow cone shavings of the iceberg of women on podcasts, especially talking about sports and talking freely. I can't wait you

But like, I really believe that that you guys are are gonna be huge.

Look at and now look at the sports voices that have been represented. The Kelsey Brothers have an amazing podcast. McAfee's been going at it for a while and now is just blowing up. Bill Simmons is a goat in the podcasting arena. And I'm telling you look around, and you'll look around the tables and you will notice that you are your genre is underrepresented. And you, guys, that's why I'm so excited to be on this podcast.

Shout oh, you're so thank you for doing it.

We know how busy. Shout out to your wife too. She has a podcast as well. I know that it's yeah, exactly. And what a saint she is.

I mean, she is just a dream this one. How did you guys meet? What's your guys' story?

She was She was a.

Screenwriter in La and I was a struggling comic. I was I'd done some TV and I was getting back into stand up to try to go on the road. And I'd seen her writing a screenplay at the base of Runyan Canyon. She had she worked with a writing partner, and she was just.

She was just at the base of Runyan Canyon writing a script. Was she sitting at it? I mean, brought her own desk? Where is she writing the script.

In the office of the apartment building?

Okay, I was going to say, running Canyon. I didn't know that we had a we work there, fancy, and.

So I went in with my friend and I talked to her. She was a bitch, and I love bitches.

And then I saw her again at a at a yoga class and her ex boyfriend she had broken up with him and he tried to get her back, and she, I mean humiliated him in front of the whole yoga class because he brought flowers.

And I was like, wow, I don't ever want to be that guy. And then one night we're bowling and I was cute.

I was not like my fighting weight, I was like one eighty six, and she kind of flirted with me, and I had this, uh, I'm gonna speak very candidly, but I had this like phobia of uh, strong women because I'd seen too much of sex in the city and I thought they were all horrors.

So I was like, I don't want to wait, you think strong women are horrors, it's like the opposite.

Well, it's the it's at the it's at the beginning of like the sexual freedom.

You watch Samantha. You watched a lot of the Samantha version of that, not Charlotte.

That's not who I am. I'm not like, I've only had sex with six women, and so I'm not and my wife's.

Six and so I was like, are you being serious?

Yeah? I mean dead serious? Yeah, well, no, I mean I.

Was going to make a ludes joke there, but you know, here we go, I'm finally catching on to the.

Roof sheep, and I'm through the roof. But but women, Yeah, but.

You went to Florida State. You were just busy writing jokes.

I'm an intimacy guy like I.

I was going out to Yanni's looking for a girl that got me, like I wanted someone that understand me that I wanted to fall in love.

I've always wanted to fall in love. I never won.

That would be great if I was trying to get laid now, but it's the truth. And so my wife was I just figured all women in Hollywood and New York were like they just sleep with people and it didn't matter, and I didn't want that sterical and so and then I found out she was not like that, and uh yeah, and I'm in love.

So you sorry, go ahead, No, go ahead. I was going to say, how do you keep this going with the schedule that you have, because I mean, I and much like hers with her significant other, her boyfriend and my husband, we are like two passing ships. I've got football, he's got hockey, Like, how the hell do you keep this going.

It's interesting. It during me during my career, like in the past twenty years, it's been very easy. I think we just figured out a schedule, a rhythm with our girls and with my wife that it just worked. I think the real scary part, and we felt it this weekend, and I just talking candidly, was my oldest is at college and my youngest is leaving for college in like four months, and the idea of us being alone is really terrifying. Like we didn't know what to do because

She was like I don't know. And then she was like, you want to go to Costco. And I was like, oh my god, we're running into my parents.

Or old school. You don't have time for beds beyond where I am right now. It's like we had all this alone time and now we have a seven month old and we're like, where did our life go? This is crazy, so much great stuff with Bert In fact, it's so good. We're going to do it twice. That's right.

We've split this interview into two parts. Stay tuned for part two next week and find out why Burt turned out an opportunity to hang out with Aaron Rodgers.

All right, hang on, not so fast. We have a big announcement to make. We've been talking about doing a live show for a while now, and we can officially reveal it's happening. It sure is Calm Down Live, Ladies and gentlemen. That is right what we do best, good batter and different.

May Night Netflix is a joke fest at the Hollywood Improv.

Tickets are now on sale. The link is in the description of this episode. Also check out our Instagram at Calm Down Podcast. We'll have all the info there as well.

And if you're wondering why I have paint doll over my hands, it's not important. I'll explain it at the live show. We are so excited about this when we cannot wait to see you guys there again. That is May Night at the Hollywood Improv Netflix is a joke fest.

Hope to see you there. Calm Down with Erin and Carissa is a production of iHeartRadio.

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