Big Baby and New Beginnings: Kevin James Thornton on Sin Clowns, Standups, and Second Acts 

Description:He's back — and this time he brought a memoir. Comedian Kevin James Thornton returns to For the Love, and if you thought you knew Kevin from his hilarious auto-tuned TikToks and wired-headphone microphone bits, this conversation will lovingly surprise you.

Kevin's debut memoir, Big Baby: On Endings, Beginnings, and an Interdimensional Cat, traces his journey from performing as a literal sin clown on a youth group mission trip in 1990s New York City, to grinding it out on the stand-up circuit in LA, to touring one-man shows across the US, Canada, and eventually the world — Helsinki, Stockholm, Paris — all the way to present-day Cincinnati, where he's navigating a major life upheaval with nothing but his 13-pound black cat Comet and an extraordinary amount of hard-won self-awareness.

In this conversation, Kevin opens up about what it actually took to write a book — including the two-week-long Airbnb retreat where he mostly just slept and watched TV because his attention span had been completely obliterated — and what surprised him most about recording the audiobook (hint: he cried, more than once, and they left it in). He talks about the strange, freeing moment he realized he no longer needed to prove himself to anyone, and how that shift was the very thing that made his work finally land. And he reflects on the beautiful, sometimes maddening truth that life doesn't end so much as it just keeps beginning again.

Thought-provoking Quotes:

• "Even when I was living in my car, I was still dreaming about the next creative project...I was like that when I was 20. And I'm like that today." – Kevin James Thornton

• "I didn't realize that I went out into the world constantly trying to prove myself, that I was someone without Jesus. I didn't know that's what I was doing. I can see it so clearly looking backward now." – Kevin James Thornton

• "We sort of hand over this personal power to other people. It takes a long time to recognize and unlearn that." – Kevin James Thornton

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Brick - https://getbrick.com

• Jen’s Substack - https://jenhatmaker.substack.com/

• Sarah Bessey’s Substack - https://sarahbessey.substack.com/

• Big Baby: On Endings, Beginnings, and an Interdimensional Cat by Kevin James Thornton - https://amzn.to/4mVYPAJ

• Laughing Toward The Light: Comedian James Thornton Finds Himself at 50 - https://jenhatmaker.com/podcasts/series-55/laughing-toward-the-light-comedian-james-thornton-finds-himself-at-50/

• Create with Kevin (watercolor videos) - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DX-UksfK1pG/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==