Kevin Nealon

your audition tapes. And I'm like, Bill Murray's in the kitchen. I wasn't even hearing that other shoff. You know, I wouldn't even believe. I didn't even want to acknowledge it because I knew i'd never get on that show because I don't think characters are accents. I'm just to stand up a really really good stand up. Hi. My name is Kevin Neelan, and I have a real sugar addiction. I'm not kidding. Hello, friends, and welcome back to another

episode of Off the Beat. I am your host, Brian Baumgartner. As you just heard, Kevin Nilan the Kevin Nelon is my guest on the podcast today. Kevin happens to be a good friend and one of my favorite golfing partners of all time. Now, not only does he have the same name as the best character on the Office, Kevin Malone, but he's also had the career of a lifetime starring on s n L Late Night with David Letterman, Man

with a Plan, and of course Weeds. Plus he's recently become quite the YouTube star with his hilarious web series Hiking with Kevin. From his open mic days to now, We're going to dive into Kevin's incredible career as well as some of his hidden talents. Did you know that he is an extremely talented caricaturist. I would say that I'm surprised, but I'm honestly not. If you are Kevin Neilan, you really can do everything. I won't keep you waiting here he is Kevin Neil. Bubble and Squeak. I love it.

Bubble and Squeak, Bubble and Squeaker cookie every month left over from the Natty People. Hello, Kevin, how are you? Yeah? I love you. Got a big staff working for you. I mean, listen, this is what happens when you're a Kevin. I guess right, No, I know it. Don't you have a big staff. I don't. I'm self contained. I just don't know that I need it. I definitely do, there's no question about that. I can't here if I've ever told you before. The very first time that I met you,

we were playing golf together. I think we're playing in the same tournament, in the same tournament. This is circa, not circa was actually two thousand and eight. I looked it up fifteen years ago. Fourteen years ago, you and myself and Charles Barkley, we were playing in a threesome together in Lake Tahoe. We teet off and we had well because of you and Charles. Mostly we had a large gallery following us. I was very nervous. We teed off. All I know is we didn't hit our balls in

the same place. They were definitely in different areas, and we were walking not together, down the fairway and a bunch of people started yelling Kevin Kevin. Me being me, of course, assumed that they were yelling Kevin at me, because at the time especially everyone called me Kevin. And I remember turning around big Aisle on my face and waving graciously to the gallery and they were fully talking

to you. I remember being so humil so so humiliated, and filled with like self loathing, like, of course they're talking to Kevin Neil and not me, what are you thinking. I probably didn't even share that with you at the time because I was so embarrassed and nervous about it. Well, I will tell you you don't have to be embarrassed because that group of people were probably my family and my friends, and they wear their team meal and T shirts and they will do that on occasional holes. But

I will tell you I was. It took me like five years of that tournament to get over being nervous. I couldn't even hit the ball. I was like duffinite, you know, taking big divots out and when the camera was on me, I was just a mess. It truly is my favorite week of the year. I try to get better. It's always embarrassing, but you know, it's it's incredibly humbling for sure to be out there. I love it all right, Enough about golf. Uh, You grew up in Connecticut and I read as a child. You lived

in Germany for a while. I did relocated there or was that a life choice, sir. Yeah, my father worked for a helicopter companies, the Course Keys, and they had a deal with a German I guess my father calls it a German outfit. For the longest time, I thought he worked for later Housing, you know, but it was another helicopter company. And unlike a lot of the military who lived on the army base, we lived in a German neighborhood, so my friends are mostly German. So I

picked it up pretty quickly. And you became fluent in German, you know, in just four years. And I was six until I was ten. I mean, those are the years you absorb everything. Right. My sister and her husband and their two kids actually right about your age. They just did the same thing. He got moved over there through his work, and their kids were about the same age. And we're located in Stuttgart for three years. Do you feel like that change you as a child, to that

give you something you feel like? Yeah, it was amazing. I don't remember at the time if I left friends in Connecticut and it was bummed out, but you know, it was the first throw one on an airplane, and you know, Europe is not that big, and there's so many countries there. So during my father's vacations, we would drive, like to Paris, or we drive. I learned how to ski in the Alps. I learned how to swim in Greece, and it was like probably the best time in my life.

You know. I could ski in my front yard. You know they had apple orchards and I put on a pair of skis and skied down and walk up the hill. It's great. Yeah. My sister did the same thing, traveled all around yeah, and skied and the Alps and exactly what you said. And I mean to be exposed to so many different cultures and countries and languages at such an early age, that's an incredible life experience, right, it

really is, It really is. I got my Irish passport a couple of years ago because I thought it'd be great to live in Europe for a while. I wouldn't meet a visa and I could work there and bring my family. That's my bucket list. So I might do that. Maybe after my son goes off to college, my wife and I will go there and then he'll come in the summer. You have dual citizenship, I do, yeah, because my grandparents are from Ireland. They came over from Ireland,

so that made me eligible. But I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get that passport, a lot of paperwork, had to get a lot of certificates to gret My to get my grandfather's death certificate, which was not easy because first I had to kill him. You know, come on, and those Irish guys, they don't go down easy. No, no, they don't. I am going out of order here, but I just went back and watched several of your earliest appearances on The Tonight Show

with Johnny Carson. I did, and it kind of cut off. The video was kind of cut off. It seemed like he was almost mid sentence and said something and said a man with a very interesting sense of humor or something like that. Absurd, I think, absurd, Yeah, absurd sense of humor. Yeah. Well, you know, I gotta tell you I auditioned for the part of Michael in the office. Yes, and apparently I got I'm told, like close to getting it.

You didn't get it. You weren't, Michael Skote. No, No, maybe I was for half a second, but yeah, I mean that would have. I used to go on auditions against Steve Carrell a lot, and he would always get it. Yeah, what what do you remember about that audition experience? I remember going into the Bungalow Universal Greg Daniels, who I've known from SNL. He was a writer on SNL. I sat down to a chair and I did my part and he goes, thank you, like we didn't even know

each other, thank you very much. And I left and uh, and then here back. I didn't hear back at all. But you know, I was up for a show when I first moved to l A. If we could talk about me for a minute, I was in l A maybe two or three years. I was twenty seven by that time. And I got an audition at Paramount and I got five callbacks, and I thought, oh, this is it. Finally, after toiling for three long years, I'm going to get

a show. And the producers after the fifth time, they look at each other they go, well, we're not get any closer than this. And I walked outside of at office, I looked at Paramount. I thought, well, it's gonna be my new home. Week goes by two weeks, I don't hear anything, and then I hear they're looking for an older actor for the role, and that part was for it was for Sam and Cheers. Really, yeah, you auditioned for Sam Malone on Cheers and for Michael Scott on

the Office and got neither of them. That's right, But I did get other things, so I can't complain. No, you can't know. It's funny, you know the Coursier life takes. Had I gotten that show, I would be probably with my same wife here. I wouldn't be on my second marriage. But enough about me. Where are you from? I'm from Atlanta, Georgia, and I didn't live in Germany. I didn't. I certainly didn't audition for Sam Malone on Cheers. You wanted to be a stand up? Is that what you wanted to be?

That's all I wanted to be. It was a stand up. I went to school for marketing. I have a BS and marketing, but stand up was really what I loved. You know. I would watch every stand up comic on every talk show from merv Griffin to the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and I would highlight their name and the TV guide and you know, be sure to watch them, like you know, George Miller and David Letterman and and

I thought, that's the coolest job. But I remember, I've never been to California, but I went to New York or check out the comedy clubs. That terrified me because the audience was so brash and tough in the comics like Richard Belzer would come out and they were like real New Yorkers. So I decided to go to l A. And the day I remember I made that decision, I was raking leaves in my front yard at my parents home, and I had a radio out there so I could

listen to the music. And then the news came on and said Freddie Prince, the comedian from back in the eighties, had killed himself. And for some morbid reason, I thought, well, there's an opening in l A. You know, first stand up it is because it was really it wasn't because of that though. It made me realize how big of an impact comedy could have on the world. But anyway, I thought, that's that's really um my impetus to go out there. And also I get to see California, right,

it's interesting to me. Obviously, you became famous on s n L, which is known for much more of the improv people from Second City and whatever, and that that stand up was really your focus and wanting to do that. Did you want to be an actor even or was it really about making people laugh or being on stage? And be All I wanted to be was a stand

up I loved Steve Martin. I discovered Steve Barton. A lot of people don't know that, but I knew him from doing his you know little bits on SNL or The Tonight Show, and nobody else had heard of him. And then people started like hearing about him. I thought, no, no, no, that's my comic, that's mine, you know. But stand up was what I really wanted to do, and I'm still doing it, like forty three years later. And as far as being an actor, I really had no intention to

be an actor. I remember I was sitting at the bar at the improv and Mark Lano, who was teaching an acting class and he was but Freeman's partner. Eventually, who wants the improv? He asked me? If I thought about acting? You said, not not really, I just wanted to stand up. He goes, well, even if you think about it, you know, take a lesson. Maybe I teach cold reading and sometimes these casting agents come into the room and they'll see a comic and they want to

come in for an audition. I thought okay, and so I took some acting classes around l A and went through that whole I don't know if you went through this, but that whole rigular role of auditioning. You know that the nerves that come with that, and the humiliation, it's so difficult, and it's so it's so antithetical to what we actually do right, whether it's performing on stage or

being in front. You know that, like five people sitting in a room staring at you not laughing, is so it's unnatural and difficult, and you feel like, just give me a camera or tind me a real audience. It's so difficult. I remember I had an audition for McDonald's commercial ones. The part called for somebody so upset about the Big Mac. They had a cry and I had just broken up with my girlfriend or she broke up with me, and I was devastated. I was so depressed

I couldn't get out of bed. I pulled myself out of bed into this commercial and I got in front of them. Was like the judges on American Idol, sitting behind the table. When it got to the part where I had a cry, I let loose and they're looking at me so sympathetically, and oh that's poor, you know. And uh, after the audition was over, they just sat there like an awe and just you know, like, oh my god, this guy is amazing. Two or three weeks later,

I got a call back. But now I'm kind of over the girl, so I can't bring the tears, you know. So I brought my answering machine tape. At the time, they have those little tapes and the answer machine. I brought that and I sat in the car outside with her eight by ten headshot and I played her breaking up with me over and over, and then I went inside and I still couldn't. I couldn't bring the emotion. So she screwed me over twice. Uh, you didn't get the job, I'm guessing No, I did not know. I

came really close. They said, we're not getting any closer than this, and then I heard there going with it, older guy. Do you consider your big break? Johnny Carson probably the highlight of my more souther than Saturday Night Live or Weeds, because it's what I aspired to do. I used to go watch that show. When I first moved to l A, I would they gave out free tickets.

I can around three in the afternoon and I would go around five, you know, right before the show started, and I knew if I went up and down the line, and I sympathetically asked people, do you have an extraal ticket? And I would always get one. And it was like a Vegas show. I'd go in there and I see Johnny would come out, and then Paul whoever the guest was comics, Paul McCartney and the band, and I remember

everybody in the band and the instrument they played. So when I finally did that show, I knew exactly what was going on. I knew that the band was right there to left. I knew that guy that played the troumbone and the curtains open up and I walked out to my On the way out to my spot, you know, Johnny Carson gives you a wave and Ed McMahon, and I had totally forgotten my act. I couldn't remember it. And I got to the spot and by the time the audience stopped clapping, it finally came to me. I

was so relieved and it was probably. Yeah, it was such a natural high to do that show. I was outside of my body. I was saying to myself as I'm routinely doing my suset, I'm doing the tonight show. I'm doing the tonight show. Finally, that's amazing. Was this with the map? No? No, this is the thing called the Choices? And it was like, you know, things you kind of do as a kid. I said, you know, it's hard to make decisions in life, that isn't it. And uh, I go, you know, like, would you rather,

you know, have a super salad? And they go, Sue, Yeah, I mean too. That was easy, all right. Let me think of a better choice. Okay, would you write about headache or a stomach ache? They go headache? I said, yeah, me too. I don't want to throw up. These are easy. Let me think of a better one. Would you rather be buried into your neck up to dirt and then have your head painted like a soccer ball and have

some Brazilian kids started hanging around? Or would you rather get your fingers slammed in a car door and have the guy drive away through a car wash? Soccer ball? Yeah me too. They might use hot wax in the car. So I was doing that and Johnny Carson loved it. That's what got me on that show. And that's why he said the second time I was on and this this guy has an absurd sense of humor. Okay, that's amazing. I watched this morning the uh the Map, which is genius.

I mean it's still today, it's genius. Um. If people have not seen it, I don't know, google it. Kevin Neilanson, it's amazing. You went on to do Dave Show a lot. Now. Did you know him David Letterman? Sorry, I don't know why I call him Dave like we're great friends. Did you know him from the stand up scene prior to that? I did know him when I first moved to California.

I lived in San Diego for like three or four months, and I would go to the comedy store in Lahorea and there was two comics that I really liked, and I didn't know which one was which one of them had a gap between his teeth and the other one had a big chin. Whatever their name was on the marquee, I couldn't. I didn't know who I was going to see and was Ledderman at Leno? Yeah, but I think I did let him in before I did the Tonight show. Okay,

you probably no better than me, because I forget. I can't remember the names of any of my characters and the stuff I've done. You know, I watched reruns of SNL and I'm in a sketch and I have no idea what that sketch is about. I'm watching it. I'm figuring what where are we going with this? You know,

who's your favorite stand up you ever saw yourself? Well, I think it would have to have been Steve Martin at the Universal l Ampitheater with the Blues Brothers opening up for him, probably in nineteen eighty one or something. It was just the energy and that stadium and everybody with their noses and their glasses, you know, the fake noses that he wore, and the arrows through the head.

I thought, this is incredible. And I've seen other comics too that we're really impressive, like eddiez Are you know, he would come out it's like a rock show. It's like a rock and roll concert with a smoke and everything. And Robin Williams, Oh my god, probably the most incredible impressive comic. I used to be. You know, hang out at the Improv all the time. Melrose in Hollywood. I was a bartender there for a couple of years, and this is as soon as I moved out here, and

I was there almost every night. You know, I started getting on and doing open mic nights and and the amount of people that would come into that bar area and then perform, I mean everyone from you know. I got a when I was bartending at a phone call. It was Steve Martin who was wondering if Bud was around. He wanted to come down and do a set. I said,

you come down to do a set right now. And Albert Brooks would come in, and Andy Kaufman was always there, and I'd see Robin coming after Mork and Mindy with the same outfit on with the suspenders, and it was pretty magical just being in that room. And I would watch I go up to the office upstairs and look through the people because it was so packed. And Richard Lewis, you know, he was such He was a lot of expatriots from New York, and Richard Lewis really connected with him.

Just everybody would kill it in that room and it's such the energy. And then out in the bar area. In the eighties, it became like this most popular place to go to dance and to hang out with people. And I mean I've seen everybody coming there, from Timothy Leary to Bob Fosse, you know, every actor, and it was such a famous place to be and people would and they had a jukebox there, and it got to a point where it became like a dance club. But yeah,

it was pretty magical. You're in l A. And I understand Dana Carvey who was a roommate of yours right in l A. Well, I lived in a rental house in the Hollywood Hills that a friend of mine turned me onto. He was he had found it and then he was trying to get some guys to rent it out. So I rented a bedroom there, and then a friend

of mine, a writer, rented another bedroom. And then Dana was coming down from San Francisco a lot and we told him that there is a studio apartment over the garage if he wants to rent that one, he's in town. So he did that. So yeah, we all kind of lived together for a while, Okay, and he gets cast on SNL. This is circa eight six. Yeah, so he gets cast. I was so excited for him because he does impressions and characters and accents and and so he goes off to New York and I'm really proud of him,

and I'm excited. I never knew anybody that was on that show. Two weeks later, I got a call from him from Laura Michael's house. He goes, Kevin'm in the back bedroom Laura Michael's house out in the Long Island. I guess who's in the kitchen, Bill Murray. I'm like, no, no way. He goes, yeah, anyway, Lauren is looking for one more cast member. I told him about you, and I think he's going to want to see your audition tapes. And I'm like, Bill Murray's in the kitchen. I wasn't

even hearing that other stuff. You know, I wouldn't even believe. I didn't even want to acknowledge it because I knew i'd never get on that show because I don't think characters are accents. I'm just to stand up, a really really good stand up. And so I sent my tape in and then two weeks later, I get another call from data Kevin back at the Laura Michael's house. In the back that guess was in the kitchen. Steve Marten, no way, because yeah, hey, good news, Lauren like your tapes.

I think they're gonna fly you in for an audition, I said, Steve Martin's in the kitchen, you know. And I take the flights to New York. It's a free trip to New York at least, and I got a thirty rock and I go up to a studio eight h which is really taped the show. And as soon as I walked in there, I got really tired because I used to fall asleep watching that show and it was association thing. Come on, is that true? That's not true? Yeah, okay,

that is true. And then I do my little audition and I fly back to l A. And two weeks later, I find myself sitting in a high rise across some Laura Michael's in Beverly Hills. He's offering a job on SNL. I said, thank you very much. Mr Michael's. Let me think about it over the weekend. See the way, that's the way I roll. That's why massage the deal. But he saw all right through me. He goes, you think about it over the weekend. We'll see New York on Monday,

So yeah, he was right. Nextly, you know, I'm out Laura Michael's house. I got a call from Dana Kevin got of Laura Michael's house. I'm in the back fed room. This is in the kitchen, I said, that's me, tough guy. I'm in the kitchen. Now. Who is your favorite person to work with on SNL? I mean work with everybody. Everybody was great, but of course you mean as far as the host no, I mean, I'll give me the cast, the cat um. You know, I didn't really like any

of them, but same with me. I liked you know, I liked a lot of Adam Sandler, Dana Carve. You hung out with a lot. I mean, I liked everybody, but I seem to hang out more with Dana and you know Sandler, and you know a lot of times you didn't really hang out too much because you're working all the time. You know, you're always in the studio or home, you know, writing or thinking about the sketches. But you know, as far as the hosts were concerned, I got to work with a lot of my idols

and the bands that came through their work. He's dinosaur bands, and I grew up listening to like, you know, Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Arrow Smith, Eric Clapton, and some of them would stay after the show to do a little concert for the audience, which was cool. That's really cool. I remember one time Eddie Vetter was playing on the show and he comes up to me. I knew him a little bit. He told me he used to come and see me because he

lived in San Diego. He used that he was served a lot and he would come and see me at the improv down there whenever I was performing, because he was a fan. This is before Pearl Jam even. I thought that's really cool. I wish I, you know, was introduced to him. But then I find out later his girlfriend was a server there, so that's probably why he was really going to see his girlfriend. Is his girlfriend to get free drinks? Probably? Yeah? Exactly what do you

think this key to your longevity on the show. Obviously one of the longest tenured cast members ever. And as you said before, you were an improv guy. You were you were you know, didn't do characters, you were a stand up guy. What what do you think the key to your success being on the show so long. Well, I wasn't looking for an overnight success. I was just happy to be on that show because I was like surprised I ever be on that show. So I was

content on enjoying it as long as I could. And other people they would get really um impatient if they weren't a star in one year, and they throw things around and you know they felt better. But I was just sitting back and enjoying like the different bands that came through in the hosts, and learning how to write sketches and you know, learning how to do characters, and it was such a just a really cool time for me.

You know, those nine years that was the longest at the time, I think me and Tim Meadows, but you know, since then, I think Keenan was on there for like fourteen years or something, and also Darryl Hammond was on there for I think forty six years. He's still on right kind of you're still employing he was there longer than Lauren Michaels. Yeah, well, I don't know about that. Yeah, I remember that was a super cool experience for me.

Once the office started going, I remember there's you know, you want to come to SNL and I said, yeah, are you kidding. I've been a fan of that show forever. Well, you you go to Lauren Michael's office you watched from and I was like, what are you talking about? They said that the balcony over on the second the second floor, and you go in Lawrence's office and look over and watch and experience that. It's such a thrill. It really is.

Now now he kind of positions himself under the bleachers in front of a monitor and will always have these like past hosts hanging around, like Paul Rudd or Tom Hanks, and that's kind of his hangout area. But yeah, it was a great experience. I just loved it. I loved it. And you know the hardest part about that show. You

know what the hardest part was. It was getting my friends in, making sure they had tickets, you know, if they didn't, and then I had to going downstairs and you know, and I hear I was about to go on, and I'm like, you know, do you guys get in? You got all right, y'all set? Okay, you didn't get the tickets? Okay, I gotta make cool, you know, I'll

make some calls I'm sure. But one of the things I remember the most is before my first sketch ever on that show you psych yourself out, you say, nobody's watching it anymore because you know, the year before it's very low ratings and they almost pulled the plug on it. So that's how I, you know, I kind of got

over there. I was still nervous. But we are five seconds away from coming back from the commercial, and I had written a sketch Mr. Subliminal, which was kind of a complicated sketch to do because it was like two conversations going on at once, and we're literally five seconds away from action, and Laura Michaels comes up to me. He puts his hand on my shoulder. He said, are you sure this is what you want? You know, to be funny? Like, is this how you want? You're gonna?

You want to be famous? You know? How did Weeds come about? Did you audition for Weeds? I did Weeds came about? You know? They sent me the script and I said Weeds on the cover and I thought, oh man, not another like Stone or thing. This stuff has been done to death. And I wasn't that, you know, anxious to read the script. But then I read it and it was so good. The characters were great and the story was great. And then I heard I had to go audition for it. I'm like, I'm never gonna get this,

you know, it's just too good. So I go into audition for it. And there's a lot of good actors in the you know, waiting to go in and read, you know, like, um, you know de Niro, Laurence Olivier, Carl Street, you know, a lot of good actors. Anyway, I beat them all out because I'm a pro. You know, I'm a professional. You are anyway, I read. I read for it too Jenji Cohen, who is the creator of the show, and she, you know, couldn't have been more pleased. I mean, it was like the perfect part for me.

You know, Doug Wilson, that's the one name I remember from a character. But you know, after SNL, I had done a couple of failed sitcoms, and I was starting to wonder. I thought, will I ever do anything as notable or maybe as notable as SNL? And then this show Weeds came along, and a lot of people ask me, do they smoke pot on that show? Is it really Poteston knows they you know, there wouldn't be a show. It's a honey rose herb that they smoke in most

movies and television shows. It's it's very kind of light, you know, but I got a little lightheaded because I'm not a smoker. And also we get it from the honey rose herb cartel in Columbia, so you know, it's got a little kick to it, you see what I'm saying. Yeah, um weed is a totally different kind of show. Obviously your focus is stand up. You've done SNL live television for so many years. Was it difficult for you to work on such a different type of show for such

a long period of time. I think it was the first single camera show I did. You know, it was the total opposite of SNL because SNL is so immediate. It's live and there's no waiting around the trailer, you know, for the lighting or whatever, and it's no like you know, shooting out in Santa Clarita at two in the morning. So SNL was kind of a media like that, and so this this was like a process. It's really a challenge to do a single camera show because like shooting

movie every week. But I learned that my trailer became my office and I would have a lot of stuff in there, and I have my musical instruments. I'd have drawing pads, you know, I like to paint, So that was that was good. I had a lot of free time. Yeah, people that I talked to are so shocked by how much time it takes to get that one hour, one minutes or whatever of television. But yeah, it's a it's a very different kind of muscle that you're you're working

when you work on that single camera type show. Yeah, it really is. And you know, one of the other things is on SNL, I'm playing like different characters every week. This was the same character Doug Wilson on Leeds for nine years, so that was interesting, you know, kind of developing formulating this character. What was your process for for helping to develop Doug. Well, you know, like I said, Genji saw me at the audition and she thought this

is the perfect role for you. You know, I wasn't like Doug Wilson, but I could play that type of guy really easy. And I never wrote anything, but I embellished a lot of scenes, you know, like when I'm in the city council, and you know Elizabeth Perkins character, I can't remember her name, but she'd be up talking and we had real kind of, you know, a relationship

that was not great at all times. And she's talking and I decided that I would clip my toe nails as she was talking, and then I watched him go flying across the room and that really agitated her. So things like that, you know, probably bring a headboard in, you know, for a bed. We're setting up a bed and I have the headboard in my hand, and instead of just leaning against the wall, I take it and I start knocking it against the wall, you know, as

if there's some actually going on in the bed. So, you know, little things like that and doable show and and really political in a bizarre way. I mean, you know, we've comes out marijuana is not legal in any state at the time, and I feel like that show helped sort of change the dialogue in a way, or you know, changed the perception or sort of in terms of entertainment, really examined a different sector of people who were using

and smoking marijuana. Right, Yeah, it wasn't different sector of people because normally you see just a lot of stoner guys, you know, like Sean Patt's character, Matthew McConaughey, you know, just all stoners. But this was like normal regular people, you know, in a regular world with kids. It was interesting like that, you know, it was it was kind of a new kind of a breakthrough. And the other thing about that show was it was one step ahead

of everything else. Like the town of aggresstick burnt down, and I think two weeks after our show aired there was a big fire in Valencia. We did a season about a ton that was being dug from Mexico into the US, and then a month later they discovered a tunnel that was being done into the US. Why are you still on the road doing stand up? What is it that stand up? It's always been my first love. Like I said, I love the the art of crafting a joke and deliver. And it's again it's immediate, it's

immediate reaction from the audience. For me, it's something I'll probably do and I'll probably you know, my life will probably end on the road somewhere. Do you now it's got to be easier for you now when you start

so many people know you you're headlining. Do you ever have shows that just don't work, not really, No, I mean some work better than others, but nobody ever walks out and there's no complaints, you know, like I remember, you know, there's some comics like Norm McDonald used to have a lot of walkouts, and I kind of never ventured into those areas. Mine is pretty safe. It's pretty clean, right, And I have a good cross section for an on SNL fans or Weeds fans or Adam Sandler films, and

the the club owners always say you have it. You bring in such a nice audience. You have a a red wine sophisticated audience. And this is how they know how to order, how to order, you know, their inventory, like we have to order a lot of extra red wine when you come in. Yeah. I respect and admire you so much that you're still out there on the road, that you love it so much that you face that I don't know that demon is that? Is that the wrong way to say? You face that that beast every night.

I admired that so much. It's not every night, well you know what I mean. Yeah, but you know, I never like stopped doing comedy for more than two weeks in a row. That was like a long time. So when the pandemic hit, it was such a good thing for me, like everybody else, you know, I just put away my act. I didn't even think about it. And then when things started picking up again, like a parking lots or outdoor venues, I had to kind of like revisit my act. I couldn't remember a lot of it.

And then I started like just creating new material, which was great. So it's like a house cleaning. Yeah, but I do love it. I love you know, And I've moved on to other things too, like I love to paint now, you know. I do these digital art drawings if people go to Kevin Neal and artwork on Instagram. I do caricatures of different celebrities and I have a book coming out in November. Oh you do. I love them, Kevin.

I was gonna ask you about this, you know, you say caricatures, and I know that's how you describe it, and I guess it is in a way. But I find with so many of the subjects that you find a real humanity and reality. You capture the essence of most people so well your subjects. I'm so impressed with it. Is this something you've always done. Is this a new skill for you, Well, thank you for that, and it's kind of a new skill. But I've I've always you know,

drawn since grammar school. You know, we had to draw maps without tracing them, and I mean I think that was my first experiences during characters was a characture of a map, like you know, Italy wouldn't be a boot at the end, it would be a platform shoot, you know. So I've always doodled on the side of my margins of my papers, or even during SNL. If I wasn't in a sketch, I'd be doodling, you know, somebody sitting across from me, Phil Hartman, or you know, daying a carve, anybody.

Right before the pandemic, I was sitting at L a X. I was looking at some some of these character artists on Instagram and they're really good. They're much better than me now, but they're really good. And I saw one guy. He had an ad for lessons and he was really

I liked his work. So he was from England. So I got a hold of him and I took ten lessons from him, you know, be a skype, and he kind of taught me how to you know, work with dual artwork and tablets and doing caricatures, and then I just started coloring them in and you know, using the stylist as a paintbrush and the different paints. I just really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot, and it finally all came together where I was. Everything I learned

just growing up, I just kind of incorporated. And I also used to love watching the caricature artists, like you know, at these street fairs or at the carnivals. I would stand behind them forever and watch them, you know, how they would make the eyes bager, you know, the ears

and and then showing it to the person. Yeah, I've watched a bunch of your I don't know what if you call it like time laps for those of you who haven't seen Kevin's work, you include at times you attempting to find your final picture, some different incarnations and you see, I don't know, the one that's sticking out of my mind that that I saw very recently was John Travolta, and it's like I see you sort of experimenting with the nose or with the lips, or with

how the cigarette dangles out of his mouth. I feel like I'm watching you create the exact look that you're going for to capture the essence of that person. I find that really interesting. Oh thanks, Well, I'll tell you it doesn't happen overnight. For me. It takes me a long time to draw each one of those because I'm I'm not like these guys who do it for a job whose illustrators. I know a lot of these guys now,

they don't do it a lot like me. They'll draw their face and then their evolution is just coloring it in and painting it because they've already got the shape of the face. I've got to take a long time. Sometimes it takes a week or two. But you know, I'm getting quicker at it now, and and I do like showing the process. And by the way, the name of my book is called I Exaggerate My Brushes with Fame,

and it will be out in November. And on each opposite side of the picture, Brian, there's a little antidote how I knew that person or experience we had together, or if I don't know that person, like Freddie Mercury, I'll just muse about my first concert or whatever. So I'm excited. That's it's really awesome and you just mentioned it. So I also enjoyed going down the rabbit Hole and reading the descriptions of um so many of the subjects that you've painted. Steve Martin and tripol to you tell.

I won't spoil that one, but really interesting story about him on S and L. Yeah. Also, you have a YouTube show right, Hiking with Kevin I do. That's been a little web series. Yeah, how have you found doing that? Are you enjoying that? I love it? I love it so much because I used well I still do. But I love to hike in the canyons around l A. And it's something I really enjoy. I go out there for meditation, just while I'm walking and meditate thinking. I

write a lot when I'm walking. In fact, I did a hike with Linn Manuel Miranda in New York and we went to a park where he said he grew up as a kid, he'd walk up there and play and and that's exactly where he wrote a lot of Hamilton's walking on those trails up there, and so I, you know, I agreed, it's a great place to write. I was hiking with Matthew Modeen once and we were

both so out of breath. I thought this would be funny if I was interviewing and we were both out of breath, you know, we couldn't understand what we were saying. So I videotaped that. I posted it on Twitter, and then I just got get other friends and started hiking with them. Then my equipment got better, and then I got a YouTube channel, and then I got to go pro in the end of selfie stick. And then I got a drone and I'm editing it myself, you know, a premiere pro. So it's become quite the and I

just started season four. I've only hiked twice, once with Eugene Levy and once with Julian Lennon. Awesome, it just started season four. I mean it's not airing yet, but I started taping it. Okay, it's not so much hiking with me, but there's a course that I play a lot in l A where you walk golfing. And I have said too many people who are asked me about golf or what I love about golf, it is that time for me where my mind goes away, where I'm

not self obsessing or thinking about small details. I'm simply thinking about one objective, which just to get the ball in the hole, whether playing alone or with others where we're not communicating that much. That time away from me, I've had some of my best ideas and able to just sort of let the manality of everyday life sort of go and focus on that one objective actually as brings me greater enlightenment, and that's that's one of the reasons that I love golf and playing golf. It sounds

like hiking for you is brings you there. You're not a stand up, so we're what would you do with these ideas? Well, talk to somebody like you or or yeah, or right, or ideas for projects or other conversations that I want to have. Yeah, So for you, it's jokes, is that's that's what comes to you. No, it's also characters, are short little films or anything actually anything that comes to my mind. You know, Like I wrote a joke

the other day. I was hiking on a trail, and the joke is this basically because I talked about not being ripped off for looking for deals, and I said, you know, when I was in college, I bought a used mattress and it was like fifty bucks, and apparently it was somebody's deathbed. And I mean, you wouldn't know except for the bullet holes and the smell. It was a great deal. I gotta tell you, you know, but I have to write everything down otherwise I forget it.

And it's not the worse than coming up with something that you really like and then you can't remember what it was. Well, I I've said it to you personally and a little bit today. I respect you and your career and your dedication so much. Clearly one of the funniest people that I've ever seen and had the opportunity to be around, and I wish you all the best luck with your future projects. But the painting, the caricatures,

I'm so impressed with. And I not only will I buy it the day up, I know how important it is. I'm going to preorder ith nice Nice. I love that. There you go, it's cool. I like it. Well, thank you and I enjoy you too. And I'm i'm I'm I was excited to be on your show here. Yeah, thanks so much, Kevin. All right, right, let's go golfing. Oh man, Kevin, I have to tell you, I am going to be very disappointed if a Brian bomb Gartner caricature does not arrive at my door in three to

five business days. I'm just kidding kind of. Your presence on the podcast was well the best gift of all. Thank you so much for joining me, and as always to you listeners, don't forget to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and to keep up with the times, make sure to follow us on Instagram at Off the Beat and I will see Wall next week. Off the Beat is hosted an executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Langley. Our producers are Diego Tapia,

Liz Hayes, Emily Carr, and Kristen Vermilia. Our talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak performed by my great friend Creed Bratton, and the episode was mixed by seth Olandski