Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - 103: The Life of Kevin ft. Stevie & Kevin | Crew Biscuits Ep. 3
Episode Date: July 17, 2017Kevin's proposal story, a fire evacuation, meeting The Rock and more on this week’s Crew Biscuit. Listen & subscribe at: Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/29PTWTM Spotify: http://spoti.fi/2oIaAwp ...Art19: https://art19.com/shows/ear-biscuits SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/earbiscuits  Follow This Is Mythical: Facebook: http://facebook.com/ThisIsMythical Instagram: http://instagram.com/ThisIsMythical Twitter: http://twitter.com/ThisIsMythical  Other Mythical Channels: Good Mythical Morning: https://www.youtube.com/user/rhettandlink2 Good Mythical MORE: https://youtube.com/user/rhettandlink3 Rhett & Link: https://youtube.com/rhettandlink  Credits: Hosted By: Stevie Wynne Levine Featuring: Alex Punch Executive Producer: Stevie Wynne Levine Managing Producer: Cody D'Ambrosio Featuring: Stevie Levine & Alex Punch Camera/Editor: Meggie Malloy Graphics: Matthew Dwyer Set Design/Construction: Cassie Cobb Content Manager: Becca Canote Logo Design: Carra Sykes To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
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This, this, this, this is Mythical.
Welcome to Crew Biscuits. I'm Stevie.
And I'm Kevin.
And today at the round table of dim lighting, we are talking all about Kevin.
Kevin-related topics only at this table.
Kevin, thank you for being here. I didn't give you much of a choice.
Yeah, thank you for having me. Kevin-related topics are my favorite topics. I must disclose, I just walked into the studio and said that I wet my hat
and that's because I literally put water on my hat and you can see it and I don't want comments
about what that could be. It's water. I don't know what else it could be. I said I've been sweating
like a pig. It's hot. It's a hot one. It is hot. Yeah, it's really hot outside.
We were shooting yesterday outside in downtown Pomona the entire day.
And at a certain point, your brain ceases to work.
Like my emailing, because I sit at Video Village in a chair, and they have a portable Wi-Fi,
and I just have my computer, and I'm just reviewing videos and watching Buddy System at the same time.
And at a certain point,
I was just like,
cannot process the notes that need to come out of my body onto this.
That sounded gross.
And that is not what's on my hat.
I usually go for walks
to get a little exercise in here at work every day.
Like around the-
Like around the Burbank area the like Burbank area,
just around this area.
It's beautiful in the Burbank area.
Beautiful, yeah.
And yesterday I went out
and it was like a hundred degrees or close to,
and I went around the corner here,
you know, like a hundred feet that way to the left.
We don't want to disclose what corner you went around.
No, but the one here closest to the door.
Yeah.
And then I went about another 200 feet
and I saw Mike sitting down on a brick wall, like in a tiny patch of shade.
I'm putting my phone in my back pocket.
And I said, he said, hey, Kevin.
And I said, hey, Mike.
And I was like, what are you doing?
And he's like, I tried to go for a walk.
And this is as far as I made it.
I'm just sitting here in the shade.
Also, another fun fact before we go any further.
There's a graphic on
the mic right here that looks like a little butt oh yes i do have a butt graphic do you know what
that means um hey no oh uh good guess but it means like that is where in order to get the
best sound of this out of this mic
you have to talk right into the middle of it because the other butt area that's not in the
crack slash hole is a bad butt area to talk in okay well i'll aim straight for the crack of the
butt and i'll talk into it thank you um so i said this last time on Crew Biscuits, but just to reiterate, we are doing Crew Biscuits and other crew-themed podcasts while we are in production on Buddy System.
We're also in production on various other things.
There are always so many things going on.
This morning, you participated in what was almost a brawl outside of my office door to get in to meet with me because I'm very popular.
Yes.
You won.
I did win.
I had to bypass Annie, though.
Yes.
Normally what we do is we go to Annie and we say, Annie, I need to talk to Stevie.
And then she says, she looks at the schedule, and then she says, I can get you in at this time.
And sometimes when Annie's not looking and I see your door open, I just charge full speed into it.
And I did that today and it worked because Annie couldn't stop me.
She was just like, no.
But she did.
She screamed, no.
And then I slammed the door and she could do nothing about it.
But that's why Crew Biscuits exists.
As I said before, I have no time.
We all are busy.
And I am the worst at having
a moment to sit down and talk to you guys um and so that's why i wanted to take this opportunity
i i also realized like half an hour ago the amount of stories that i know about you i think the
percentage of the ones that are appropriate to talk about on the show uh that percentage is very low, but we'll get some of the stories out.
So instead of going back to your birth story, let's not talk about your birth story because that seems like odd.
Like we'll go back to like when you were a kid and where you're from.
It's more about my parents anyways.
But like, yeah.
Yeah.
I want to talk about when I first met you.
Okay.
I want to talk about when I first met you.
Okay.
Because I went back through my inbox and you had sent an email to us in December of 2014.
Yep.
We were looking for a producer and editor for Ear Biscuits, which is this podcast, kind of.
Yes.
And I have your resume.
Oh, no.
And I also have the cover letter that you wrote.
So Ear Biscuits, I mean, I feel like,
and you know what's so weird is that I was like,
Kevin is an OG Mythical Crew member.
I feel like you've been here for a very long time.
I think there was like eight people that worked here when I started.
Yeah, and it feels like forever ago.
It really does. And we were at our old studio.
The old studio.
Which was not a studio at all.
No, it was like a house.
It was like a weird, like the back part was like someone's apartment.
Yes.
And then the front part was like, it seemed like a dental, like a really bad dental facility
or somewhere.
Yes, that is what it felt like.
Where they like gave you drugs or something.
It was definitely a drug facility of some sort.
And you open the door and there's just a wall.
And you're like, oh.
And then there's like a staircase that goes up.
And you're like, okay, I guess I go that way.
My biggest memory of that like specific little entry room that you're talking about,
and I don't mean to throw this person under the bus,
but I doubt that they're listening to this.
We had someone that was working for us for a very short period of time
that mailed a package to ourselves oh yes and i just in my mind like i see that entryway and i
just see the package leaning up against the door because i was the one who found it and i was like
from mythical to mythical weird anyway um so then i was like well but when did ear biscuits start
sept i looked at the wiki page uh for ear biscuits september 2013 um and that origin story according
to the wiki page the origin story of ear biscuits is that they wanted to like tape their marriage
counseling sessions which don't exist but but they wanted to have them on the
podcast. I don't even remember that being even a joke. But according to the wiki page, that's how
the origin story is. But it was more like I was like, hey, we should do a podcast. And they were
like, nah. And I was like, come on, we should really do a podcast. And they were like, nah.
And then they came in one day and were like, remember how you were asking if we should do a podcast?
We're going to do a podcast.
Anyway, so from September 2013 all the way until January 2015 when you joined, our editing system was a little bit odd.
And so I was producing the show, booking the guests, doing the research for people.
And then I was paper editing the show.
Yeah.
And I remember I have an Instagram post from Harley, Epic Mealtimes episode.
And it's every F-bomb that he said on the show, the time code of it.
Yep.
Like, there were some like inventive
curse words and it's just a sheet of paper with just like really horrible curse words all over
it with time codes doesn't surprise me but anyway you started in january 2015 and you took everything
over from me and it was amazing i did yes i have to tell you how I got the email. Okay. But I don't know if you want to talk about the email first.
No, I would love for you to tell me.
So it's a bit of a long story,
but I'll keep it to the highlights.
Okay.
So this might step on some things
you're going to ask me soon though.
Are we going back?
Are we going back into like...
We're going back,
but you can go back before I go back.
We can go back together
and I don't have to be the back that goes back. Let me line up this butt crack here and we'll go back okay so are you gonna
have a different voice no i'm gonna keep the same i don't have other voices okay i only have one
voice um so that email went through like five wait which email are you talking the email that
you sent out looking for okay a producer of ear biscuits okay okay it took it went through
like four or five people before it got to me and I went through two of my friends before it got to
me really yeah you never knew this no I kept this secret until now because I knew one day I'd be on
the ear biscuits podcast telling you crew biscuit crew biscuit so I had been doing some editing work some freelance in Los Angeles and when the work
it was always like out here it's always feast or famine so I was in famine mode and I wasn't
getting any work so I started putting out feelers to a bunch of my friends and I was saying hey if
anything pops up in line of editing or anything, just let me know. And I started getting desperate because like nothing was coming up.
Oh, thanks.
No, like I had a Trader Joe's application in the trunk of my car.
And I was also collecting unemployment at this time.
So I went through great feast times.
And then I just hit like this slump.
And I was also kind of itching to get back into working with a team as well.
Instead of freelance editing by myself, it got kind of tiresome and lonely.
So I was also looking for something specific too.
And then I finally got a forward message from my friend.
There was this email from Stevie.
And the friend was, so when I came out to Los Angeles,
see now I think I'm taking over your questions here probably.
No, I'm not precious about my questions.
Please.
So I moved out to L.A. like eight years ago and just wanting to do something in the entertainment industry.
But okay.
Okay.
I'm not, this isn't a question, but you're from Lancaster.
You're from a very close place to L.A.
Yes.
Lancaster, California.
It's like an hour outside of Los Angeles.
If you've ever seen like a car commercial
where it's all desert and like Joshua trees,
it's Lancaster.
I mean, they have basically just like seven Walmarts.
Seven Walmarts?
Yeah, they have a lot of Walmarts out there.
Wow, it's just Joshua trees and Walmarts?
Joshua trees and Walmarts.
Okay, we'll get back
to Lancaster. I just wanted to set it up for the people that like you moving out to LA was, was
that, that type of situation. Born in Pittsburgh, moved to Lancaster, California at three months
old. So raised in Lancaster all the way up to I was 20. And because you're only an hour outside
of LA, I knew at a very young age that I wanted to be in the entertainment industry. In fact, I knew when I was in the seventh grade because my neighbor across the street,
his aunt lent us their video recorder. And it was like one of those old school, I always call
them Flintstone cameras, but they're the ones you like put a VHS tape in and put it in your shoulder
has like the eyepiece and you have to do like in-camera editing where you stop and rewind.
And since we got that
camera, we started making little funny sketch videos. And it's the only consistent thing I've
done my whole life is like make videos. So I knew then that that's what I wanted to do, but
I had no connections in LA. I had no family in the business. My family was always lower middle
class,
relatively poor growing up.
So I couldn't even,
they couldn't like buy me a camera to do stuff.
So this is all off of someone's like borrowed camera
and like a borrowed computer that a neighbor had
that we were making these videos.
But I was very passionate about it.
And-
Like what, like let's dive into one of these videos.
Let's get an example.
Cause I'm thinking like the only time
I ever used cameras like that, it was always Barbies. Like, and I was always Ken, but there was always Barbies and they
were talking to each other. And then, you know, there was no other possible videos you could make.
It was, you could shoot Barbies and then that's all you could do. I have, um, two Barbies, right?
And then that's all you could do.
I have two. So it was Barbies, right?
It was all Barbies.
In fact, we did use some Barbies.
But I have two VHS tapes at home that are just labeled commercials on them.
Because when I was a kid, when we started doing these, we started making.
You made local commercials?
We made commercials.
Yes, basically.
Oh, my God.
So we did a.
What a feat.
We did a Got Milk commercial. And we did a Mr. Rogers commercial and we did a lot of action figure stuff.
Mr. Rogers commercial.
Like in earnest or like it was making fun of Mr. Rogers?
Totally making fun.
But also like an homage because I loved Mr. Rogers growing up.
Yeah.
So it was kind of both.
And we started, the older we got, the kind of weirder they got.
I went through a wrestling phase where I was really into wrestling.
So we have buried somewhere some wrestling videos where I have like characters of the wrestler that I was because I swore that I was going to be a wrestler one day.
Wow.
Yeah, I went through a wrestling phase.
In fact, I met The Rock.
I met Dwayne Johnson during my wrestling phase. In fact, I met The Rock. I met Dwayne Johnson during my wrestling phase. My mom let me
ditch school one day so I could go and wait in line for four hours in downtown LA to meet The
Rock at a book signing. Wow. And I told him that I would see him in the ring one day.
So if we ever get Dwayne Johnson on the show, you have to let me tell him my story. I think we can
manage that. I think we can make that happen.
I have his book signed.
It's proof.
I also thought that you were just ending your story.
Sorry, Maggie told me not to lean back.
And here I am doing it.
I thought that you were just like, in fact, I met The Rock.
And then you were going to stop there.
And it was just like a bragging moment.
And I was like, I don't know where to go from here, Kevin.
I was bragging. But no, this will all get back to the email here and it's it'll all make sense I promise okay so you're
you're making um you're making little videos on this VHS Flintstones camera editing them on
remember those old Macs the big like yeah huge Macintosh Apple computers that were like colored
like neon purple. Remember those?
Those were really cool.
My neighbor had one, so I would use his
because again, like my family was kind of poor
and they couldn't buy me a computer.
How would that work?
So does the video camera have like a cord
that connects it to the computer at that point?
Because I only did the mini DV,
like mini DVs were when I, yeah.
So the first phase of making these videos
was VHS tape editing on camera so
if we messed up a take you'd rewind so you'd always see like a short clip of the mess up and
they would like scramble and then cut to the new take and we had um my friend I did it with my
friends Brian and Sean they were like my best friends growing up across the street and he one
of them who's a musician would be on a keyboard doing like music and sound effects as the background.
So that was the first like installment of videos.
As time went on and they started the VHS tapes, tapes started getting smaller and smaller.
And then we got the computer.
They had like I think it was like a firewire cable or something that you'd plug right in.
And that was like.
I just wanted everyone to know what the setup was.
The program we used.
Yes.
and that was like i just wanted everyone to know what the setup the program we used yes and that was like a revelation because then i remember being able to put in a song in a video was like
in titles that was the coolest thing in the world to me i remember the first time i edited anything
in that way i was in the edit bay for like i it must've been like overnight at some point.
And it was like a 60 second fake intro
for something that had a music track behind it.
And I remember being very excited,
but also like very frustrated
that it had taken me that long to get to that place.
Yeah.
I don't even know how we did it.
We just, it was just all self-taught.
Everything I've ever done editing has been self-taught
and just learning off of people that are really good at it, like Morgan.
So you ditched wrestling.
Ditched, yeah.
And you decided the video thing was where you wanted to go.
Yes, because there was a phase in there of wrestling.
Got over that phase.
And we continued making videos.
And it sort of attracted all of the friends that I had.
Like the older I got, I would take whatever video, like in high school, there was a video class, like the school show that they did every morning, like the announcements.
So I took that class and we got to make sketches for that.
And then junior college, I went to Antelope Valley College, which was a mile from my parents' house.
Shout out.
Shout out to AVC.
Had some good teachers there.
And I took a bunch of film classes there.
I did a bunch of film projects there
and made some good friends there as well.
And then after that,
I applied and went to San Francisco State University.
And I went there for two years
and I went there for creative writing
because I was also,
as I was a filmmaker and I was writing sketches,
I really liked writing too.
And so I thought for school, I had two friends,
my two best friends, not Brian and Sean,
other two best friends that I made.
They're all my best friends.
They actually were all my groomsmen at my wedding.
Oh, you're not even trying to be nice.
They're literally all my best friends.
I was like, Kevin's so nice,
but like Kevin's really nice.
So, oh, they told me to stop not banging on the desk.
I'm sorry, Maggie.
I keep banging on this.
They're always telling us what not to do.
You don't control me, Maggie.
So I went to school for creative writing and I went with Benny and Tony
and I was there for two years.
You went with friends from home that also went to-
Friends from home.
We all like applied together and we got in like just in the nick of time
because we were short three credits for a math class. And we had the one teacher there that
everybody said is easy because I am terrible at math. Horrible. I took one math class my first
semester and it was something like embarrassing, like algebra two or something and I was failing and I was like oh gosh so I took statistics if you ever are bad at math
and you need the credits take statistics yeah that's a great advice we had to take a Saturday
morning class it was the only one available and we took that and barely passed but got the credits
we needed to go to San Francisco and I working for, I was working at a movie theater
because, you know, the whole movie thing.
And I was also working at Technicolor Film Lab,
which was in, it's in Burbank.
That's cool.
Or North Hollywood.
And I got that job because I was a projectionist
at the movie theater.
And a friend of mine said,
hey, do you want to come and do projection
down at Technicolor?
It's a union job.
And I was like 18 years old, finishing up school,
wanting to go to a university.
And I thought, sure, why not?
And it was great.
It was like 32 bucks an hour job.
And I was the youngest person doing projection at Technicolor.
The youngest person at Technicolor?
The youngest person at Technicolor.
And my job was to,
I'm going off on little side tangents,
but I promise we'll get to this email.
My job there was to run,
like after they printed the reels for movies, I would thread them up in a projector
and then play them for color timers
to make sure that the prints look good.
I think now they send out DVDs and stuff to theaters
or like discs or something to theaters
that using film is not as much anymore. So I knew that being in that. I don't know if that's true, now they send out DVDs and stuff to theaters or like discs or something to theaters that
using film is not as much anymore. So I knew that being in that. I don't know if that's true, but
I'll just nod my head. The theater that I worked at Cinemark 22 in Lancaster, California. Shout
out. Oh, we do shout outs on crew biscuits. We made that up last time. We, we shouted out, um,
who do we shout out last time? I shouted out Jennifer Lawrence.
I just, you know.
So you can shout out the Rock and Antelope Valley High School.
Antelope Valley College, yep.
Lancaster High School is where I went.
We don't have to shout them out.
Okay, no.
No, they're great.
So then this, we passed the math class.
I was working for Technicolor.
I was working at the movie theater.
So I was working two jobs and going to school full time pretty much.
And the Technicolor job, I would thread it up, play it for the color timer just to make sure the print looked good so they could send it off to the theaters.
And often you would be running them for, you would be running dailies for the cinematographers. Sometimes sometimes the directors would come in it was like high profile people like Clint Eastwood would come in
and I remember doing um the Terminal and the Spielberg movie and the I don't know if it was
it was one of the producers I threaded it up upside down and I didn't know and it was like
my first week every projector in there was was different. I was 18 years old.
I'm pretty sure I developed acid reflux from nerves being there.
And I hit start, ran it,
and I went to the other projector to thread up the next reel,
and apparently they were trying to call me on the phone,
but the phone wasn't working.
Oh, no.
So then I turn around, and the guy has the phone in his hand,
and he's banging on the window with it,
and he's screaming at me.
But they're soundproof, so I can't hear him.
So I see that it's upside down and I'm like, oh, God.
So I had to call the chief projectionist to help me.
And he ran down.
He helped me.
When it was over, the guy came out and basically just talked crap about me for a while.
To you?
To my boss, wanting to basically say fire me. What more can you say other than like he put it in upside down? Yes. Yeah. Sorry. And the chief, my boss was really cool. He just came in. He's like, don't sweat it. That was all he said to me. I like the idea of someone of you saying the chief about something. That was his. He was like chief projectionist. I always just call him chief. Okay. so how does this all tie into the email so
um i ended up making some money from that job enough to where i could go to school in san
francisco or join the union and be a full-time projectionist i went to school because san
francisco was way more enticing to me and um because always go to school kids yeah school
it was like go to school especially
in san francisco it's so expensive now and it was at the time i was there but not nearly as bad
and i had a great two years there it was an incredible experience and then i moved back
home as you do after college not knowing what to do i just had a degree in creative writing
which i mean what are you
going to do with that? I was going to ask you if your parents, if you were pushed into creative
writing because they didn't want you to go into video or one of the families that are like, no,
you can't get a degree in that, but you have to get a degree in this. But before I get that answer.
Hello, Mythical Beasts. Greetings from the set of Buddy System season two.
That's why this recording sounds a little different than the Ear Biscuit that you were just enjoying.
Because we're in a trailer right now.
Yeah, we're in my trailer. Rhett and I have separate trailers.
You know, one of the...
You made it sound like there's an issue. There's no issue. It's just we're just grown men who need our space.
We didn't ask.
They just gave us two trailers.
I mean, we're both sitting in one trailer doing this right now.
You could stretch the cord into your trailer if there was an issue.
It would be really awkward if I was trying to do this
and not being able to hear or see you.
Well, another hazard of being a professional actor and producer
like we are right now is a lot of people seeing you in your underwear on set.
Have you noticed this?
Basically, I've come to grips with the fact that
the whole crew has seen both of us in our underwear
multiple times, and that's just part of it.
I changed seven times, seven times last Monday.
And one day, I was in seven different outfits.
And you can't find an enclave.
You do it on set, man. Yeah.
Yeah, you gotta do that. I mean, because it's just about efficiency.
And by the way, there's lots of points in Buddy System where we're basically
naked anyway, so it's like, there's no surprises for anybody anyway.
We're all friends and we're all professionals.
You're raising a lot of questions that will be answered in season two of
Buddy System, but that's not what this is about. This is about how proud we are,
how much we look forward to, at this point, changing and getting down into
just our skivvies because you know what we've been wearing? We've been wearing
me undies, the most comfortable, literally, the most comfortable underwear
that you can wear, and they also look good with all these patterns, and so I
just look forward to the opportunity to show them off.
Sometimes I just show them off, and people are like,
you changing into something else? I'm like, no, I'm just showing you my MeUndies.
I am currently wearing the light blue MeUndies with the dark blue flowers
all over them.
I'm just wearing the army green, because I'm all about business today.
Okay. And a little bit of camouflage. Here's the thing, guys. We highly recommend trying out some MeUndies.
And we got a deal to sweeten it for you.
Get 20% off your first pair, plus free shipping.
All you gotta do is go to MeUndies.com slash ear.
That's MeUndies.com slash ear to get 20% off your first pair.
MeUndies.com slash what?
Ear! Ear. Before we get back to the biscuit, we wanna let all of you slash ear to get 20% off your first pair. MeUndies.com slash what?
Ear.
Ear.
Before we get back to the biscuit,
we wanna let all of you Spotify listeners know,
we, that's us, Rhett and Link, and Ear Biscuits.
That's the podcast that you're currently listening to.
Is now available on Spotify.
Spotify.
What, did you forget what you were saying?
I looked down. You said, you looked what you were saying? I looked down.
You said, you looked down at your note.
I looked down and saw podcasts,
and I was like, oh no,
because I wanted to read the website, but Spotify.
Now available on Spotify.
Go to Spotify.com slash podcasts,
or just go to the podcast section within the browse tab
when you're using Spotify on mobile,
or you could just go on Spotify and search for Ear Biscuits. Any of those ways, all of those ways, we
will come up, we will be there, we won't be square, we'll be in your ear.
And we will be in our underwear with clothes over them.
Yes.
Well, it's just, well, or just the audio.
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay, that's Spotify.com slash podcast. Now, back to the biscuit.
So, you were asking me-
So the teaser was,
did your family bully you into one degree or another
when it came to college?
And the answer is a very simple no.
My parents are really awesome.
I was very lucky with great parents
and great brothers, great family.
So no, they supported me in any endeavor
I have ever wanted to go on.
They would back it.
For me, it was just always a balance between I love writing and I love editing and filmmaking.
And the two are mutually exclusive.
But when you go to school, you got to pick one or the other.
Yeah.
And I just chose writing.
I was just in the phase of it at the time.
I am just to talk about myself for a second.
Please.
I too knew that I wanted to be in the entertainment industry.
But when I was a kid, i either wanted to be an actor that is not something that as i grew older uh i was comfortable
with in fact that was the other thing i wanted to talk about is as soon as the cameras start rolling
i get very self-conscious um which people have commented on gmm like why is stevie always hiding
behind something well it's a lot easier that way
I wanted to be an actor
an entertainment lawyer
or a producer
and I feel like my parents were
like please don't be an actor please don't be an actor
and they were like
please be an entertainment lawyer but
I chose in between
the two that I
could have.
Anyway, that's good, though. And now back to Kevin.
Hey, back to me now.
I'm going to keep on rambling.
So after school, I moved back home, as you do.
And I was trying to figure out what to do.
And I bounced around a lot of random jobs.
I have worked a lot of random jobs, a lot of retail jobs.
Such as?
So general ones are like Blockbuster Video.
I worked at-
So cool.
I was just thinking about when I was little, I would go to Blockbuster at least once or
twice a week.
Oh, yeah.
But it would get to the point where I had seen everything on the shelves.
Like as soon as I saw a movie that I hadn't seen, I was like, is this appropriate for me to watch?
Because I haven't seen it and it looks good.
When I worked at Blockbuster, they let you have five free rentals a week.
That means no social life.
That means no social life.
Lots and lots of movies.
I worked at the movie theater.
I worked for Tower Records for a brief time.
You had really cool jobs. Yeah, those were some of the coolest. I worked at Tower Records for a brief time. You had really cool jobs. Yeah,
those were some of the coolest. I worked at Build-A-Bear. And that, I feel like if I looked
at myself, I would understand that as well. Yes. And, but that's, I mean, you're a lot cooler than
I am. Well, I also worked for T-Mobile for a while. And I worked for, I hung posters for a
local fair once for a while. Got my first paycheck doing that.
I wrote music reviews for a website called Prefix Mag.
Shout out.
And I got my first check as a writer from Prefix Mag for $6.
$6 for one article?
$6 for writing one article, yes.
But hey, it was kind of cool.
I was like, I got paid for writing.
That's cool.
Yeah, that's nice.
And then I worked for a hotel company for a long time.
I saw that on your resume that I have.
A very long time.
And that was like, I chose that because I thought about going to grad school,
but this job popped up and I thought I can travel with this job.
And I did.
Like I got to go to Holland and I got to go to Ireland.
And I had my first trip to New York and I went travel with this job. And I did. Like I got to go to Holland and I got to go to Ireland.
And I had my first trip to New York and I went to Napa Valley.
Had a lot of cool trips from that job.
So it was good for what it was.
And then finally, my friend, Benny, who I went to college with.
Tony's still there.
Yes.
Tony is still. Tony's still in college?
No, he's still in San Francisco.
Because that is an interesting problem.
A long student. Yes. No, Tony's still in San Francisco. Because that is an interesting problem. A long student.
Yes. No, Tony's still in San Francisco. A long student. That makes sense, right? Sort of. So
Benny finished grad school and then he said, I'm moving to LA and I want you to move in with me.
And I was like, I want to do that too, but I'm working at this hotel job and it's a long commute
and I don't know if I want to do it,
but because Benny was in the same boat.
He wanted to be an actor
and he knew I wanted to do work in the entertainment industry.
So he was like, look, I'm going to move now
and I think my recommendation is for you
to move out here with me
and then you can start looking
for what you really want to do
because you'll be here and you just won't keep putting it off. And it was actually really great
advice. So I did have to commute for a while, but I was actively looking for stuff here in town
because I was trying to figure out how like you, you know, the infamous saying of like getting your
foot in the door somewhere, which is the hardest thing to do when you have no connections and no
family members in the business. I mean, but you were at Technicolor.
I was at Technicolor, yes, as the youngest projectionist ever there. So I moved out here
and we joined a sketch comedy group called Good Form Peter. A shout out. They're dead now. They
no longer exist. Not like physically dead, but the group is dead.
That was going down a path I did not think was going to go down.
And we did a few sketches and it kind of lit the flame of like,
this is what I have been doing my whole life and this is what I want to do.
And we realized the two of us, we should just start our own.
We were doing with a group of people and we weren't really doing what we wanted to do.
So we started our own sketch comedy group called Joy Camp.
And shout out Joy Camp.
And this was like,
it was like I was applying for jobs
to be an editor or a writer.
Nothing was working.
And when we started this,
it was the beginning of everything for me.
So the two of us got together
with a couple of other good friends.
Our friend Delman, who is Lee Newton's now husband.
Yes.
Who's one of the funniest guys I've ever met in my whole life.
My friend Nick and my brother.
My brother would do all the shooting for us and a few other friends.
And so we started this group and we started making videos for YouTube.
And they did okay.
They did pretty well.
We got up to like 17,000
subscribers and we found our little niche audience. And it opened all the doors for me in this
business because first of all, it taught me like to get better at editing, better at writing,
just more efficient in general, lighting, all the stuff that it takes to do like what we do here,
basically. And so I built my resume doing that.
And then that's how I started getting my freelance editing jobs was from that.
And I did a, I worked for Roseanne Barr.
That is noted in my notes right now.
Should I go, should we go?
I'm sorry, you go to your email,
but I do want to talk about your resume and your cover letter.
Okay.
Because it is funny how directly it connects.
So I'll get to the email and we'll come back to that.
Okay.
So it got me a lot of jobs,
including this one here at Mythical Entertainment,
because your email you sent to Studio 71, I believe.
My friend Mitch was working for Studio 71
in the New York office.
I don't think he does anymore, but he was at the time.
So they sent it to him saying,
hey, do you know anybody that will fit this?
That is so nice that they were spreading the word like that mitch sent it to nick uh they're in a youtube
group called the clunes which are great and uh nick knew that i had been putting feelers out
for a job so he sent it to me because nick had was doing clune stuff and he didn't need a job
so he sent it on to me and i read it and And as I was reading it, I was like, this sounds great.
Like this sounds like totally right up my alley.
So I drafted up my email that I sent to,
I sent it to Nick or to Mitch.
Mitch said he'll sing my praises.
And I got really excited.
And like I said, it was very exciting for me
to get that email because I was on the search
for a couple of months and my bank account was just
depleting, living off of savings. I was getting nervous. The holidays were coming up. I went to
Trader Joe's. I got an application. I was like, I can do that for a little while till the work
comes in. And my unemployment, so this is how crazy this is. I came home one day, like kind
of beaten down from just nothing panning out.
And I opened the mailbox and I had my last unemployment check.
Literally, like literally the last check that I got from unemployment.
I go inside and I'm like, okay, what the heck am I going to do?
I got my Trader Joe's application, opened up my laptop and I had an email from you.
Oh my God.
On the exact day.
And I just thought like, it's too good to be true.
So then you basically set up an
interview for me at the old office which I came into I was very excited about it and very nervous
because it was like the three of you guys in the room it was like Rhett and Link who I'd never met
about interviews period whenever I have the guys in an interview. I'm always, I always forget that for whoever we're interviewing,
it makes things even more like, you know, heightened.
Like the anxiety level is so much more heightened.
It was a long time.
Also, they're very tall.
They are really tall.
And it was shocking.
Like they were sitting on one side of me
and you were like on the other side of me.
So I was like flanked.
I need to be better about like interview etiquette.
I remember even when I went interviewed with them way back when we met at a coffee shop
and we were standing in line to get food and I was trying to talk to them.
I knew who they were at the time, but, you know, and I was like looking like I literally
was like trying to.
It was this situation and I was like, I'm not you.
This is I hope I'm coming off okay.
But like, anyway, sorry.
So interviewed.
I also have a, when you came in for your interview, it was such a small studio.
And I think that you were really excited.
So you were talking in a volume that was louder than you talk in real life.
And I remember thinking like, this guy talks so loud.
But I was like, he's so nice and he totally gets it.
And he's a podcast fan and I really want to have him.
And let's hope that he doesn't talk that loud in real life.
And then you didn't.
And I was like, okay, good.
It was probably the nerves.
Just like you kind of like put under a microscope in those situations and like the natural actions
just to talk really loud because that'll make me better for some reason um i was dripping sweat
when i came out i didn't know if you guys knew that but i walked out the first thing i did when
i got home was take a shower but when i when i closed the door behind me i could hear you guys
oh no
kind of
but I couldn't tell
what you said
and it made it even more
nerve wracking
because I either thought
you guys said
well that
well he was awesome
or well he was awful
oh no
yeah I didn't know
which one
so like the whole time
I'm like no it was awesome
we also probably
didn't say either
one of those things
you probably didn't say either
it was probably
something unrelated
yeah it was all in my head
but like the whole drive home I'm'm like, they think I'm awesome.
No, they probably, they think I'm awful.
They think I'm awful.
I'm not getting the job.
But then, I don't know, it was a few days later, I got another email and I was so pumped
because it was like a little trial run thing that you guys gave me, which I did.
And I think I did really well on it.
And then I got, you gave me the, offer me the
position and it was like the beginning of December, but I wasn't starting until January, but it was
the best Christmas gift ever because it was like, I know I have a job in January and now I get to
enjoy the holidays, like with my friends and family. So it was like, I mean, you should have
seen like when I told Kate, she was like jumping for joy.
Well, let's jump to Kate for a moment.
Because I have a good Kate story too.
Well, I mean, that's really amazing. You do have a good Kate story.
That fate, which is a word that rhymes with Kate, is amazing.
And I'm glad that you're still here.
And I feel like you've been here for a very long time.
I know, I'm old school.
Kate is your wife now.
She used to be your girlfriend.
Then she was your fiance.
Yes.
Girlfriend for like 10 years.
Really?
Was that long?
On and off for 11 years.
And then we got married.
And we've been married for almost a year now.
How's it going?
People always ask, how's married life?
And I'm like, it's the same.
Yeah.
It's literally exactly the same.
But it's great.
But Kate has a secret that's not actually a secret.
Kate is a twin.
She is.
Identical twin.
Can we talk about that for a second?
Yeah, sure.
How does that, like, so how did you guys meet?
How do twins meet other people?
Actually, I have a, I made a video about how we met for um sorry i didn't see that
one for no you know i didn't i i meant to slack it to everybody uh after the wedding and then i
forgot um but i made it specifically for the wedding ah and um it's a uh it's one of those
it's like a spoof of like the drunk history thing um with uh. And I, but I recorded them.
The twist was they didn't know they were being recorded.
I just got audio of them.
And then I had Delman and my friend Benny play their parts
and reenact the whole story.
But it's actually-
And you piece together audio clips from them
that told the story without them knowing?
So Em was one night, she-
We've got to put this somewhere, by the way,
now that we're talking about it.
Or just cut to a clip.
I'll be happy to share it, yeah.
Let's cut to a clip.
It's on my personal YouTube channel.
It's the only public video on my personal YouTube channel.
Because I use that for like,
when I'm sending drafts of editing things to people.
But that tells the whole story pretty much in full.
But we met in high school
through my girlfriend at the time, Cassie. Ooh. But we met in high school through my girlfriend
at the time, Cassie. Oh, yes. That's my girlfriend's name. Yes, it is. She's awesome, too.
Cassie's my girlfriend. Yes. Or you're Cassie. She was cool. But your girlfriend's awesome. Yeah.
And we kind of knew each other off and on in high school. And then one day I moved to San Francisco
and my first summer
after living there for a year, I went camping at the Kern River. And the Kern River is not far from
LA. Most people don't know it's a couple hours away. But it was something that I did with my
guy friends frequently. And unbeknownst to me, it was something that she did with her family for a
long time. And we just so happened to be there at the exact same time
and just so happened to have a mutual friend that was there
that knew that we were both there
that brought everybody together.
And that's pretty much where we hit it off
and then kind of dated on and off ever since.
Yeah, the Kern River.
And there's a lot more to the story,
but it's all in that video that I'll be happy to share.
We'll link to it and we'll cut to a clip.
Yes.
So in high school school you were like,
oh, there are these two,
there are these twin girls that are in there.
Yes, twin girls, yeah.
But they're identical.
Identical twins.
And they've like, isn't there a story
where they did fool you once or you almost were fooled?
They, well, they did,
that's like a very common twin question for them
is if they ever like traded places and stuff.
And they did, but never.
I thought they specifically did.
I remember her story about that.
They've done it like here and there.
They've done it like on the phone, you can't tell which is which.
Yeah.
It's very difficult.
So there's been many times where I've called and M's picked up the phone and I've talked to her for 20 minutes.
So little things like that.
Like she's actively trying to fool you or she just wanted to talk to you for 20 minutes?
Like actively trying to fool me.
So there's been a lot of things like that along the way, but never anything like super crazy.
I, this is my Kate story.
And I can't remember, was it after VidCon?
It was after some kind of convention in which, or some trip I was taking with Rhett and Link.
And whenever I go with Rhett and Link anywhere, they get approached by a lot of people.
And then I am standing there.
So they have to say something to me like, oh, Stevie, we know who you are, too.
And so I was in this mindset where that week had been a lot of people approaching me and
talking about the show.
and a lot of people approaching me and talking about the show.
And I was feeling pretty good about the show,
but I had a business lunch in our neighborhood in Los Feliz.
That's as specific as I'm going to get.
And I was on the phone on the way to a meeting,
and I glanced to my side.
I was waiting for the light to change and for me to cross the sidewalk.
And there was a really pretty girl who was like in her 20s and she was wearing a GMM hoodie.
But she was also wearing sunglasses and a hat.
And I was like, my first thought was, oh, man, I really don't want to like, don't know. I don't know what this interaction is going to be like.
We're waiting to cross the sidewalk.
I don't know what she's going to say to me.
I'm on the phone.
I have to go to this meeting.
This is really like I just panic when anyone approaches me.
I just like I panic.
And did you teach me the technique? I think of like asking somebody what their name is.
Yes, I think I did tell you that.
Because that's what I use now.
I immediately go to, what's your name?
Because I'm like, oh, that's a sentence I can complete right now at this moment.
And so here I am thinking, well, I feel really good about our show
because we're in this cool neighborhood and this cool girl's wearing our sweatshirt
and I'm standing right here and we have fans.
And then, wait, how did I find out it was Kate?
You texted me the same time that she texted me.
Because I thought about it and then was like, oh, wait.
I had to rationalize the situation to myself.
I think she was saying hi,
but you were kind of in your nervous reaction to her.
And I think it came off to you in your mind.
It came off as like you dissed her.
And to her in her mind, she came off as someone creepy.
So I got both these.
I got a text message on one end from Kate thinking that I just creeped out Stevie.
And one from you, I think I just dissed your girlfriend.
But then we resolved it. Yeah.
And it was all good.
Yeah.
but then we saw we resolved it yeah and um and it was all good yeah but the day that i do see a cute girl in her 20s wearing a gmm sweatshirt in los filas that'll be cool who's not your wife
i think that'll feel that'll feel pretty pretty cool now i do have one story that i have shared
with you at the time but with not with any of the viewers, which is my proposal.
And I don't know how much time we have.
Are we good on time right now?
Because we're okay?
Okay.
So again, I'll keep this one to just the highlights.
But this is like one of my favorite stories
because it involves me almost dying,
as well as Kate too.
And her whole family. So this is uh my proposal story
storybook proposal story we um we went for we were camping in rightwood which is um a great
camping place outside of la that not a lot of people here know for some weird reason which is
what makes it great and we it's a been a ritual that we go there and we go on these long
hikes up this thing called Mount Baden-Powell, this thing, it's a mountain. We hike up a mountain
called Mount Baden-Powell. It's a very steep, long hike. It takes like two and a half to three hours
to get up and a little shorter getting down. But it's very steep. And we've done it pretty much
every year that we've like been together. This doesn't sound like, like at the top, is there like this oasis where you're like,
everything's beautiful here.
It is. It's once you get to the top, it's so rewarding that you've made it to the top.
And then you can kind of chill out and eat some food. And there's, there's a log up there that
we like carved our names into years and years ago. And so I thought that'd be a great spot to do that.
And since I- And her whole family'd be a great spot to do that and since her
whole family knew that you were gonna they did that and it was her whole family um and me and
her and then one one of our friends was with us too um and we were just all like a big camping
group for a couple days did she have any idea that this was coming she kind of had an inclination
yeah she kind of knew um wasn't positive but she kind of knew and so what i did was as long as i've
been with her i've always made um what i call like video albums of like pictures compiled together of our time together but i edit
it to you know like virtual like digital scrapbooks yes exactly okay and i've been doing that forever
um it's it's uh did you know that the iphone the new um Does it have like an app that does this? It is crazy.
Yes.
Like you can, you go to your camera.
Should I?
Okay, maybe I'll tell you.
I just want to show you.
I want to see it because this will save me a lot of time in the future.
I'm going to show the camera as well.
And I was like, I was playing with this for a very long time because it's very creepy.
Okay.
Okay.
So here is, let me see if it does it with this one. Okay. Okay. So here is, let me see if it does it with this one.
Okay.
So here is this photo I just shared on Instagram of one of the scenes in Buddy System that I really like.
Okay.
So when you're in the your photos, you just scroll up and then it has related albums.
I don't know if you've seen this feature.
I have.
I have.
So then let's say I want to click on July 13th, which also looks like season one of Buddy System.
Okay.
Then I can press play right here.
And it starts doing a slideshow.
Not only does it do a slideshow.
There's music? No.
Let's see.
Oh, no, there's music.
Is it from your library
well i'll never have to make one of those ever again no and look at this also there's choices
for what you want the music to be so Oh my gosh. So dreamy, sentimental, gentle, chill,
happy, uplifting, epic.
Let's see, epic.
You just go to epic and...
I bet it's gonna play epic music.
It is, it's a trailer.
And it's kind of in sync too.
it's like it's a trailer and it's kind of in sync too well now i'm not going to be as cool if i make another one of those videos how how that like come on you cannot not play with that feature for
hours i'm gonna admit it hours oh i'll be playing with that for hours tonight after this podcast for
sure okay i'm sorry so that's what you did that a lot. By putting like labor into it and like making it a cute thing. So I made that for the proposal,
which I could only show on my laptop. So I had to bring my laptop up on the hike,
which was a long hike, like I said. And it was much harder to get up there having a
laptop backpack on you. But we made it to the top. I opened it up, showed the video to everybody,
did the proposal.
It was beautiful.
Like the sun was out.
I'm guessing at the point when you took out your laptop
is when she really knew something.
Yeah, she was like,
huh, are we about to watch a movie or something?
Now that we're up on top of this mountain.
Yeah.
Let's watch a movie.
That went great.
We all kind of celebrated and, you know,
cheers and all that.
And then we made our way.
Did she cry?
Did you cry? Everybody did. Everyone, you know, cheers and all that. And then we made our way. Did you cry? Did you cry?
Everybody did.
Everyone cried?
Yeah, everyone cried.
Okay.
And then we made our descent down the mountain
and we noticed in the far off distance,
there was this big plume of smoke coming up.
Oh, yes.
I know this story.
It turns out that there was a big accident on the freeway,
which was like not terribly far from the campgrounds,
but far enough. And it just kind of gave this like sort of like ominous gloom to everything
in that direction. And then we made our way back to town where we usually stop and have dinner
after the hike. And we saw it on the news. There's this big accident and this fire.
And then it got really windy. Out in that area, there's like big accident and this fire and then then it got really windy out in that area
there's like high winds that are intense and we go back to our campsite and the campsite is
completely destroyed the tents everything blown over toppled over on the ground so we start
cleaning up and putting things away and putting our tents back up. And during that time, Kate started feeling really sick. So she comes
down with the flu and she's now throwing up. So she's throwing up and the campsite's back together,
but it's really windy. And she says, I'm going to go to bed early. It was like eight o'clock.
So I said, okay, I will too. I was tired from the hike. So I go to bed. She's kind of intermittently
getting up to throw up and then to come. Sorry, Caden, it's a little embarrassing, but coming back in the tent.
And then we finally fall asleep. Everybody falls asleep. And then I'm awoken by the sound of our
friend Shannon saying, guys, guys, guys. And then I hear sirens.'m thinking oh my gosh I thought I was dreaming open the tent
Shannon is leaning in she's like the mountain is on fire and we're being evacuated I was like
come again so it's like nice seeing you goodbye in a total daze you know you get out of the tent
and you and I look around and it's everything's like kind of coming to me.
And I see a cop coming around with sirens going and he's on his loudspeaker saying, everybody must evacuate the mountain.
The mountain is on fire.
This is not a drill.
I repeat, this is not a drill.
And I see all these campgrounds like rushing, packing up.
And me and Shannon are the only ones up in our campground.
So I like have to wake Kate up.
And the thing about Kate and Emma is when they get into deep sleeps,
they do not wake up for the life of them.
Especially when they have the flu.
Especially when they have the flu.
So panic starts to set in and her dad and mom wake up.
And then I'm like trying to piece things together.
And I'm trying to wake up her sister who will not wake up.
She is out cold.
Em, Emily, Em,
the mountain's on fire. Wake up, Em. And she's just laying there dead asleep. And her boyfriend
gets up and he was trying to wake her up and that wouldn't work. And everybody's kind of taking
their time. Her mom was like folding the table and I'm like, no, the mountain is on fire. The
cop comes around a second time. The siren's blazing. I repeat, this is not a drill.
I look around, everybody else is gone except for us.
So Shannon went into Em's tent
and she took her air mattress
and started doing this up and down with it.
And Emily is like flopping around
like a fish out of water, still dead asleep.
And then I get Kate up and she's helping me.
And at this point i'm grabbing
everything i can grab and throwing it into the car and her dad's kind of doing the same a cop
comes the cop comes around the third time and he says this is your final warning you have to get
off the mountain now the fire is closing in on the only exit on this mountain if you do not get
off you are stuck on this mountain and and he's very stern that doesn't seem very helpful no not
at all.
I was like, can you get up and give us a hand maybe?
He was just looking out for himself.
This is your final warning that your life is in jeopardy.
Gotta go.
Bye.
Yeah, see ya.
So I'm like at this point kind of yelling at everybody just to get him.
We get Emily up.
She immediately starts crying just because she's like in a day
and doesn't know what's going on.
We're yelling at her.
So she's crying.
I put her in the car.
I get Kate in the car.
We get everything that we can get packed up.
And then Emily's boyfriend runs off to his car.
He has a flat tire.
He's driving down the thing in a flat tire.
Oh, yes.
I remember everything gets progressively worse.
I get in our car and then Don gets in the camper that we have, the truck that pulls
the camper.
And he's behind me.
And I still see Carolyn, her mom, trying to get stuff off the campground, like folding up chairs.
I'm like leaning out the window like, Carolyn, get in the truck.
Let's go.
So she gets in the truck and we finally start driving off and we turn the bend.
And they were not kidding.
The fire was coming over the top of the mountain.
We were driving into the flames.
It was, my heart was beating like, am I going to be able to drive off this mountain? And if not, there was no one like in front of you or no one in front
of us, no one around. It's pitch black, except for these gigantic flames coming over the hill.
At those moments, you kind of think like, isn't there someone in the world right now that's
supposed to tell me what I'm supposed to do right now? Kind of. Yes. You know, it was, it was honestly
like in the moment, it's fun to tell it now, but in the moment, it was absolutely terrifying because like the heart's beating really fast.
I'm driving into the flames and I'm thinking, is the exit going to be closed?
And if it is, what the heck are we going to do?
Turn around, ditch the car and run down this dark mountain in the middle of the night, probably.
So we were going.
At least you had a plan.
Yeah.
Running down a dark mountain away from the fire.
We're going down the winding road and we come around the last bend and I'm like, fingers crossed, please, please, please. And sure enough,
the flames hadn't quite hit it yet. And it was open. So they kind of waved us through.
We drove down the street, even Em's boyfriend at the time, he got his car off with a flat tire.
He parked it there. And then we go and we pull off the street and now Em has come down with the flu.
So Em and Kate are on the side of the road. It's like three in the morning,
throwing up on the side of the mountain.
And I'm standing in the middle of the street,
seeing like her family on the street,
looking at this mountain that's just engulfed in flames.
Story, book, proposal. That is a good proposal.
Yes.
And I can't wait to see the video
that you used before the fire,
before the actual fire,
but after the romantic fire of your hearts.
Yes.
Well, Kevin, I think that's our time.
Okay.
Thank you.
I mean, I just arbitrarily determined that.
Yeah, that's good.
You have to stop me because otherwise I could just keep going on and on forever.
Thank you so much for being on Crew Biscuits.
It was great to be here.
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Why, hello, Stevie.
Hi.
How's it going?
So, everything's going well, except for the fact that I totally forgot to ask you to sign the table of dim lighting.
And I'm here on the buddy system set and I thought that if I did not get you to sign it, I would not be able to sleep at night tonight.
So I was wondering if you could go in there and sign it right now.
You know what, I would love to because I actually have not slept a single night since.
So I'm going to go ahead and...
You should have connected earlier.
I know.
I'm just leaving Rhett and Link's office because that's where I work when they're off filming Buddy System.
And now I'm in the earmiscuits room.
There's a pen on the table.
So should I just sign anywhere?
against room. There's a pen on the table. So should I just sign anywhere?
I think that to be fair to Alex and the rest of the crew that I'm having on crew biscuits, you gotta go underneath.
Okay. That sounds good to me. Okay. I'm dropping down now.
I'm gonna set the phone down because I need...
Here are the pens. Okay. Here comes the pen cap.
Okay. You hear that? Yep. Yep. OK. Here comes the pen cap. OK, you hear that?
Yeah, yeah.
OK, listen close.
I'm going to sign.
You hearing this?
Yeah.
OK, first name's done.
Here comes the last name.
Oh, this is a long picture.
Yeah, my last name is kind of long but Stevie you'll be happy to
know that I have signed the table you're welcome thanks Stevie you too but so
it's been two and a half years that I worked here and I finally got my name on
the table which is awesome now Alex signed the table before me.
He's back here.
You can't really see it.
It's a little bit of a scribble.
He kind of dramatically decreased the value of this table.
So I'm hoping that my signature
has brought that value back up.
But in all seriousness,
it's an honor to be on this table here.
Thanks guys. 🎵