Monday Morning Podcast - Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast 12-15-16

Episode Date: December 15, 2016

Bill sits down with comedian and author Rich Shydner.

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Visit Genesight.com for more information. Alright, let me make sure I got everything. My disposal here. This is like a record for me. Two guests in a row on a Thursday podcast. Alright, are we ready? Hey, what's going on? 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. What's going on? How are you? How's your week going? Wonderful, wonderful. Alright, well once again, two weeks in a row. We have a special guest in studio.

This is the one and only comic legend, Rich Scheidner, who has a new book he's here to plug that I actually got a couple months ago, but my wife is so goddamn pregnant I've only been able to read bits and pieces of it. I read all of I Killed in 2006. He's got a book called Kicking Through the Ashes. My life as a standup in the 1980s comedy boom, which personally is my favorite era because I watched all of it, and that made me want to be a comedian and all that. So, Rich, welcome.

Welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Bill. I got to ask, so what year did you start officially as a comedian, because everybody always has there? Yeah, yeah. Well, I did two open mics, and I went to college for a semester. People always try to, they always try to delay when they stuff, so I really don't mean doing it six months.

You're like fucking 52. So, when is your official... January 77. Wow. Yeah. That's amazing. Washington, D.C., there are no comedy clubs. I was going to say, where was there to gig?

Yeah, it was a friend of mine, you know, it was funny, and he said, you're funny, you've got to do this. I don't even know if we knew it called stand-ups. He said, going to take you down, we can do this, you know, you can do comedy at this place. And you were in law school? I was in law school. Okay.

And it was an Iguana coffee house. It was just this basement in a church, you know, there's all talent nights, and I followed a poet. I saw the tape. Because my buddy... You had the tape on it? Yeah, I had the tape. Audio, video?

Audio. Just audio. Just a big black box cassette, like a shoebox size cassette player recorder, and the poet, his last line was, like the mango, we are ripe for the revolution. Oh, God. He was like a decade too late, huh? Exactly. Way ahead on mango.

Nobody's talking mango in 77, but you're right, way behind. Yeah, the Vietnam War is over, and he was still trying to do that shit. So when you guys went, that was what fascinated me back then, because of you guys, that there was a comedy club. Your whole generation is the reason why there's a comedy club scene, and I've always like read stuff about Jay Leno, and it was just like, yeah, you need to be like, yeah, go down to the combat zone, which is where like the red light district where Boston used to be, and you go on between like strippers and...

Anywhere. Anywhere. This guy, Howard Vine, who took me out the first time, he was like my unofficial, I found another place, like a talent night called the Gay Cabaret, and we were so, we had, we just thought like Gay Cabaret, like the Flintstones. This was 77, man. The closet was packed. Yeah, yeah.

It was packed. There was nobody out of the closet, except my overpopulation pushed out, you know. So we could end there, and it was, you know, it was a gay club, and the guy was like, right, hey fellas, you know, normally great, it's open talent night, you know, but this is ladies night. We're once a month, we have ladies night, and again, we're so clueless, we don't get it. It's like fantastic, man.

I still don't get it. What does that mean? It was lesbians. Bottoms? It was lesbians. Oh. It's all lesbians. You had bottoms.

Yeah. Ladies nights. Yeah. Wow. And I go up in front of this lesbian crowd. I mean, you know, I'm the reason they're there to get away from guys like me. How did it go? I'm just a swing.

Oh my God. I mean, you know what I mean. Chill. I mean chill, freezing, cold. I mean, a woman took me off stage. Finally. Just, I mean, I got one line. I did, I was, I did like, my buddy told me, he said, you said like, I guess I'm your

worst nightmare or something and got a kind of a laugh. But you know, you know, stupid Joe, I thought, oh, that's encouragement to do more instead of take that as your exit. Yeah. It's a cue that we didn't come here for this. Yeah. You're done. And a woman just walked up on stage, took me by the arm and led me off.

Just let me off. Just like a murder. I've had that. I've had that. You know, when I started out, I had a gig and I didn't know it was a, I didn't know it was a gig club. I just got a gig. The fucking guy didn't tell me, the place was called Queen of Hearts and what killed

me was there was only a couple of towns over from, from where I lived and like, yeah, and that was like still it was the 80s, it was early 90s. That was still like totally like, you know, not accepted. No. I mean, it's Billy Crystal played, but it was like the only guy I played a gay character and that whole thing just like went away. So when I found out I was all like paranoid, my truck's out there, it was all like homophobic. Everything's gonna come out of his fucking dick, right?

So I, I went there and I was wearing my college like sweatshirt, came walking in like a 23 24 year old and I walked by this guy and I forget what the hell he said. He just said like, oh my God, my fantasy or something like that. And I was just like, I was like, wow, that was really forward. So I went down to the end of the bar and one of the women I was working with, I was like, I walked in, she goes, hey, Bill, how you doing? I said, I said, go, I say that guy down the end of the bar, he's a little happy. She goes, what?

I got the guy, I go down the other bar, he goes, I go, he's a little happy and she finally got it. She goes, Bill, everybody's a little happy here. This is a gay bar. And then I looked around, I was like, oh shit, I was totally freaked the fuck out. And then by the time I got to New York, I was just like, you know, you start broadening your horizons, you don't give a shit. But so you started out there.

So what made it blow up the way it did that all of a sudden there was just, you could, you know, instead of having to go on after a poet or a stripper or whatever you had to do, like I was always interested, like what, what, like what years did all of a sudden all these scenes started, all these independent, like Boston had a comedy scene, right? The ding-ho, you know, those guys, there's Lenny Clark and Barry Crimmins, there was a scene up there, there was a scene in Washington DC, we found this bar, this guy started doing comedy at this bar, so Louis Black, myself, Kevin Rooney, Ron Zimmer, all these guys showed up to start doing stand-up, it's a little bar in Southeast Anacostia.

And it was, and the fact that it was stand-up exclusively must have been like, wow. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, it became packed immediately. It became like, wow, to me, and there was a scene in San Francisco with the Holy City Zoo and that comedy scene, there was one in Houston at a comedy workshop with Hicks and Keneson and those guys were starting out. Now did LA, because I know Danger Fields was around since like the 60s, so like New York and LA actually had a club.

They had scenes, like I was doing it for like a year or so, and a friend of mine said, she goes, you know, there are comics like you doing this up in New York City, I was like, what? She had her comedy clubs, so she took me up there and I, there were, you know, the improv, the comic strip and catch the rising star, but I didn't know about telling one up there. That's so fascinating because like there's no internet. There was no, nobody knew anything, like this guy comes in, one night comes in to L. Brookman's like, you know, around and he walks up to me and he goes, hey, I want to do some stand-up

comedy. I said, yeah, we're at the end of the show, we like put guys on the, no, I'm a comic out in San Francisco. We're doing like this out in San Francisco. I was like, what? See, I got a place in the Holy City Zoo. His name was Tony DePaul and he was running the Holy City Zoo, so he told me, you gotta come out here, man, we're doing this out there too.

And I was like, what? People are doing this. You didn't think like other people are doing it, we're just doing it and you don't know. Nobody was talking to us and seeing him filling. There were about six or seven cities that had scenes percolating, percolating. So how did those guys back in the day, like if they had to do way back to like Ed Sullivan, like how did you put your set together?

I know those guys did Vegas and they did casinos. I guess you just had to be based in New York or L.A. to get stage time to actually. Yeah, but those guys, they, but they didn't, there were places all over there. You know, the nightclub started happening right after World War one when, like supper clubs and stuff. And they started doing the speakeas and all when, when prohibition came in. So the comics moved in, out of vaudeville, started moving into these nightclubs to make real money.

Right. So that's where it started. So there were always, you know, back in the 50s and 60s, they called them the toilets where these guys were trained. You know, they go, you go to work the toilets, a little bar out in Jersey to do a little comedy, a little show. You'd be part of a show, you know, there's a singer and a dancer. Right.

Right. It wasn't exclusively comedy. Danger fields wasn't exclusively stand up. You know, danger was how to singers and stand ups and all. So they were. Just a piano. They haven't changed shit. No.

I'll know, man. No. No. So what year did, so then I guess imagine as the supper club started to go away, then your guy's scene then created the comedy club. That's right. So my generation, they weren't going out to the dinner clubs, you know, going out and have a dinner and see a show.

Nobody was doing anymore. That was out. You know, as old people stuff. As old people stuff. So we were in rock concerts. So then that kind of like started fading, right? You know, you're going, you get a little older, you want to date, you just can't go dating.

I was kind of looking for the next thing and it happened like some guy opens up a comedy club. You know, there's the three paying comedy clubs out here in the late seventies in California. There was Mitzi opened a place down in Pacific Beach in 76 and moved over into La Jolla 77. Then there was a guy, Mike Callie opened up a place to Laugh, stopped down in Newport Beach and then Mike Lacey, which you've been out of Comedy Magic, got down on Hermosa Beach in 78. There were the first three paying, like paying, they'd bring comics in from LA and pay him

a couple hundred bucks. Wow. And then Garvin's in Washington, D.C. opened in 79, January 79, started paying comics from New York to come down and do it. So at this point, you've been doing it like two years. I've been doing it two years and I became an emcee there. That's why I met all of his comics. I started working with Seinfeld and Bill Maher and Overton and all this kind of stuff.

At what time, at what point did you, did you start to sense like, wow, man, like I sort of jumped into this thing that has just taken off. Like what point did it really seem like, like this, like disguised the limit? It was almost like a real estate boom. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't, you know, it didn't, it took me a while. I mean, it sucked into it.

We weren't making money. You know, like the comic strip in Fort Lauderdale opened like January or so of 80. And remember going down there and I'm working with my first wife, Carolie, for Joe Bolster and Mark Schiff and Kelly Rogers. And Kelly pulls me over in a comedy condo, right? The first comedy condo. So it's got a phone. It's clean.

And it's got a phone. It's got a phone inside. Wow. It's got a phone. And he goes, hey, got the phone. He goes, come here, come here. And he goes, whatever this guy says you can do, tell him you can do it. If you ask whatever he asks, tell him you can do it.

So I got the phone guy. He goes, hey, I just opened up this club in Ottawa, Canada. I need a guy who can go do two 45 minute sets. Can you do two separate 45 minute shows? I go, oh yeah. Jesus Christ. I hang up the phone. I go, Kelly, I got like a half hour after they buy everything.

Yeah. They take everything. I'm killing. Right. I'm killing everything. He says, don't worry. You'll do it. Go do it.

So I go up there. I do it a week, right? You know, my strategy was to do all the material. Why did you need to? It was a big bar. It was just a big bar. These comedy rooms at first wasn't like they set up, oh, we're going to be, you know, we're opening up a new club.

We're going to build this club. They just, there was a rock bar. He wasn't getting a lot of business in the rock bar. I don't know where you got the idea. So I'm going to do comedy, right? So once, twice a month, he was doing comedy, brought a comedian in. So I'm going to guess what happened because they don't really pay attention to how long you're up there.

It's just how well you're doing. Did you pull up short on your sets or did you think I was counting back there, man? I know. I'm drinking shots. I'm trying to come up with, I'm smoking weed between the sets, trying to come up with new, you know, I'm just up there doing whatever I can do to try to, you know what I mean, I did all the material I could do that I had up front and then just ran around the room like Jerry Lewis, you know, like I was out of my mind.

Wow. You know, did you save a bit for the end to close it? I didn't have any thoughts about saving bits. I didn't have any thought about closer, opener. It's like just funny and hold them. Just hold the stage. And then you pulled it off. I pulled it off.

So at the end of the week, the guy goes, he's paying me because this was great, man. It's like a weekend, you know, like three days or something. He said, guys on the phone wants to talk to you. I pick up the phone. This guy goes, I got a club in Montreal. I heard you're great. You want to come down here? Come, when?

Now. Come on Dover. Just come over now. And I did the next week in Montreal. And then he puts me on the phone with Mark from Yuck Yuck's, Breslin, from Yuck Yuck's. Same thing. I went right to Breslin in Toronto. So I went out there and I did like, you know, three weeks in a row and I came back on my

headliner. I thought, I'm a headliner. Wow. Was that two, three years in? I was, yeah, it was like in 1980, so I'm like three years in, but I was open up for a lot of rock bands. Was it at that point you could quit your day job? I didn't have a day job.

My last, yeah, my last day job was, yeah, about then because I was, my last day job was working in New York City. I was cleaning out apartments for the mob. I didn't know that's what I was doing, but that's what I was doing. Cleaning them out. All down, down, down, down, down. Stacks got shot when I was turning the fucking truck. What would you do?

You don't remember this, but 77 down that era. My first apartment was in a, it was in a real apartment. It was just up some wall, it was, every other building was abandoned. Squatters everywhere. Oh, that's what was down in East Village. It was bankrupt. Right, it was bankrupt. Dineiro and taxi era.

Exactly. So they start selling buildings for a buck, but you had to promise to rehab the building within a year to turn it into a rental property. Oh my God. Right. So. Do $10. So you'd be, you'd be set for, well, you had to fix them up.

Right. Right. You had to fix them up. So I'm having a hard time paying the rent. So the landlord goes, hey man, can you do carpentry work? And I lie go, yeah, yeah, I can do carpentry work. He's like, go over there and help these guys. How much of your life has been like, yeah, I can do that and just fucking showing up

and running around like Jerry Lewis. That's amazing. So you say, yeah. Then what do you do? Yeah. So I show up, I go over there and these guys are New York guys. They figure out in three seconds, I can't really do carpentry, but they, I'm an okay guy.

You know, get some cigarettes and beer. Go get some cigarettes and beer for us. You know, go do this. Go do that. You know? I'm go for inform. Right. So at the end of the day, the guy goes, yeah, you can't do carpentry, but can you clean

out apartment? I go, well, yeah, I can, you know, my family's built a manual labor, man. That's how we stay on the planet manual labor. Right. So I show up the next morning, there's three young Italian guys, they're standing outside a building to pass around a half point. They go, hey, ready? Yeah.

I'm the new guy. Yeah. We, when we're throwing squatters out, we're cleaning out apartments. Oh God. We're throwing people out of apartments. You know, we're going in, we're throwing, we're going in the shooting galleries, man. People are shooting up. We're throwing stuff out the windows, we're hustling people out.

Well, well, shit, five bucks an hour. Break, five bucks an hour. Under the table. Five bucks an hour. Throw people out on the street. Now break down the whole emotion of that. You walk up to the door. Is it unlocked?

Is it locked? Yeah, you walk up the door. And I'd been in a squatter place when I first moved up there. So I kind of understood it, you know? But you see it like extension cables running in from building to building. They were, you know, they're steel. I don't know how far to back up with your life. So how the fuck did you, so you go up there, you live in a squatter building?

When I first. How does that go down? No, that was, that was 74. When I, I went to New York in 74, but I had no plan. And you had no money. I had no money. And then you just see an abandoned building. You walk in there.

There's other people in there. Yeah, a guy, a guy was. It was like escape from New York. It was. It was. People crawling up out of manholes. Yeah. People, people, they'd get a building.

They'd own it. You see locks went outside of the door. There were no locks like a key lock. Right. Like I would have a padlock, you know, a padlock, right? That's how he got in and get out. And then he'd lock the inside. They'd have bolts and lock the inside.

And they'd have electricity stealing from one building or another building, whatever, they were running cables in some places that had no electricity. They were just candles. I'm sure that wasn't a fire hazard. I love that there's some guy that actually could be working as an electrician, but it's deciding to live for free in this fucking building. People are fascinated. Yeah.

All right. So now, now you're on the other side. Okay. The fucking student has become the master. Now you're going to throw someone out like yourself as if you were on drugs, but. So what was that? People crying, screaming, fighting, that must have been. No, people were like, okay, cool.

Because they'd gotten noticed. It wasn't like, surprised. They'd ignored it. They noticed it. They put notice. This building is in the vault and you've got to leave, evacuate, you know, get out, whatever it is. And they were ignoring it.

Or they, and so some people were cool. Okay, we're gone. Some people, they kicked in doors. We go running in. We throw their stuff out the windows. Right. It was wild. But there's so many abandoned buildings in the building.

I said, I fuck it. I'll just grab my shit and just go down the street and around the corner. I'll have another one. Yeah. I don't know what the attitude was. I mean, I didn't really care. I mean, it was pretty hectic. It was pretty.

Did you have to physically? There were a couple of times we had to like, you know, fight off people or push them around. But you had some more guys. These guys were rough. They were young and rough, man. Oh, okay. Did they have the Joe Pessie shiny suits and shit? No, no.

I watched too many movies. They were, they were, they were dressed and ready for business. Oh, the three quarter leather. Classic three quarter leather that every jerk off like me wore and I was not that guy, man. Wow. That's fucking amazing. So, um, I don't want to spend too much on your past because we're here to, to, to, uh, I mean, we're definitely going to go back because I'm a geek for all of this shit.

But, um, let's talk about the presence here. You're kicking through the ashes. The parts that I read, what I loved about it is you, you do not sugarcoat any like the what happened, the odds of you making it anything. It was really kind of like, like you just kind of laid it out there. Yeah. Like how do, um, I know you've done books in the past and stuff and how did this whole thing like, I mean, it had to be through just telling stories of guys like me, no one

how interested I am in this shit. You know, you tell these stories for years, you tell these stories. And sometimes I hear stories come back and go, well, that's just, that's my story. That's not how it went. Yeah. You tell a story or whatever, like the Olly Joe Prater story, I'd hear stories like the comeback. That one.

Cause I've always seen his, now he's now for you guys listening. He's a legendary comic from the comedy story, I believe had a cowboy hat in the beer. He was, you're right. He was doing the larity cable guy, sort of country western comic before, you know, and I always read his first name is Oily cause I'm, I have like a learning disability or I'm just a moron. And then someone finally said the name. I'm like, oh shit.

That's how you say his name. So that guy, Gilbert Herzog was his real name, Gilbert Herzog Herzog Herzog. And he went by Olly Joe Prater, Olly Joe Prater, and he looked like Yosemite Sam. He's a short guy, was heavy, had cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, you know, he looked like a cartoon character. Right. And he was a classic. See back when these clubs started popping, the places were packed.

They didn't need guys to draw. They had packed. They wanted guys to sell alcohol. We were liquor pimps, you know, who sold the most. And Olly Joe would drink on stage, so the crowd would drink with him. What would they pay you guys back then to head on? Started escalating fast. I mean, you first go out and they go, you know, it's 800 bucks a week and then they

will want you back. They will want you back when each other clubs want you. So they will pay you twice, twice. That went up by about 400 bucks 20 years later when I started. That's what I loved in New York when we almost had that strike. It was like, it was 50 bucks for a weekend spot for like 20, 30 years, 50 bucks, 50 bucks and everything else up. All the club owners were multi-millionaires and finally we were like, what the fuck?

And we asked for a hundred, just knowing that we get like 75 and they completely freaked out. But anyway, it's getting back to that. It started escalating fast. But guys like Olly Joe were, you know, he was a real, he sold, you come in, they go, Olly Joe just sold like $13,000 worth of liquor last week. And what was his style? Was it sort of Larry?

He was like, you know, ah, I'm here boy, I tell you what. Larry the Cable Guy, Foxworthy? No, he was blue. He was blue. And he was, you know, he would chug a beer, he'd start his act by just like chugging a beer and going, and then he belched and he goes, that's everything I learned in college. Oh, Jesus. So he set the tone early.

He set the tone. I would not want to follow that guy today. He was, and he literally took anybody's act. There was an old line, I don't know whose line this was, but somebody once says, if Olly Joe came up and bought you a beer, that means he just did one of your jokes. Wow. If Olly Joe shared a joint with you, he did a couple of your jokes. If Olly Joe laid out a line of coke for you, you just played Cleveland.

Yeah. He didn't care. And it seemed like back then, certainly through like vaudeville, people just taking other people's shit, it always seemed annoying. But it wasn't like the way it is now where it's just like post 9-11, like why are you being hostile? I remember seeing George Burns one time on 60 Minutes or something and he said, you know, I used to do this bit, blah, blah, blah, blah, he tells the joke.

He goes, you know, he goes, it's not a great joke. I don't think Milti would steal it. And like he threw that out there on TV and years later, and I was just thinking like, oh, he's just ribbing him. And then years later when I became a comedian, I was just like, wow, like he really meant something by that. And that guy must have been, you know, at least fucked with his act on some level that if he's, that George Burns is on 60 Minutes and fucking calls somebody out for taking

his shit. So yeah, but it didn't matter to him like it does now. She did not see Milton owned that he used to call him the thief of bad gags. He owned it. He did. He like, he was like, I, I didn't steal this one or I stole that one or they didn't care like we did. Right.

You know, they did worry about stealing her acts back in Volvo. They used to, the only way to like prevent it was they would pay stage hands to protect their acts. So if you came in and I just played there and then you came in, you started doing my bits, sandbag drops near you. Oh, shit. They would like give you a warning, you know, like a heavy warning. But then see that error.

The shit you could get away with before cell phone cameras and stuff. You could literally deliberately drop it on the guy's head. He dies. Oh, we know what happened to him. He never showed up fucking underneath the stage. Wow. It changed in Lenny Bruce's time. See before that the comics were just kind of stick, you know, and so you do this from

stick and people were buying jokes and selling jokes and they were pretty interchangeable. I just flew in from California. Boy, my arms tired. It was just all shit like that. Yeah. It didn't matter. So when Lenny and those guys started making what the comics said was important, it became artful and it mattered and you became tied to material.

So like what you said mattered and people wanted to believe that that was really you. Right. That was really your opinion. That was really your life. Then it mattered. Then you started taking things and it mattered. Okay. So when you come along, I mean, that's 25 years after Lenny Bruce, the thing that it didn't

matter with you guys was because there's no YouTube, there's none of that shit and you guys are just going up after poets and strippers and stuff. So once I got in there. Just go up and survive or. Yeah. But once I fucking got in the business, it mattered. It started to matter. Right.

In the comics, we could please the community ourselves. Right. That's the difference. You know, like a guy became a thief. He doesn't get to work the clubs. He doesn't get to work the A rooms. It was like when I started when I started in Boston, dude, if you if you went over your time, you went over your time and by over your time, like, you know, we told you to do

25 minutes. You did 28, 28, like you were in the fucking doghouse like, dude, what the, you did three extra minutes. Like, like it was such a huge thing and forget about stealing jokes. If like, like, I'm so fortunate that I started in Boston and all those ding-ho guys like so set the bar so high that if you were any hack, if you were any like derivative, they'd let you go for like two, three years. You're okay.

You're influenced by Gav or Sweeney or Noxie or something. But then after that, it was just like, dude, you need to come up with your own shit. And but and it was one of those things like Boston's an unforgiving place. So it's just like once you were labeled, you will you had to leave. So see, that's it. That's it. You got trained. You got trained.

There's nobody doing the training anymore, but you got trained. And that's how they did it involved, though, too. The same sort of things, man. They trained you. They trained. The guys would be coming up. They'd have to learn to do it the right way or you wouldn't get any time. What was the first like real comedy club like, like, you know, going up to Ottawa.

But like you were, you felt like, like, when did all like those A rooms start coming up? Like the punch lines, the punch lines start around 82. They all started, you know, there's some great rooms that started. A lot of these rooms, they started a man wrote it in the book. There was one like, you go, you're going to have to Minneapolis to play a room. I'm going to play a place called Mickey Finn's. Now, all these rooms were like, they just threw them together. So I get out there and, you know, I felt like the gunslinger.

I come into town. I'm like one of the first acts they bring in. I'm from New York. I see all these guys. Jeff Cicero, Louis Anderson. We're all standing in the back while Bill Bauer all standing in the back. I said, I knew that there was a local comics. They did check me out.

Those guys were all from from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Yeah. 00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:10,920 So they're all in the back of the room. They're all standing. I see, I could see them. You can pin them. You go, there they are.

There they are. They're here to check me out. Right. So I'm going to hit that stage, man. I'm going to let them know I'm here, man. I'm going to rub there, man. I'm going to rock start, you know? Right.

So I didn't check anything out. So I go running up and jump on the stage. The stage was just a bunch of milk cartons, right? Milk crates with a sheet of plywood on top. Oh, God. So I go fly. I just surfed the whole thing. The whole thing just takes off.

I just go flying it, go to a couple of tables, hit the wall, partially separate my shoulder, jump up like. Probably the biggest laugh you got that night, right? Yeah, huge. They're like, hey, everybody's laughing. I put the stage back in place and I did my set. Oh my God. So who else was part of that Minneapolis scene?

That was a big name. So I don't know, Louis Anderson. Yeah, yeah. Have you been watching Louis on Zach's show? Yeah, he's great. That's what I love about comedy is sometimes is like, dude, you should do something with this person. But who would ever would have thought

that Louis should play Zach's dad. And Zach went to Clown College in France and ends up in Bakersfield, California. I was talking to my wife about that last night. We were laying in bed and then the commercial came on for it. And they're just like this fucking perfect casting together going like, who would ever think. No, that's it.

Yeah, in the way that they go back and forth, it's like they've been working together for like 50 years. They're like an old comedy team. That's one of my favorite things as like, because despite how long I've been in this business, I've always just, I've maintained that whole nerd sort of huge fan of stuff like that. So who is a guy that when you was in the early 80s,

like, you know, there's always those guys that, you know, when you start out, you just like, there's no fucking way this person, if this person doesn't make it, nobody's going to make it like those guys. You could be the worst manager in the world and you knew that someone was going to make it. Do you remember seeing anybody like that?

Well, you knew, and this is, you know, a lot of guys don't realize it, but you knew looking back, you go like, Leno, you go Jay Leno. The first time I saw him, I go, this guy's a killer. I've always heard that. I heard he's like. I mean, just destroyed rooms. He had the belt for like what, 15 years?

Basically before he had to do the tonight show every night. Yeah, I mean, you know, I'd go into clubs and I'd be like, I'd go in, the first thing I'd say is, who's got the record? Who's got the time? You know, who's done the longest here? Eh, this guy, Glenn Hurst, an hour and 45. It's done tonight.

It's over tonight. You know, I'm doing two, easy. You know, I'd go gunning for everybody. And then I'd go into town and after Leno started working at clubs, right? When he started doing Letterman and started popping big, he'd go in and go, who's got it? And Jay Leno just did three hours.

Three hours, what'd he do? Locked the doors, like a Wagnerian opera. What'd he do? No, he had four ovations. They brought him back four times. And he still had the materials. That's what's always blowing my mind about those people. Like, there was a period where people were trying

to like set the record and they were going on stage for like seven, eight, nine hours. I was just always picturing like eight hours in. You're just like, eh, what's up with chairs? You know, and just like, like, how do you still have? Yeah, yeah. At that point, it's just like,

you're just not getting off stage. No, no, that's, you know. That's like world, right? You might as well be sitting on a fucking flagpole at that point. No, exactly. Exactly. What kills me is somebody actually sat there

and watched all of that and there's a fucking, you know, two people left from the wait staff that have to stay there. No, no, this was, but this was a legit show. Right. This was a legit show, because people were drinking and doing coke and they had, the crowd could hang.

Right. This was legit. This was for the drunk driving laws change. This was all different. What class were you from as far as like, so I know you were in New York. How long were you in New York for? Well, Richard Belzer was the king in New York,

stand-up comedy back then. I loved Belzer. Yeah, he was, I mean, you see him work that room catch. He just owned it. You know, he just set the record for playing like a TV character for the longest time on a show or something like that. Really?

He set something. I remember being at Nick's comedy stop and the early nineties and he was headlining and he was going, yeah, you know, they want me to do this procedural show or something like that. You know, what do you think? Should I do it?

Should I do it? I remember sitting in the back club going, what the fuck is this guy asking this? Of course you're gonna do it. Should I be on TV? Absolutely. I didn't realize how much money he was making as a comedian,

but like, it's kind of cool that I remember reading that like within like the last like few weeks that he just set some fucking record for playing the same guy on the same show since basically my entire standup career, like almost 25, 25 years. I didn't realize it had been that long. Yeah, so you were, sorry.

He was the guy, yeah, he was the guy. Gilbert Gottfried, I saw when you saw him, we were like, he's the guy. I mean, I once watched him too many nights in a row and went down to the East River and burned all my material, burned all my notebooks. Oh, geez. Burned them all.

I said, I'm just hack. I've always told this story. One of my favorite ones I ever saw him. He went up at Nick's Comedy Stop one time in front of a bunch of fucking drunk Boston morons and they were not getting him. And he didn't waver at all. He did his shit.

He had this little old man yellow sweater on. And I remember one of his jokes, cause all the comics were dying laughing. He was just bombing in front of this crowd. I remember he goes, yeah, I went to a party the other night and I ran into Jackie O'Nassis and I said, Jackie, do you remember where you were? And we're all dying laughing and nobody got it.

Nobody got the joke. And then he would just go on to the next one and do fucking dead like silence. And he toughed his way through that. But first time I saw him, I wasn't in the business, was I saw him in one of the Beverly Hills cops movies. You were in Beverly Hills cop too. True, yeah.

What was that like? You know, it's funny. I mean, I think I filmed for like four days for five seconds of screen time. A couple of different scenes. That's how it usually works. And it was fun. It was hanging out.

At that time when I saw it, wow, this is the star. Eddie Murphy, there was a scene where they're going, all right, Eddie, we gotta hold on a minute. We gotta change some lighting. And he goes, I'm ready. He goes, yeah, the director said, hold on a minute, Eddie, we'll get you a minute. So Eddie goes and he goes, come on, let's go.

So he goes, grabs like a bag of bread off the craft table and we go down to the Playboy Mansion. So we just go down and he starts feeding the geese or just throwing bread to them. So about five, 10 minutes later, one of the ADs comes in. Eddie, they're ready for you now. Eddie just doesn't even turn around. Just keeps feeding the geese.

Eddie, we're ready. We're ready. He doesn't ignore them. They leave to come back five minutes later. Eddie, are you ready now? And he says, he made them wait. They made him wait. He made them wait.

I said, that's, I go, that's power. That's, you know, he's like. The fucking balls. I would never, I would never, I'd be like ready now, go, you got it. Absolutely, thank you. How high? How high jump?

Yeah, yeah, hat in hand. I'll never get, no. I've never understood like people that, what's, what's funny and tragic is watching people pulling those moves when they don't have the power. Which, which I've seen a lot, especially now where so many aspects of the entertainment business because of the internet have just gone down the shit.

Like the entire music business, you know, anybody nowadays who complains, where's all the good music? It all sucks. I always go, well, you get what you pay for. I'm guilty of it too. I stole, I lime wired a lot of shit. Lime wired a lot of shit.

I had a couple of fucking laptops that just got virus out before I, somebody finally went like, dude, you're in this business, you should pay for it. Like I think it might have been Russ Maneve in New York said that to me. And I haven't, I haven't illegally downloaded a song or anything in like a dozen years.

Way back to like Napster, Lime Wire was the last one that I used. Napster? But anyways, yeah, I've seen people like, try to pull that, do you know who I am? And all of that. And the people who do that now, it's just like, dude, you are not paying attention to this business.

We're like, remember, like back in the day to try to get, if they got like two major stars in a movie, it was just like, holy fuck, this is gonna be like a blockbuster. Forget about now where like every movie is like Ocean's 11 now, like everybody got just bumped down, like like this shit that I would go in an audition for in like the 90s, you'll have now a guy who like

used to star in fucking movies, like B level movies is going and taking that spot. All these stars are on TV and you just see these people pulling their moves. But that, I can't, I mean, that happens on a movie set. Like the lighting isn't right. It's a lot of waiting around. I mean, there's an entire crew, film crew there,

people all over, they had, you know, the scene was they were gonna shoot, Eddie just walking past a bunch of women playing volleyball in bikinis. Right. So we get up to the scene and they start doing it. And the director's yelling, he goes, jump higher girls, jump higher.

You know, jump higher. He's trying to get jiggle going. And I see, I go to Eddie, there's too much Dupont out there, man, a jiggle, right? And Eddie says, I'd laugh, you know, does that laugh, director goes, what? Eddie goes, he tells him what he said, director goes, yeah, you're right.

All right, let's shoot the scene, forget it. It's all silicon, man, ain't no jiggling happen. Now, how was Eddie handling, I mean, did you know Eddie before? Yeah, I knew him from back in New York in the day. I mean, the first time he came in the improv, I was the emcee on Sunday night. I was like the regular, when I was in town,

I was when it was down on like 46 or 45th street on the West side. It was on 44th, 44th and ninth, right there. Yeah, I used to live in that neighborhood and we used to go down and I read this whole thing. It might have been, you know, something I heard from you or something. And it's now, it's like it's a pizza place or something.

And that's where Richard Pryor, that really raw video of him just standing when he was stopping the Bill Cosby clone and he was turning into Richard. Like he literally was turning in to Richard Pryor, the greatest of all time. And like that always blew my mind that that was within like 15 blocks of where I lived.

And I would go in there and get the pizza. The pizza was only okay, but I just wanted to be like, see that wall. Well, just wondering where the fucking stage was. Yeah. Can I ask a total geek question? When you walked into that, because it's basically the same space.

Right. Where was the stage? You walk in, the stage is all in the back of the room. There was an emergency door exit right by the stage. And the stage is a little, you know. Was it all one room? There was no walls. You didn't walk in.

There was one room. There was a bar. There was a bar out there. Everybody hung out in the bar. There was a good bar. It was a cool bar. Everybody hung out there. And then you'd walk through this little narrow hallway,

but short, you know, and the men's bathroom was on the right-hand side of literally like a toilet and a sink, you know, and like one of those little closets. Right. And then you'd walk in this little hall and the light was right there, like by the service bar. So if you're on stage and you see Rodney come under that light,

you know, you go danger fields here. Gotta get off. Gotta get Rodney on quick. He's making the rounds, getting ready to do a tonight show or something. So you see people pop up into that light area. Probably see his fucking silhouette too and you know who he was.

Oh yeah, you just see him. You just see me. He just, he'd pop in. As soon as you saw him, he'd pop out and, you know, get up. And Rodney was like, because I saw Rodney when I was on stage, I'd cut mid-joke, you know. And then that, hey, we got a special guest here.

And Rodney, wherever we come on, I remember going off and Rodney coming on goes, hey, you know how to fucking move. The kid now has a move, man. He moves. He does have a move. That's awesome, man. You know, that just reminded me one time,

I did a benefit at this theater in Beacon Theater. I forget what the hell the goddamn benefit was. It was the sickest lineup I was ever on. It was, John Stuart was hosting. Max Weinberg brought his band. Tony Bennett goes on first. Then Bruce Springsteen. Then they auctioned off one of his guitars

to this rich crowd that goes for like a hundred grand. Then fucking Joe McHale had to follow that. Like Joe McHale's got, he has to have the, I followed fucking story, right? And then I went up after him, which, you know, he was the total buffer to get it back to, all right, settle down your expectations.

This is what you paid for here, right? And Seinfeld was closing. That was the lineup. And I remember when I was doing my set, I was conscious about not being too dirty. Cause I mean, Seinfeld's like the king. And I remember looking over, I was getting close to the end of my set

and he was standing on the side of the stage. And, you know, the light was behind him. So he was like backlit. And I knew who he was with his silhouette. Like that's how famous this guy is. And to me, and it wasn't just Jerry hanging out. He had the suit on. It was Jerry ready to go to work.

And I was immediately thinking like, oh my God, am I being too blue? Is he gonna hate me? Am I pissing him off? Am I going over? And I remember when I got off stage, he went like, I walked by him and I was just, and I was just, I was almost afraid to say hello.

I just like walked by and he just went very funny, very funny. And then I apologized for working, you know, the way I do. I said, oh, sorry, but blah, blah. And he goes, I don't care. He almost like laugh like, dude, I don't give a shit. And I'm thinking like, that's right. This guy always worked clean.

And he worked clean before there was even comedy clubs. So I can't imagine him going on after these guys who would chug a beer and then burp and be like, that's what I learned in college. And like, that sort of energy is fun, but it whips him into like this frat boy frenzy. And then you got to go up there. And if you have like a more of a, you know,

just straight lays kind of like, yeah, I mean, I have a beer every once in a while, but guys like, I'm not letting this totally affect my life. You know, where you think- First of all, I love the fact that you did that. That's the training you got in Boston to go, I'm part of the show. I know I'm not closing.

So I'm going to respect the headliner. Oh yeah. You know how it works. That was another way that you would get, you would get blackballed. I remember there was a comedian up there, Mike Donovan, you ever work with him? I know who he is.

Fucking hilarious guy. And he used to always say this thing was hilarious. And he'd be like, yeah, just go up there, you know, do like 20 minutes, you know, keep it like, you know, three or five fucks is what he would say. It is the thing. He wasn't bullshitting.

He was like, people in Boston counted your fucks. So I remember, you know, sometimes going over it and being in a panic like, oh my God, that was my sixth fuck. Donovan's going to call Mike Clark and I'm going to be, I'm going to be ruined in this town. I said fuck six times. So I mean, I don't want to sit there

and be like the old guys and just cause I don't know what it is like for kids coming up now. And when I say kids, kids to me now or anyone up to like 32, 33, coming up now, but I'm sure that they have their, their whole way that they don't always change it, but I like that. But you know, Seinfeld always had that discipline. I remember working with him in these Jersey gigs.

Like $55 Jersey gig to start it. They were like the first paying gigs we could get go out to Jersey and some bar. Right. And so, you know, it's survival time in a bar. So a lot of guys would be like, what do I got to do to get by? You know, fuck with a crowd, dick shit, dick jokes.

What have I got to do to get by? Good night. Right. And I remember working with Jerry one time and he goes on and he'd follow all that and he stays right till he's doing, man. Works clean. Brings them to him.

No, but he wasn't killing. It does not like all they all came to him. They were like, oh wait a minute, the party's over. It wasn't great, but he never broke. He never wavered. And afterwards he'd go, wow, man. He goes, I'm getting ready to do tonight's shows. That's what I'm preparing to do.

He had the long range focus. He was like, I'm practicing this material here now because I'm gonna do this on a tonight's show. I'm working this out now. I'm not worried about my $55 Jersey gig. He's one of those guys. Long range view. Yeah.

He's one of those guys that he just fucking knew where I feel. Yes. He just knew where he was going and he just like, you'll never meet a guy that doesn't suffer fools the way he does. I still, when I get around him, I get nervous. I'm like, I'm gonna say one stupid thing

and this guy's gonna, I'm gonna get that look and that's just gonna be it. You'll turn and walk away. The same way like his act is the way he lives his life. There's no fat. There's no extra words or any of that type of shit. And then the guy just fucking just like, he just walks towards what he wants, walks right through.

I mean, not like in a malicious way, just like he just eye on the fucking prize, that guy. You know, back in the day guys would go like, you know what I don't like is that cause you don't really know who he is up there go, are you fucking paying attention? Yeah. You know what pissed this guy off?

The missing sock and a fucking dryer. That's who he is, man. He's paying attention. He's fucking paying attention to the details. That's what's irritating this guy. I did his web series one time and I told him that. I told him how I hated that they said his show is a show about nothing.

It's like, no, it isn't. This guy has contempt for 90% of people and activities. I was actually nervous saying it to him and he laughed and he goes, I think you'd be ingenious by saying it, you know, that it's only 90%. Yeah, but he's, that's so fucking cool. So when did like, oh God, there's so many things I want to ask you, this is far.

So the improvs, the improv started in New York city and then they opened the LA one, right? They opened the LA one because he realized everything was moving out the LA when Johnny moved, when Carson moved, when he moved in 72, the whole thing shifted, the axis shifted. Everybody had to go out to LA and the comedy store just opened then.

So comedy store became people going on the Tonight Show going, yeah, I work out at the comedy store in LA. That became the place, right? So it's like, I gotta get out there. And then the- Oh, cause he wasn't getting the brand recognition anymore. No, he was getting it when he was in New York and the comics are going to the Tonight Show in New York

and go, I work out the improv here in New York, like Kline or those comics. But then it shifted, immediately shifted. That's why Leno went right out to LA. Leno saw Freddie Prinz go on the Tonight Show and said, I'm working at the comedy store and Leno goes, I gotta get out to the comedy store. Yeah.

And so the franchise didn't start opening until the 80s, like 84, when Mark Anderson opened one in San Diego. Then that started, he started to open up this improv franchise. Did Bud like Bud franchised it out? Franchised it out. When he saw the whole boom happening.

That's when he made money. That's when he really made money. Mark Anderson opened these clubs and Bud was making huge back. It's like the Trump thing. I've heard a lot of that stuff that says Trump on it. They're paying for the name. They're paying for the name.

Yeah, it's so smart. So Bud was getting a gross of every club, I think. All right, I gotta ask you, because like I, you know, you're doing the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, which has to be the most nerve-wracking, huge possible thing, like sleepless nights. And like, what year did you first do it?

84. You did it in 84. Oh my God. So you're gonna go on there. I mean, just at that point, that show, like I feel bad for young people. They don't understand how huge that fucking show was. It was just like it was, it was everything.

It was the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan. It was Elvis. Elvis in the comic, it was everything. It was everything. So you, they tell you, you're getting the show. So you must be like over the moon excited. And then for me, what would immediately hit would be the dread of like, oh fuck, now I have to do this.

And I have to somehow compartmentalize the fucking terror of this guy who can either invite me over, give me the okay, or all of my peers are gonna see that he didn't like me. Cause I, young people watching this shit. Everybody watched it. Yeah. So here's the deal, how it worked.

And correct me if I'm wrong here. He would give you, what would he give you? The okay, he'd call you, you either call you over. That was the highest. That's it. Or you got the okay. So you're still coming back. That's right.

Which is acceptable for the first time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then there was the one where he would just be like. No, they'd drum in his pencil on the table. You take his pencil and just drum it and not looking at you. And that was like it, man. That was the worst.

And he knew what he was doing to the comic out that day. I read that book that his lawyer read. I mean, just how, how ice cold his mother was. Like the ability to do that. It's like, that's the trickle down effect. I'll tell you how I dealt with doing Letterman. Cause Letterman was my Carson. Like I literally had to, I was so fucking like thinking,

what am I gonna do? I had to like work up like a healthy level of hatred. Cause that's just how I'm wired. I'd be like, you know what, fuck this guy. For making me so fucking. Then he was a great guy. Came over and shook my hand and everything. But like, I had to literally be thinking, fuck this guy.

And then to go out there. So I went out there and I had, thank God I had a great set. And I remember like, you see it on TV and you think he's fucking 80 yards this way and the band's a hundred yards. They're all right there. Like you could take two steps over and shake Paul's hand.

Another three you could shake days. And I remember doing my set. Hearing Dave laugh. And it was such a fucking, it was more relief. It was like, oh my God, he's laughing. He's laughing. I was, you know, thrashing, getting married. So it was like in the wheelhouse

cause he wasn't married or anything like that. It was just, I don't know, I just remember thinking like, I was so fucking relieved when it was over, man. I was just so relieved. So tell me what. That was it. But it's sort of a Letterman show. Letterman was almost behind you on camera.

So the audience could, you were, they were, Letterman was in the sight line. So they're looking at you and seeing Letterman over your shoulder. So if you didn't have Letterman laughing, you could die. Oh wow. Well by the time I didn't, they didn't have, like he was, he was already over at CBS.

I'm talking about the NBC show. Okay, so anyway, 84, I was in New York because I left, the summer Olympics were out here and I said, I'm gonna get out of LA. It's gonna be a mess. And so Kenison and I booked over to New York for the summer. And I was there and I was working out and Jim McCauley, the Tonight Show Booker,

saw me in New York and said, you're ready, man. Wanna do it in two weeks? It was all good. So I didn't have like two. So you know, as you cobble this, a lot of people don't understand, it's a very unnatural set back then. I don't know how to do it now.

Maybe they just pull five minutes out of the rack intact or five, but you pull like a greatest hits thing. You pull a joke from this bit. You pull a joke from next thing. That's how I always did it, yeah. And you cobble together with these weird segues, right? You do a skiing, water skiing joke. Then you go, you know when you come out of water,

your hair is messed up. You know when I get my hair cut and it's like, like, it's torturous, man. Speaking of hair. Oh, it's horrible. And so I put this set together, you know, that he helped me with. And then I'm practicing it every night, you know,

just going into clubs every night. There's many times I could run out to a Jersey gig, coming back doing bunch of stuff. Moddering it while you're brushing your teeth. The whole fucking thing completely freaking out. Yeah. And I was drinking and doing a lot of blowback then. So I was like, I gotta quit, I gotta quit.

So a week before I thought I just, I'm not gonna drink and do drugs. Were you high when they told you you got the gig? Oh yeah, we went out to a bar afterwards. McCulley and I went out to a bar when he said, you got it, let's go talk about it. We went out to a bar drinking. I didn't do blow in front of him

because I didn't know whether he did it or not. I wasn't gonna risk that, you know, but we were drinking. Yeah, hell yeah. And I got so stressed out, I got shingles. I broke out in shingles. Oh my God. You know, my ass and my leg were just blistered up.

And I didn't know what there was. I went to the doctor and he said, you got shingles, man. What? Yeah, you got shingles. That's an old man's thing. What are you stressed out about something? Yeah.

Yeah, I'm doing the tonight show. Then he probably like, when is it? He's like, yeah, yeah, add to the stress because now I know you're watching and you're gonna be at home going like, hey, this fucking guy got shingles. Yeah. He's got blisters on his ass.

Wow. Yeah. And so you- So you're standing backstage, right? Yeah. This is Burbank, obviously, 84. Right, right. The shooting of Burbank.

The fucking curtain was iconic. That fucking gold and blue and weird ass, all those weird colors. All I could think about was fucking up. I mean, literally, I'm like going, I can't fuck up. You don't think about how much fun you're gonna have? Yeah. I didn't think like, oh, this is gonna be fun, man.

Yeah, I earned this. Yeah, I- I deserve this. I'm gonna go out and go and have a good time and say, what's up, Johnny? You're not just like- Yeah. Yeah, did you have the panic thought of what if I forget

where I am? What if I forget what I'm saying? Because- Didn't that happen to somebody? It happened to me on my HBO special. I blanked on my HBO special. Oh, God. For how long?

I had to stop taping. I just went, I'm lost. I'm lost. Because it was, again, it was, instead of a five minutes unnatural, I got cobbled together a half hour out of like hours of material and posted that, you know, like just all together,

just cut and paste, cut and paste. And I was practicing that for a long time and I got out there and I just went, what am I doing? What are, you know, it was like one of those things where you're going, what the fuck am I doing? It was like Biff from Death of a Salesman. Why am I-

Well, what happens is- You can test your bid here. What happens is you go out there and rather than just doing a show, you know you're being watched and then you start watching yourself and then you leave yourself and then you're sitting in the crowd going,

why is he moving his arm like that? Cause you're literally thinking, oh, wow, dude, we've all fucking bent it. So when you're standing behind that curtain and you just- If adrenaline was unbelievable, it was unbelievable. Then you walk out and then you hit it

and as soon as, but it's like every other time. I mean, I literally, my mind went blank. Like every time before I go on stage, my mind goes blank. I keep, if you go, what joke are you gonna do? What joke? I don't have any jokes. I don't remember anything. Totally blank, right?

And walk out there, do that first joke, get the first laugh and go, you're locked in. That first laugh and you're locked in. So you went out, you did your first joke? How did it do? Good laugh. Got a good laugh. And when you're doing it, you're planning it,

everybody says the first joke is just them seeing you and hearing you for the first time. So don't expect a big laugh. So you don't put your, you know, I was just told that three jokes in, that's your first killer joke. Right. Three jokes in, that should be your first killer joke.

That's how you kind of planned it. I know, the other fucking guys with their ideas. And then the fifth joke should be this, and you're like, oh great, more shit to think about. It is unnatural, it's unnatural. Yeah, no, so. It was unnatural. So you go out there and you end up having,

I would just. Really good set. Have a really good set. Really good set. Now you're like, how long did it feel to look over at Johnny? Like, fuck, I'm gonna lock eyes with this guy. Got that, looked over, big smile. You know, big smile, the circle finger,

like you said, like big okay. And I go, okay, and I came backstage and Jim McCauley greets me. Got a beer, hands me a beer, that's great, fantastic. Man, just stand over here. Stand over here at the end of the show, you stand here. And when Carson walks back, the way he walks back every, after every show,

this route he takes backstage, you're right there on the route, he stops, shakes your hand, that was great. Get a photo op, fantastic. You're gonna come back soon. You're gonna come back soon. Yeah, I got a picture, you know, you got a picture. And you're gonna stand there going, okay.

And then he, it was fantastic, he moves on, right? And you're like, this is it. And then you go back and then improv that night and on Melrose and West Hollywood, everybody was there, they turn the TV up, everybody in the bar stand there, you're standing there. That's what kills me about how they redid that. Now they get the bar upstairs.

It's like all that history, you guys, all those people that stood there watching their friends tonight show set, everybody who leaned on that fucking bar kills me. At least they didn't demolish it. And John used to say the same thing when the new comic, I'm glad you're in a good mood tonight. Because we've got a new comic coming on, right?

And the comics would mouth it. And some would actually say it out loud with Johnny. That's how much everybody knew that, that routine. Right. And you stand there and it's like, yeah, I really saw how much blow did you do that night when you fucking passed that? Jesus Christ.

I had Coke in my pocket when I walked out on the set that day. That's how much I knew I was going to dress you. Dude, you guys totally, like when you watch Ron, like the fucking Ron Burgundy and all those fucking movies, did that look more like a documentary to you than rather than a comedy. It's like, yeah, we did all that. I had a suit like that.

I wore that on a tonight show. I had blow in my pocket. Yeah. Wow, man. That's fucking amazing. Well, we got a, I got to run back to this in the middle of editing this fucking cartoon that's never going to end.

Dude, I got to tell you, man, like this is, you've been one, I've had great guests, but this was just so fucking, I would just end time with you, man. I hope people listening had as much fun as I did. Like I could ask you a zillion, how do you not talk to a guy who fucking had Coke in his pocket

when he does the fucking tonight show? You're like, I'm doing this either way. This is either going to make me super happy or make me want to fucking kill myself. So his book is called Kicking Through the Ashes. My life is a standup in the 1980s comedy boom. Where can people get this? Amazon, Amazon.com.

Amazon.com. Yeah, and we'll do book soup, assigning a book, signing a book soup over West Hollywood on January 6th. January 6th. Seven o'clock, January 6th. And we'll do a signing and tell some stories. Will you have any Coke in your pocket?

I will. I'll have a slow seal filled with sugar. Listen, Rich, it's been such a pleasure, man. Thank you so much for coming on. I'm gonna say this. My son is angry, he can't beat it. He's a huge fan. Oh, Jesus.

He's a huge fan. That's awesome. And he is 17 years old. He is a banger, man. And he so digs you. And he was like, oh, dad, man, can I get out of school? Can I just, nah, can't do it.

All right, when he's of age and can come out to the clubs, just reach out and hopefully I'm still funny at that place. All right, guys, Rich Shiner. Thank you so much for coming on, man. All right, man. All right. Warm things up this spring with a trip to Cerrillas, where romance finds fantasy.

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I'll have you understand. Who came running to the deck? Said, boys, forget the wheel. We're going over yonder. Cut the engines, change the seal. Howl on the bow line. We sang that melody like all tough sailors do. When they're far away from sea.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Let the yuletide glow. I don't know the words, but I'm gonna keep going. Here we are playing patty cake with some mistletoe and a sleigh. Santa Claus has an itchy beard and big black boots sit in his lap. I don't know why I can't say merry Christmas.

Somewhere along the line it became offensive, even though I don't mean anything bad by it. What if some Mexican came up to you and said, happy Cinco de Mayo? Would you say, dude, what the fuck and fuck? It's all just April to me. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do, friends. It's that time of year again.

Boo-boo-boo-boo-boo-boo. When the fuck did saying merry Christmas become offensive? Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-boo-boo-boo. You know? I don't understand that shit, just because I say it. It's like if somebody Jewish said happy Hanukkah to me, I wouldn't be like, you know, what the fuck, dude? Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.

You know, what the fuck? I don't understand that. I like saying merry Christmas. Makes me feel good. Makes me feel good right in my chest. It's a little warm feeling, just like the Grinch. You know, when his little heart kind of broke out of that little box?

Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. This is a little holiday breakdown, as I kick knowledge about the holidays. Whatever. So have yourselves a merry little Christmas, yes. I don't hate Muslims or Jews when I say merry Christmas. So whatever group is walking around saying it's offensive, go fuck yourselves in your fucking cunts.

Even if you're male, you have a cunt. Because you've ruined part of my holiday, I would never do that to you. All right, that's enough, Jesus Christ. All right, you know, anyways, how are you? I know I'm tone deaf, but you know, I told you I was going to embrace the holidays this year. And I was at the airport, coming back from Vancouver.

Listen to this week that I had. First of all, this is the Monday morning podcast. Usually, if I'm going to sing badly, I only do it for a couple of seconds. But, you know, I don't know. I just kind of felt it. And I was just in Canada, and they say merry Christmas up there, which makes me feel good.

Because you know what? That's what I say, you know? Do I have to go to Canada now? They listen to somebody say merry Christmas. I don't know, what the fuck are these? How big are these groups? I think you just need, like, literally 18 people. And they just, you know, they just hold up signs

and they start going, what the fuck? What the fuck? And the way they frame it on the news, they make it look like it's a zillion people, you know? I don't know. It's weird. I'm trying to think if I ever said merry Christmas to a friend of mine who's Jewish and he ever got offended.

I don't think they ever did. So what? You and 18-year-friends get offended by this shit and then you get to call yourselves a group and then you get to start walking around, telling people what's offensive and what isn't. These are the holidays, you cunts. I want you to fucking open your hearts

to another religion. All right, so anyways, listen to this fucking week that I had, all right? You want to talk about busy? Because my brain is going to be all over the place. I'm already telling you that, all right? And I might even sing another holiday fucking song if I feel like it.

Hey, Bill, nobody's saying you can't, you know? I don't understand the hostility. Why don't you relax, OK? You just got back from the airport. You haven't showered yet, you know? You should have taken a little bit of time. Showered, you know? Treated yourself and gotten yourself in a mindset

where you could relax a little more and do a happier podcast, but you didn't. You ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and some chicken noodle soup and you fucking went right in, wearing the clothes that you've been sitting in since last night at the Canuck Game. And now you're laying on your bed. That's disgusting.

Anyways, this is my week. See what I did? I just talked myself down. A lot more calmer tone. Hm? Do you like this? This is the new me. This isn't the new me.

This is the guy I'm trying to be. This is the person I think I was before a bunch of fucked up shit happened to me and make me become like the screaming maniac that I am. So I'm trying to get back in touch to me circa 1972. Anyways, this is my week. Monday, I flew back from New York City after a wonderful engagement at Caroline's Comedy Club

and I landed. I had a sandwich and then me and three of my friends all went down to the LA Forum. We saw AC DC. That was Monday. Most people would call it a fucking week right there and be like, wow, I just saw one of the most legendary rock bands of all time.

Brian Johnson's voice sounded unbelievable. He looked like he was having the time of his life. Angus was still jumping around. And I'm sick of people on this tour going, yeah, you know, Angus, he's great, but he's kind of lost his step. It's like, dude, so have you. I don't understand how people feel like they look at famous people like they're not supposed to age.

And if people fucking videotaped you taking out your trash seven years ago, the last time AC DC was on tour, I bet you don't have such a big spring. And you don't fucking step either. Start making fun of Angus. The guys jumping around at 53 years of age, never missing a note. Try doing that at 16.

Try doing the shit that he does. I dare you to try that on your fucking little PlayStation game, Guitar Hero. You think you could do that for an hour and a half, then do a strip tease and moon the crowd, and then come right back in, jump off a fucking drum riser, and be right on the fucking one? I don't think you could do that.

Leave Angus alone. They were the shit. That was my Monday, right? And then Tuesday, I began three straight 12-hour days shooting my pilot for Comedy Central, which could not have gone better. I think we got a lot of fucking hilarious stuff. I made a very smart move.

I pulled the Seinfeld. I learned a lot from Jerry Seinfeld. What did he do one time? I watched him and accepted an Emmy for his show. And he said, something to the effect of, hi, I'm Jerry Seinfeld, and I am a bad actor. But I've proven if you surround yourself with enough talent, you too can badabada did it, whatever.

So I went out and tried to find the funniest fucking people I could. So hopefully, if I suck, the people around me are OK. So that was my Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. We wrapped at about 9 PM Thursday, smoked a fucking Stoge as men do. And then I got my little Prius, reeking of Dutch masters, and went home.

And the next day, I boarded a fucking Air Canada flight to Calgary. And proceeded Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I went to a Calgary flame game, then an Edmonton Euler game, and then a Vancouver Canuck game. I always wanted to go up there. And I got to tell you, it was pretty fucking amazing and pretty goddamn cold.

Do you remember that shit when you were a kid? Wherever the hell you lived, my nose has not stuck together when inhaling, since I went collecting on my paper route in the fifth grade. Calgary, I don't know what the fuck is in Calgary. Let me do my little review of the Western part of Canada. All right, Calgary, first stop. I don't know what the fuck the deal was.

I didn't see a skyline. It was snowing like I haven't seen it snow in years. And then I got on a little fucking trolley, which was really confusing. And I went the wrong way like seven times. But the saddle dome was the shit. And I sat next to some guy from Canada who said A after everything. You know, like that strange bruise shit.

Like, oh, they got to get it out. A. A means everything up there. It means, you know, it means like, you know what I'm saying? It means, what did you say? It means, huh, I guess that also means what he said. I don't know, it's like seven different. It's like Donnie Brasco, when he fucking explained forget about it. That's what A is in fucking Alberta.

They got to get it out, A. And they all sound like, they almost sound like they're fucking Irish. I don't know what I'm talking about, but the game was great. There was a shootout at the end of the game, A. And Panthers won that one. And then I, the next fucking day, I drove up to Edmonton through towns, like the towns out there, and I was looking at the weather map. It was like, you know, fucking Red Deer, Yellow Knife, you know,

those Indian names, the classic like I think, you know, you murder a bunch of people, you commit genocide, and then you name towns after them. You know, did we destroy the fucking Ponka Pog people? Let's name a street after them, maybe even a golf course. I think that that's only the right thing to do, considering none of them exist anymore. Let's do something here to remember these people

after we've massacred them and put small pockets in their sleeping bags. Did Indians have sleeping bags? I don't think they did. What did they use for sleeping bags? Did they sleep in the fucking entrails of an animal like Luke Skywalker? This podcast went up the rails about fucking two minutes ago, because I got in my head going, did I just calm myself down like five minutes ago and then all of a sudden I stopped being funny?

I mean, this podcast started off great. I sang Christmas carols, you know what I mean? I defended saying Merry Christmas, you know, and then all of a sudden I was like, wait a minute, I'm coming off angry, let's take it down a little bit, and then all of a sudden I felt like I was doing the traffic, you know? I like the traffic down the south when you listen to it, because they still say when there's an accident, they call it a wreck,

and that always makes you feel like I'm watching NASCAR. We got a wreck down there on 995. They don't talk like that, but that's all I hear at that point when someone says, we got a wreck. There's a car all tore up on the side of the fucking road. And anyways, then when I drove up, yeah, I was going to stop off in Red Deer to get something to eat, just on my way up to Edmonton, just to say I fucking did it,

and then I was like, you know what Red Deer sounds like? It reminds me of one of those A&E murder mysteries that I watched where these two hunters had gone up to some fucking place to go hunting. They stopped off in a bar, they exchanged words with people, they got killed, and then somebody in the bar fed their bodies to pigs. And it was one of the most creepiest fucking stories I've ever seen. You know, just that whole fucking feed in a person to pigs, and they all look like they were in like Creedian's Clearwater Revival,

so it was really fucking with my head. And I don't know, Red Deer just sounded like that kind of shit could happen. So I bypassed it, and I continued on up to Edmonton. I'm going to tell this story in real time. Let's fly for it. Okay, I had a great time. Edmonton was an awesome game. Coming up there, seeing all the championship banners

in the fucking retired jerseys at Gretzky and Messier and all. You got to do it, okay? Not to mention, both the Saddle Dome and Northland's Coliseum are just basically, I don't know, they're like no frills. They made an ice rink, and they put seats around it, and that's it. There's no, no, that shit, you know what I mean? Although, you know what, Calgary definitely had the horse skating around on the ice in between, and oh God, when do I get the questions?

I just bored the shit out of myself, but there was such a fucking good time. I had an awesome time up there. You know what it is? I woke up at fucking eight in the morning, and I just got on a plane, and I had to come back and do the podcast, so I'm skipping over a bunch of good details. You know, what did I see up there? I saw some guy in like minus 90 million degrees Celsius, whatever the fuck that is. I think that's like five degrees American, and he was fixing a four-wheeler with no hat

on, and no gloves. You stand out there. Do you remember how Arthur Fonsarelli used to dress when they gave him a garage, when they ran out of shit to do with his character? It was before he became a teacher, but after him just hanging out at Arnold's when they were finally like, okay, this guy's like 30. He needs a job. You know what I mean?

How does he afford to live in that attic? He was dressed like that, and it was fucking cold out, and he was fixing a four-wheeler, and I actually videotaped it, and if I knew how to upload it, I'd put it on there. But anyways, this is my podcast. Let me get to the questions here. People send me questions all this week. I think I shot my load with that fucking song right up the front, you know? And if I suck the rest of the way out, you gotta admit three minutes of Christmas, Carolyn.

Isn't that, am I defending my podcast? I mean, this is for things like I'm bombing as a comedian. Go come on, man. That was a funny joke. It was funny. You know, I mean, this guy, you know, I had a nice setup. I didn't have any extra words. I disguised the punchline.

I took a left at the last second. Can't help it if you guys don't want to go along for the ride. All right. Question one, Bill, since you're a struggling actor trying to make it, have you ever thought about doing gay porn? You know, you guys have really been assholes lately, but you know what? I'm gonna fucking be a man about it. Here we go.

Let's go. Since you're a struggling actor trying to make it, have you ever thought about doing gay porn to make ends meet? You already have the iconic shaved head and like hockey. Do you have a shaved head and you like hockey? You gay? Okay. So hockey, Sean Avery is underrated.

Anyone who calls a woman a cunt and then tells her that he wouldn't even, I can't read your fucking typing, he wouldn't come in her face because she's too old, is cool with me. All right. Let's get back to your first question. As a struggling, have I ever thought about doing gay porn? Obviously no. What is the worst thing I have considered doing? I considered doing commercials back when commercials weren't funny.

Remember back in the day, like 10, 12 years, 10, 12 years ago they started to get funny, but it was that awkward middle ground where you could be in a really funny commercial or you could just be like biting into a sandwich and then giving that look to the camera like, boy, oh boy, was that tasty. I remember back in the day, I refused to do a commercial because I listened to that Bill Hicks rant about that and then after a while I was like, why am I making a difficult business even harder? Granted, I don't go out for commercial auditions, but it's not because I'm against doing commercials.

I just don't do commercial auditions because I'm lazy. Plus, they're all the way out in Santa Monica and I'm not driving all the way over there to fucking act like I'm eating a bowl of fruit loops. I'm not doing that. I do have a little pride. All right. Question number two. Bill, hey, I'm a big fan of the podcast.

I listened to most of them traveling over Thanksgiving break. I did notice that you have a few favorite words and since I lead a sad, pathetic life, I thought it would be funny to count them during last week's podcast. So here we go. Okay. Evidently, this is the list of my favorite words and how many times I say them. Cunt, three times. Wow.

That's pretty low. We are in a recession. I don't know. I said 27 times. Shit. I said 42 times. Fuck. I said 127 times.

Wow. 127 times. Let's do the math there. That's about three times a minute. Four times a minute. I do about a half hour podcast. Wow. I'm going to Wayne Gretzky for the F word.

All right. Choke out a pheasant. I say one time. I said one time, okay. You're a Popeye-like, bop, bop, bop, chuckle to yourself nine times. Okay. I don't know if that was interesting to anybody. That was kind of interesting to me that somebody's that fucking lonely.

All right. Underrated, overrated. Overrated, Brendan Frazier. Oh, underrated. Brendan Frazier. Eric Lindrose, when he first came into the league, completely bald vagina and college are overrated. I would go with you there.

The bald vagina is just fucking creepy. It's really fucking creepy. Yeah. Not a fan. Not a fan. No, I don't want to go down to a thatched hut either. See, I don't do this shit. I'm not taking in this direction, goddamn it.

All right. Three. Bill, if you could have one superpower, what would it be? Also, how would you use it? Would you fight crime? Would you commit crimes? Or would you just use it to beat the shit out of people who hackled you? You know what I would do?

I would use it to freak people out who had power. If I was like, I mean, I can't just have one superpower. I got to have a couple. I'd put it this way. If I was like Superman, I could fly, I could see through walls, and I was bulletproof. I would, yeah, I would fuck with people who had power by flying to the Oval Office, right in the middle of them talking about shit, or just be standing outside the window, just staring at them, like Michael Myers and like Halloween.

I would just do that. I would just freak people to fuck out. I wouldn't use it to fight crime. I would use it to get to my gigs a little quicker, rather than fly in Southwest, and I would just wear my superhero outfit the whole week, you know, like Steve Martin, you know, he was with that white suit. I would just wear whatever my superhero fucking suit was, and I'd just fly to my gigs, and then I'd fly home, you know, security, no fucking bags.

I'd have a little toothbrush in my utility belt. What would I do with my, I don't know what I would do with it. I would fuck with corporations and leaders of the world, and all my information would be shit that I read on YouTube and Wikipedia, and yeah, that's what I would do. Wow, just no fucking energy this week. What is wrong with me? I was so excited about this podcast, and I just really feel like this is, Bill Burr woefully miscast in the Monday Morning podcast.

Number six, Bill, I was wondering if there are any situations that you steer away from when you work audiences. I'm not talking about something as profound as a racial observation, but any social subjects that crowds really don't respond to, or is everything up for grabs, and okay, these are two things. I don't really do sex material. I just feel like the crowd absolutely loses their mind if you talk about sex no matter what you're saying, and I gotta admit I always feel a little crude when I'm talking

about it. Even that's why it kind of broke off the whole bald vagina thing, it's just, it's no class. I don't know, it's just crude, unless you have a really unique fucking story to tell. I'm not like a prude or anything, but a lot of times when I go to see movies and two actors are having a love scene and there's some guy sucking on the girl's titties, it's ridiculous to me. I always look at the person like, that's not even necessary to moving this story along.

Back in the day, they would just show the couple go in the room and they would close the door, and then they would just play that saxophone, because the saxophone, always back in the day, always meant someone was gonna, some people were fucking, that's what the saxophone meant. It either meant that or someone was gonna do a striptease, and he had to play it with that really fucking, blah, blah, blah, fucking sound, and everybody knew that somebody was getting some dick, right, but you didn't have to show it. You know, that was my whole thing with like Brokeback Mountain.

I don't mind watching a movie about a couple of gay cowboys, but I don't want to watch a couple dudes fucking attend, you know, and I don't understand that, and then like what, that makes me more comfortable with my sexuality, because I look at that. I gotta admit, half the time, there's two things that really gross me out in movies. It's like over the top, kissing is fucking gross to me, and people who eat during scenes I don't know if you've, I've probably talked about this, this is my number one pet peeve in a movie, like, I've gone out to lunch with people, and they're eating, and they talk, and they take their moments, when to do it.

Something about actors, the second they're in a movie, and they start eating, they start overacting eating, you know, they start fucking pointing with bread, yeah, you know what I fucking do, when they got shit hanging out of their mouth, it's like dude, why don't you finish what you're eating, collect your fucking thoughts, swallow, and then present your line, okay, I don't need you fucking, sorry, I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about now. The two subject, okay, so sex, and I don't make fun of the mentally handicapped, I just don't, it just crosses the line, I've done it before in the Open Anthony show, I've

piled on, I've definitely said some shit on stage, if it just pops into my head, but generally speaking, I don't write bits, I just don't, you know, half of it, because I think, you know, it's just brutal to me, and then secondly, I haven't had any kids yet, and I really feel like I'm jinxing myself. A long time ago, I did do Comic View, and I did do a bit about movies about the mentally handicapped, I don't know if you can find that on YouTube, and my parents saw it and weren't happy, and I'm still looking for approval, so I took that to, I don't know, there's too many details, yeah, those are the two subjects, I really don't, I don't do shit

like that, and I also try not to do stuff that will reinforce moronic thought, you know, as far as like racial shit, I try not to do that, but everything else, yeah, I don't care, other than I really enjoyed pissing people off in the crowd, you know, like whatever group I was, if that Merry Christmas group, you know, the people who find that offensive were at my show, like, you know, it would just basically be your duty as a comedian to just make their night as miserable as fucking possible, so, I'm definitely an asshole, but yeah, those are the sex, sex and the retarded, right there, there you go, those are those are the lines, all right, number eight, Bill, do you fish? No, I don't, occasionally I have,

I've gone fishing, but no, I don't own a rod or a reel, my favorite part of it is going out on the boat and hoping to see, I like looking at wildlife, I don't like killing it, you know, even if they're fish, it just fucking bothers me, like, you know, there's already dead fish in the supermarket, why don't you just eat that, but then I read all the survival stuff, like, I should know how to do this, but then you go out deep sea fishing and they fucking do everything for you, you just sit down, they're like, and you're a rod and reel, sir, they just hand it to you, they tell you what to do, they know where to go, where the fish are, and it's like, you know, you feel like, I feel like, you know,

when you're like five years old, your dad lets you sit in his lap and steer the fucking car and you're like, oh, you're driving the car, no you're not, no you're not, you're fucking child, and I also really enjoy the drinking, that's the part of the fishing that I like, even though booze and boats don't mix according to the posters, all right, Bill, who do you think are the top three electrical guitarists that are currently performing? I have no fucking idea, I'm 40 years old, I shouldn't know that, all right, my favorites of all time are Stevie Ray Vaughn, and recently I really got back into Jimmy Page, I really got back into his shit, and I don't know who the third one is, take your pick, but it's

definitely, I don't like the Steve Vai, Joe Satriani kind of guys, those guys who can play really fast, but it sounds like they're playing on a Casio keyboard, I'm not into really fast guys, I'm into those guys, you know, those guys, the guys that give you chills, speaking of which, the best part, that's what I wanted, the best part of the fucking hockey trip that I took was when I went to Vancouver and they sang O Canada, and the guy comes out and he sings the first verse or whatever, and then he stops, and then he just sort of conducts the crowd as they sang the second half, I got literally goosebumps listening to the people up in Vancouver singing O Canada, because I never heard it sung like that,

you know, people in America at the hockey game sing O Canada the way they sing the fucking national, American national anthem in Canada, there's no passion, you know, give a fuck, you know, you should have heard him singing it, they were like, I say can you sing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then they get to this song and they're just like O Canada, they fucking, you know, milk in every note, they're into it, glorious and free. All right, enough singing here, all right, Bill, number nine, at Caroline's, at the Caroline's show you mentioned that your grandmother is 101 years old, at her age does she still have any messed up out of date reasonings, my grandfather is 86, he's a typical old Italian man, sharp

for his age, but recently an interracial couple moved next door to him and we had to stop him from going to city hall because he wanted to have his property taxes lowered due to the fact as he put it, a colored woman is living next door, swear to God that's true, no bullshit, what do you think, fucked up, fucking classic or a little both, that's a hard one, obviously if somebody, you know, below the age of 60 thinks something like that, yeah, that's fucked up, but I mean, the guy's fucking, let's do the math, he's 86 years old, all right, let's, how do we do this here, 86 plus four is 90, four years from now is 2012, so he was born in 1922, all right, the guy's born in 19, fucking 22, all right, he's 18 in

1940, they didn't even let black people in the fucking army and when they did, they put him in a special unit, it's like fucking 15 years before, when the fuck was the civil rights, no, it was like 25 fucking years after that, 23, yeah, no, I mean, that's his wheel house, you know what I mean, the same way I don't know what the best guitarists are that are playing today because now I'm 40, I'm off, you're awake, you shoved off to see, I got my fucking 10 albums in my head that I'm going to listen to for the rest of my life, the same way old people still listen to in the mood, they fucking love that song, I hate that song, drives me nuts, makes me want to kill somebody, but when I'm 80, I'll

still be listening to back in black and I think you take how you think along with you, so I don't know, and at that point he's 86, is he really going to start a hate group, you know, it's kind of funny, racism becomes funny only when you're so fucking old that you couldn't do anything about it, you know, then you just become this crazy old guy who's just saying a bunch of shit, so I guess yeah, that is funny, that is funny, but you know it's weird, this is getting back to what that kid was asking me about what you're talking about, but right now I feel like I have a social responsibility because I'm talking to 14 people over the goddamn phone to now say that that's fucked up, okay, you know

what, in public, on television, if the guy did that, that's definitely fucked up, but sitting in your living room and your grandparents says something fucking racist, it's hilarious, you know, not because you condone it, just because they're so uncensored and they don't give a fuck, and yeah, I probably would have laughed, I would have laughed, I'm not saying I'm condoning it on any level, all right, question number 10, I know it's really, really overrated, overrated, underrated, this assumption that all gay men are funny, you know what, that's just hilarious right there, because you really do picture them like that, I've actually said that to defensive gay people, like I don't understand why people have such

a problem with them, you know, they're fucking hilarious, and exactly, you know, I don't want to watch two of them fucking attend, you know, I have my, but this guy says basically I work in a restaurant, we ever share a gay guys that have a great sense of humor, but just because you're gay doesn't mean describing what you'd let Clive Owen do to you in great detail is funny, yeah, that's kind of nasty, I've known a couple gay guys who get a little over the top with the fucking description of their sexual shit that they want to do, you know, yeah, that does get creepy, you know, but you know what it is, that's karma for straight guys, because how that makes you feel as a straight guy, that's how women

feel when you, when you know, some girl walks by and you're like, I love the fucking Ben Hurl or you know, whatever fucking evil shit you say, so yeah, wow, that's a lot of awful images in my head. All right, let's get to the next one, overrated, cable TV, especially the movie channels, because they just rerun all the same suck ass movies, like kindergarten cop or under siege, they still run Van Dam movies, and the worst are the cheesy pornos, yeah, you know what I gotta admit, the only reason why I watch fucking movie TV is just to watch the fights, and I watch that show Dexter, if anybody even still listening to this podcast, I'm so fucking

jet lag right now from flying to seeing three hockey games at three nights, I think I feel like I'm just reading like the fucking stock report, all right, underrated, oh, this should wake you up, the sex swing, the sex swing is underrated, really, I didn't know people were out there going, ah, that thing fucking blows, or maybe you're saying it's underrated because no one really talks about it, okay, let's hear the review, the sex swing, really, I'm not trying to be scandalous or anything, if this is something people have not yet tried for Christ's sake, try it, I promise, it makes it fun and easy to fuck, yes, because the rest of us find it tedious, and not fun, you know what, that's the way you should, you

know what, I think that that's a, the sex swing should be for old people who get Viagra, and they still wanna fuck, all right, oh wow, I just said I wasn't gonna do sex material, but you really just fucking, you know, you just fucking lobbed it over and that, okay, this is what you do, okay, you fucking lube up grandma, all right, not grandma, your wife, it's really disgusting, all right, you fucking take a little Viagra, and then you just push her away, like you just, when you're like a little kid, you just push away and she keeps coming to you, ah, and then you just push her away, all right, you fucking bang away, and who knows, what if you impregnate her, you know, sure you'll be dead by the time the kid's

fucking in kindergarten, but you know, you'll fucking be in good day America, they think they'd act like it was cute, like when Tony Randall had a kid at 72, oh that Tony, that Tony fucking Randall, you know what, if you have a kid at 72, you know, especially if it's a boy, what you basically just had is a future felon, all right, because the fucking confusion of having a 72-year-old gay man as your dad who dies when you're in the fourth grade, you know, at the very least, you know, you're gonna rob a convenience store, I don't know, I was just, that was really, I thought it was an asshole move on his part, and I've never been able to enjoy the odd couple the way I used to, all right, all right, overrated, I like this one, this is a great one,

song, this is overrated, songs for causes, you know, those hacky collaborations with a bunch of stars in the same studio, you're a singer, leave the life and death shit to someone else, all right, that's sort of a two-part thing there, I hate songs for causes, I didn't mind the We Are the World kind of shit, just because that actually seemed like, there were so many people involved that no one really got the credit, but like, you know, when all those rednecks were making those let's go to war song, songs and protect the boys, those songs were really, really fucking cheesy, what was that one, an Uncle Sam's gonna put a boot in your ass or whatever the fuck that one, that was just really one of the most ignorant songs I think I've ever heard, and plus, you know,

like who the fuck is not gonna like a song that says, you know, support the troops and let's go fuck up some people, I guess they've always done that, right, the boogie boogie bugle boy, remember that, all right, and you said you're a singer, leave the life and death shit to someone else, I disagree with that, I don't think just because you're in the public eye, therefore you shouldn't talk about who you vote for, or you shouldn't have opinions, all right, be honest with yourself, all right, there's every bar you walk into, there's people talking politics, they're talking life and death shit, people sitting there going dude, you know what we should do, you know what we should do, right, some fucking moron down the end of the bar, you're listening to him,

you'll actually fucking wait till he's finished, you'll never call him a moron, but then all of a sudden you have a fucking hit song, and you don't want to hear somebody talking about it, you know what it is, this is what it is, I should have just said this is what it is, rather than go, you know what it is, all right, like you could actually respond to me, it's the fact it's very hard to do stuff like that without coming off as preachy, and that's another thing in my act that I try to never do, I never use the word we, because I saw a comedian do it one time and it annoyed the shit out of me, he was like, do we do this, no, we want a country where we bomb a blonde, and I immediately was like dude, I want to fucking choke you, with the mic

cord, oh god, just the references are just not flying out, you know, this really is a train wreck, this is like, what was that fucking album that that nut from the Beach Boys never put out, what was it called, fucking, not pet sounds, they finally just put it out when he was just going nuts, this is my podcast version of this, or that George Michael one where he was just like, I'm not going to be in the videos darling, I'm just going to put other people in them, I want the music to stand on itself, and then his career just takes a fucking nose dive, it's like listen, listen, okay, even gay or Tom Cruise, if you're not, if you're not fucking shaking your ass in the TV with your little fucking stupid little scruff going, nobody gives a fuck,

you know, I know I didn't give a fuck as much, I was like, if I couldn't see George Michael's ass, he was, that was a very confusing artist for me, because I really liked how he sang on some songs, like when he redid that Elton John song, he fucking destroyed it, but he was just so fucking effeminate, it just made me uncomfortable, you know, if he just said, listen, I'm gay, and I just got done blowing somebody, and I'd really love to do it again, that would destroy the tension, and he'd be like, okay, he's out in the open, and he can laugh about it, you know, he just blows somebody, and now he's singing a song, what a guy, but it's the fact that he doesn't bring it up, and now he's singing, and occasionally, you know, he does a little fucking

twinkle toes move, it just makes it fucking uncomfortable, and very hard to enjoy the music. All right, another thing that is underrated, a good waiter, and or bartender, just some guy's really good at his job, especially when you don't have to ask him for anything, and he's right on top of it, absolutely, like the fucking waiters and bartenders over at Smith and Walinsky, you ever want to go there and have a fucking professional waiter slash bartender, I told you guys, I was over there last, this is fucking great, you felt like a goddamn, felt like you were in the red pack, everybody was dressed nice, get married, but people know you're not a homo, Thanksgiving is overrated, a day involved with

nothing but gorging yourself and watching high school and pro football, junk food, breakfast cereals overrated, I don't know about you, but a bowl of fruity pebbles are cookie crisp, it's just as good when you first wake up as when you're shit faced, you know what, I gotta agree with you, but I would definitely go with fruity pebbles, cookie crisp and Captain Crunch, you know, as much as I like them as a kid, do you ever get a mouthful of those things, and when you bite down, there's like three of them, one of them, just one of them turns sideways on your tongue and it misses your teeth and it hits the roof of your mouth, I mean dude, that is a fucking pain, like I mean, in Guantanamo, they should do that, they should fucking put fucking cocoa crisp on

fucking people's tongues and make them bite down, you get all the information you want, I don't like those cereals, I don't like cereals that you know, or they get on the outside of your teeth and they go right up in between, you know, that skin that covers your teeth, whatever that's, I guess that's called your face, yeah, it gets underneath that, you know, it just fucking drives it in there and then that night, you forget that you did it, then you're brushing your teeth and of course the toothbrush goes off your teeth and goes right into that raw fucking place, I don't like those cereals, fruity pebbles I like, well still I like, you know, fruity pebbles is one of the few ones, I don't get that fucking crazy with breakfast cereals, I like, I like classics,

Cheerios, Raisin' Brand, Great Nuts Flakes, I like Great Nuts, you know, and I know you think, okay those things are so granulated, they can't cut up your fucking mouth, I really have to end this podcast, I gotta apologize, you guys, this is one of the worst podcasts I've had, I've just, you know, probably nine times during this podcast, I have literally just kind of come to feeling like I passed out for three minutes and I know I continued talking, so I apologize for any sort of, any sort of, I can't even talk with them, I said any sort of instead of any sort of, all right, here we go, let's get, let's let's wrap this up Bill and get on with it, okay, another thing overrated, a dude who has the balls to wear fur, that is fucking hilarious,

all right, here's the story, I saw a guy the other day wearing a full length raccoon coat and it looked so fucking badass and the best part was that he also had the fox head scarf to go with it, maybe want to get one of my own, you know what, that's fucking hilarious, there's not enough people out there dressed like fur trappers, you know, that's also, you know, because that's, that's one of those things like Merry Christmas, now it's just become taboo to wear fur, which, you know, I wouldn't wear fur, but you know, I would never, you know, spray ketchup at somebody who was wearing a, I almost said pheasant, I almost said a pheasant, that really is my default animal, isn't it, god damn it, you know what, whoever wrote that in, you got me, you got one

of my tics, we were playing poker, you'd know exactly what my hand was, all right, one more, overrated, underrated, Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins is overrated, his hype of being the next one in hockey, I'm so fucking sick and tired of hearing this, albeit it's died down the past year, hearing that he's the next Gretzky, I'm sick of hearing that he's next, the next Gretzky, he's not, yeah, well, I mean, that's kind of like, that's not his fault too, that's because everyone wants someone to be the next Gretzky, you know, he's not right in the articles, that's like, after Michael Jordan retired, there was a nice, you know, there's always going to be that hangover, saying someone's going to be the next fucking Jordan, because you want to see

it, and it ain't going to happen, and I think that's it, some quick ones, underrated, overrated, underrated vinyl, overrated, the compact disc, I think compact discs are underrated, you know, all you people going out there just get your music digitally, and then what happens, you fucking iPod dies, and you lose your entire collection, I've talked about this, you want the comp, having the compact disc is like having the gold behind your paper money, all right, you need to back up your digital shit, because it's not worth anything, compact discs are tangible, you have them, vinyl, definitely underrated, it definitely gets hot and sticky in the sun, but if you spill something, it's very easy to clean, and that's it, that's the

Monday morning podcast for this week, I really apologize for being so fucking jet lag, I hope I can get some sort of points for getting right off the goddamn plane, and you know, doing the podcast, oh Jesus Christ, listen to me, just babbling like a fucking old woman, all right, here we go, what do I have to hype here, I'm literally taking off my hooded sweatshirt, that's how right in the door I was when I fucking started doing this podcast, I am going to be, I'm gonna be, let me get on the fucking website here, if you're still hanging in here, I really should send you some sort of a gift, would you like to hear another holiday song, as I fucking, I don't know the words, you know, you know my motherfucking holiday song I hate the

most is Silver Bells, it's just the sum of the tempo of that song just sucks the life out of the lower half of my body, and I just have to, you know, it always comes on when I'm in a mall, and I really just don't want to shop anymore, and it just comes on, Silver Bells, Silver Bells, that one, and I don't like Jingle Bell Rock, I hate any sort of jazzing up, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, pow, Jingle Bell time, you know, I fucking hate that song, and I hate that Michael Jackson Santa Claus is coming to town, I hate the way he phrases it, and I know I'm making fun of a fucking seven-year-old, and I should just be happy that he was able to go into the studio and perform that day, but I didn't say, Santa Claus is coming to do too, whoa, shut the fuck, just shut up Michael,

it's the seven-year-old you, please just shut the fuck up, I hate that song, I really hate that song, I like the classic slower ones, the Bing Crosby ones, does anybody care, all right, I'm on to my website, I'll let what he got here, all right, I'm in January, I'm taking a break until January, all right, oh fuck, January 8th, I'm already back out on the road, wait, what's today, the 15th is 16 more days, 16, all right, I get three weeks off, the fuck am I bitching about, Christ is people out there churning butter, all right, I'm going to be at the Improv in Tampa, Florida, January 8th, 9th, and 10th, and I haven't been there in a long fucking time, and that date's scaring the shit out of me, because Florida is, it's a crazy animal, man, I don't know what to

do with it, I don't know how to sell tickets in Florida, all right, I've gone down there, I've done what I could fucking do, I know right now people around the country are like, why are you speaking in that redneck fucking southern voice, you're talking about Florida, Florida isn't part of the South, yes it is, yes it is, if you get out of Miami that entire, that entire state is, you know, you could film 400 seasons of cops, dog the body hunter, and if you ever really, you know, look at Dexter, Dexter is fucking taped down there, right, isn't it, Miami Vice, somebody might tell me that, what do they have on those t-shirts down there, Florida, what do they call it, a cool place for shady people, something like that,

hot place for shady people, it's one of those play on words, I'm not good at that shit, all right, I'm going to be at the improv tent in Tampa on January 8th, 9th and 10th, and oh and January 8th is the show your tits show, just to let you know, that's something new that has nothing to do with me, you know, I'm actually against it, I don't want girls to show me the titties during my show, you know, but you know, it's something that the improvs are coming up with, you know, I think it's sexist, but you know, I don't want to cause any static, so you know, just know that when you're showing me your tits during that show that, you know, there wasn't my call, I don't condone it, but I was powerless to stop it, so you know, yeah, I guess I'll go along with it, I'll sign

some titties after the show, you know, show me a thong, I mean, whatever, I mean, I'm just there for the art, you know, okay, and then after that, I'm going to be at the improv in Houston, Texas, January 22nd, 23rd, and 24th, I'm really excited to go back to that one, because I'm actually going to hit this guitar store out there called Southpaw Guitars, they have nothing but left-handed guitars there, and I'm going to go there and spend some money, motherfucker, after that, I'm going to be at the Wilbur Theater in Boston, and the comedy connection Massachusetts, February 6th through the 7th, and that is it, wow, 47-minute podcast, that's how fucking jet lag that was, I knew I just fell asleep for like 10 minutes in the middle,

I apologize, this is way too fucking long, everybody, have a merry Christmas, okay, and I mean that the nice way, have a merry Christmas, even if you're not fucking celebrating Christmas, have a fucking merry Christmas, god damn it, it's not a bad thing, it's unreal, it's not fucking real, how did that become bad, I don't know Bill, why don't you fucking analyze it for another 47 minutes, all right, I'm out of here, god bless all of you, I'll talk to you next Monday, have a great week, okay, take it easy. I'm on the street, crazy as a loon, and throws us all in jail for carrying our food, me, I bust it out, don't even ask me how, I went to get some help, I walked by a Guernsey cow,

who directed me down to the Bowery slums, where people carried signs around saying ban the bums, I realized right away, and I said I hope that I'm not late, when I realized I hadn't eaten for five days straight, I went into your restaurant, looking for the cook, I told him I was the editor of a famous etiquette book, the waitress, he was handsome, he wore a powder blue cape, I ordered some sous set, I said could you please make that crepe, just then the whole kitchen exploded from boiling fat, the food was flying everywhere, I left without my hat, now I didn't mean to be nosy, but I went into a bank, to get some bill for a wrap, and all the boys back in the tank, they asked me for collateral, and I pulled down my pants,

they threw me in the alley, when up comes this girl from France, who invited me to her house, I went but you had a friend, who knocked me out and robbed my boots, and I was on the street again, then I wrapped upon her house with a US flag upon display, I said could you help me out, I got some friends down the way, the man says get out of here, I'll tear you limb from limb, I said you know they refuse Jesus too, he said you're not him, get out of here before I break your bones, I ain't your pop, I decided to have him arrested, and I went looking for a car, well I ran outside and I hopped inside a cab, I went out the other door, this Englishman said fab, as he saw me leap a hot dog stand in a chariot that stood, parked across from a building advertising

brotherhood, I ran right through the front door like a hobo sailor does, but it was just a funeral parlor and the man asked me who I was, I repeated that my friends were all in jail with a sigh, he gave me his card, he said call me if they die, I shook his hand and said goodbye, and ran out to the street, when a bowling ball came down the road and knocked me off my feet, the payphone was ringing, just about blew my mind, when I picked it up and said hello, a foot came through the line, by this time I was fed up at trying to make a stab at bringing back some help from my friends and captain A-Rap, I decided to flip a coin like either heads or tails, would let me know if I should go back to the ship or back to jail, so I hawked my sailor suit and I got a coin to flip, it came

up tails and ran with tails so I made it back to the ship, well I got back and took the parking ticket off the mast, I was ripping it to shreds when this coast guard boat went past, they asked me my name and I said captain kid, they believed me but they wanted to know what exactly that I did, I said for the pope of Eruc I was employed, they let me go right away, they were very paranoid well the last I heard of A-Rap, he was stuck on a whale that was married to the deputy sheriff of the jail, but the funniest thing was when I was leaving the bay, I spied three ships sailing and they were all coming my way, I asked the captain what his name was and how come he didn't drive a truck, he says his name was Columbus and I just said good luck