Bert Kreischer’s been a successful comedian for years, but I'd never heard of him until a few months ago when I caught an episode of his since-canceled Netflix show, The Cabin, in which he was lying nude on the floor while getting a coffee enema. Comedian Bobby Lee was getting ready to strip down and join him, at which point I turned the show off. I'm a fan of comedy, not self-indulgent exhibitionism. The impression Kreischer left me with was that he's deluded himself into believing that everything he does is entertaining. This egotistical self-deception is the essence of what's made him into the most obnoxious comedian currently working, and there's plenty of competition.
Kreischer has the stupid, cocksure kind of confidence that makes him think performing fat and shirtless—his standard presentation—is hilarious. His fans aren't especially cerebral. They remind me of the mostly inebriated professional golf spectators who yell “Get in the hole!” immediately after their golfer’s struck the ball from 250 yards out.
Kreischer first gained some national attention when Rolling Stone designated him, in his sixth year at Florida State University, as the “top partyer” in the nation in an article called “The Undergraduate.” It was an honor earned via excessive boozing, sophomoric hijinks, and public nudity that's said to have inspired National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, starring Ryan Reynolds.
Here's an example why I dislike Bert Kreischer. When telling a story to an audience about his college trip to Russia (the trip he's still talking about 30 years later) he said his teacher told him he could “get a minor” (in Russian, she meant) out of it. His response: “I'm like, okay, let's go to Russia and fuck some minors.” This line isn’t just unfunny—it’s depraved, except for fans of statutory rape. He finished the story with, ”It was a different minor. I found that out the hard way.” How, with a 14-year-old girl?
Kreischer might be an alcoholic, which I don't judge him for. It's his own business, plus his hard boozing’s certainly helped fuel a persona that's made him wealthy way beyond his talent level. Dean Martin once did a similar thing, but his drinking was mostly pretend. What I do judge Kreischer for is drinking all night and then crashing the Pat McAfee ESPN show at 11 a.m. in a Las Vegas casino mid-interview with Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud in order to promote the vodka that he and Tom Segura, the comedian with whom he hosts the unbearable Two Bears, One Cave podcast are now marketing because they fancy themselves as business moguls above all at this point. The two narcissists stepped all over Stroud (he had no idea who they were), who was there to promote the “C-4 drink” he endorses, while Kreischer strutted around the set drinking straight from the bottle before taking off his shirt and doing pushups. McAfee told Stroud, “These are two funny whites,” which was both awkward and untrue. In the end, Stroud was the only funny one, saying, “If two brothers had walked in like this, they'd have called the police.” After the two boors left, McAfee changed his assessment of them, telling Stroud, “These are two drunk whites.” In Animal House, Dean Worker told Flounder, “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son,” but it's worked for Bert Kreischer.
The party boy’s entire career is based on one story he's been telling since he started doing standup called “The Machine,” about that college trip to Russia. As he tells it, his school hired two Russian mobsters to escort the group around Moscow. Kreischer became friends with them after he, bungling the language, introduced himself to them as “the machine.” That cute mistake made them love him, and they drank together all night. On a train trip, he and one of the gangsters—Igor—got drunk and robbed everyone in the train as they slept, including all his classmates. And then when the police collared him at the Moscow train station, Igor tells them why he's called “the machine,” which they find so hilarious that, instead of arresting him, they drink all night with him. The yarn’s not believable, plus the comic’s trying to make audiences think it's funny, rather than despicable, that he'd rob his own classmates.
Joe Rogan told him to make the Russia story the centerpiece of his act. The fact that his buddy’s been relying on this story for so many years shows how lazy he is. But it's a money-maker, so he sticks with it. Real comics who know how to write actual jokes, like Louis C.K. and Anthony Jeselnick, regularly retire their old material and replace it with new routines. That's how they retain their integrity, a concept Kreischer’s unfamiliar with. Such comics also don't hawk their overpriced vodka to their fans.
A visit Dana White, president and CEO of the UFC, paid to the Two Bears, One Cave podcast showcased what Kreischer's all about. When the topic of White’s newish, ill-conceived venture, Power Slap, came up, Kreischer got all excited, like his first drink of the day was about to arrive. In fact, he'd already started drinking on a plane earlier that morning and was drinking his vodka at noon when the podcast began. Watching the sadistic spectacle of two contestants slapping each other in the face as hard as they can is “like jerking off,” said a hammered Kreischer. “It's not fucking your wife, but it's nice.” Next, Kreischer shouted to an underling in the wings, “Someone bring ice in!” He peppered the chat with White with his trademark squeal/laugh, while interrupting constantly like a needy child. Unable to control his need to demonstrate his wealth around someone worth about $500 million, he told White he was coming to Vegas soon with $250,000 to gamble with him.
What makes Kreischer unredeemable is that he says things with a straight face like what he told comic Stavros Halkias on a podcast: “A comic’s brain is so different from a pedestrian's brain.” On a podcast with Tim Dillon, another often-insufferable Rogan-approved comedian, Kreischer and Dillon talked about how they hate going to birthday parties and playdates for their kids because other parents are dullards. They're so special they don't know that nobody likes fulfilling parental duties that require making small talk with people they barely know. And there’s some writing on the wall that hubris is what’s in the process of taking Kreischer down. Although he's milked the aging-frat-boy persona to its limit, it's an image not built for longevity. Kreischer’s now on path that may soon render him superannuated, like an outdated “machine” that’s moved from the factory to the junkyard.
