From The Comic's Comic

Episode #417

Mike Bridenstine is based in Los Angeles, was raised in Iowa, but it was his time in between in Chicago that helped form him and his friendships as a comedian. Bridenstine has written a book about the rise of the alt-comedy scene in Chicago in the early 2000s, which included his role in starting up a stand-up and video collective called Blerds — among them: Kumail Nanjiani, Kyle Kinane, T.J. Miller, and director Jordan Vogt-Roberts. Since going Hollywood, Bridenstine’s credits have included multiple national TV ad campaigns, Adam DeVine’s House Party and The Eric Andre Show. He has just released his second stand-up comedy album, “Hustle,” and sat down with me to talk about his career and how pivoting his podcast during the pandemic helped get him back into the game.

Hear here the opening track to his album, out now…

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This transcript has been edited and condensed only slightly for your convenience.

Last things first, congratulations on the album Hustle.

Thank you.

You went back to Chicago to record this album.

Yes.

Now, I’ve known you for quite some time.

This is funny. I met you at the Lincoln Lodge. In Chicago, I remember the first thing you said to me. You said, ‘You’re Mike Bridenstine. This is my friend, John Mulaney.’ And then you introduce me. That was the first thing that you said to me.

I said, this is my friend, John Mulaney?

Yeah. You walked into the Lincoln lodge during JFL Chicago, and you pointed at me and you told me who I was. And then you told me who John Mulaney was and introduced me.

I like the fact that I didn’t think you knew who John Mulaney was even then.

I did know who he was, because he’d done Chuc a few times, and I knew who you were, because I’m a psychopath.

OK, so but I bring this up, because I know you’ve told the story of probably to me and probably to countless other people, about how you ended up moving from Chicago to LA. But what I don’t know the story of is how you ended up in Chicago in the first place. I know you’re from Iowa. How did you end up in Chicago first?

So I started doing stand-up in Iowa City in college at a place called The Summit. And about three years after I graduated Brooks Wheelan, who listeners might know also came out of that scene. I met comedian Mike Holmes, who you also know, in Iowa City. And when I was asking these touring comedians for advice about where to go, they’re like, you have to go to a city and Chicago, most of the like a lot of the kids from the University of Iowa weere from the suburbs of Chicago. It was either Chicago or Minneapolis is what I was thinking, and I knew Chicago, more. I had visited. I liked the city, I didn’t know much about Minneapolis. And when we first moved there, the scene was so small, I didn’t know about the comedy bust or anything. There was no social media. So I thought that we had made a mistake. Funny you should mention that, I wrote a book about the history of the Chicago alt scene, and an excerpt is coming out in Chicago mag in January where I tell this exact story. Where I tell why I moved, from basically the day that I walked into the Lyon’s Den open mic and saw Pete Holmes and Kumail. And, you know, all of the Chicago comics, I just wandered into this place and kind of changed my life.

Yeah, because even at that time, this is the mid 2000s, right?

2003 is when I first saw the scene there and I started doing comedy there every week in 2004.

But at that time, I don’t know that many people who were talking about Chicago as a stand-up city. It was mostly known for The Second City improv and sketch, improvOlympic.

Yep. It was all the Harold and long-form and Second City. When I started doing stand up in Chicago, my coworkers would say, Do you mean Second City? Like they didn’t. They didn’t talk about stand up until like Dane Cook. So I would say, do you know the thing Jerry Seinfeld does at the beginning of Seinfeld. And they’d be like, Oh, OK. You just talking into a mic? Yeah, I’m just talking. It was just, it had bottomed out in popularity. It wasn’t cool. And so John Roy had won Star Search. But that was it. That about the only exposure that anything had happened there.

So who was the driving force then, behind Blerds?

Well, that was me. That was. So my friend Rob Johnson, who was my roommate in college, wanted to start a blog site. And he’s like, you and your comedian friends should do it. And so I was like, Cool. And I offered up, Kumail, and Jared Logan, and Mike Burns and Mike Holmes, and he said, no, you can ask other people. So I started asking, like all of those other people. And then I met Jordan Vogt-Roberts at the Lincoln Lodge. I saw the movies that he had made, it coincided with at this point in time was like, 2006. So MySpace, and YouTube was kind of exploding and so he was a no-brainer. And I mean, all of those comics were the driving force. But I started that with, you know, my friends in Chicago, so, yeah.

And the idea of it initially was blogging or was it making short films?

So when we started it, Blerds meant blog nerds. Nate Craig came up with that name. And now it definitely means black nerds. We’ve been told that a million times. But everyone was talking about blogging. And so it was going to be blogs and so that the 12 comedians involved in it, which, you know, people would know all of these names probably, or most of these names. And if they don’t, they should find the rest of them, but it was gonna be blogging, and then Jordan was going to make videos for our launch party. And then the only thing that people cared about was those videos because they were so good. And it was comedians doing their bits and then kind of acting them out like Shorties Watching Shorties. And that became later Mash-Up on Comedy Central.

And then, of course, Jordan Vogt-Roberts went on to direct King Kong,

King Kong. Yes, yeah. I did a commercial that he directed during the pandemic. And so he’s still out here doing stuff.

But the stuff that you ended up doing with Mike Holmes. You started doing like, musical stuff with him, that was not part of Blerds or was it?

It was Blerds, but yeah, so we were on a road trip. The song Mockingbird by Eminem was on the radio. Holmes had been on a kick about how Eminem only rapped about Kim, his mom and Hailie. And so I started rapping, Kim and mom and Hailie, over the song. And then when he came in with the chorus by singing it. I mean, we just we were both dyin, laughing and we knew that it was something and so we would do it during one of our acts at the Lincoln lodge or at Chicago Underground Comedy. And Jordan filmed that as our first Blerds video for the launch party. And that was what got us on the front page of MySpace and basically got me to Los Angeles. Yeah.

So I was about to ask whether that was fueled by MySpace or by YouTube and it was.

It was MySpace. Yeah, that was so every it it started to like mini viral on various like big in 2007 type sites like EBaum’s World and Daily Motion and Super Deluxe. And so you would get like little bursts. But when it got on the front page of, the landing page of MySpace that was refresh the page and there’s 10,000 more views. It was awesome.

And then you guys did some follow-up videos, right?

We wrote every Red Hot Chili Pepper song ever every Green Day song ever. Yeah, every Beastie Boys song ever, there were no videos for them. But we had. We supposedly had a record deal at Comedy Central. This was a very famous manager who was telling us this. And I don’t know if this was just to make us happy while Mash-Up was happening. Or if it was ever real, but so Comedy Central’s lawyers got scared off or something. It was all. It was a very famous man telling me lies, I think. Well, you know, there’s fun to do.

What would the fear be? Would it be that the music was too similar that I mean.

Right? I mean, I mean, we’ve all heard of Weird Al Yankovic, right? So it felt like a lie is what it felt like. So yeah, we had a record deal at Comedy Central to do these. And the lawyers of Comedy Central were like, parody songs? Never been done. Or it never was a thing. I don’t know. I wasn’t involved in these meetings. I don’t know who gives these Hollywood managers the ability to lie like they do. But they’re good at it. And if they weren’t, then they wouldn’t have those jobs.

What happened to those songs or those song parodies?

We put them out. And then you know, tree falling in the woods.

But where did you put them out?

Oh, man on, I think that they were on iTunes for a while and then neither of us promoted it. I mean, it just kind of went away. I mean, but it was fun to perform. I think that the time has passed on those jokes, I don’t I don’t know if like a TikTok generation would even understand.

I was just about to ask if you had ever considered trying to do it on TikTok.

I put it on TikTok just to see and it was pretty weak. I mean I don’t understand TikTok, but I put it on Instagram reels where I’ve had stuff get popular-ish. I mean, I’ve gotten, you know, 10s of 1000s of views, 50,000 views 30,000 views every now and then. And this is like in the hundreds for the Chili Peppers one and for the Eminem one so I’m thinking, Oh, whoever is watching these reels don’t understand. I mean it’s is 8 Mile still in the cultural? Like I mean I should move on probably.

I’m on TikTok and I feel like mom’s spaghetti still pops up.

You know what mom’s spaghetti is a disgustingly named restaurant. That is true. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know, I maybe I don’t have the right hashtags.

Hashtags

Gotta have those hashtags.

Maybe you just don’t have the hustle.

Maybe I don’t have the hustle. Maybe I’m bad at the Internet.

Hustle the new comedy album by Mike Bridenstine. That’s right. There’s a track on there called Daddy Does. Yes. And my question is: Was that incident at New Faces?

Yes. I was waiting in the wings of New Faces.

Because you don’t say where it was. You say a year. And I’m like, Oh my god, that was probably New Faces at Just For Laughs Montreal.

It was 100% New Faces in Montreal.

That adds just so many more layers to it.

I called him out on, whoever we’re talking about, I call this person out immediately.

Diss Chr’elia.

I think I said Chris Bollea. I don’t know what I say. But yeah, I called him out immediately. And we had a good laugh over it. But he doesn’t, he didn’t remember it at the time. So definitely wouldn’t remember now. But it’s a very fun thing to tell people. If they know who I’m talking about. They will always, they’ve always had fun reactions to the story.

Right. But when when everything blew up in his face, I mean, he’s back now because white men can’t be canceled?! But when things start blowing up in his face, did you immediately think of that moment, or

It became like, way more fun to tell. I mean, that’s the layer that it needs. If you had said that or if somebody else from my new face. If Rory Scovel had done that, people would be like, Oh, that’s fun. We like him. He’s nice. But, you know, it’s a guy that people are mad at. So it’s way more fun.

I guess it’d be like, if it turned out you had tons of illegitimate children across America,

And I was yelling ‘bang, you’re pregnant?’ Yeah. I wish I could bring that back as well. But I, I don’t, I think that’s another one that’s time has passed.

OK. So, you know, speaking of managers and people telling you lies when you did New Faces, and you had to follow Chris D’Elia, who became a star.

Who murdered. He murdered at those shows, too.

So when you had to follow him, and then you’re hearing all these people lying to you, did that change your expectations for what was going to happen for your comedy career?

I didn’t know what the blueprint was supposed to be. But I had seen people get Montreal and then everything was great for them. And so I kind of, my thought process was get New Faces. And then I didn’t have anything after that. I didn’t know I just like, oh, then they give you stuff. That’s what I thought. I didn’t know. I mean, I don’t know how things work. So yeah, you take general meetings, people say a lot of crazy. You’ve probably heard like, I mean, people just say whatever they feel like saying in the moment. Dwayne Kennedy said to somebody, this always gets quoted, like I think that, like, they lied to me to practice like a bigger lie they had to tell later, you know, to paraphrase Dwayne Kennedy, but yeah. I wish that I would have just enjoyed the city and the experience and stuff. But I sat in the waiting room of the Hyatt and I just, like, waited to be discovered by these drunk managers and agents. And you know, it doesn’t work that way. I don’t know how it works, but it didn’t work that way. Yeah.

But by the time I started to get to know you, after I did introduce you to John Mulaney. You were mainly getting by on TV commercials?

Yeah. Yeah. Playing the person holding the wrong product in the commercial. That’s the thing that kept me alive for years.

And is that because people thought you look like Kelsey Grammer or because people thought you look like Zach Galifianakis?

I think that Zach Galifianakis is, the thing that most people said was Seth Rogen, which that’s a type, that’s a type. So when I moved to LA, it was a very Judd Apatow schlubby kind of Seth Rogen. People wanted like the Seth Rogen-y in I guess Knocked Up and or like Zach Galifianakis, people wanted a schlub guy to be like, ‘I don’t fucking know,’ and I was exactly that guy in real life. So that’s what I would play. And when, and I think that if you’re moving to LA, and you figure out who they think you are, you can play with that, and you will go far. And instead of saying, No, I am gorgeous. Or, like, no, they’re wrong about me. You can also just, like, feed into that, because that’s what they want. I sound very bitter. But I guess I am. Or cynical.

But leaning into it. Do you feel like that helped your mental health in terms of being able to survive in the comedy business without having a huge special?

Yeah, treating them like they’re bad at their jobs has helped my mental state and maybe makes people — because they are bad at their jobs. They’re fucking horrible at their jobs. And so I mean, it’s helped me kind of mentally deal with that. And it’s also like, you can, coming from Chicago or people ironically celebrate their own awfulness. I think that that mentality also kind of helped. Because, you know, if you can celebrate it, you don’t feel as bad about it.

Did you find yourself comparing your path to everyone else in Blerds?

Yeah, sure. And only the people doing better than me. Of course. Yeah. I think that that’s why so many comedians liked Bernie Sanders and like socialism, they hate everyone doing better than them. It’s just, you know, just a way of you compare yourself. I think everybody does that. You go on social media. You know, I but at the same time, if you were like, in 2004, you would have pointed at the open mic and said, who’s going to be famous? I would have told you and I would have been right. You know what I mean? Like, over Thanksgiving, my cousin was like, used to get drunk and be like, Kumail is going to be famous? And I was like, and?

Yeah, when I was a schlub, and stayed on your sofa in Los Angeles. Yeah, I distinctly remember we watched Kumail on his first Letterman.

Did we really? That’s yeah. That’s fun. Yeah, he was great. Yeah. I expect big things out of him. I mean, when I was a new open micer, I saw him get off a bus to the open mic. I remember thinking holy shit, that’s Kumail. I mean, he was just like, an IT guy at the University of Chicago, but I saw him and I’m a dork. So I was like, that’s Kumail, the best comedian in Chicago.

But we’ve mentioned some other names. Holmes, Brooks Wheelan. You know, there’s TJ Miller and Jordan. So you’ve been able to see like, all these other people in your orbit, have all these varying experiences with the business. What has that taught you about what’s meaningful and what’s important?

I guess, well, meaningful, it’s all meaningful to me. I wrote an entire book,that’s about the history of the Chicago scene, because I feel like those people are so interesting, and I feel like that time was so like, important to me. As far as like lessons in terms of like, not being like a movie star like them. I don’t know if I was ever bummed out about it. I wish I was doing better. But no one really like jumped over me to do it. So all of a sudden we’re always like ahead Have me anyway like, um, you know, TJ and Pete Holmes and to a certain extent Hannibal jumped over everybody. And then like, you know, people came later that I didn’t really know while I was there like Beth Stelling, or like Liza Treyger, Drew Michael. I’ve never been upset about any any of that. I think the best policy is to be happy for people because you get associated with, I mean, all of those, coming from that scene, I guess I knew that, like, the bigger those people got, it wasn’t gonna hurt me to be also from that scene. And then there’s people that like, Don’t even talk about being from Chicago, like Nate Bargatze was at those open mics or Tommy Johnagin was at those open mics, I guess. I don’t know if it has taught me anything other than like I said, I was right about it being special when we were there.

But what about watching some of those people kind of fall from grace?

Oh, oh, like don’t call in a bomb threat on a train? Sure. I think I already knew that. Some people who got famous in general, and I’m speaking generally some of this is about Chicago people. And some of this is about just people that I started with in LA who have also gotten wildly famous. They’ll make weird decisions after they get famous. And I’ll say to myself, Oh, no one’s told them no since 2008. Like, multiple, two of them have said I’m a rapper now. And it’s because no one has said like, why would anybody tell them no? You know, like, look at Kanye West now and not a comedian but a Chicagoan. No one’s told him no since through the wire. And so if he’s like, I’m not taking my medicine, who’s gonna tell him no? Nobody in his orbit who’s going to stay in his orbit? So I guess you got to stay humble in the process. At the same time everyone wants to tell you no. No one told me no until I got a manager and then I started hearing no. I’m like, can we submit this? No. If it were me, I would submit this. No one told me no till I got a manager and it was like, I was like, I thought that you guys like said yes. I don’t know.

Those are agents. Those are agents. Managers say no, agents say yes.

Yeah, I guess. Don’t listen to anybody. But also, like, have people in your life who would tell you no, but still don’t listen to when most people tell you no, but I also have someone that will tell you no.

How do you apply your knowledge and love of baseball? Other than making your cover a baseball card. Do you still have a Tumblr about baseball?

There’s not really a Tumblr thing anymore, but I post it on my Patreon to people.

I also remember being in your apartment. I think that’s the first time you showed me the Doc Ellis LSD animation. But I know your love of baseball. Do you apply that knowledge and love to comedy and show business?

Not really. It’s interesting every now and then, I’ll think of sabermetrics. There’s new stats that people use to equate value and sometimes I think like, man, it would be great if they had this for comedy, like who’s actually getting on base, you know, like, who’s overhyped. And, you know, either because, you know, there’s marketing and there’s like, Derek Jeter, overrated as fuck, there’s stats that prove it. You know what I mean? People think that he’s the greatest baseball player of all time. How many MVPs does Derek Jeter have everyone who loves him so much? Oh, zero. OK, cool. Is he good? Was he as good as Craig Biggio? Or Robin Yount? Look it up. You can just look it up and be like, so this guy has a lot of hype behind him. I wish that there was that for comedy I think.

I think about it myself to the point where I now do or I’ve for the last several years I do an end of the year podcast with Jason Zinman, the critic for the Times. And I call it the comedy MVPs. Where I tried to determine, and I usually have to argue with Jason every year about how do you determine who was the MVP?

What do you determine? How do you get there?

What does it mean to be the MVP of a year in comedy?

OK, that’s fun. I would listen to that. I would listen. But he would be like, see, I think it was this show I saw at the Staples Center for Netflix, and you’d be like, OK, that’s the show that you went to Jason.

Right. But I actually do try to like, statistically well, they they put out a special here they had a series, they hosted this award show.

Who’s your front runner, in terms of the overall?

I don’t know this year, because I’ve also in the last year have also started doing a monthly feature online called, which I’m calling instead of the monthly MVP, I’m calling the employee of the month.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

So I will go back and look at that. But it’s like so varied that I don’t know, who stands out for the year. But I just figured, since I know how much you follow baseball?

Well, yeah, baseball, the MVP in baseball. So some people look at it as best player, some people look at it, they try to equate value. And some people just pick a narrative and run with it. And so I think that what you should do, if you’re looking at in baseball is you should pick your criteria for MVP, and then see who fits the criteria rather than the other way around. It drives me insane when people do the other thing. So if you want to pick a person, and create a narrative around them, and make an argument for them, do that. But be honest and say that’s what you’re doing otherwise, you’d be like the MVP of comedy should be this, this, this and this. And then you honestly look and plug in who did those things? And who is those things? And that is your MVP.

That’s wise.

So that’s, that’s what I would tell you about baseball.

That’s why you’re such a hunk, Mike Bridenstine. Thanks. So I want to ask about before I let you go, I want to ask about your podcast, Hunk. Because you started it in 2019, before the pandemic, and then when the pandemic happened, it turned into a completely other thing, which is unusual in the realm of comedy podcasts. So tell me about that pivot.

Zoom! I learned about Zoom. And I’d always wanted to do a panel show but I didn’t have five microphones in like hookups to my Zoom, h6, they’re both called Zoom. So Jesus, it’s impossible to talk about.

The microphone is called the zoom. And the platform we’re speaking on now is also called Zoom. Yes.

So I wanted to Bill Maher the fuck out of it. I hated online comedy. It was a way for people, for comedians to be funny in front of an audience without having to do that awkward. I watched so many people try to do monologue jokes in front of a screen. I sat in on a comedy show that I just was like, Oh, I have a bad connection. And I left because it’s like this shit sucks. But with a panel, it worked in my head. And so I wanted to figure that out and do a panel show and be around other comedians at the same time. It was social, it was a way to get laughs. I thought it was perfect. And my numbers plummeted, because nobody was commuting to work. So I was like, this is not working, but it’s kind of bouncing. It’s bounced back. I was booking five comics a week. And so it led me to people being like, will you book this show? And so that’s, you know, when last time I saw you as an example of that.

Oh, so the two live shows

I have flagship at the Glendale Room and I the one that’s been around the longest is microdose at Fable and that sprang directly out of booking five comics a week on my podcast. Yeah.

See, so even if the podcast numbers don’t hit whatever expectations you have. It’s still translated into something.

Yeah. Jake Kroger asked me during episode 100. He’s like, where do you see yourself on 200. And I was just talking about this. I wrote a book based off of interviews that I did for my Patreon and I started booking two shows. Yeah, so the time is gonna go by anyway. And as you definitely know, stuff just comes out of it that wouldn’t have come if you had just been sitting around.

Well, obviously this came about through a whole variety of weird circumstances including the aforementioned me sleeping on your sofa.

Back in easier times. Or different times. Or worse times, yeah.

But now you’ve got a new album and a book is on the way. So 2023: That’s the year of Brido.

Yeah, and I’m dropping an hour special that is the same stuff as the album, but pick up the album on Friday. I need money. Those Seth Rogen checks aren’t coming in like they used to.

Mike Bridenstine, thank you so much, I really appreciate catching up with you.

Thank you for having me, and I’ll have to have you on my panel sometime. Wear your best fedora.