Stand-up comedian Bert Kreischer during the pandemic actually enjoyed the thrill of performing drive-in shows in the outdoors.
“I really enjoyed the outdoor spaces,” he said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I enjoy going out in the summer and being outdoors.”
He sought out unique open spaces, including minor league stadiums. Coolray Field in Lawrenceville became an event venue during the Fully Loaded Comedy Festival coming on June 25, Saturday. (Tickets start at $49.75.)
“I love baseball,” he declared. “I played baseball for the rest of my life. I’ve booked eight stadiums.”
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The tour also provided Kreischer an opportunity to spend time with his comedy buddies. “We sit around and make each other laugh,” Kreischer said. “And everyone roasts me. I’m a target for everyone. I’m completely unaware of most things.”
In every city, they have something exciting. Then, they went to Bend, Indiana, they went to Notre Dame. While in Louisville, Kentucky, they visited Churchill Downs. In Atlanta the trio will be Nikki Glaser, Mark Norman and Big Jay Oakerson but as during this interview, the actor wasn’t certain what they would do.
“Why tour and just sit in your hotel room?” He asked. “I want to go out and have fun!” (He might be older, but the fun has always been there. He was featured by Rolling Stone magazine in 1997 as a uber-party-goer in Florida State University, an article that inspired the movie “National Lampoon’s Van Wilder” in 2002, starring Ryan Reynolds.)
This trip, he stated, “is a labor of love for me.” He’s not really making a profit but he is providing his guests with appearance fees at market rates as well as gifts bags tour buses, and private jets for travel.
How does he be able to do this? Netflix has paid him handsomely for four of its specials to date. “They are subsidizing my entire life,” he told me. “I do not know where I’d not be. They’ll always stand by you as an artist.”
Kreischer who grew up in Florida He has Georgia connections through his wife LeAnn who was born in Bowdon (population 26855 in 2020). The couple named their daughter Georgia. LeAnn who is not living in Los Angeles, stays at the lake situated in Carroll County.
“She raises chickens,” the farmer said. “She’ll rise early in the morning to bake biscuits using syrup from sorghum in the kitchen for her girls. She’s always a small-town girl. You can remove the redneck from Bowdon but you aren’t able to get Bowdon away from rednecks.”
In the summer of last year, Kreischer finished shooting a film titled “The Machine,” based on a 1995 story where he claimed to have stole the train in Russia in conjunction with members of the Russian Mafia. The film is a comedic satire which led his fans to refer to him as “The Machine.”
Similar to Will Ferrell, 49-year-old Kreischer is a fan of going topless wherever is possible despite (or due to) his large beer stomach. “My body is falling apart,” Kreischer said. “I have just begun working out. Hard. I underwent operations on my elbow. I was the one who did the stunts in the film. I took on a guy down an escalator and damaged my triceps. I’m just a year removed from surgery. I’m now able to set my personal best bench press. I’m returning 100 percent..”
He told him that fellow comic and podcast King Joe Rogan once offered him $200,000 to shed 200 pounds and keep it off for a whole year. He declined. “I did not want to sit at a table and be thinking of Joe Rogan in my head. I just couldn’t,” he said.
Would have done it with $2m? Maybe. “Ten million dollars in a heartbeat!” He said.
The problem is his uncontrollable passion for food that frequently comes up in his podcasts, most notably “Bertcast” and “2 Bears, 1 Cave with Tom Segura and Bert Kreischer.”
His most recent obsession is carbonara pasta. “I’ve been eating it for breakfast,” he explained. “It has bacon, egg and cheese!”
He told me that podcasts came to him in the perfect time for his skills: talking. There’s a large amount. “I can go three hours, no problem,” he added. “Thank for the fact that I’m connected to intelligent people who convinced me to start podcasts. My first income from ad sales was higher than I made hosting a show on Travel Channel. We do not pay agents, managers, or lawyers. There’s no expense.”
The initial podcast setup was $800 in equipment, he claimed.
And he is free to create whatever he wishes in his blog. He is able to interview fellow historians or comics or even his father. He’s tried a variety of formats. One time, he experimented with an idea to review all tabs in the Internet browser. It worked. A second time, the man walked into an Starbucks using a recording device and attempted to listen to the conversation of people. It didn’t work.
“You find out from fans pretty quickly if something works or not,” said he declared. “When you fail, the fans laugh over the failure, not at you.”
The only drawback to all his yappingis that “I’ve burned material in podcasts that would have been great on stage.”