You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes — Ep. “Kyle Kinane Returns”

Release Date: July 31, 2024
Host: Pete Holmes
Guest: Kyle Kinane, comedian
Theme: Embracing personal weirdness and change; comedy in midlife; the strange and shifting lines between who we are and how we perform.

Episode Overview

In this characteristically freewheeling and heartfelt episode, Pete welcomes back his old friend, comedian Kyle Kinane, for a reunion more than a decade after Kyle’s first appearance on the show. The conversation meanders through reflections on aging, sobriety, the evolution of the comedy business, technology’s encroachment, morality and meaning, and the weirdness and joy of being alive and imperfect.

Both share personal stories of leaving Los Angeles, changing cities and lifestyles, and adapting to new ideas about selfhood. They banter about the value and pitfalls of comedy, the oddities of language and society, and some deeply silly stuff about matcha, music, ghosts, and accidentally peeing your pants.

The episode is peppered with memorable jokes, deep tangents, mutual admiration, spiritual speculation, and plenty of laugh-out-loud moments.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Moving Away from LA: Finding New Versions of Home

• Kyle on leaving LA: He describes how the pandemic gave him and his long-term partner (“the missus”) the nudge to finally relocate to Portland. Many comedians are making similar moves, realizing they can work remotely or don't need to be at the center of showbiz anymore.

  “Everybody kind of … like, oh, I could do everything remotely. I wasn’t doing showbiz shit when I was here. I was just doing spots and then falling off my bike during the days and it was great.” (05:54)

• Pete’s move to Ojai: Pete reveals he left LA as well, embracing a slower life with land, fruit trees, and backyard chickens, while reflecting that the choice to stay in LA seemed more like Stockholm Syndrome after stepping away.

2. Comedy, Longevity, and Audience

• Changing comedy scenes: Both discuss how comedy evolves when comics play to their own fans, possibly at the cost of developing truly universal material.

  “There’s an epidemic … with comedy going on right now, which is a lot of hours that were written exclusively for thousands of your fans. … That’s a tricky pickle.” (21:34)

• The importance of bombing: Kyle values performing in rooms where no one knows him, because that challenge keeps him “growing and figuring something out.” (21:23)
• On thriving and perception:

  “I told Shane Torres ... I feel like I’m thriving. And he couldn’t stop laughing. ... He’s like, you should look at your face when you say that.” (10:36)

3. Aging, Sobriety, and Identity Shifts

• Sobriety: Kyle shares he hasn’t had a drink in two and a half months, admitting he’s annoyed that things are better and wrestling with his self-concept as the hard-living comic:

  “Everything got better. Like, man, I just like being drunk. I really like it. ... I love having a few beers when it’s … I love rules.” (56:57)

• Letting go of old personas:

  “I thought I’d always be the guy with the beer in my hand … but you live in Portland.” (112:54)

• Comedic archetypes: Pete and Kyle liken the hard-partying “bar hero” to a figure that doesn’t age well—or last long—in Los Angeles.

4. Language, Categories, and Social Progress

• Relationships and labels: They riff on how “partner” used to exclusively signal queerness and now is a neutral term, and how “girlfriend/boyfriend” can feel inadequate after a decade together at age 47.
• Semantic change and social issues:

  “We’re using language to put band aids on real issues. … You ignored a houseless person on the off ramp today instead of a homeless person. You feel better?” (12:13)

• Marriage and domestic partnership: Kyle and his partner haven’t married; they look at the shifting legal and social structures around marriage, taxes, and health insurance.

5. Morality, Meaning, and Mortality

• On veganism and ethics:

  “Don’t let the pursuit of perfection destroy the good.” (31:36, quoting Moby)

• Factory farming, hunting, and hypocrisy: Both admit to ethical inconsistencies—sometimes eating meat or eggs when their ideals slip—and reflect on the limits of “perfection” in living morally.
• Living a good life without religion: Pete offers a spiritual but non-religious take:

  “The point of life is life. … The motivation for being moral is not just love your neighbor as yourself, but recognizing you and your neighbor are the same.” (97:26)

6. Tech, AI, and the Future

• Will AI replace comedians? Pete speculates that “AI friends” will provide instant, news-related jokes and that live human experience might become more valued.

  “There’s a very good possibility there will be more of a demand for the human experience to be together.” (25:30)

• The creeping weirdness of tech: They joke about food-delivery robots in Portland, why robots shouldn’t have faces that blink, and the unease of emotionally manipulating technology.

7. Social Media, Attention, and Information Diets

• ‘Being had’ by social media and marketing: Both talk about quitting various platforms and curating what they see, feeling “had” by alcohol, cigarettes, or the attention economy.
• On life's mundane routines before smart phones:

  “What did you do when you were 24? … I napped a lot with a disc man.” (69:09)

8. Impermanence, Oneness, and Spiritual Thought

• Death and consciousness: Pete and Kyle wander into philosophical territory, debating what (if anything) comes after death, the illusion of separation, and whether consciousness continues. Pete compares death to “the air inside a vase joining the air outside.”
• Bar moments and collective weirdness: Kyle locates real spirituality not in grand metaphysics but everyday moments of connection—like a wild conversation among strangers at a bar.

  “That’s the connection. … And that would be this spiritual community that would exist only for that moment.” (106:09)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On moving and the comedy diaspora:

  “Every time somebody doesn’t pick up poo on the sidewalk, new unaffordable housing gets built. It’s the LA version of 'every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.'” — Kyle (04:34)

• On knowing/loving our own weirdness:

  “You can’t be an underdog more than once. If you do it so well, you get vaulted over the fence, you’re not an underdog anymore. You’ve lost your identity.” — Kyle (47:06)

• On AI’s future with comedy:

  “My daughter will think it’s hilarious that you and I used to watch a current event and then would go, I wonder what Jon Stewart’s gonna say about that tomorrow.” — Pete (25:47)

• On internet information overload:

  “There was nothing more rewarding than being at a checkout stand and not recognizing anybody on an Us Weekly. Like, I’m doing it right. I am crushing it.” — Kyle (69:40)

• On doing psychedelics:

  “You don’t need DMT or a deprivation tank. Just wear earplugs and eat Doritos and it’s the same thing.” — Kyle (52:15)

• On striving for self-betterment:

  “I love the whimsy and randomness of the world … then the next day it’s like, 'You! Everything! Get it!'" — Kyle (115:22)

• On morality without hope for reward:

  “That’s the wrong question. That’s like saying, What’s the last note of a symphony? … The reward is the song.” — Pete (96:47)

• On aging gracefully:

  “What do you tell people is the reward for living a morally good life if there’s no heaven?” — Kyle (96:38)
  “I would say it’s a recognition that your essential nature and my essential nature are the same thing, that there’s only one awareness.” — Pete (97:26)

• On the loss of mystery:

  “As a kid, you just read a couple books from the library and there was still mystery around things. … Now, it’s all flooded in.” — Kyle (131:15)

Highlighted Segments with Timestamps

• [05:34] — Mass comedian exodus from LA; pandemic-fueled moves.
• [21:16] — The risk of only performing for fans; the test of "real" jokes.
• [29:31] — The wealth/charity conundrum (Alec Baldwin, Moby anecdotes).
• [31:36] — Moby’s “no expression of love is perfect” and vegan guilt.
• [56:57] — Kyle on not drinking: “Everything got better, and I’m pissed about it.”
• [62:51] — Realizing, with age, that not everyone was drinking at the open mics: “You don’t notice the people that quietly slip out after their set.”
• [81:45] — The real purpose behind technological ‘progress’: “We’re just freeing up more time to make workers work more.”
• [96:47] — The false questions of moral “rewards” and being good for no reason but the reason itself.
• [106:09] — True connection: “The spiritual community that would exist only for that moment [at the bar].”
• [139:32] — Hardest laughs: “It’s always a fart, isn’t it?”

Tone & Dynamic

The tone is playful, intelligent, sincerely self-deprecating, and sometimes philosophically heady. There’s an affectionate, open dynamic as old friends tease, reflect, and reveal. Both Pete and Kyle ground big thoughts in the absurdity of daily life and the specifics of their own ongoing weirdness. The episode is a testament to owning your strangeness, appreciating imperfection, and the power of laughter (sometimes about farts, sometimes about the very meaning of existence).

Memorable One-Liners

• “We’re animals with a couple extra buttons.” — Kyle (104:07)
• “It’s all going to be just casket nougat in a few years.” — Kyle (107:19)
• “Do you remember Brunch Furatu? … We called him Brunch Furatu.” — Pete/Kyle (92:41)

Final Thoughts

This episode is a love letter to midlife self-acceptance, the endurance of friendship and comedy, and the ever-shifting dance between meaning and absurdity. It’s an honest, funny meditation on the strangeness of change, the hope (and futility) of getting it all right, and the joy of having someone to riff about it with.

Kyle’s Special “Dirt Nap” is available free on YouTube, or for $10 sans ads.

Keep it crispy.

End of Summary