Monday Morning Podcast - Rick Middleton | Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast 3-5-26

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

Bill rambles with hockey legend Rick Middleton about his time with the Bruins and his new documentary 'ICE GOLD'. (00:00) - Thursday Afternoon Podcast (48:42) - Thursday Afternoon Throwback 3-5-18 - Bill sits down with musician Al Jourgensen. Thursday Afternoon Interlude: Pink Floyd - Coming Back to Life (Pulse) Zip Recruiter:  Try for free at http://www.ZipReCruiter.com/BURR  SimpliSafe:  My listeners can get 50% off a new system by visiting http://www.Simplisafe.com/BURR  Squarespace:  Head to http://www.squarespace.com/BURR for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, use OFFER CODE: BURR Fast Growing Trees:  Right now, they have great deals on spring planting essentials, up to half off on select plants. And listeners to our show get TWENTY PERCENT OFF their first purchase when using the code BURR at checkout at http://www.FastGrowingTrees.com 

Hey, what's going on, everybody? It's Bill Byrne. It's time for the Thursday afternoon just before Friday, Monday morning podcast. And I'm just checking in on you. And I have a guest, I can't even believe this guy is on my podcast. This is one of my heroes growing up, little Billy Freckles when I had my big orange afro back in the early 80s. And I used to go down to the Boston Garden and go around all the Bruins games. One of my favorite players of all time, the one and only. number 16, Captain of the Bruins from 85 to 88. Mr. Rick Middleton. What's going on? Hey, Bill, thank you so much for having me on your podcast. This is awesome. Are you kidding? You have no idea.

I get your jersey under my bed there. I used to play pickup hockey, and I was just disgracing your name and number, so I had to put on my Jay Miller one, and then I couldn't fight. You had to knock a few people around. No, you have no idea. Like I fell in love with hockey and the Bruins in like 1980.

And that was like, I saw the end of like the stand, Jonathan, Wensick, Wayne Cashman, those big bad Bruins. And then there was like the Peter McNabb, Barry Peterson, you, both crowded. When Barry came to the team, you know, my numbers and my, you know, production went straight up. He became my sentiment and we took off. You know, I was going to ask you, you know, because I watched, you know, this year was watching the Bruins, seeing like who's Daninoff coming from the third line up to the first line. And like as much as pasta scores goals, his passes are on some of the best passes in the league. And he can handle the puck and he sees the play.

As you know, it's all about not only being able to skate fast, but be able to do everything at that speed. Everybody can skate fast. But if you can't think fast enough to make a pass and see the lane, and he seems to have that, and now they're moving them up the lineup. How is that, as someone like yourself, before we get into, you know, promoting your documentary and everything, I should say it in the beginning. It has this amazing documentary that I watched last night about his coaching the 2002 Paralympics Sled Hockey Team.

It's called Ice Gold. It's on NBC Peacock. Is that what it is? There's so many. Just started streaming. Yeah. I got to talk to. I could not believe the drama.

I would have just thought everyone would have been like, this is amazing. They're letting disabled people play. Everybody's having a good time. And it was just like, you know, if you all coached. I called it the bizarro world of sled hockey. Back in those days. But anyway, I'm going to get back to that question because, you know,

who's sitting enough, who's having a great season, but like playing on the third line versus the first line as far as like quality opportunities and your numbers, you know, did you have as such a natural goal score that you were? I'm sure at some point in your career, you were playing on a line. You don't have to name the team, but you're thinking to yourself, you know, if I was playing with that guy, if I was on that line, I would have like 30 goals and now down here. I got eight goals and the coach is looking to me like I suck. It's like I don't suck. No, you're absolutely right. You know, like in just about any business, you got to work your way up. And it's all about performance, you know, how, not how many, how many, but not how.

Just get the goals. And ice time is the big secret. If you're only playing six minutes a game, you're not going to score 50 that year. So you need to get that ice time. So usually when you come in the league, you know, you start third line. Fourth line back in my day was the fighting line, the tough guys, the guys that would mix it up and get things going. So if you're on the third line, you usually killed penalties and you didn't play that much. And I started in New York, and I always wanted to play with Jean Rattel. But Rod Joubert was his right winger, and I never had a chance until I came to Boston. And when I got the boss in my very first game, they played Don Cherry played me on a line with Johnny Busek and Jean Rattel, two hall.

Oh, my God. And I scored a hat trick. And then Don benched me the rest of the year. He played me, but he didn't put me on a documentary. Yeah. So how do you? He always joked that he had to introduce me to the goalie at the end of the year. He thought it was a horrible defensive player,

maybe because I was minus 38 in New York the year before. But he had patience with. with me. He developed me. And it took me a couple of years to get his trust that he could move me up the lineup. And I started producing more goals by 79 and 38 that year. And then Barry Peterson came to the team in the early 80s, like I said. And we just clicked. And my numbers went up. My ice time went up with Jerry Cheever. He kept me on the ice. I saw in a TV and old game. Somebody asked, Cheesy, when do you know to take Rick Middleton off? And he says, when he turns blue, I'll take him off. So I loved

it. I would say, as every hockey player loves it. Yeah. No, you want to break away, and it was just a thing of beauty. And I always felt you were so relaxed. You never seemed panicked. Like, the whole building is looking at you. You're supposed

to score. And then you would. But, like, I went to all, like, Bruins-Canadian. Like, my first seven games, I would just go to Bruins' Canadiens games because I love the fights, the rivalry in the gardener crazy. And I was at that game, the bench-clearing brawl when, who was, Nyland was going on? Was that the same game?

Nylon hit you with the butt of his stick right in the mouth? We had many bench-clear-and-brawls against Montreal. I don't think it was the same game. Because when that happened, and I don't remember a lot after it happened, I saw the video of it, and I was skating around, and they took him off the ice down the hall pretty quickly. That's the one I was at, the brawl in the hall, yeah. I don't think there was a brawl after that, but I honestly,

apparently I came back out and played the next two periods, and I scored a goal. I don't remember a thing. No concussion protocol back then. No, no protocol in those days. Well, I never really, I was too young when you were playing in New York, and I always wondered how they let you go, because you were just like this 30, 40 goals a year guy that just fell into our lap.

But, you know, you mentioned in the documentary that you were a young guy, you were in New York City, you had a little bit of money in your pocket, and you were going to be a mid-sevon. And there were no rules. And really, I mean, New York was a lot of fun playing at Madison Square Gardens. And I'll tell you, you know, the funny thing was in those days, we played. played the Jets and the Giants to play Sunday afternoon, and we play Sunday nights at Madison Square, and all the jocks would go to the same bar.

It was before Studio 54. There was a little more, the tittle tattle on First Avenue, and we go there, but we had to be back on the ice Monday for progress. But, you know, when you have a winning team, you know, they look the other way on that. If you're winning, you're doing good. But the second year, when they made the big trade for Esposito and Vadnais, for Park and Rattel, they were cleaning house.

And that team never jelled. And when you have a losing team, everybody's on the chopping block. And what happened was they traded Derek Sanderson earlier in 75. Him and I played together. That's why I wore 16 a boss, and a lot of people don't know that, because Derek and I were friends, my rookie year in New York. So they trained them early the second year. And a couple months later, they asked the owner why they trade Derek.

And he put in the paper because he was getting two of the younger players into training problems, Rick Middleton and Ron Greshner. They actually put our names in the paper. Wow. That was a little ball about it, but I didn't say anything right away. And a couple weeks later, a reporter comes in and asks me the same questions again. You know, what did I think? And I didn't say anything that would get me in trouble.

Let's put me that way. Next day I walk into practice, my teammate hands me to New York Post. Inch-high headlines, Middleton takes shot at the boss. That was February. I got traded in May. Yeah, but that was also your education. That's amazing. That's your education, though, the press, though. That's why Bill Belichick wouldn't say anything to him because no matter what you say to them,

they turn it into some BS like that, and then they turn around and punish them, and they don't vote for them in the Hall of Fame. It's really, it's really, I found it hard to believe the New York Post would do that. I know. It's such a respectable newspaper. So before we get into the documentary, when you played with Team Canada in 84, I'm thinking that's got to have, is it Gratsky and Messier on that team? Oh, yeah, yeah. I was lucky enough to make it in 81 because Joubert Perot got hurt.

And they asked me if I could play left wing. And Don had played me in left wing a lot in the 70s. So I said, oh, yeah. So I made it at left wing in 81. And we lost to the Russians in the final. And in 84, I got invited back. And I was up in the air about going. So I went to camp, and they put me on a line with Gretz.

And why didn't you tell me? I would have, like, worked out harder or something. And Michelle Goulet, who's in the Hall of Fame from the Quebec, nerd eats. It was a great line, but the team never gelled. We finished fourth in the round Robin, almost lost out. We were, uh, Russians were first. So we played them in the semi-finals, and we beat them in overtime on a Mike Bossy tip-in. And we played the Swedes in a two-out-a-three final and we won the Canada Cup that year. But it was awesome playing on the same line with Gretz and Goulog. Well, I think that's a nice way into your documentary as far as like

you're talking about the team not jelling and everything. And, you're And if you had to like, you know, if you were a batting man and you knew two teams were playing, one team jelled and one team had more talent, you're going with the team that jelled? Yeah, I mean, the team that's together, you can tell teams that really have it together are played with it. That's the way I looked at the Bruins in the 70s. We were almost by the numbers. Teams got so frustrated against us because we were such a good defensive team, and we could score goals also. And the team was tough.

You know, nobody wanted to come in Boston Garden. We had it, we had it all. It was only for the Montreal Canadians that had all that talent that could beat our team. But we had the team that really jelled well together. We just couldn't get over the hill and beat Montreal. Yeah, well, unfortunately, my first Bruins game I went to was game one of the 83 playoffs. You know, best three out of five. We won the president's trophy that year.

those guys came in and they swept us. And I remember I went to the game. We went to the game through my high school because the French exchange students had come. And they heard people that were like, you know, Montreal Canadian fans. They're speaking French. So they were like openly rooting for the Canadians aggressively. That can be dangerous in Boston Garden. Yeah, I still remember my teacher.

She was kind of looking around like, wow, this is like getting intense. And I'm like, these kids are about to, you know, they were like European too. so they were built like a number two pencil. And I'm like, they're going to get thrown down onto the ice. So anyway, so last night, so I watched, there's just some really amazing, and I don't know if it was on purpose, but like, you know, you're watching these disabled hockey players. And one of the things that they brought up in it was when they were talking to the press,

they said, say anything about us, but don't say we're inspirational. We are so sick of people saying that we're inspiring. We just want to be treated like athletes. And the thing about it is, is the story is so familiar that you forget after a while. And you're just watching that I really enjoyed like sled hockey. I'm like, this is cool. I love how they would go under the sled with the sticks and the different. Well, you know, back in those days, nobody knew about sled hockey.

I didn't know what sled hockey was. That's not a made-up story. When they asked me, I lied. I said, oh, yeah, I know sled hockey. Now, I didn't have a clue, but I heard hockey Paralympics, you know, it might be fun. I mean, when would I get the chance? So I took a shot at it and not knowing what bees nest I was going into and what was going to happen. And then, you know, right after our selection camp in August 01, 9-11 happened.

So we never played another team all the way to Salt Lake City six months later. So we had no clue. Plus, we're the last seat of six teams. We got 10 new guys on the team. We had no clue how we were going to do. And we ended up winning all five of our games. Outscored the opposition 22 to 3, beat Canada the number one seed,

5-1 in front of 6,000 people, go to the gold medal game, goes 3-3 into a 10-minute overtime, five-man shootout, down to the last shooter. You can't write this stuff. And we had 100 hours of original tape from a husband-and-wife team, Chris and Cindy, who were in the documentary,

that took it back then, and we're going to make a documentary, and haven't done it yet. We were lucky enough that they would make a deal with our producers now, and we got all that original tape right in the direction, right on the bench of, you know, interviews at home with the players. I have to be honest with you, having been in a few edit rooms

to see that they had a year of footage. I was like, oh my God. It was incredible, incredible. Yeah, they're going to miss the next four years of their life. Well, but let's just back up for a second. second. This is what, like, really what I was saying how, uh, it was this amazing, like, familiar story. And then, like, because it was such a, uh, a new thing, this sled hockey, there was the guy before they went out and reached out to you, the best team,

sled hockey team, they were like 71 in one was this team out of Chicago. And I don't know where those numbers came from, but yeah, okay, they were good. I know, I know. I know. I know. like the Montreal Canadians. Like, they're counting Stanley Cups from like 1898 when the Stanley Cup was the size of a shot glass and you wanted on a pond. It's like, all right. Um, no, they were, they were good. What made them good is that they were funded, uh, Chicago Blackhawks gave them a sponsorship. They were able to, uh, from the RIC, the Rehab Institute of Chicago. They had ice time that was paid for. They had money to go to trips to tournaments in, in Europe and such. And, and then they would bring in guys from other like Texas, New England, and form an all-star team and play.

So this coach thought, well, he should be king. You know, why are you bringing somebody in from the outside when I got the best team? There wasn't even a league then. This is just teams from around the country. And I actually really, I don't know why. I really did watching him not a job. He just was so, like, arrogant, like, hey, I got the best team. And then, like, how young the sport is that he doesn't get the job and then he doesn't get the assistant job, but he's still showing up to practice going like, I wouldn't do it that way and like totally like sabotaging the team.

I had emails like this back and forth, back of six months. I mean, come on. I mean, we had one four-day practice a month. I mean, how much can you argue here? Actually, they kicked them off with a team. They told them not to be around the team. But that's a true story at the end of the movie about him wanting some of the Chicago guys to lay their jerseys down, kind of like a Rudy thing.

And they never did it. That's how screwed up this guy was. Yeah, he kind of lost himself in the, and the loyalty. Anyways, but this is what kills me too, is they wanted him as a coach, and they wanted all their guys to make.

You took eight of them, right? Yeah. I thought you took eight out of those. It was similar to the team, the 1980 team, where you had half the guys from Minnesota, half the guys from New England, they didn't really like each other.

Well, these guys, you know, whether they called it, go or they knew how good they were, and they didn't think they needed these guys either. So there was a conflict between them. But, you know, being a hockey guy my whole life, I thought I understood what they needed in order to make them better. And that's a team. It's not a bunch of individuals. It's not what I'm going to play my guys first, and we might put you guys in for a couple shifts. You had to have a team, and you had to have a system.

And these guys had never been taught a hockey system. If you're going to beat the best teams in the world, you better figure out how you're going to get the puck. Because every movie, every film I saw in the past, these guys never had the puck. They're always chasing the other team. And you can't score without the puck. It was pretty simple. I'm trying to think of a world where I'm coaching a team and then a hockey team. Any kind of hockey team, they go, yeah, we're going with Rick Middleton, and I argue it.

Well, maybe it was a Black Hawk fan. Excuse me. So when you're only practicing four ways, this last thing I'll ask, because I don't want people, I want them to watch this documentary because it's really uplifting, but it's also like, you know,

there's life lessons in there about, you know, becoming a team, working together, not making it about yourself, you know, trying not to like, how do you, are you only practicing four times a month, and this team is deviant. the way that it is. The one thing I have to say about them,

the one thing I have to say about them, I called a camp three weeks after 9-11, and every one of them showed up, and nobody was flying in those days. So they were committed to playing for the USA, and it never showed up on the ice. All the conflicts they might have had were off the ice. And we didn't have enough time to do any team building

or go out for dinner, or, you know, We were just four days, sometimes twice a day, as much hockey as we could get. And then I wouldn't see the guys. And they'd go do their own thing, usually separately. And then we'd go next month. We come back into another city, and we'd do it all over again. And then that was how it was. Can I ask you about your, what was the system that you implemented when you looked at those guys?

Because it was funny, that Chicago guy thought they were amazing. And you're looking out there going, these guys don't know what the hell they're doing. No, I, Tommy Moulton, my assistant coach and good friend and I looked at the tapes and said, you know, and you got a, in sled hockey, at least in those days, it was like women's hockey. Most of the goals came from around 10 feet around the net. You had to get the puck down low. You're not going to score from a big slap shot from the point very often. And if you don't get the puck down low, you're not going to score any goals. So I thought we got to go in and forecheck hard.

And the best way to do that is to get the puck in the zone, like the old Don Cherry system. You shoot the puck into the far corner, that way your opposite winger knows you're going to do it. So he doesn't even have to slow down. He doesn't go offside. He goes in and bangs the first defenseman back against the puck. Second guy comes in, either picks the puck up, or if this guy misses the first defenseman and he's coming around the net, he comes in the other side and cuts him off, forcing a shot around the board. then our defenseman pinches in, our centerman comes over and covers for them.

That was the way we played in Boston, in the 70s at least, is the dump and run. And it was successful. We got the puck a lot down low, and it didn't cost us defensively either. Right. So how long, when you drew that up, how long did it take them before, you know, what you had on your board started happening on the ice? I had arguments with some guys that didn't want to play that system because they were so used to doing whatever they were doing. And basically, I said, well, if you don't do it, you're not going to play, right?

We luckily, we had three extra guys. So I couldn't say you're off the team, but, you know, you're not going to play. You're going to be this guy that sits. And finally, certain guys listen to me. But it wasn't until the second last camp, actually, in Chicago where a couple of the guys, Chicago guys, came to me and started saying, all right, all right,

if the puck is here, where do I go here? We had to teach them positional hockey in the offensive neutral and defensive zone. If you win the face off, you lose the face off, where do you go? What do you do? When you have possession, you don't have possession. All this stuff over and over again

for six months and not having a clue if they even got it once we went in. We were zero, zero in the first. I just, I get Japan, the fourth seed. I'm like, oh, my goodness, we're not even going to medal. Listen, I played some pickup hockey in my day. I played some pickup hockey in my day.

If you told me the way I was playing was wrong, call me crazy, I would listen to you. I would be like, you know what, that's Rick Milton. If Rick is telling me that I need to be over here, I'm going to be over there. Eventually they did because it just made sense, but everybody had to do the same thing. If the centermen and their left winger is doing their job and the right winger is over here, you know, they're not doing it right.

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Use Burr to save today. I wanted to ask you some, once again, it's called Ice Gold. It's on peacock. It is truly, it just, like, it's one of those things like my wife isn't like really big on watching sports, but she sat down and started watching it and just the drama of that other coach and everything. She really enjoyed it. It kind of builds. It's a little slow in the beginning because you get to meet some of the guys and you hear the story and what they go through just to play the game and such, you know, and then it gets into like the whole conflict thing and then, and then. I love the players, too. They have all the personalities and stuff. A lot of characters, like in real hockey, you know, able-bodied hockey. You know, you played hockey. I played hockey my whole life. I met a lot of

characters in the game. Yeah. I was never from a hockey family, so I played it later in life when I I find, you know, if you don't come from a hockey family, they're not getting up at four in the morning. No. Take you to practice. It's a special group. It's a special group. Yeah. Well, speaking of characters, I got to ask a couple of, you know, old school NHL Adams Division

Packed Division questions. Like when you talk about characters, who was like a team that was coming up and there was just like a guy like, oh, my God, Dino, or Dale Hunter, that these, just these madmen that I remember that were out there on the ice that you just

didn't want to run into it all. And, you know, when you're out there, you're a, you're a player. You won the Lady Bing. Well, I was, I was fortunate to play on a team

that other teams worried about. You know, Terry O'Reilly, John Winston, Stan Jonathan, you know, guys like that. And those, those were just a few.

I mean, we had a pretty big team, and we had a good team. And so nobody wanted to come into the Boston Garden because there's no corners. You can't hide. You don't have any time to move the buck, and you know you're going to get banged. And there's going to be some friction.

And, you know, I was lucky that most teams had to concentrate on those guys, and I could do my thing. And, you know, I didn't always work. I didn't always get that. much room. I got a few shots. But for the most part, playing on a team that's tough is a lot easier than playing on a team that you worry about going into other buildings. I mean, when I was playing with the Rangers, the Broad Street bullies were around at the height of their gundum or whatever you want to call it. And actually, my first fight in the NHL was against Dave

Schultz, my rookie year in New York. You fought Dave Schultz? Well, the funny thing, was, I met Dave doing charity games and stuff afterwards, and I told them in a bar one day, that, you know, he had 600, I had six, right? And I said, Davey, I said, you were my first fight in the NHL. He looked at me, he goes, I fought you? Well, I don't know, but I probably didn't start it. That's amazing. It's also amazing that a guy could meet a guy that he fought, not even remember him, because he had so many fights. Oh, I know. And that was my first one, so I remembered it. Luckily, he missed with a haymaker and an uppercut,

and then the lines would jump in. So I made it to the... I've watched highlights during that era of the Broad Street Bullies, dude, they would pull each other's hair. I mean, it was insane. There was no third man in. That was a wild time. Well, everybody paired up.

And then, you know, if your guy's getting beat, then somebody would jump in to help him, and then the bench clearing brawls. You know, that was the deal back in those days. And you give the... You give the Flyers credit because a lot of teams did not want to go into Philly and play them, similar to Boston Garden. The Philly flew. And the Philly flew.

And they had a good team, too. It wasn't a great goalie. But in 78, we played them in the spectrum. And they got the first two games. And it was a funny story because Dawn hadn't played me that year regular. So the first game goes into overtime. He comes over to me in the dress room. He looks down and he kind of whispers.

He goes, you're going to get the winner. So I look up at him in my normal sarcastic way, and I look at him, I go, so I must be playing, right? And I ended up getting the winner against Bernie Perraud that night and overtime. Terry scored double overtime the next night. We knocked them out four straight in 78, and that was really the end of the Broad Street bullies. They weren't the same team anymore. Yeah, and then I think that they kind of got bogged out into how they won those. two cups. They just kept trying to do it as the game changed. Like now they play the game,

but I felt like right through like the Carcillo years and everything, I mean, I loved it because it reminded me of like the hockey that I liked. I felt like growing up in the 80s, it was it was the best finesse players and the best enforcers, you know. Well, you had to have a conversation, Jay Miller, Bob Probert, and then you had Gretzky, Lemieux, Eisenman. I got to see the end of Marcel Dion, Guy LaFloras, saw the end of those guys, Michelle Goulet, the Staphne brothers up in Quebec. And it was just an amazing. Some awesome, awesome players, absolutely.

But there was that other edge to the game that was always there also. Yeah, would you say that your biggest rivalry was still when you were at the Rangers, was it still the Islanders? It was always starting out. The very first year I was with the Rangers. Rangers, we lost a two out of three series in those days. There was some sort of two out of three series and the Islanders beat it. That was the very first playoff series they won.

And obviously they went straight uphill from there. But, yeah, it's always Islanders, you know, Rangers, still that is they, you know. Yeah, I went to a good, it's a good. I had a friend of mine went to college out in Hofstra. And we went down there one time to visit him in the late 80s. and we saw that Nassau Coliseum was there like, hey, the Islanders are playing the Rangers, and it's just, you know, still the early days of cable. So we didn't realize how heated that rivalry was.

Oh, yeah. When it was like fights in the stands, they were chant in 1940. And I just remember sitting there going like, because I was just totally neutral. Like, I don't want to get this shit kicked out of me, but it was just, I still remember in the upper deck seeing this guy with his, Michael's, it was the 80s. He had like that skinny Michael J. Fox tie like after work, like throwing up a cut laying across this guy. Yeah, like insane, just an insane time.

But anyway, I just want to, yeah, I just, I have to tell you, like, you know, school was hard for me. And that was a tough time of my life where I, you know, I was like thinking I was going to go to a great college. And then I don't know, it all just, I just didn't do well in high school. school at all, and I sort of floundered, but like hockey was... You seem to do okay for yourself. Yeah.

Well, I turned being a class clown and not paying attention to do a job somehow. But like, during that time, it was music in Boston Bruins hockey with like the things that I look forward to the most. And like the amount of great memories that, uh, that I had, you know, watch you guys. I love what Butch Goring was on the team and Peyton's helmet, like the 90s. like the 900 different color. And just the fact that the Bruins ice surfaced, yeah, how the Bruins ice surface was smaller than if you went up to Montreal.

Like no other sport was like that. And just the old wooden seats, right? The old wooden seats. Yeah. When I was on the road, I took a tour of Maple Leaf Gardens before they ruined it. They already taken away the ice, but I got to go in there. That's one of my big regrets. I never went there.

those old places like Buffalo the odd well I'm from Toronto I dreamed about playing at Maple Leaf Gardens and I played junior hockey for the Oswald Generals against the Toronto Marlborough's my first game in there

I hated it it was hot it was stuffy there was no airflow and I dreamed my whole life as a kid to play there the first time I played I went oh I hate this I can't breathe

you know were you fighting the feeling and then finally just gave it to it like no I don't like this place. I just noticed it right away. Compared to other ranks, it was very hot in there and there was no airflow. And I just remember that. You know how you remember stupid things. My dad used to take me to the odd game, but he was a printer. He didn't get the tickets very often. We'd have the gray seats way up back. But like you said, you remember going with your dad or your family. And those are

your memories. You had that era that you really remember and it's so special. Yeah, well, that's one of my, I still, when I go back and I do the Cam Neely, Dennis Leary benefit. You know, I still like when, you know, there's always, you know, Cam's there, obviously, Jay's there. I remember you being there. I think you were there at the year. I saw you at the after party.

We all went and watched the Tyson Holyfield fight when he bit his ear. And I remember you walked by and I was like, you know, that no one knew who I was. I was like, holy shit, that's fucking Rick Middleton. The last, the last, the last. have of going there was at the Orphium. That's how long ago.

Maybe that was the year. But Dennis got up on stage. The first year I did it. Yeah, he got up on stage and he didn't say anything. The first words about his mouth was, Bucky, you know what, dent. Yeah. That's all he said. That's all he said was classic.

That's one of my favorite things. So maybe maybe next time I do the Larry thing, if you're down, now. I would love to have a, I don't drink anymore. Have a non-alcohol beer with you. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Yeah, I love those non-alcohol beers. Yes. The second one feels stupid, though, you know? It's like, what am I doing?

I know. The first one's refreshing. I never drank beer in my day. I was more of a hard liquor drinker. And so I drink more beer and non-alcoholic beer now than I ever did, you know, which isn't a good thing, though. That's what I ended up at the end of my drinking, as I was trying to cut the calories by drinking harder stuff. I had my quota.

I'm good. Thanks. Yeah, I used up all my fun days is how I used that. Well, the name of the documentary is Ice Gold. It's on Peacock. Even if you're not into sports, it's such an amazing, amazing story. And it's a great sport. That was my takeaway.

I would go and watch. I would go to a game in a second. And it's just like it's still, like you say, hockey is hot and I just loved how like, you know, it's funny when they said that, you know, those guys were getting out of the wheelchair. You said you get on the sled. You felt that wind and everything. I always said that about pickup hockey is it makes you feel young again because you feel your shirt doing this. You just feel like you can run again.

That's why I didn't wear a helmet. You feel the air. through the air, you know. But now these guys, the Paralympics are starting this Saturday. You know, what's great is the Olympics and Paralympics put on NBC. They do a great job of it. And so this, our documentary couldn't have come out at a better time. Men's teams and women's teams win gold.

Hockey is in the news every day. And now the Paralympics are coming. And after we never got invited back to coach for a couple different reasons. But they turned a gold into a bronze in 06, and since then, they've won four golds in a row. They're the winningest team in the world. And there's a player on the U.S. team, but I'm a Declan Farmer. He's a McDavid of sled hockey. And this is full check.

This isn't a recreational game. It's a full check, hard-hidden game. Okay. And if you think about it, where they hit each other is down low on the boards. The boards are designed to give up where the glass is. the stanchions are down low by the ice, and that's where they hit each other. It's like a brick wall. Oh, yeah.

Do they at least have no touch icing, or do they just have a car crash in the corner? You know, that's a good point. The rules have changed over 20 years. I think it is no touch. That's the smartest thing. Out of all the rules, I hate that they got rid of the red line. I don't like to stretch fast. They cut down a lot.

I've seen enough guys break their ankles in their leg. Oh, yeah. And then all the fights was, somebody hit guy late, even, even, you know, just a nudge, you know, you go in and you just nudge the guy after the whistle way. That starts it, right? Yeah, absolutely. It's incredible. All right, well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I really hope we get to hang at some point.

The name of the documentary is Ice Gold. It's on Peacock. It was such, and I can't believe, I still can't believe you came out and did the podcast. You're one of my absolute, absolute favorite. Hey, I always heard you were a big Bruins fan, but then I saw you do the lineup one day for the Bruins. I said, I gotta give them a call and see if I could get it. Oh, yeah, no, no, that was, that was just,

I still can't believe I got, you know what it's crazy too? Is now they're sort of wearing like the home in a ways like you guys wore in the 80s, it looks more like that. Yeah. But they flipped it. I mean, I'll forever be watching them wearing, the white jerseys and I think they're in the garden and I'm like, yeah, but they can sell more jerseys if they're colored,

and you can make them any color you want. It's the smartest merchandising move the NHL ever did. Yeah, yeah, I don't like that yellow down the sleeve. I like what they got now. All right, well, thank you so much for doing the podcast, and yeah, you got an amazing documentary, and you are an absolute, absolute legend, dude. I'm, we're in an ear.

You're like, cheese, and you're. I think you're the left. I think you're the left. You are, you are. All right. All right, Rick. Talk to you through. Thank you so much.

Thank you everybody for listening. We'll see you. Okay, before I start the podcast, I know this is weird because I'm not saying what's going on. I just got to let you guys know, I got a big tour coming up this year. And all the pre-sales for most of my shows are going on sale. a special password has been created for podcast listeners to get tickets first. Use the code Billy Baldwin. You get it, Baldwin.

All capitals, B-I-L-L-L-Y, B-A-L-D-W-I-N. It's active now, midnight on Sunday, Eastern Standard Time, and the public sale will be Friday, March 9, 12 p.m. All links will be on Bill Bird.com soon. I will be in Atlanta, Georgia, San Francisco, Dublin, Ireland, London, England for my 50th birthday. Minneapolis, Detroit, Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Houston, Dallas, Las Vegas, Maryland, Virginia, Charleston, South Carolina, Inglewood, California, Denver, Boston, Baltimore, Atlantic City, Chicago, more dates to come. Jump on the website and whatever. Use the, where the fuck do you go? I guess we're going to have links on all this shit.

right that's right it'll be on the website i'm sorry all right so check that out my tour for uh 2018 and once again thank you to everybody who's playing on coming out to my shows i appreciate it and now here's the podcast hey what's going on it's bill burr and it's time for the monday morning podcast for monday i'm going to go with uh what's today thursday first second third fourth fifth march fifth march sixth you're asking the wrong person i know i'm asking the wrong person i'm recording this on march first uh very special

guest on the podcast. We've had two in a row, two special guests in a row, which means my podcast continues to get more and more special as I drop the fucking recorder. We have the great Al Jurgerson from ministry right here. He's got a new album coming out. And for whatever reason, he wanted to come on my stupid podcast to promote it. One of the legends of really last 30 years. Basically, you invented an entirely new kind of music, right? You were credited with coming up with what they called an industrial? something like that. I just think it was probably a bad strain of acid in the 90s. Well, you were getting credit all the way back into the 80s, though, were you? Well, yeah, that was the good strain of acid. The 90s kind of went downhill. But what is the golden age of acid, would you say? Oh, in the 60s, definitely. When they finally figured out the DMT compounds that were in organic plants and were able to make it chemically, That was the golden age because it was pure and before it hit the streets and they cut it with strict nine and baby aspirin and whatever else they were cutting.

I mean, I lived with Timothy Leary for two years out here. Jesus Christ. You survived? Not only got to survive. I can't wait for the book to come out because what he would do is he would just have me inject like psychedelic compounds that were sent to him by universities around the world. and then he'd take notes on me as the guinea pig. Is universities code for the CIA? Or was it actual, like, universities?

Probably a little bit of both. Yeah, yeah. Let's go all Alex Jones. Yeah, let's do it, man. Let's do it. Fuck it. So wait. So how do you meet a guy and how does he bring up,

hey, you want to live with me for a while? And while you don't want to pay rent, I'm just going to occasionally inject you with some asset I got through the mail that's allegedly from a university. Well, the story of how I wound up with Tim is actually better than me being with Tim is I met Tim through William Burroughs, which was another long story on how I met William Burroughs, and we did a video with him. He played wide receiver for the Houston Ors, Oilers? No, that was Ken Burroughs. I know he's one of the beat writers that I never read.

Did he write Naked Lunch? Yeah, he wrote Naked Lunch. He did, bam. Yeah, amongst other things, Nova Express. Yeah, the guy is a genius, and we wound up working with him because basically, because we sampled some of his spoken word, and Warner Brothers wouldn't release our record at the time was Psalm 69, I believe that it was early 90s. And they wouldn't release it, and they said, well, we can't get clearance for this. And so it was a little blurb in random notes in Rolling Stone that said ministry album postponed for another year until they can figure this out.

And then the Burroughs people called me and said, nobody asked us, we'd be happy to give you this shit, man. Oh, wow. You know, hey, when do you want to work? You want to do some other stuff? They were all happy about it. So then I wound up hanging out with Bill in Kansas. Well, when did the album come out then?

So they didn't have to shelve it for you. It was like, I shelved for about three months, but it wasn't like the year that they were saying and all this. And then we got clearance. And then William, Bill, Burroughs, introduced me to Timothy Leary during that Lollapalooza tour. out to the Lollapaloozo tour was done. I was kind of sick of rock music,

so I just wanted to take a year or two off because it was just really gross. It was just, you know, all the after parties and all this stuff. It just gets old after a while. So it wasn't the music that was happening at the time? It was just you were burned out from all the partying and all that. Everything. So I moved in with the psychedelic master of all time

to get my head together, which is not a good idea. I was trying to picture how this this this was going to work like i was sick of the partying so i moved in with timothy leary so you could experiment on me with like acid and shit all right you know you know who owns the uh the notes that he took uh on all of my trips uh because this is a weekly thing so you fucking tripping and this guy's just looking at you taking notes in the corn i never yeah it was dropped acid is that how you could say no no no no no i injected it oh sorry like a fucking lab rat okay he had to inject it because he knew i was a junkie

donkey at the time. I haven't done drugs in 15 years, by the way, except for psychedelics. I haven't done heroin and coke and all that crap. And why psychedelics? It's a cheap and easy Uber way to get to what people would call enlightenment as opposed to like doing it through yoga and stretching and meditation. That just takes too long. This just cuts to the quick and you're right there. Do you know that's why I don't like weed? Really? That versus alcohol. I feel like alcohol, you earn it.

You know, you got to get it down the hatch. You make the face. And like, we, especially the shit they got now, it's like you take two or three toks and then you sit down and it's like your borderline tripping. I just don't feel like I earned it. I feel like a trust fund kid. Well, I'll say this. I mean, as far as like textiles in the modern age. This is cutting in and out.

This is my shitty thing. I can't move too much. All right. Sorry. It's one of the few things that have actually improved over these recent years. years is the quality of pot and obviously the quality of electronics thanks to like stolen alien technology or whatever the fuck we got going right um yeah the quality of pot has improved to the point to where um it's almost like uh you used to really get stoked for like a weekend of mushrooms and now it's

just like you smoke pot every day and it's just like the weekend of mushrooms is just like it's kind of the same thing yeah the pot's improved especially here i've never taken mushrooms either i've never done any of the and stuff this weekend. You've got a Vancouver show. Yeah, I'm going to blow you up with some shrooms. I don't know if I want to do that. I think basically, I think it's just my headphones that keeps cutting in and up. But I'm watching the little bubbles here and they keep going up like I'm talking.

We seem good. Yeah. Okay, cool. Well, you know what? There's a lot of people out there like myself that have never tried any of the shit. So what is it like to be on mushrooms? I'm never going to do it. Maybe when I get like my kid grows up and goes out of the house.

You'll do it. No, no, no. I don't want to do it in a hacky way, like go to fucking Joshua Tree and be like, hey, man, like, look at the rock formations. No, no, no, don't do that. But I want to go to Best Buy and get like lost. No, no, no. Freaking out looking at the screens. You need to be a veteran at that point.

You don't go into a mall with like fluorescent lights or a shop like Home Depot or Lowe's unless you're an experienced tripper. Okay. That's when incidents happen. So if you go in there and you've done this a few times, you find yourself smirking at the absurdity of places like Lowe's or Home Depot or strip malls or things like this. But if you go in there first time and do that as your first trip, don't call me for bail. Look at all these shovels, man. They're going to dig my grave? Yeah. No, the first time I actually, I think actually was tripping a little bit was I ingested

weed and then went to the airport to board an international flight night, two and a half pot brownies. And I was just, I was too much. Yeah, it was way too much. And I know I did some sort of brain damage and I just never fucked with it again. I just, it felt like I had, you know, like I told the story, I'll be an auntie a long time ago. You know, like when your foot falls asleep really bad, it felt like there was a ball of that, like just sitting on my head like you know those those those things you use in the shower those big puffy things it felt like there was like that size of it just sitting right on the crown of my head and it was like weed hung over for like two days dude i went to costa rica and i got off and i i thought it was going to

get arrested all i was think it was like midnight express and all that shit but um yes i just i was like booze because you know i was a corny kid and in my world it was legal you know like it's not a drug man it's legal it's a simple high too. It's just like... I'm a simple guy. Yeah, okay. It's a simple high and there's a spot for alcohol

in one's life, I would assume. But yeah, it gets a bit more complex with psychedelics and weed and shit like this. And heroin at first, you know, is really, actually it's a psychedelic at first and then it becomes

a day-to-day dragon routine which you're not using the drug. The drug is using you, all these great cliches, blah, blah, blah. How long does that take? When is the honeymoon over with heroin? Oh, well, technically, looking back on my days, a couple decades of doing that, I would say after the very first hit.

Really? Oh, no. And then you spend the next 20 years trying to recreate that first hit. Now, are you able to, like, try heroin, right? This is so bad for kids listening. Were you able to try heroin and walk away from it? Can people try it and walk away from it and just be like, you know, I did it. Yeah, I think there are.

And especially because the first time you do it, generally, it consumes the body so much that you're just so not used to this kind of like forced, almost hyperloop tunnel into the unknown that you throw up. A lot of people throw up their first time. You get like air sick as you're teleporting into another reality? Seriously. It's like that. Wow. I mean, it's a lot of people. Like, I remember the first time I got drunk.

I was like eight years old. My parents had some kind of like 60s kind of teaky themed cocktail party for their mat. It sounds like Drew Barrymore's childhood. Somebody gives you an eight ball. See, turned eight. Let's get him on eight ball. Perfect. Wow, great parents.

No, but like I went around and like emptied all the drinks that people had left at this teaky theme party. My parents said, it was about eight. ate and I think they're mainly drinking like some kind of gin-based lace-on. Oh, it's evil. Gin is just evil. And I drank that and I got so violently sick that I never wanted to drink liquor again. But here I am. I mean, I still drink liquor.

It's the same thing with heroin. It's like your first time you're going to probably get sick because your body's overwhelmed. So you sort of hallucis. I always sort of just made you super relaxed. Like my only idea of it was in train spotting when that guy shot up and he just fell into the rug and sunk into the floor. Yeah. Which actually I was like, wow, that looks amazing.

Yeah, yeah. It's also like that. I just can't deal with the side effects. I mean, that scene in Get Out where like the lady hits the teaspoon on the cup and then floats down in the chair, the black dude. And I mean, you also have trips like that on heroin. And heroin is actually an opiate. I mean, Alistair Crowley and even Lord Byron from like the 18th century, they used to dabble

in opiates, morphine back then. and just like, whoa, you know, and there's bad trips and good trips, but it is trips, except that a lot of the times you're not awake during the trip. So it's more like a controlled or uncontrolled dreamscape that you're having, even more uncontrolled than usual. How do your legs feel afterwards? Like, when back in the day when New York was New York, and like every, you know, 10th corner, there would be a junkie just nodding out on heroin. And I remember Mark Marion used to do this hilarious bit about how they never tip over or something like that. You don't. Yeah.

And the thing was, but they would be doing like the longest squat ever. You know what I mean? You know, if you do like a set of tennis squats, like your fucking thighs are burning. It's like, how does that feel? That's what I would think. I wouldn't think, man, this guy's fucking his life up. It's minus 30 out. He has no coat on.

And he's just standing there slowly going down to the ground. Like, how do your legs? Slowly. How do you legs? Yeah. All right. Well, okay. What do they feel like afterwards? Ask yourself this, man. Let's say, transport yourself to the Amazon jungle.

You got sloths there. Right. That sit there and hang on this one branch for like days at a time. Right. Those things only poop like once a week. I'm thinking about getting one as a pet. So when I go on tour, I just put a diaper on them and I come home and I don't have to clean anything up. Just have a sloth hanging out.

He's only moved three feet over. I know, right? That's awesome. I love these animals. But it's the same thing as being a junkie. You're very much like a sloth. And I'll say this much for sloths. You can diss them all you want, but they've been around for over three million years.

Now, they don't move. Is there a group of people out there just trashing sloths? I just like how you said. You can diss you can talk shit about them all you want. I've seen it. I've seen it on the inner webs where, like, people are like downright bashing sloths. And I'm like... Such a sad world.

Well, that's capitalism. That's America. It's like we don't like sloths. We like go getters. Get off your couch, you fat fuck. I'm trying to make money off you. So that's what a sloth is like being a junkie. And yes, you can do superhuman feats of hang on a tree branch for three days. And you can go into squat position. You probably thought like, you know what, you're in an alley. You're high out of your fucking mind on heroin. And you go, I got to take a shit. And you probably start the squat and about three days later you finally finish up to the shit. Well, you know the one thing, the one good side effect of heroin seems to be if you survive is you're kind of in shape, borderline shredded for the rest of your life. What is that? Every fucking guy that, every rocks I've ever seen that had a 10-year period on heroin, they're like 70.

They have like 0% body fat. They still have abs. It wasn't for their old skin hanging off of them. They could model underwear. And you just described me perfect. Yeah, they got. No, I asked William Burroughs about that. What the fuck is going on around here?

The leaf blower. Oh, Jesus, I don't even know who that guy is. Are you sure he's the leaf blower? I think he's from Terminator 5. It's probably how he breaks into houses. That's his thing. He just walks around the leaf blower. William Burroughs at 78 looked like he did at 18,

which at 18 he looked like he was 78. But he just never changed after that. It was like this weird pickling. And heroin addicts get that. They get pickled. Not only was I on heroin, but of course I was on the methadone program for 18 years. Invented by the Nazis, you know, another thing to be pissed out of against. You don't have a wrinkle on your face, dude.

It's hilarious for all the shit you did. I'm fucking pickled. And it's been 15 years since I even touched this shit. So basically. I heard your podcast last week pitching about like, oh, you're 50. And you're, let me tell you the next 10 years, because I'm going to be turning 60 this year. You're in Fuckville now, man. No, I'm going sting in my 50s.

No, I don't care how healthy are you trying to? You're fucked. No, no, no. You treat me like a sloth right now. I resent it. You're fucked. I mean, just, look, I get up and I ride 20 miles a day on a stationary. Tell everybody what you watch when you do it.

Do you remember what you were? At least you were last time I talked to you, the show, the reality show you used to watch when you would. Oh, oh, that's 600-pound life. Oh, man, that's such a scene. So you'd sit there watching, I mean, my wife started watching this. I was like, Mia, you have to shut this off. Because I watch Biggest Loser. They're funny fat.

Yeah, but they don't have shower scenes. 600-pound life. As soon as they focus in on a girl named Kirsten or something, then the next seven minutes are her taking off her clothes and getting into a shower. It's literally fat-core porn on TV. I know, and the thing is they don't have, like with the guys, they don't have to blur out anything because their fat covers. It's like they have like a fucking speedo made out of fat.

I saw this one guy. He was like leaned up against the wall in the shower and his stomach hung all the way down to his fucking ankles. I mean, oh my God. Then they come in and the wife will come in and she has like, you know that, you know, the do-it-yourself car washer. They got that scrub brush. Yeah, they do. We have one hand is lifting up a roll of fat. And she's just, and the guy's in there like, uh, like, it's like he's trying to hold up a refrigerator,

but it's, it's himself. I love that show. That and I'll ride every day to either 600 pound life or body bizarre, which is another one. What is that? Oh, that's, that's things where people have tails and eight legs, uh, joined at the hip, two heads. Oh, like birth defects? Yeah, yeah. And what do they call it?

In, uh, uh, body bizarre. You got to check. So they went PT Barnum. They were like, okay, birth defects. I don't feel like people are going to watch it if we call that. Totally. It's the only thing to ride to. If you want to do an exercise program, just like watch that shit and ride and just you feel better about like trying to do something for yourself.

You know, it's just like, wow, these people have really gone to shit. I'm kicking ass. I would love to hear them brainstorming for that show. Weird bodies. No, no, let's get alliteration going. Body bonanza. Body bizarre. Body bizarre.

Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I actually dropped some weight since the last time I saw you. Yeah, you look good, man. I've been trying, I totally fucking dragged that compliment out of you. I laid off the booze for like four months, and now I've been like trying to eat, staying away from the breads and all that gluten shit. And I actually, you know, as much as that's a big Hollywood thing, I feel a lot better. But every once in a while, I'll fucking, you know, I'll eat a pizza.

and it's delicious. I can never just like totally walk away. Like what? I'm never going to have a pizza again. And I'm not going to eat that stupid gluten-free one. I don't understand this gluten-free. What is that? I mean, it's like Vladimir gluten.

That's all I know is all my friends are fucking Vladimir gluten. They're dictators on their car. I don't know what it is. I just know I'm losing weight doing it. And I eat that Ezekiel bread, which just tastes like ass. I mean, it's really just like, it's like if you took bread and stuff, it in a microwave and all the nutrients left. But, you know, if you put enough shit on it, if you put a little almond butter on it,

it does taste good. And I am losing weight. I don't know. But I feel like I'm still eating salads and shit. It's like, I remember when people are on like that, what was that diet where it's like, dude, I can eat bacon all day as long as I don't eat this. And it's just like. Yeah, Atkins diet.

Yeah, they add carbs. Yeah, no carbs. Yeah, it spawned a whole beer industry of low carb beer. Yeah, you like shit out of cowhead at the end of the fucking day. horns and all. I remember watching my friends doing that. I just remember thinking like, that can't be good. Like just eating meat all the fuck of time.

Like they didn't seem like they were eating salads. They were just sitting there. They were like eating bacon and like turkey. And not saying any of that shit's bad because who knows at this point? There's guys out there that's sticking now. Like they're putting melted butter into their coffee. Oh, God. I know.

No, but they're saying that like all of that saturated fat shit that they were saying is now a myth. It's like the egg. In my lifetime, the egg went. How many times has the egg been in and out and out? And in. The flavor of the month or not. It's like John Travolta's career. John Travolta, fucking Saturday Night Fever, sweathawks.

Then he fucking went away in the 80s. Then he came back with Pulp Fiction. Then he did fucking Battlefield Earth. And I don't know what he's doing now, but I feel like he's going to come back again. You know what? I'm actually one of the few people that, dude, this is embarrassing. This is probably the most embarrassing thing you're going to get me to say on this podcast. I love it.

is I actually liked Battlefield Earth. Oh, you did? I never saw it. Forest Whitaker is in it, for God's sake. Barry Peppers in it? Barry Peppers. None of these guys want us to mention that, but those are all great actors. Yeah, great actors, and it was written by El Ron Hubbard, which is basically the same thing that this ancient aliens guy,

Zacharias Sitchin, wrote in his book, The 12th Planet, about how we've been colonized for 400,000 years, starting in South Africa, where they took apes and genetically made them, to like gold mine workers because they needed gold dust to protect their, uh, uh, plant, uh, the, the, the, the ozone on their planet or some kind of crazy shit. Um, either way, it's, it's totally believable to me. I mean, I don't care one way or the other, you know, but like, but, but, but that included with all those good actors and this kind of tie in to, it sounded like Star Wars mixed with roots. Yeah, mixed with mushrooms.

Mixed with mushrooms. There you go. I actually like battlefield earth. Uh, I remember, uh, Wait, so that's what that movie was about? Yeah, yeah. It was like a colonizing, dumb-ass humans, which they just made from apes through their DNA and had them all, like, mining gold for them because they needed the gold on their home planet and this and that, and John Travolta had dreads just like I got now. It was like, no, I'm thinking that movie was pretty cool. And I remember getting a lot of shit for it going, I'm all for this movie at the time.

And now it's like, okay, I'm embarrassingly admitting that. Yeah, that was pretty cool. Well, so wait a minute. But the plot's really interesting. The plot is interesting. So wait, does Scientologists think that we came from apes? I thought they thought there was some sort of spaceship. No, well, yeah, yeah.

There's a spaceship that comes down and they needed, they tried to have their own people mine these gold mines. And these people just said, fuck you, I want to go back to my home planet. This is bullshit work, man. This is like working as a barista at Starbucks or McDonald's. And so get these apes to do it that are already. on the planet and so they genetically engineered them to be a little bit smarter and then they started mining the gold and those guys could hang out and drink so is that where my tax money's going

he's going to another planet black projects man black projects are all over the place what are black projects oh you know all the shit like alec jones is on about every day except he's way off the mark but just like what what you don't think that guy's hit the nail on the head over there one out of ten i mean he's swinging big yeah he's swinging big over there was in the major leagues just batting average would be about 139. I know, but when he connects, but when he connects, you know, it's leaving the park. That's why you go. You want to see a guy swinging like that right out of his fucking cleats. That's it, man.

I can't listen. I used to be into all of that shit. And like I see you got, what are we watching here? MSNBC. And I like how they walk around now when they're doing the news to add some level of excitement to it. ESPN does it. They all fucking, they all walk around. I don't watch. any of this shit. All right, first read of the week here. Okay, and that's the ad reads. And now back to the podcast. Dean, I was talking the other day on my podcast.

I was at Wilshire and the 405 right there. And there was a bunch of pro-second amendment people just standing and they just were yelling, America, love it or leave it, right? And I just like, the whole thing that's fascinating to me is that, you know, these guys wrote this amendment way back in the day. and it's just like, well, shit does evolve. I mean, it was an amendment. So they were, weren't they, that was a change to what already existed.

And like, you do have to adjust. I don't have, I don't have, I don't have, I don't have, I don't have a problem with guns. Here's what's going to their argument right away is they're on the corner yelling, America, love it or leave it. So they obviously don't love it because they're on a corner at fucking 405 and Wilshire yelling. So they don't love it. So why don't they leave it? You know, why?

Because Norway doesn't fucking want them. Oh, all right. I don't know. I don't. Why do they not have guns out there in Norway? How do they keep their people under control? No guns. I know.

Look, I don't have a... Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with guns. If you fucking own them responsibly, they just have to figure out a way. If they could just figure out a fucking way to make sure these fucking lunatics who then go on social media saying, I'm going to do this shit. And everybody kind of ignores it. Hey, man, it's just simple. If you get a couple of DUIs, they take your license away. Right.

If you're going to get a gun, you've had a couple batteries, assaults, domestic shit, all sorts of crappy stuff. Right. And you torture animals as a child and you've been thrown out of five schools. It's probably not a good idea to get a gun. I have nothing against guns either. I mean, look, you know, if you're some grizzly Adams type living in a cabin in Colorado, shooting grizzly bears for hides, food, tent, sustenance, this. and that, good on you. You know, you're probably a responsible gun owner.

Oh, he's going to create the next people. When this all goes to shit. They got beat up too much in high school. They weren't part of the cool clique. They started making threats on YouTube, this and that, and the other. They beat up their wife, their girlfriends, this and that. They beat up their moms. You know, don't give them a fucking gun.

Join a band. Get into show business like the rest of us. We're presently hiring Roeys now. Well, speaking of that, before we. we get all sideways here with the politics. I can't fucking hear myself anymore. Let me take this out. Put it back in. Come on, you best. Where is it? Where's the sweet spot? There it is. You got a new album coming out. Oh, yeah. Right? Tell us, tell us the name. Tell us about it. I listen to one track.

I love the harmonica on it, that haunting, like with the, with the reverb on it and stuff. I don't know whatever the name of the track was, but it made me, it made me. It made me want to go play drums. That's how I know I like a song, is I immediately go into fantasy mode, and whatever cool thing is happening, I'm doing it. So at first I was playing drums, and then when you did the harmonica part, then that was me and my fantasy, I was playing that, and everybody was gazing up at the stage going, wow, look how awesome Bill is. So you're one for one.

That could still happen. Oh, okay. No, I know. We've offered you to come on stage before, and you pussyed out. I didn't pussy out. What are you talking about? No, at that dancing at that whatever. Oh, I couldn't make it down there.

No, this is the thing, dude, if you want, look. Like, we were ready to rent you a helicopter to fly down on the stage and have you come back and play drums for us. Now that you said I'm a pussy, I'll do it. I'm playing a little bit of double bass now. I just don't want to ruin it. I don't want to ruin it because people are coming there to see you. You knew what it was too, because you were doing a festival, so I figured you played a shorter set. Yeah, yeah.

Like, if you're going there and it's a full-on-you show, if you have some jerk-off comic come on for one song, I think the crowd can handle that But if it's just like, hey, we only got time for six songs And on one of them, the guy from VH1's I Love the 80s strikes back He's gonna play drums Now I know you guys might get a kick out of that I'm just worried that your fans

What they're gonna fucking throw at me when I'm up there You know, my favorite guest appearance for us Of all time was during Laal Paluza We had Kirk Hammett from Metallica Oh wow Come on stage. We'd known Kirk for a while and we'd opened up from Metallica on a bunch of dates in Europe. And so we got to be friends, and Kirk came out.

And we did a cover of a Black Sabbath song called Super Not at a festival. And we were playing it, and we gave him the second lead in the song. So he started going crazy. I mean, his hair was flying. It looked like he had one of those industrial blow dryers on his hair, and there was no blow dryer. It just his hair was flinging around. He was into it.

He was into it and all that. But it just went on for it. fucking ever and so the rest of the band was just like well fuck it we're out of here so we all just walked off and by the time by the time he realized what's happening he's still in the middle of his lead there's no band members up there and we're all standing there on the side of the stage like looking at our watches going dude really this is now like going on a 12 minute solo you fucking oh no so then wait what at that point he told me later it's like he didn't want to leave the stage because he realized he was going to get shit when he left,

so we might as well keep going at that point. I think it wound up to be like a 17-minute solo leave. Because he knew he was going to get his ass beat on the side of the day. Well, the thing is, if you guys leave and then he doesn't leave, it looks like it's planned. Right. Well, it wasn't planned. We were just bored.

Jesus Christ. Now, what is the etiquette if somebody goes to, so you don't, you better enough fucking do that to me. If you guys, that would be hilarious stuff. You leave me up there, and I'll be up there. Boom, crack, boom, crack. See, I don't know how I can do that before I go. get killed. That's when you start incorporating the tom-toms and shit. Oh, is that what I do?

Yeah, yeah. What I would do is I would just, I would do a backwards somersault off the stool and crawl my way out underneath the curtain. Did he get mad at you guys? Or do you think it was funny? No, he was, he was scared shitless by the time he got off. And then we all acted pissed. And then it was just like, ah, that was flawed, man, you know, and just, but he was kind of scared at first. But he's never come back with us ever since. He doesn't come back on stage. We don't get a lot of guest artists anymore. Well, I'm sure he told that story. I'm imagining that that went around. I don't know if he'd want to repeat that story. He was pretty freaked out. I would have told it. Anyway, so you got this new album coming out when it comes out on, was it March 6th when it comes out? March 9th. March 9th. Yeah,

it's a Friday. Okay. Yeah, party night. Yeah, shrooms. That's right. Shroom weekend. And where can people get it. I guess everywhere. I don't know. Oh, God. I mean, what are you really creative guys? I'm going to go on the four of five of Wilshire with a with a billboard and start hawking CDs. I mean, I don't know where these things are sold. Well, is it going to be on iTunes? They're sold anymore. They just like, you know, by the time we post this, I'm sure someone will give me a link and I'll be able to tell people where to get it. I mean, I've been in this business long enough that you know that the whole purpose of this is to get people to hear your shit, man. I've been in this business long enough to also know that I don't really give a fuck about this part of the business.

Okay. I just kind of like do what I do and, you know. Now, you were influenced, but like I always heard those guys you were talking about. Oh, Bill Burroughs, as you call them, William Burroughs, right? Didn't those guys, they would write, type out a bunch, a whole page of the story, and then they would cut up all of every word individually. They'd throw it in the air and then tape it all together. Yeah. And then they would just start writing from that.

Yeah. No, that's what I did in 1980, well, is it, 88 or some shit around, like Land of Rape and Honey. I decided to do an album like that based on William Burroughs writing, which is how I hooked up with him later. I just took a bunch of pieces of tape. Yes, we actually used tape back then, not just digital, and just cut it all up into various pieces and threw it on the floor, spilled coffee on them, snorted coke off of them, or did whatever, and then put them back together. Some were backwards, somewhere forwards.

some work some not, and then put it together and actually told a narrative, which is what Bill Burroughs was saying. I almost did it as an experiment going, this guy's crazy. That can't just happen. Like, you just throw shit random on the floor and it talks to you. But 90% of the time it seemed to work. Like, wow. Like, you couldn't have done that yourself.

So it's like you're throwing yourself to like random chance of it coming out good. And sometimes it doesn't work. How did you get the balls to do that? You got a record deal and everybody else is trying so hard. to do it the way that everybody's doing it, you have the ability to do it that way? How did you get the balls to be like, ah, were you independent at that point?

So you could take that kind of risk, so you just didn't care. I've done a couple records for major labels at that point. I did this horrific record where they took over the whole thing for Aresda records. Then I did this other record for Warner Brothers that pretty much gave me carte blanche, but it was still like learning to crawl before you walk.

By the time I got to that record, I was just sick of all these people. I figured, like, if these are the people that claim to know what they're doing, then I must be fucking Einstein because these people are adults. So I just decided to do whatever the fuck I wanted to do, you know? Right. So how did you come up with, what is that song? I'm the fucking worst. It's that thing, stigmata, the guitar riff on that.

I always thought the guy had to slide it. Yeah, that is. Is it slide? Somebody told me you sped it up. Well, I did that too, and I also added a didgerid do onto that to get that slide part. I mean, I get really meticulous on my shirt. That's one of the sickest riffs of all time. I played that for my wife, and she was like, what the fuck is this?

This is awesome. And then you went, wow, over the top. And then, you know, then she kind of left. Yeah, well, back then people weren't using distorted vocals. either and that was actually quite the accident because we had this cheap Sony ass mic that ran on batteries and the batteries were low and when I went to sing that first scream it just sounded like a cat was being tortured and like yeah that sounds great let's keep it you know so we and then we started trying to replicate that sound for the next 10 years you know it's kind of like your

first heroin hit right we should have kept that microphone in those batteries so what did you just used like the bullhorn because I've seen like the clips of your your live shows are unbelievable and they're also terrifying like I love them they give me the chills as I'm watching but then there's a part of me going you know I'm glad I wasn't in like that fucking pit down front because yeah especially when I look back then I look like fucking Ron Howard way back in the day before I look like a ginger you bread our our pit is like uh it's scary for us too we look at these fucking kids and we're like uh you know like like I said I'm pushing 60 and I'm looking at these 20-year-old kids, and I'm thinking, like, these could be literally physically my

grandkids, and I'm worried about our future. What's out of the pit on stage, man? What's some of the weirdest shit or scariest shit you've seen when you were on stage? You know what? No, I don't have anything that's like particularly like, like, you know, you hear about, like, what was, there's some rap concert the other day that they stopped a concert because they saw a girl being raped in the front row in the pit or something like that. And I've never.

How does that happen? Like other people don't see that? There's so, like, what riff were they playing that everyone was so locked into it that there's literally somebody getting raped next to you and you can't see it? I don't know. I don't understand that. I've never seen anything like that.

Actually, some of the things. Stairway? Stairway to heaven, maybe. I mean, people love that one. They're just waiting for that drum fill? Yeah. Well, that would be like, it. If I saw something really weird on a stairway to heaven song at a Led Zeppelin concert,

it would probably be a Hobbit being raped in the pit. Because I never understood this about Led Zeppelin. Don't take me wrong. I love the fucking band. But this guy, basically his lyrics, we've given him a pass. All he sings about is Dungeons, Dragons, Castles, Maidens, Horses, and Hobbits. And his dick. I mean, you've got to squeeze my lemon.

or whatever. I mean, this guy's really coasted, this Robert's Plank guy. For like many years. And I love the fucking band. Don't take me. Did you ever get to see them? Oh, yeah, of course. Fuck. And they're just amazing. What tours did you see him on? Jimmy Page. I saw him at the Chicago Stadium in like, what, 76, 77, something like that.

I mean. So Bonham had the vista light at that point, right? The orange see-through one? No, he was strutting around and he's, Oh, but wait, it gets better. Well, while they were in town, okay, they spent three days in Chicago. And he did his show at the Chicago Stadium, the old stadium. And I went and saw that, and then I had to work at Wax Tracks.

So, no, so this is like 79. So he's got the stainless steel kit? No, no, no. He was walking around with like a little, like, girly top tied off around mid-torso. and then Robert Plant I think he's on a bottom I'm talking about bottom there were as wide as this coffee table

and he's strutting around doing all the stuff and at that point he's in his mid to late 40s and I just thought like I just thought damn it this is inappropriate you know it's funny he wasn't he was only like 30 or 31 well he was born in like 48 mid 40s so maybe he should have stuck

to heroin because he wasn't pickled because he was strutting around and I'm going like, that's like, he's doing like this chicken dance and stuff on here and singing about hobbits. And I immediately zoned out and paid no attention and just listened to like the tightness of the band. And you could tell him. Plant did get old quick though.

Yeah. He was like a young guy and then right after physical graffiti, he just got all the lines in his face. Yeah, yeah. That's weird. I think that's genetic, though. I think that's kind of like a norting. thing. I think he must have Nordic

DNA because that's what happens to Scandinavian people. They look so awesome when they're young. And then because their genetics tell them, like when they're old, they've spent 40 years of Nordic winters. And their skin says, fuck you. I'm cracking. I'm wrinkling

now. They just needed some lotion. But he looks cool now, though. Yeah, he needs lotion. But he looks cool now, though. Yeah, he looks great now. He found the lotion. Yeah. But you can tell his face he never did heroin. Yeah, or not, he didn't get a Coke gun. That's hilarious.

You can look at old people and tell the drugs that they did. Well, hey, you're also a lot of people might not know this about you, is you're a huge hockey fan. Are they literally in the house building shit right now? Yeah, yeah. Okay. This is Destruction Zone 1. That's cool. We've done almost 40 minutes before the hammering started.

So now, you know, as we brought up, Led Zeppelin, Hammer of the Gods. Oh, right there, huh? Jesus. Oh, yeah, that was a book that put me to sleep. I believe every word of it. Oh, I do too. No, I'm joking. No, I'm joking.

It's compared to, like, the shit we did, and not only just us. What you're talking? You put a shark in a woman? Isn't that what happened? Well, it wasn't a real shark. It was a dolphin. No, no, no. It was a bathtub plastic shark, and one of our roadies was penetrating a girl willingly.

there was no rape talk. I wasn't about you. I'm talking about Zeppelin. Oh, no, I'm talking about our tour. That shit that I've seen. I've seen some crazy shit. I mean, that's what I'm saying. You know how fucking random that is?

That I sprouting in a shark, putting it in a woman. Who the fuck does that? And you actually had a story. You're like, oh, it wasn't a real shark. It was a toy shark. Well, and it wasn't me, and it wasn't the band. We had two buses. We had the road crew bus and the band bus.

And the band bus basically had some kind of decorum going on. But the crew bus was literally Dante's ninth gate of hell. I mean, you walk on there, and it was just like colligula and steroids going on, the shit that you'd see. And I'd just go on there because, like, say, I'm out of, I'm out of smokes. I go in to borrow a pack of smokes from one of the roadies, because none of the band smokes. And so I'd go, and then I'd walk in and just walk into, like, Dante's inferno. Stepping through an orgy. Yeah. Just to get a human minefield of fornication. trying not to step on anybody's fucking hands.

Yeah, well, you know, I'm actually, I've had the exact opposite experience on the road where it's just been a lonely, isolated thing, but I was kind of built for that. Like, people, somebody was asking me about that shit, you know, about being on the road and, like, groupies and stuff. It's just like, dude, that just doesn't fucking... It's different for comedians.

It's just not what, like, dude, you guys go up there with a fucking ukulele and you just fucking... Yeah, but how many people you travel with? And all of a sudden, this fucking panties flying at you. You know what's true. I'm not saying you. I'm not saying you, but you know. I get bolts and coins and bottles flying at me.

I don't get panty. I'm not, look, you know, some fucking jerk off can go to a goddamn coffee house on an open mic. All right? And he can fucking go up there with the ukulele. He could literally do his cover, probably do a reggae version of a mama and papa song. Right? All that leaves a brown man, right? And then the next thing you know,

some woman is going to fucking respond to it. You know? Yeah, but how many people do you travel with when you go on the road? Nobody. I go by myself. Seriously, you don't even have a handler. No, I have like open it. No, it's just more people I got to talk to.

I don't have a, look, if I go to another country, and I don't mean Canada. Yeah. I mean another country. I, uh, wait, no. I did Canada. They gave like a road person. It drives me up the fucking wall. But when I'm in another country, I love it. When I was in Australia, the guy I had was fucking awesome. And I'm definitely going to use him again. I got to cover my bases here. So I think I'm shit on. He didn't come from the States with you. In other words, you travel alone. You just go,

to Australia. I'm going to Australia. If I'm going to Australia, what I love, I love having a tour manager because he shows up and it's just like, all right, this is what you need to be. Boom, boom. I don't have to worry about anything. And there's transportation. When I go into England. I've had a great people and all of that type of stuff. Great people, Scandinavian and all that shit. But in the States, no, I just show up. I get a rent a car. Like fucking Chuck Berry, drive up with my mic stand in the car. It keeps the overhead low. That's the thing. That's where things get dicey. Like our touring party is about 17 people between band and crew.

And there's generally three or four rookies on each tour. and the rookies have read too many books like Hammer the Gods or Mine. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so they bring that shit onto the bus is mainly on the crew bus. We've had the most boring band bus for probably about almost 12, 13 years, thank God. Do you guys sit there playing like cards against humanity? Like that's a crazy night. Actually, you know what?

No, we just, we get the fuck off. the bus. We stay in our little areas and get the fuck off the bus and go to the hotel as soon as possible. And then our like stupid shit happens at the hotel bar. Not so much on the bus. The bus is like kind of like this. I'm a big hotel bar guy. I love it because it's like you're already kind of home. It's like you're downstairs in your own kitchen. And you can just drink down there and then just. Hotel bar tenders are always like I don't even, I think they're psychologists. they're good. Right. At least at the hotels we stay at, say Sheraton's, Hilton's, this and that,

Radisson's, blah, blah, blah. That's where you stay, that's that kind of shit. Those hotel bartenders in every city are like, they must have taken a class because they're all real similar. They're all psychology-based drink pour. My favorite hotel bar is the one you can be like staying on the 10th floor and you can look down over at the elevator to see if it's still open.

You know, those ones? Rather than have to go all the way down, and you'll just see these drunk sitting down there. All right, it's still going. We got to get going down. You don't have to call anybody or anything like that. So, hey, is there a – because I do want to promote your album, man.

I think you're a fucking genius. So is there any sort of theme on this one? Is it just – Yeah, look, man. I mean, I've been known to bash our right-wing friends before and our right-wing leaders, such as George Bush and Ronald Reagan, and things in the past. But this

one is not real anti-Trump. It's more like what kind of system keeps producing these people? Let's cut to the quick here. It's the system that keeps producing these people that we keep thinking is a good idea to be our spokesperson for our ideals.

And the quality of these people keeps going down and down and down. So rather than attack... It is falling off where at least we It's a low bar, man. We had, like, we used to have career politician. Then we went to, like, the boss's son. Yeah.

And now we got, like, a reality show, like, uh, TV star. And now, which is causing all these people out here in Hollywood to go, like, I want to run. Like, the second you say you want to run for president, yeah, you're out of your mind. You're basically saying, you're saying, I want to have dead bodies on my conscience. Because that's what the fuck you're signing up for. And I'm not saying that you're going to have to go out and do the wrong. thing, but like in the process of doing the right thing, you're going to kill people that were just in the wrong place.

That's why I think they age the way they do. Yeah. Because it's like... It's heavy. Yeah. It's fucking heavy. I get asked this question all the time in interviews. All right, Mr. Political.

What would... What's the first thing you do if you were president? I'd fucking quit. I don't want any part of this shit. I put the solar panels back on the White House and then I'd leave. Yeah. Okay. I'll do it personally.

I would do that. And I'd have the chef there. The chef make me a sandwich, and I want to ride in the helicopter. And then that's it. I now introduce you to the vice president and the person who will now be running all of this shit. You've got to throw one party in on Air Force one. One big party. That just kind of looks like a giant, like, fucking thing I always fly.

The Marine one helicopter always looked badass to me. You're old enough to remember old 747 fleet. Have you ever fly 747? Dude, I went to. You got to go to the Ronald Reagan. library on you. I know they have that. They have literally the one that he sat on talking to Gorbachev. Did you ever get to go upstairs to that bar and hang out with the cool people while you're flying that 747? I always wanted to do that. I did that one time. I got busted twice and sent right

back down, you know, air marshaled. It was a spiral staircase. Yes. And you went, you went up there and everybody had suits and the fucking stewardesses were hot. Bad ass. Yeah. When we were, I did this, this run through Asia. I did, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, I did this run through. the fuck did I Singapore, Hong Kong and then Mumbai India and leaving Mumbai India we connected through Dubai

and we got on that air Emirates. Oh, that's not even an airline. It's like a W hotel with like with wings. Yeah,

it's fucking unreal. So that's even like it's better than a W. W is like a W hotel like acts like it's nice. It's like nice if you're in your 20s. You see a lot of fucking very 20s.

A lot of aquarium lighting around the bed and shit. But so we we were, we were, I came up if we were upstairs or whatever. All I remember was we, when if I remember I'm going to fly that far, I use all the miles,

every fucking thing I can possibly do, make less money. Yeah, I'm going to sit at least at one of those bed chairs. And so I got up to go to the bathroom and I walked in the back to go to the bathroom and they had like this semi-circular bar. Yeah, yeah.

Because it was one of those wide bodies. So there was like two chairs next to the window. then an aisle, then the middle, then an aisle, and then over. So that middle section, it was that wide in the back where it had like a semicircle and a bartender in there, and they had a little bench seat and some stools around there. Bench seat with like a seat belt that you sat down on. So I saw it. You were up there?

That's where your seat was? And I went back. I didn't have the one. Your autograph. I didn't have the one where you had like your own apartment. Like that one, that one's like 15 grand one way. So I went back and I got my wife. I said, hey, can I buy you?

you drink. She goes, what are you talking about? I go, come with me. So we went to the back. We were like, and she just ear to ear, grin. And I ordered a couple mixed drinks. We sat down on the little bench seat. I put a seatbelt on, put mine on. And we just sat there. We didn't have that many, but it was just so fucking cool. It's, it, it wasn't seem possible. It's like, I'm at a bar in the sky. I know. Flying strange. Flying to New York, it was one of those things where I was very excited to get back to the States. But that was. was definitely one that I didn't want it to end where you're just like, oh my God. It's the exact opposite of riding and coach where it's like you can literally be flying from like fucking New York to

Buffalo. Do your neck start hurting you too? Sorry, we're sitting side by side. I came by to grab a mustache. Oh, oh, okay. And I don't know what you're doing. You're taking stuff out from underneath the, uh, okay. All right. Am I allowed to say what's going on right now? Sure. I don't know. He took legal. Is it legal? Is it legal? I don't know what it is. It looks like he has, oh, that is wine. I didn't think of it. I thought that was like liquid weed that you could have poured into the vaporizer and it reaches a certain temperature.

Let me tell you something, man. You were a fucking rock star because I've never had an experience that good flying. The closest thing I ever had was I did an 18-hour flight to Australia once, and I was on the last fucking flight that allowed smoking on nine seats. Only on nine seats. No way. In business class. So it wasn't first class. wasn't coach, and they had nine seats arranged on Qantas for people who smoke.

And if I'm going to be 18 hours on an airplane, I want a fucking cigarette. You know, nowadays you've got the E-Sigs, and it's really easy. Nobody knows you're fucking, like, nicotine out of your mind on these planes. Right. Because I'm a great flyer. Just hopping and puffing on my E-Sig, and nobody bothers me, and I don't bother anyone else. But this was the last smoking flight, Qantas ever had. It was actually in the news, and I was one of the people that had.

those seats. And so I get there and there's this businessman from Hong Kong next to me. And he immediately starts blowing his nose on the tray in front of him. And there's boogers and shit all over the seat in front of me. He kept in his nose. And I was just like, stewardess, man, I can't sit next to this fucking guy. Okay. He was really weird.

It was rude. Oh, yeah. I think you're being really nice about this guy. To just define that as weird and rude. And the flight was booked. So they put me in one of those kamikaze seats that the stewardesses sit on right before they do the little jump seat. Yeah, a little jump seat. So they put me in there.

So I was like, all right, cool. Why don't they stick the snot blower up there? Well, that's the point. So, like, I'm sitting there and I light up a smoke and they just like flipped out. Like, you can't be smoking here. Like, what are you doing? I'm like, well, I'm not sitting next to that fucking guy. So we had this, like, two hours.

standoff and they tried to get the guy to move and he wouldn't move. And so they finally acquiesced since it was the last flight with smoking. I got to sit there on the jump seat and just change stuff. That was like my rock star flying story, man. What's with Hong Kong? You know, when I flew from Singapore to Hong Kong, now in defense of Hong Kong, this guy might have been from Singapore. Hey, he might have been from New Hampshire.

I didn't talk to him. But up in the lounge there, they had these fucking, they were making dumplings, all right? And the fucking dumplings that they make over there, dude, they literally if you dropped them, they would like float. A plane? No, like in the airport, right? Right, right. So they keep coming out with these dumplings. This motherfucker

keeps going up there, and he would like take seven out of eight of them. He was a skinny bastard, and he was just, it was like, do you remember Paul Newman and, uh, get mad at them eggs, cool hand Luke? He was eating them like fucking cool hand Luke. Just sticking him down his fucking throat. And they were

delicious. And it was It was just like every time they would bring them out, I would have to like look over to make sure I could go up there just to get some for me and my wife. So this guy must be done like 20 or 30. He fucking, the whole time he was up there, he'd shout those goddamn things. And it, uh, I don't know, it kind of put me in a mood like I was going. This is what Hong Kong's going to be like? A bunch of selfish people eating all the fucking dumplings. But then I had to quickly be like, wait a minute.

Wait a minute. There's selfish assholes from where I'm from. And I'm one of them. So maybe I'm going to the prime. promise land a travel review Hong Kong by Bill Burr a bunch of selfish people eating dumplings fuck this is based on one guy who was going to Hong Kong who I don't even know if he was going there forget if he lived there or if he was even Chinese so anyways how do you watch this shit all day MSNBC you you seem like a news junkie yeah I'm kind of a news junkie

I don't watch it intently but I like keep it on as wallpaper and periodically glance over and see like, oh, shit's at the fan. Holy crap, it's been two hours since shit's at the fan. It's kind of more enjoyable with like the sound down. I'm loving this guy on the right. He has the exact same haircut as Prince Charles. It sticks out the exact same way. Yeah, it does, except he's got more hair on top, if that's his hair.

But what I like is that he's completely covered in the graphic that the stock market is tanked today. They do that to people. Like if I, I have to be on CNN in, what, next week. Okay. And that's my first time. Oh, nice. So I'm going to be in one of those squares. I just hope the stock market hasn't completely going to shit.

And I get blamed for it because that's what you'll remember is this guy caused your stocks. I don't even know that that was about the stock market. I just look at that guy going, that guy's fucking his made. That's the haircut of he is. No, there's people right now that have lost their pension because the stock market's down and they're looking at this guy. It's only down $3.385, though, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's not.

Is that what that is? $3.89? Yeah, it's like down $500 or something before. I don't know. 500 bucks? What is $500 me? I don't. I do.

And it's the worst. You can't get out of it. You pay attention to it. You follow. No. I don't know. I just look at it like I'll never get that money back and whatever's left when I'm 65. Oh, shit.

I just viewed it's like Las Vegas without all the really gaudy, like, decorating and buffet food. It's just like. I've done like, I've done okay in it. But I also, I invest conservatively and with conspiracy theory. So you go for the blue chip. No, I go for like tangible shit.

Like people who make tangible shit. I remember I invested in all these companies that were like digging for gold and stuff. And then, because I felt the dollar was going to collapse. But then it dawned on me one day. It's just like, well, wait, at the end of this, I don't have any gold. So I bought them

a bunch of shovels and pickaxes to give to children somewhere to dig this out of the ground. And in the end, you know, I was talking. Who the fuck was I talking to? I got a friend in Chicago that has literally made millions of fucking dollars. This is really sick, all right? But I want you to listen to this. This is really emblematic of what's going on today.

Is this place haunted or is that somebody hammering? No, that's somebody hammering. Okay, just making sure. This is a destruction zone right now. But this guy would wait for a mass shooting. And as soon as that happened, he would invest in gunstocks. And sure enough, gunstocks would go up, spike 25 points on the day. Like, he'd come in there and go $100,000 and just buy whatever gunstock after a mass shooting.

Within three days, he would sell it all before it went back down. And he's made millions just doing that. Now, it's kind of creepy, but this is where we're at right now. But I'm trying, I wouldn't try to make it that way. Now, what way can we do it, Mel? Let's think of another disaster that happens where we can make some money here. Every time there's a mudslide, you invest in what? Well, I don't know about my.

Hair dryers? I'm just investing in pot futures, man. Now that Canada's going legal, I'm all in. I'm actually going to join the stock market. And I think solar and wind and all these other, like, new tech things are kind of a scam. But I'm all into the pot market because we saw what, like, alcohol did in the 20. after the end of Prohibition and all the mega giant corporations that came out of that, like Anheiser Bush and all this.

And I think pot's going to be the same thing. It's not going to be a bunch of mom-pops in Marin County. It's going to be like huge and industrial giants, you know. Yeah. I mean, have you watched on that, what's it, Vice? Is that the name of the channel? Yeah. Where they're like putting it into food.

I mean, it's becoming like this gourmet thing overnight. Yeah, I cook pot food. Do you think that'll ever happen for, like, heroin? Like, today we're making some opiate English muffins. You take, like, two bites in. There's NFL players that failed their urine test because they ate poppy seed muffins, or so they claim. Oh, give me a fucking break. Well, that's what they claimed.

But I'm just saying, so there is opiate foods already. They eat poppy seed muffins after they shot some heroin. That's why they fucking failed their test. That's why when people talk, I used to joke about that when people like, They're like, oh, it's my metabolism. That's why, that's the big scapego. My metabolism, it's really slow. It's like, yeah, that and fucking 6,000 calories a day.

That will make you out of shape. So anyways, all right, let's, I think we're about, dude, this is the most effortless fucking 58 minutes of my life. I'm so psyched that you made another album. I've heard the one track, the Twilight Zone thing. Check the video out. I saw the video. I loved it.

And the new video comes out on March 9th, too. Not one of these, like, concocted by the label lyric videos, which we have no part of. And I guess they're pretty good and kids like them and all that. But we don't put any really input into that. That's the label. I just wanting you to get to know the lyrics and things in the most basic way because people have the attention span of a fucking bathroom nat and this and that. Right.

This next one is we filmed it all on the same day. this Twilight Zone video and then Victims of a Clown. So I haven't seen it yet. I should be able to see it. Victims of a clown. Yeah, I should be able to see it tonight, actually. We get some rushes on it, and I hope it's as good as Twilight Zone, because that one's pretty funny video, man.

I'm out there hanging with Gray Wolf, this Indian-American guy. I met from AIM, American Indian Movement, and pretty high-level AIM guy, too. And we're out there at Camp Fire, just blowing harps and drinking ayahuasca tea. And it was great. Tell me about your band. You mentioned some of the guys you got in there. Yeah, we got kind of a pretty good all-star lineup. It's Joey Jordan is playing drums of this this tour.

Burton Bell's helping me. Joey Jordan from from Slip-Nod. Burton Bell from Fear Factory has helped me on the vocals this time. And Tony Campos from Old Static X and Asa Cesar. know, and about a billion other bands he's in is on bass. And then our two usual guitar players, Sin Corrin and Cesar Soto, which are awesome. John Beckdale, which has been with us for about eight years. And he comes from Killing Joke and the early Killing Joke days.

And then DJ Swamp from Beck. This is awesome. When are you going to put your tour dates up? Because I got to see you guys live. They're up. What's your website? The first ministry, I don't know. You know, dot com or some shit.

I don't know, Bill. I'm not the best promosexual. I'm finding that. I'm finding that. All right. Al has a new album out. His band's called ministry. You can buy it somewhere, and he has a website that has the name ministry in it.

Something like that. And he is on tour, and somewhere those dates are available. Yeah, it's like a treasure map, and at the end, you get the pot of gold. Just find it. It's just right ministry, and either you'll get put to some Billy Graham website, page or you'll get put to us, but I know that somewhere you'll wind up on our page and you'll figure shit out. Okay.

Well, dude, you're one of my favorite people. I always love talking to you. And it's an honor that you wanted to come on to my podcast to promote your album. I hope that you wanted to. And it wasn't your label making you do this. And this has been an uncomfortable hour. My label doesn't even know about this. Oh, okay.

This is you, Liz, and me. This is interesting. And then we're just going to spring it on him and go, fuck you. So what do you do for me? Nothing. Who we did. We got this famous guy to come over to our hearts. I don't know about that.

I got a little notoriety. You know what I'm saying, though. This is not label sanctioned. All right. So last thing. What are you, what are you, Blackhawks doing?

I barely watched hockey this year. My Bruins have made all these moves. We bought, you know, a couple guys from off the New York Rangers. You got Wingles from us. A nice fourth-line guy for you guys. You guys are looking good.

Yeah, yeah, you got NASH from the Rangers. You guys are looking good. I mean, and this is good for Boston. You needed this because when Claude Julian was your coach and shit,

you guys were up, down, this shit, good. I loved them. I loved them. Yeah, but it was real bipolar there for a while. Well, he did lead us to our first cup in 40 years. So. I know, I know, because we had three of them. My Chicago black locks in there.

Remember we tied it up and then you guys fucking... Yeah, I know. You guys tied it up and then you fucking... 2010. Yeah, that was good. Yeah, boy. Well, for me anyways. But, yeah, we're tanking right now.

Thank God. it's time to like get some new blood. I mean, the general manager, Stan Bowman, it was his first year after the first cup, and he made the rookie mistake of a GM and just like, well, of course, Chicago hadn't had a cup in like 40-something years. So everyone's like, we got to keep this team forever.

And, you know, everyone thinks that they're all junkies. And they're going to look the same 20 years from now as they did that. And so he overpaid all these people, locked them in with no trade contracts and shit. And now we're stuck with all these decaying old guys that don't do enough hair. Seabrook still playing for you guys? Oh, yeah, I think. I mean, he's out there.

That's the best number in hockey, seven. Seven, yeah. And nine, nine and seven. Nine's a good one, too. Any, like, a single-digit one is cool. But those all got retired because all the best guys had them. So now, like, the big things to have the double. Yeah, they did 97, 99, 89, 88, all of that shit.

All right, right, yeah. All right, cool. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I can't wait to hear the new out. And furthermore, I can't wait to see you guys live. If you're doing a full show, I will come out on a toy drum set with a double bass pedal. We got March 22nd or so in Anaheim and March 23rd in Ventura. And I want you on drums at one of those shows.

If you can fit it in your schedule, that would be awesome. Absolutely. But I don't know that I'm going to be able to, like my double bass play. I'm just starting. No, no, we'll give you an easy song to play. How's that? We'll give you something. And we won't fuck with you too hard, I promise.

Hey, it's your show, man. I don't give a shit. You want to fuck with me? Fuck with me. Just the fact that I'll get to do it. It'll be awesome. All right, Al, thank you so much. And everybody, thank you for listening. And I'll check in on you on Thursday.

Thanks, man. Bye. No worries.