STAND-UP COMEDIAN - KEVIN BARTINI

“Go do what you want, and let the chips fall where they may. Let them heckle - they are strangers.” - Kevin Bartini, stand-up comedian

ON EPISODE 19:

There is a double dose of Science on this week's episode. First, hear all about a new Roman city that has been uncovered, and then a 37000-year-old pyramid discovered in Egypt sheds new light on that era in history. Momentum is What Fuels You this week, and you can hear how Dustin and Jeff think you can utilize momentum every day. Then, the process of creating the Death Wish Coffee Nitro Cold Brew has been perfected, and there are details on this episode, including a reveal of new hats from one of the most respected hat companies in the world, New Era.

ABOUT KEVIN BARTINI:

Kevin Bartini has worked hard in the stand-up comedy scene and has had some really cool gigs along the way. This episode is a recap of the NYC Podfest live show, and Kevin talks about breaking into comedy, what fuels him to keep getting out there, and his incredible effort to rename a street in NYC George Carlin Way.

TRANSCRIPT: 

Jeff: Welcome, everybody, to the New York City Podcast Festival. We're all here, and we're all having a good time. We are Fueled by Death Cast, and we are joined by the incomparable Kevin Bartini. He is amazing, and we brought some goodies for him. And we're going to show you guys real quick because we are a podcast put out by Death Wish coffee, which is the world's strongest coffee.
And a lot of people always ask us, "What is the difference between the world's strongest coffee and espresso?"

Dustin: Well, the thing is espresso is actually a type of grind, so what we did here today is we're going to make a little bit of an espresso out of Death Wish coffee and see if we can kill our guest with caffeine.

Jeff: That's what we really want to try and do is give him cardiac arrest in front of you all, and then we'll laugh. It'll be fun.

Kevin Bartini: Well, little did you guys know that I've already been drinking backstage, 'cause the next show out is Broadwaysted, and they were like, "Why don't you get wasted with us?" So this is just going to balance me back out, and I'll probably do a decent show.

Jeff: The tip of the iceberg.

Dustin: So what I have here is called a mini-presso, and it's made specifically for on-the-go espresso making. It's pretty high-tech and it makes weird squeaky sounds and looks like a pipe bomb, but it makes coffee.

Kevin Bartini: Have you tried to bring that on to an airplane before?

Dustin: No, not yet.

Jeff: But Death Wish coffee is, like I said, the world's strongest coffee. And the reason why is the way we roast our beans and where we get our beans from. We are the number one seller on Amazon. You can check us out at DeathWishcoffee.com, where this podcast lives. And we just want to caffeinate the world. That's all we want to do to you people. We have all free stickers and stuff you can go grab after the show, but we're really excited to be here on Pod Fest talking with all you guys and especially you, Kevin. You are our first comedian on this show.

Kevin Bartini: Really?

Jeff: Yeah.

Kevin Bartini: Wow.

Jeff: We bring on a guest every week on Fueled by Deathcast, and the reason why is because we are all fueled by death. We're all fueled to do something awesome before we leave this rock forever. And one of the greatest jobs I feel in the world is to make people laugh, and that's what you do, Kevin. And I kind of wanted to start by asking you what got you into the comedy scene. What influenced you to start going out there and trying to make people laugh?

Kevin Bartini: Before I answer that, should I...

Jeff: Yes, yes, please.

Dustin: Go for it. Do it.

Jeff: We want to see if this is going to [crosstalk 00:02:13]

Kevin Bartini: Sober up here.

Jeff: Yeah.

Dustin: Oh, wow.

Kevin Bartini: Oh, sweet Jesus. I want more of that.

Dustin: We can make that happen.

Jeff: We can make that happen.

Kevin Bartini: That was very good. That was very good.
So your question was what got me into it?

Jeff: Yeah, what made you start being a comedian?

Kevin Bartini: Listen, I was a child of the 80s where there was that comedy boom. It was just on TV all the time, and I absolutely loved it. I would watch every night. I would watch standup. My family would gather around the television at least once a week whenever Jerry Seinfeld popped up on one of those shows. Everybody came running to watch. And people would do five, six-minute sets, and I would just...
When my favorite guys were done after five minutes, I just wanted more. I was pissed. Oh, five minutes, that's it. I would be bummed. And I was also, coincidentally, the funny kid, and it just seemed like the thing to do. It's weird because you can be an athletic kid and watch sports and aspire to be an athlete, but you can't just go play for the Yankees. You can't do that. You have to have people along the way moving you up. You want to be a comic, you can. You can just go start and do some open mics, and if you can swing your dick with everybody, then you can stay in the game.

Jeff: No, and that's very true. I think that pertains to a lot of things in life and not just comedy. Just get out there and do it.

Kevin Bartini: Dick swinging, for example.

Jeff: Yeah, dick swinging. Get out there and do it.

Kevin Bartini: If you want to swing dick, just get out there and flop it around like the [crosstalk 00:03:51]

Jeff: You might be the best dick swinger there is, and we don't know it. So if you want to just go try after the show, I'll be out on that corner taking pictures.

Kevin Bartini: You may be the next baby elephant just swinging your tusk. You never know. Helicopter.

Jeff: Helicopter, yeah.

Kevin Bartini: I don't do that anymore 'cause I chipped a tooth.

Jeff: So your career has led to playing in clubs, and also you have become a warmup comedian for a lot of different shows including Daily Show and Colbert. What's the difference between being someone who warms up crowds before a show and then maybe just playing to the crowds at one in the morning at a bar? Is it a different set? Is it a different approach?

Kevin Bartini: Well, there's a lot less drunks at 5 PM on the Daily Show set.

Jeff: That's true. That's true.

Kevin Bartini: Than 1 AM at a club. Yeah, it's a lot more, if you do audience warmup, it's not standup. And anybody who goes out thinking you could just do a seven to ten-minute set, you're going to fail at the job because your job is to create energy and oftentimes to channel that energy and focus it.
I did the presidential conventions with the Daily Show, so I toured with them. We went on the road for two weeks. It was the greatest thing that I've ever done in my life.

Jeff: Wow.

Kevin Bartini: And for times like that, this was back five years ago now, and we came to town. It felt like Led Zeppelin coming to town in 1975. Just people were lined up to get tickets. People would plan their vacations around coming to see the show, and so they're so excited and they're so amped up when they get in there that my job was literally just to bring...not just to get them laughing but to get their attention focused because the show needs the audience to play a role and to bring energy and focus to the show. So a lot of that job is understanding that and understanding how to get people to do what you need and how to carry yourself so that you earn that respect and that you earn that from the audience.
So you can go to a bar at one in the morning and do some crowd work like I would probably talk to that lady right there who's on her phone and be like, "What the fuck are you doing on your phone? I'm trying to perform for you." We would have a dialogue then and then we would screw. So but at the show, I can't necessarily be mean to you. I have to be more playful. You're doing a set at 1 AM somewhere, and I can maybe be a little bit more... The parameters of what I can make fun of are wider because worst case scenario is the club doesn't have me back, and I'm out $15 a week. But the show, if you fuck up, you get fired, and that's a big deal.

Dustin: Did you learn that the hard way or tried some jokes that might have been a little bit too risky for the Daily Show?

Kevin Bartini: No. No, it's never about jokes. It's about... I always, with crowd work in general, I kind of have a ground rule that I'll never make fun of somebody... And I probably learned this the hard way, but I'll never make fun of somebody for something that they can't control. If it's God's fault, I'm not going to make fun of you for it. So if you're morbidly obese, if you... Whatever it is, if it's how you were born, if it's the way you are, I'm not going to make fun of you for that because you're here to have a good time and you're probably self-conscious about that.
But a guy shows up... First of all, I love you people from Brooklyn. You show up to studio audiences, I can pick you out right away, and we can make fun of you and your lip rings and your facial hair and all that shit all day because that's your choice and it's ridiculous. But you show up with your 55-year-old white dad, and he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt. I'm going to attack that. That's the kind of stuff.
But when you're in a comedy club especially, if somebody heckles you, then all bets are off. Then those rules are out the table. Then I'm going to call you a fat fuck, and I'm going to make you cry because it's prison yard rules. I have to make an example of you.

Dustin: To earn that respect.

Kevin Bartini: Yeah. So everybody else doesn't think it's feeding time. So then I will... Believe me, I can zone in on your insecurity tout suite and just have at you.

Jeff: That's awesome and actually brings up something I wanted to bring up is one thing in comedy that you can't learn, you have to kind of learn on the job, is being heckled.

Kevin Bartini: Yeah.

Jeff: Have you dealt with that a lot? I know every comedian has, but have you dealt with that a lot in your career?

Kevin Bartini: Yeah. There were a lot of years where I would just take the stage and every night somebody would just holler up, "You're too handsome to do comedy."

Jeff: Oh, man. That sucks.

Dustin: Jerks. Jerks.

Kevin Bartini: "We don't believe your problems. You're too sexy for this world." That kind of stuff. So once you realize, okay, that's what they're going to hit you with, then you...

Jeff: Yeah, the worst is out of the way.

Kevin Bartini: Listen, when you're doing comedy, especially when you're a new jack comic, very oftentimes the audience isn't going to remember you one way or the other. If you're on the road at a club where I'm the headliner, and somebody else is featuring and doing a half hour, and there's a host doing 15 minutes, we're all on some level professionals, and you're just the new open mic-er in town and they're giving you five minutes.
Unless you piss your pants in front of that audience, they're going to leave that show that night not talking about you. If I did my job right, they're talking about me. They're not going to remember you. So that's where you take your lumps. Let them heckle. Who gives a shit? They're strangers. They won't remember me. They'll come in three months and I'll be here again, and they probably will not remember me.

Dustin: They'll remember you if you piss your pants though.

Kevin Bartini: If you piss your pants, yeah, absolutely. But I just kind of always have that mentality even to this day, even if I'm on a regular club show in the city doing 20 minutes. I still at least trick myself to think there's some anonymity to it. I'm not one of these comics that the comic nerds blog about and get pissed about if he says something. I'm not on their radar, which is fine with me. So it just gives me some freedom. Go do what you want and let the chips fall where they may because if somebody blogs about you, if they talk shit about you, then all that does is make you more popular because of your fans [crosstalk 00:10:19]

Dustin: It is. There's no such thing as bad press.

Kevin Bartini: No. Your fans... The times it has happened to me, my fans come out of the woodwork to defend me, which is a... What a great, fun day that always is when you just sit back and just watch it all unfold, watch this war happen on social media for something you did. And I just sit there and just eat popcorn and enjoy it.

Dustin: It's funny because we can kind of relate to that as a coffee company because we are the world's strongest coffee and because we were so successful there was a lot of companies to come out of the woodwork to claim that they were the strongest coffee. And pretty much all they're doing is advertising for a genre that we created, and it works out really well.

Kevin Bartini: So how do you decide? Do you arm wrestle?

Dustin: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- No, it's a ninja battle on a rooftop.

Kevin Bartini: It's a ninja battle to the death.

Dustin: Yeah.

Kevin Bartini: Who's the world's weakest coffee?

Dustin: Folgers decaf?

Jeff: Yeah, decaf is tough.

Dustin: Yeah, decaf's not even coffee. It's water.

Jeff: We get that a lot at conventions where people will come up while we're selling our coffee or giving out free samples, and everybody thinks they're a comedian. You know this obviously. And they'll say, "Oh, don't you guys have any decaf?" And we always hand them a cup of water and say, "Get the hell out of here."

Kevin Bartini: Right. There's three things I will never put into my body, and this is just the way I live. There's three things my whole life I'll never put in my body: decaf coffee, non-alcoholic beer, and a penis. And that's it.

Dustin: I knew that was coming.

Kevin Bartini: After that, it's all on. I don't give a shit.

Jeff: I have that written down.

Kevin Bartini: I don't understand the appeal of decaf coffee. I do not understand the appeal of non-alcoholic beer. It's... Dick, I get. It looks awesome.

Jeff: Yeah, that has a lot of pros. It has a lot of pros.

Kevin Bartini: It's a daily struggle to maintain the code that I live by.

Jeff: Not having that in your body.

Kevin Bartini: Yeah.

Jeff: I get it. I get that. I get that. That's good though. You have to have goals.

Dustin: Just chewing on pen caps all day.

Jeff: Oh, man. And comedy has led you down some pretty interesting angles. And I know this is a couple years old at this point, but it's something that I wanted to bring up on this podcast for our listeners as well. You led a campaign to rename a street.

Kevin Bartini: Yes.

Jeff: And it wasn't just, "I want Kevin Bartini Way." or nothing. It wasn't like that.

Kevin Bartini: Well, it was. It started that way, and they told me I haven't earned it.

Jeff: Well, you renamed, I believe it was 121st Street? Was it?

Kevin Bartini: Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah, you renamed it Carlin's Way.

Kevin Bartini: Yeah, 121st Street in Manhattan is now named for George Carlin, which the only street...[Applause 00:13:17] Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah, yeah. Seriously.

Dustin: That deserves a clap.

Kevin Bartini: It's the first street in New York City to be named after, in honor of a standup comedian. Gilda Radner has a street, and there's a couple other television comedians, but he's the first standup to get his own street.

Jeff: And that's incredible. Can you talk a little bit about what that entailed even doing? Was that just a lot of going to town hall and beating on doors?

Kevin Bartini: Pretty much. It was interesting. It just started kind of as a whim, just as this idea. I live not far. I live in the same neighborhood where George Carlin grew up, and I just noticed that nobody... If you go up there... To me, to a comedy fan, if you're a Carlin fan, Morningside Heights is Abbey Road to a Beatles fan. This is where Class Clown, Occupation Fool, they're all set there. There's so much of his life, his TV show was set there.
And so I made a little pilgrimage up there to actually find his building, and I got there and he'd been dead for about three years at this point. And you wouldn't know that he ever stepped foot on that block. There's no street sign. There's no sandwich in the deli. There's no plaque on the building or anything. And so I got it into my mind, and I didn't know how to do it or how to go about it. So the first thought was that I would go in and ask Jon Stewart and just say, "Will you make this happen?" 'cause he's a Carlin fan and he could get the mayor on the phone. Then I was like, "I figure we could have this done by Saturday."

Jeff: Right.

Kevin Bartini: So he actually put one of his staffers on it who had a connection in city hall to find out the process, and it's this whole... There's a lot of bureaucracy you have to go through. And I had to go out and I had to stand and collect signatures. Then I had to present them to this community board. And what happened is as soon as I presented it to the community board and it became public, I got into a fight with the Catholic church.

Dustin: Like a fist fight?

Kevin Bartini: Yes. If it could have been a fist fight, that would have been awesome.

Dustin: A ninja rooftop fight.

Kevin Bartini: It was this crotchety 85-year-old priest who had a personal beef with George Carlin because George lived on this street because the church and the school were on this street. That's why his mother moved him there. He's the most famous alumni of this school, but they are mortified by this. So they put up this big fight. They put up this big fight.
Now normally to get a street named after somebody should take 18 months on average. This took us three years because it took 18 months just to fight the Catholic church. Guys, I'm telling you I had them beat. I had 500 signatures on paper, pen, and paper, 500 signatures in the neighborhood. They had a letter-writing campaign over the course of 18 months. They had collected 80 letters. I had 500. I beat them 500 to 80. We did an online petition on Change.org, and we had... I forget. Was it 5,000 or 10,000 signatures? We had more signatures on our petition on that block, on that one block than they had all totaled. We beat them by three to one. We killed them, but politicians are afraid of the church and they're afraid of this priest who has literally a pulpit to talk to his congregation.
So I... How great is this? I was in a public fight with the Catholic church, and it was in every newspaper in the country. It was everywhere. And what was ridiculous about it was that the priest had a personal grudge with George but he couldn't say that in the press that that was his reason for fighting me. So he decided that he was going to base his campaign to fight us on the idea of the Catholic church wants to protect children.

Dustin: Whoa. That happened.

Kevin Bartini: For the first time ever.

Jeff: I was going to say I didn't know that was on their docket.

Kevin Bartini: Just my luck after 2000 years, this is when they get woke about protecting kids.

Dustin: Define protect. Does that mean embracing from behind, protect?

Kevin Bartini: It means that they can't ever be exposed to someone who has a contrarian thought, but you can still fuck them. That's basically where they were.
So, guys, I'm not joking. There was a day where it was the New York... I think it was the Daily News. It was the Daily News or the Post. I forget. And you open the paper, and there was a big full-page story on me and on the campaign, a big picture of me, big article, and this whole thing. And they're interviewing me and they interviewed the priest talking about protecting children. On the facing page, as big a picture as me, the facing page was just as big a picture of a priest doing a perp walk. He literally had been arrested as a pedophile. You could not... The letters to the editor just kept flooding in, and again, it was just one of those things where I just sat back and just watched everybody fight it out at this thing I created.
So we ended up finally finding some compromise and moving it along, and we got it out of committee and we got it into the city council who makes the final decision. And we were approved unanimously, which doesn't happen often, but every member of the city council voted to support it. And the sign hangs to this day.

Jeff: And it's excellent. I always wanted to hear that story. That's really cool that your career track could just bring in something like that. Like you said, you never thought you would be able to do that.

Kevin Bartini: No, I never [crosstalk 00:18:24]

Jeff: It was just an offhanded idea.

Kevin Bartini: I'm a kind of guy, when I move up a step in the comedy world or new opportunities, new people, new things, my thing is always, "Well, how can I capitalize on this and do something else?" So it was like I was just recently hired by the Daily Show, and I don't think... It was literally I thought I could go to Jon Stewart and get this done. So I don't think if I hadn't been working there that would have just been a fleeting idea that would have passed.
And then having done that for three years, I made a lot of great contacts and I met a lot of people in the comedy world, Robert Kline and people like this. I'm friends with Kelly Carlin, and I'm hanging out with all these great people. And it was like, "Okay, well this project's done. What's next?" So I start doing a podcast, and I'm bringing on all these comedians that I just met and all these folks. And we're going to have these great guests, and it's just because they're who I met through that thing.

Dustin: Yeah, it's like a momentum game at that point.

Kevin Bartini: Yeah, it should be. You don't want to rest on your laurels. You want to be able to take what you have and build on that. Use those connections. I've never gone to a comedy club and said, "You should book me because I'm the guy who got George Carlin way done and you owe it to me." I don't do that 'cause that's douchey.
But I'm happy to give Dave Attell a call because I know him through that and try to get him on the show. That kind of stuff. And just always. So I'm just always looking for that next thing.

Jeff: And that's a great outlook on life is to have... never be complacent, always want to keep striving to do something different. And you brought it up, which was something that I was going to go to too. We are on a podcast festival, and you have your own podcast.

Kevin Bartini: I do.

Jeff: The Movie Preview Review show. I've got that right, right?

Kevin Bartini: Yeah, the Movie Preview Review podcast. The premise is that we review movies based on only watching their previews.

Jeff: Which is really smart because most movies give you the whole damn thing in the trailer.

Kevin Bartini: Yep, they really do. They really do. A lot of them [crosstalk 00:20:26]

Dustin: How often do you find yourself pretty much feeling the same way after actually watching the movie? Do you still have the same...

Jeff: Like the same thought?

Kevin Bartini: Yeah, there have been times where I've been like, "Oh, okay. I was a little off on that." Sometimes, it surprises you. But no, more often than not, I think about 95% of the time, I'll go back later and be like, "Yeah, we were pretty much dead on balls accurate."
But the show has a cast of... There's four, our core four, and then we always have a guest on there. Well, for example, my cohost Jellybean Jay Schmidt is in the audience today, not to support me or our podcast, but his wife's podcast is coming up. That's why he's here. Let's not pretend that we have the real team effort going on our side. But Jay and my producer are really into the comic book movies and the sci-fi, and I'm not. So they counterbalance that. And my wife is on there, and she's into the chick flicks, and that kind of counterbalances us. And the guest is always into something, which is important because I didn't want the show to be just shitting on a movie. I thought that wasn't fair to just shit on a movie. So I like that it's rare that all five people at the table will shit on a movie at the same time. It happens, and that's a big time.
But at the end of the day, it kind of feels like you go the movies with four or five of your friends, the previews are playing, and you're all talking to each other about it. "Do you want to see that?" "Oh, I hate that guy. I want..." And that's just kind of what happens. It just becomes a conversation about whatever.

Jeff: It is a great show. Everybody, go check it out.

Kevin Bartini: Thank you.

Jeff: Like I said, Movie Preview Review. You guys just celebrated two million downloads, so congratulations on that.

Kevin Bartini: Yes, two million. Thank you.

Jeff: And being at a podcast festival, I wanted to ask you this question.

Kevin Bartini: We put out 75,000 episodes though, so it's not that... take your clap back.

Jeff: What was it like having the idea to start up with a podcast because everybody has their own story to do it. Kevin Smith famously talks about just go out there and do the thing that you want to do, and that's why he started doing it. And podcasting has become this juggernaut of a thing where we're all talking to you guys right now. And I'm always curious to hear how other podcasters made that... pulled that ripcord and was like, "I'm going to do this."

Kevin Bartini: Well, for a comedian, for a standup, having a podcast has become as ubiquitous as having a website. I started comedy before websites really so there became that point where everybody's getting a web page. Okay, now I've got to do that. And then California, they're seen as five to seven years ahead of us in embracing podcast.

Jeff: And a couple hours ahead of us too.

Kevin Bartini: Yeah. So you all of a sudden... I just saw, well, if I have a podcast and I can get a following and people like that, I can help sell more tickets on the road. It's the same thing as having a Twitter following. A comedy club booker, yeah, they're interested in are you funny to an extent. It's more can you put asses in my seats, can I roll the dice that you're going to put asses in the seats. And that's why they'll... Some comedy club in this nation right now has Steve-O for the weekend, and another comedy club has fucking Screech. They're not funny, but they will bring people to come and have drinks.

Jeff: They'll put people in the seats. Right.

Kevin Bartini: So if you have a comedy podcast and you can build a fan base, then that helps. And that's the purpose it serves. And I just didn't want to be the 977th Marc Maron ripoff, 'cause more often than not, a comic's podcast is one comic talking to another, and they're talking about comedy. And if you're Maron, you do it well. Everybody else, not so much. And it gets to the point where I wouldn't listen to this. I can't believe many other people do. And so it's not serving the function that I need it to do, which is to help me on the road and...
So we came up with this concept that was different, and I had met Jay at the UCB. We had taken classes together. And I worked with my producer Adam on other projects. And my wife slept with me to get the gig. What can I tell you? No. No, but she and I have a fun rapport back and forth. And it's just like, "All right, well, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it with friends, I'm going to do it where it's fun." And it became a thing where we did it every Monday night, and it became a thing where we all just started realizing we were looking forward to that more than anything of the week because it's like, okay, yeah, it's just a night.
My grandparents, when they were my age, would play cards with their friends once a week and check in. And I don't think we kind of do that. But I have this where let's sit around at the table and let's just hang out and jaw on for a little while. And we'll just bring another outsider in and play. And luckily for us, we built a fan base and people have been listening. And now the next step is we want to do live ones and we want to be able to bring them in. And I'll go do a comedy club for the week, and Jay will come up and feature for me. And then we'll do a live show as well there.

Jeff: That's a great idea.

Dustin: Oh, that's cool.

Kevin Bartini: That's how we figure we'll be able to monetize the damn thing.

Dustin: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I hear to be successful, you have to be the best, first, or different. And it sounds like you went on that different path.

Kevin Bartini: Yeah, we went down different.

Dustin: Can you talk a little bit about, as a comic, I'm sure you've had to struggle through some shit. And we like to ask our guests, no matter who we're talking to, what fuels you. But what really did fuel you past grinding it out through all the tough times of trying to make it?

Kevin Bartini: Desperation. No joke. I remember when I was probably in high school watching some... it was on E! It wasn't like an E! True Hollywood Story, but it was like a profile of a movie star, and it was Kevin Bacon. And I remember him in this interview saying that he purposely didn't go to college and he didn't learn a trade and he didn't learn anything else, and the idea was so that he would never have something that he could fall back on.

Dustin: No safety net.

Kevin Bartini: No safety net. So I've kind of done that. I did about a semester and a half of community college, and it was basically that was killing time 'til I was old enough to start going into comedy clubs and bars and performing. So I started. I was about 19 or 20. And the first ten years is purely out of love, love of doing it, love of learning the craft. And then these last eight years have been kind of reaping the rewards and getting to meet a lot of my heroes and work with them and getting these cool opportunities.
Now, I'm just kind of motivated because I have no safety and this is my career. I've got to make a living at it. I've got to keep moving forward, and I've got to keep producing and doing things. And that's why I do a podcast and I do other things because you can't just do standup and survive. You just can't.

Dustin: Right. Yeah.

Kevin Bartini: A, you won't make any money or B, you'll just go insane.

Dustin: Yeah, I feel like that's why you need to do something that you love because you need that love to propel you through the first ten years of shit.

Kevin Bartini: Yeah, absolutely.

Dustin: And if you're not loving it, you're just going to give up halfway through.

Kevin Bartini: Right. Exactly.

Dustin: But you made it, 19 years deep.

Kevin Bartini: So far.

Dustin: Gnarly, man.

Kevin Bartini: So far, so good.

Dustin: Cool.

Jeff: So for people who are getting into the career track that you're in, into comedy, would you give any advice to anybody who's just starting out in that field?

Kevin Bartini: Well, I kind of touched on it earlier, but really relish the anonymity that you have in the beginning. Try not to do the shows constantly where you have to bring all of your friends out. Try not to do that. Just go somewhere where you can get up and you can practice, you can flounder. You'll never... The greatest free thrower in the NBA right now got that way because, when he was a kid, he was down at the local court 'til the sun went down or he was doing free throws at his barn, wherever it was. But he didn't have a crowd watching him duff and miss again and again and that embarrassment.
So just go out, find the mics, find the places that will let you get up, and embrace failure because, first of all, bombing just creates a scab. You get to my level, I don't give a shit about bombing. It doesn't happen that often, but I'm not going to go home and hang myself in my closet if the show didn't go well. It's like, okay, well there's a next one. And that's because, for many years, I was out in the middle of nowhere on the road where nobody really knew me. I could try, I could take chances, and I, by doing that, learned my voice, learned how to do this, and now I maybe don't have that anonymity so much anymore, but I'm ready for whatever comes at me.

Jeff: Awesome. That's really great. Finally, where can people find you and do you have anything coming up that you want to plug?

Kevin Bartini: Yeah. Well, let's see. People can find me, KevinBartini.com is my one-stop shop. You can find the Twitter and Movie Preview Review right through there. Coming up... Well, I'm on a little mini standup hiatus because I'm about to do a play. We're doing Simbaline at Theater 80, which is off Broadway. And that'll be running April 21st through May. If you want to see me do audience warmup, I'm currently doing it for season two of Comedy Knockout, and then I'll be doing it for the President Show on Comedy Central after that.

Dustin: The Comedy Knockout Show is really building some steam, man.

Kevin Bartini: It's a cool show. Yeah, it's a cool, fun, show. It's a good time.

Dustin: It must be fun to be on that set.

Kevin Bartini: Yeah, it is. It's always cool where you're doing a show with other comics 'cause every episode there's somebody on there who I haven't seen in a while and I haven't worked with. You do have your buddies that you come up with, and if you guys are all growing in your careers, eventually you stop seeing each other by virtue of, "Well, I'm playing Cleveland, and my buddy's playing Boston." You're just all over. So those kinds of shows, it's like, "Hey, how's it going?" You get to catch up.

Dustin: Like a little reunion.

Kevin Bartini: Yeah, a little reunion.

Dustin: That's cool.

Kevin Bartini: Which is fun.

Dustin: That's really cool, man.

Kevin Bartini: But yeah, KevinBartini.com is the way to go, and also you can see a lot of my videos on Pornhub.

Dustin: Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Bartini: I've got them.

Jeff: Millions of views.

Kevin Bartini: Just google swinging dick.

Jeff: Yeah, that previous thing where he was talking about chipping his teeth, that's on the front page right there. Well, thank you so much for coming out and being our guest on New York City Podcast Festival.

Kevin Bartini: My pleasure.

Jeff: We want to thank all you guys for supporting podcasts and all that stuff. And once again, we are Fueled by Death Cast from Death Wish coffee. You can find Death Wish coffee on all the social media. We're starting a new Twitch campaign, so if you like video games, we're over there. We do this podcast every week. It comes out on Thursday, with a special guest every week. It's on iTunes, Stitch, or Google, all that stuff. We just had an astronaut on the show last week, and upcoming shows [crosstalk 00:32:07]

Kevin Bartini: Wow, I'm a step-down. Holy shit.

Jeff: Not even close. She was not funny at all. But upcoming shows, we've got some really cool people like Tait Fletcher and Richard Fortis from Guns N Roses, so follow us on that kind of stuff. And thank you, guys. Stick around. There's some really great shows coming. And thank you, everybody.

Dustin: Thanks, guys.

Kevin Bartini: Thank you.