The Bill Bert Podcast - The Bill Bert Podcast | Episode 8

Episode Date: April 1, 2020

Bill and Bert prattle remotely about how to enjoy quarantine, tough dads, and the long road to success.

Hey, what's up you pandemic sons of bitches? It's time for another episode of The Bill. Bert. Pod. Cast. Man, it's gonna cut screens. This is the shit. It's like a DJ's working the camera.

Bert, I never thought I'd ever say this, but I miss you and I love you, and I can't wait to hold you in my arms again. I know. I feel the same way. I was looking forward to hanging out, and then they were like, hey, we're doing it on a computer, and I was like, oh, that's so much fucking better. Yeah, no, it's a great thing.

Can you move your head a little bit so people can get the full Playgirl shot? There you go. You like that? There you go. You like that? There you go. I love that. I love it.

I don't know which Bert to look at. I have my friend and then I have my fantasy Bert, all in the same photo there. I did TMZ on Skype and they were like, hey- You fuckin' whore. You fuckin' whore. Jesus Christ. One little pandemic.

One little fucking pandemic, and he's... You know what? That's a scared move. That's a scared move. I had to promote my special. I had no press for my fucking special, Bill. Zero press. Zero fucking press. You got to do what you got to do. Where'd you go next the inquirer

not not far off i uh i woke up that that tuesday you know how like when you wake up and you do a special you are literally like slam packed like the second you're up at 5 4 a.m you're flying to new york that night you're doing podcasts all day they've got a long list for you dude i woke up and just was like i guess i'll smoke a brisket. And like nothing. I mean, no feedback, just sitting silently going, I hope people liked it. And I mean the ADD. I don't want to be the ADD comedian here, but I am one.

How was the brisket? Oh, dude, it was amazing. I made a 15-pound brisket. We bought it. So when the shows shut down we were in new orleans so we drove in the bus from new orleans all that all the way back to la and in san antonio we were like hey maybe we should pick up some meats i don't know if we're gonna get meats in la and they had a 15 pound brisket for 30 so i bought it 17 pound brought it trimmed off

two pounds smoked it we ate the smoked brisket and then what i did is i made an au jus and i cut it bill i got put it in the fridge got it real, and I cut it, Bill, I put it in the fridge, got it real hard, and I cut it real thin, and I put the slices in au jus with some onions and made those Italian beef sandwiches for the girls, dipped them in the au jus. It was out of this, that was actually better than the brisket, in my opinion. Well, I mean i saw when on

on uh something's burning that you beat a full-blooded i think sicilian sebastian moniscalco you beat him in a burger contest you could see he was hurt and that he was gonna have to answer to some family members like that was a real look on his face where I was just, I love Sebastian. I was like, oh man, I don't know. I had mixed emotions. I was happy for you, but I felt bad for my buddy Sebastian. There's gotta be a rematch. I want to see Sebastian Burt. It's gotta be a trilogy, like a great heavyweight fight.

He wanted to win so bad. Like you can see it. And he, I mean, he bought his all his own ingredients. He literally had a bad patty maker and Roy Choi wanted him to win. He said to me, he goes, I wanted you to win so bad. Your burger just tasted horrible. He said it tasted horrible?

It was so I took a bite. It was so like it was too you know what it was? You ever see like you ever see those people that they're writers, they're not comics and they go on stage and they, it's almost like they've got all the functions of comedy down, but there's no pizzazz. There's no razzle dazzle to it. And that's what it, that's what that burger tasted like.

Now mine was the exact opposite. Mine was, do you know those, those comics in New York when we started that had no act, but man, they could fuck a stool like crazy. That was my burger. And so my burger, I cooked it in bacon grease. I literally, it was just... Oh, that's steroids, man. Come on. It was like four packs. I covered them in mustard, cooked them in bacon grease.

It was such a good fucking burger. But, yeah, the look onastian's face when he lost was like he was just i thought i felt bad i was just like fuck i was like that that really hurt him like i think he could have handled the bad set better than he handled that losing that burger thing to some animal from the near reaches of Florida. The Sarasota kid coming out of nowhere. You got to teach me how to smoke. Smoking seems like it's to smoke a brisket or whatever. It just seems like once you get it down, it's almost easy.

Am I crazy? Because once you know how to set it up and get your temperature, you can just walk away from it get hammered yeah get into a fight with your wife make up fall asleep have another kid then you come back and it's falling off the bone right there's two types of smokers you got the pellet smokers which are no-brainers like no-brainers that's like uh a rec tech or green mountain grill or the traeger and those those you just literally you got an app on your phone you type it in put that in andeger and those those you just literally talk you got an app on your phone you type it in put that in and then you're set you just all you got to do is put

some thermometers in it then you've got the ones that are awesome are the green eggs you put a green egg and you put some smoke chips in a green egg and man you are running it's like watching it's like do you remember when you first got a green egg do you remember when you first got your baby and you that first like week you'd wake up in the middle of the night and make sure she was still breathing? Yes. That's what a green egg's like. That's what smoking and a green egg's like.

You're just going back to going, let me check one more time and then put it. Then you're moving things around. I used to, with Georgia, I'd lift her arm up and let it drop to make sure she was still sleeping like a WWF. There she'd go.

On that third one, she'd work the crowd, right? She'd wait for the second time. You're like, oh, she's going to lose it. And then the little hand comes up. Dude, that was my favorite fucking thing ever. When the Hulkster's hand wouldn't come down, and then he started nodding his head, and his mullet started going.

He started walking around, and every hit made him madder. It was like it was giving him energy dude did you guys you have brothers were you guys into wrestling yeah i used to talk to patrice about this and we used to practice the moves on each other and you do them for real and you get like hurt because you didn't know how to fall i remember ivan putsky the polish hammer yeah like we didn't know he was, he had his hands like this. We put our hands like this and you throw somebody coming off the rope and you do the hammer fist to him and all your fingers are like, yeah, you just go down. Back body drop. First time I threw up my back, this kid, Robert Swinomer, my fourth grade class put me in the figure four leg lock. And and I was I was trying to get up to get

myself out of it that's the first time I threw out my lower back fourth grade unbelievable the figure four leg lock really fucking worked it was like a legit like when they put pressure you'd be like fuck yeah your kneecap felt like your ankle something was gonna give but it was both your bones they're using your own ankle bone, if I remember correctly, to crush your kneecap. I remember we were in the outfield. Like the kids I grew up with were really, really redneck kids. And we were in the outfield at the baseball field.

And like probably we're maybe like 11 years old, 10 years old. And I got put in the camel clutch. Do you remember the camel clutch? That's where you're both your arms were behind their legs and they had your chin like this and someone came up and cut my hair. What? I know.

And I remember telling my, and I remember being like, I could get out of it, but I was like, well, he's got fucking scissors. I don't want to get stabbed in the eye. We're 11. That's a very intelligent move. Yeah. And I was like, just let it happen. I don't wanna get stabbed in the eye. You know, like... We're 11. That's a very intelligent move. Yeah, and I was like, just let it happen. I don't give a shit. I wanted a spike anyway. And so

I remember my dad, we got in the car, and my dad looked, and my dad found out about it. When he found out about it, he was in the dugout. He went, what the fuck? Like, what? What? And then we got in the car, and he looked at me like he was so let down. And he goes, you let him cut your hair?

And I was like, yeah. And he was like, you have no like, you didn't want to stand up for yourself? Like almost, and I remember just sitting there going, I didn't get stabbed in the fucking eye. Like what if I had, what if I fought back and now I had one eye? I remember being, I remember thinking to my dad. I'd be more proud of you, son. You get out and walk, you piece of shit.

I knew you were just like your mother. I'm leaving you and your whole family. Put that in your fucking act, you 11-year-old hunk of shit. I got more love for that goddamn dog in the backseat. In fact, get the dog up here. You get in the back. I just realized why you became a comedian. Oh, oh, I have hardcore dad issues.

Like, whatever. My dad was just so different than me, like, growing up that. Yeah, he was a man, evidently. Oh, hardcore. Hardcore her. I was kidding. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. My dad, my dad's, part of the reason I got into comedy was my dad, my 26th birthday,

I lived over across the street from the cellar. My dad called me up and he's like, it was my birthday. My dad's like, I am so let down in you. He's like, you're, you're a fucking embarrassment. I was like, I was like, well, it's my birthday. I thought he was going to call with me. Happy birthday. I was like, it's my birthday.

He's like, I know it's your fucking birthday. And he's like, you, you're, you're just an embarrassment. I perjured myself. I perjured myself. I perjured myself. He had been in court. And the judge had said, how's your son doing in New York? My dad said, good. And he was like, I perjured myself.

But my dad gave me the break off speech you could ever get from a dad. Like the, you have no humility. I raised you wrong. I fucked you up. You don't know how to succeed. You'll never succeed. You won't listen to anyone. You think you're right.

You think you're, and it's because you're're white you've never had to work for I mean it's like the break off speech you could ever get that night on my birthday I got a job working at the or the next night actually I got a job working the door of the Boston Comedy Club wow it was wait were you were you already a comedian or no no no no I had moved to New York I said I wanted to be a comedian I was hanging out at theoston hanging out of the cellar you know like hanging out but not doing spots going like maybe collective unconscious or surf reality doing spots there reality man that was a wild room yeah that's back when uh uh south of houston was a little that was shady down there fuck yeah uh face boy used to run it remember that guy i just remember one of them did a uh an

amazing like it should have been in like a movie he was just this guy did a whole one person thing imitating this sadistic uh roommate he had back when new york was new york and you'd get you moved there you didn't know anybody you get a fucking roommate you had you could i mean you could literally be moving in with like drag queen serial killer just fucking lunatics drug addict gang member you have no fucking idea who you're gonna move in if you didn't know anybody yeah and he imitated this whole thing where he imitated his sadistic friend um and then when he like pushed it to i just remember i watched i was just like dude that was an Academy Award, like little vignette from a movie that I saw. And I remember I got so inspired and also at the same time going, should I pack my bags and move back home? Because I am nowhere near the, whatever the hell that just was. But anyway, back to this. So,

so your dad said all of that stuff to you. You were already going to do that. Was that the kick in the ass you needed? Was it like a Bobby Knight thing where people on the outside are going like, that Bobby Knight takes it too far, but then you talk to the players and like, dude, I'd run through a fucking wall for that guy. Was it something like that? Yeah, it was perfect.

It was the perfect speech. I've said it to my dad a number of times. Like, that speech changed my life because i i did i didn't i had no humility i i thought you'd i thought the plan was you'd sit in the back of the club until one day they're like hey we need someone to get on stage and then they tap you on the shoulder you'd go up having never really done stand-up you'd murder and then they'd be like you know hey you're one of the guys yeah you're one of the guys and so i went there i talked to louis schaefer and I was like, Hey, my, I was like, my dad said, go there and say, I'll do anything.

I'll mop up, I'll put up chairs, I'll flip burgers, I'll do whatever you need. But I need, I want to be a comedian, anything to get me in, in the right path. So I told Lou Schaefer that Lou Schaefer told me to go home to Florida. So I just went home that night, went out for my birthday party partied at the McDougal ale house underneath my house. Why did he tell you to go home? Because it was because it was Louis Schaefer. It was that's it was so mean. Louis Schaefer, not gay. Louis Schaefer, go home. You know what you should do? Go home, go to Florida, learn how to do stand up, come back.

And I was like, no, that's not. So I went back. I called my dad the next morning and I said, so I did what you said. And I told you I was right. My dad's like, you're not right. No, that's what that's. Now you go back tonight and you say the same thing. You say the same thing and you come back the next night, you go back for a thousand nights in a row until he gives you an opportunity and you start doing it at all the clubs. And I was like, dad, that's not how it works. He goes,

it's not how it works for you because you've been given everything in your life. But I guarantee you, if you're a young black kid in Harlem and you need an opportunity, that's how it works for him. And he's like, you're no better than him. You go in, you say the same thing. So I went back. Your dad is a really smart guy.

My dad lost his dad at 13. What happened, Bert? Bill, I have no fucking idea. I wish I could fucking find the part where I veered off. Wait, you started to say something and you said your dad what? cut you off sorry your dad what i don't know you were saying ah shit now the listeners are gonna get pissed at me you were saying you're no different than a kid in harlem i said wow your guy was your dad was a really smart guy oh yeah and then he just said go back the next night so i went back the very next night and I said to Louis Schaefer listen he goes don't

acknowledge that you talked to him yesterday just go back and say hey my name is Bert Kreischer I want to be a comic I'll do anything and then when he cuts you off explain to him you'll be coming back for the next thousand nights until he gives you an opportunity and I went okay dad I'm like I'll do it but it's not it doesn't work that way and I went back and I said to Louis Schaefer I was like hey my name is Bert Kreischer he goes I know you are. I've talked to you last night, go back to Florida. And I was like, listen, man, I just broke it down. I go, my dad's making me do this. I go, I'm going to be here for a thousand fucking nights until you give me an opportunity. I go, I had, and I explained to him, I was like,

yesterday's my birthday. My dad just fucking reamed my asshole. And I was like, I need an opportunity, Louis. And he said, if you work in front of the club, there was a guy named Andrew that used to do it too. Do you remember Andrew? He used to hit his head with the mic and it would turn all red. He was like a Bronx kid. White dude, Jewish.

Andrew Schwartz was his name. And so. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Lewis was like, if you go out with Andrew, if you can bring in like 20, 25 people, I'll let you go on after Godfrey.

You know, Godfrey went on like fucking one in the morning and godfrey murdered yeah so i was like i was like at least this opportunity so i go out in the front two things happened that night this is i mean i'd met patrice in passing but patrice was cheese checking bitch like uh cat calling women like like uh damn bitch you got a fat ass and i was working the door and i just he was with like bobby and jim and i just said and i was i'd never seen cat calling before i was like i remember going like is that supposed to work and patrice like what i go does that work and he was like man shut the fuck up and i was like i just wouldn't do it that way and he was like oh how would you do and i was like i just wouldn't do it that way and he was

like oh how would you do it and this girl walked by and this girl was like probably like 33 real pretty and i and i said i was by the way i'm talking to everyone on the street anyway i go hey my name's burke i know i said uh hey uh you look like you had a rough day how about i take you for a glass of wine and we talk about it and they laugh she says no one walks away they start making fun of me she turns around comes back and in front of them says to me i'll take you up on that glass of wine and they're like whoa no way and i say to her bill i said i can't i go i just got my dream job like this is my dream i want to be a comedian i can't walk away from this and they looked at me like what the fuck and I was like I can't I was

I can't and she no way they made fun of me and then Louis Schaefer sticks his head out and he goes I brought these three Puerto Rican guys in one of which was going to jail the next day and I had sat them in the front row okay oh no and they're like and he looks out and he's like you you want to be a comedian come up Karen Burgreen is crying on stage. He gets Karen off. They had been fucking assaulting her like from the front row. I get on stage. That was the Boston.

I get on stage and they kind of like me, but they're busting my balls. I bust their balls back. They step on a joke and I go, hey go hey listen in my set when it says and the dumb puerto rican speaks up i'll point to you and the crate place goes nuts i light them up a couple more times they walk out i don't have any material i can't do any fucking jokes i bomb after that lewis comes back and he's like you can work here every night 25 bucks get here at seven help me unload put the chairs down bring in people and you got a job and i worked i did uh tuesday and thursday night that's quick yeah that was quick it was tuesday wednesday

thursday and then i could get spots on david jay's show monday night because dimitri martin and i started there and then and then and then six months later i I started doing weekends. Oh, you want to hear about my journey in there? Yes, I do. Also has Patrice. Oh, nice. So we've been doing stand-up in Boston for like, I think I started in 92, and he started towards the end of 92. So after a couple years there, know you you figure up austin

quickly that there was just these these killers that weren't leaving yeah so there was a glass ceiling you couldn't break through you were fucked um and then if you killed too hard you could annoy some of them were a little prickly most of them were cool some of them were prickly you'd actually get hurt if you were killing too hard, making it difficult. They'd start counting how many times you said fuck or whatever. They'd find a reason, right? So we're like, okay, you know, and Joe Rogan, who we missed, he, Joe Rogan was there so fast, went to New York and then went to LA and then got on this short-lived sitcom that he was headlining the Kowloon and he came back and I saw him at the Kowloon didn't have the nerve to talk to him but he fucking murdered did you know him you didn't

know him at the time no I didn't know him at all and so there was two guys it was Anthony Clark and there was Joe Rogan and they were both young guys who somehow started after the Mount Rushmore of Boston comedy was solidified. And they got up to the middle, left, and then came back and were headlining. So we were like, oh, that's how you do it. And I believe Bobby Kelly, when he was with the improv group with Dane and them, Alan the Monkeys, opened for Joe. And they talked to Joe. And Joe gave him great advice.

Surprise, surprise. He gave him great advice telling me you got to leave. So we all started going down in New York. So I used to ride down in New York with Patrice. So I would show up and club owners could give a fuck about me. What year is this? This is 94. Wow. And Patrice was just, just, you couldn't ignore him. He was just this giant fucking personality. And then he would go down there and he would give the club owners shit. It was fucked.

Like, I remember when we met Kerry Hoffman when he was with Stand Up New York, I was like, Hi, Kerry. My name's Billy Burr. I'm a comedian from Boston and all this shit, right? And he was just, he was just, just not, just get out of here, right? And then Patrice would just walk up and make fun of his belt. He's like, I thought your club owner's down here making all kinds of money.

And then he'd be like pointing at his outfit like. I'm just not this, I'm just not. And he just, and just and like and every and the other comics didn't even know him would just start laughing at the club owner so then i was sitting there so then i'm thinking in my head like oh that's how you get in here you just be rude to these people so i'm like oh i'll try on the patrice coat see how this thing fits and then i just say something why thank god it was a new york comedy club And the guy's like, what the fuck did you just say? So Patrice laughs at me. I'm like, Patrice, what the fuck?

These guys won't even look at me like we do. And I tell you, they wanted nothing to do with me. They wanted nothing to do with me. And I was asking Patrice. He goes, Patrice, you got to understand something about me. He goes, I'm a big, and he said N-word, 300-pound N-word. He goes, they can't ignore me. So anyways, long story short, I started signing up.

Back in the day, you could sign up for late night at the Comedy Cell. You didn't have to be passed. This is where the whole comedy boom and the internet and all that. Yeah, so it was becoming a comedian was this weird little thing that very small amounts of people want to do. So you go down and you would sign up. And then you do your spot. And then after you signed up that night, you'd sign up again for next week. So what I had to do is I had to drive all the way down from New York one time just to sign up for it and then drive back. And then every week I started going down there. And Patrice was going, Bill,

that's not the way to get in down there. He goes, you are already funny enough to be working those clubs. You need to get down there on a showcase, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I had that fucking Irish, you know, you got to start at the bottom and work your way up. So I ignored him. And I just kept going. I used to ride down with him. But after a while, he said, fuck this shit. bottom but work your way up so i ignored him and i just kept going i used to ride down with him but after a while he said fuck this shit you know i'll let new york come and get me right but i didn't so i went down that way and uh meanwhile i was up in boston and mtv had a uh had a showcase and this woman i always remembered her name amanda shatz was the talent coordinator and she came up and we all auditioned because they were looking for VJs.

This is how long ago this was, dude. A fucking VJ. And this is just like, oh, my God. And this is when Pauly Shore was doing Totally Pauly and Randy of the Redwoods, the Spin Doctors. Like, this is like early, mid-90s, you know, smashing pumpkin shit, right? Everybody with the flannels and the fucking goatees. So I ended up going on the showcase, and she said nice things.

She liked me or whatever. So anyways, finally I just decided, fuck this. I got to move down there. So I moved down there. I saved up all of this fucking money. I was going to try to get a job in a dental office. That's what I had been doing. And that's what I was going to do during's what i was i swear to god that's what i

was gonna do during the day that's not a bad fucking move and i went through uh roommate finders where they it was just you just it was like craigslist of psychos and you'd call up like glenn gary glenn ross to get the leads for that week that and then when you put you on hold they played the theme to the odd couple but uh but uh but uh and you'd be sitting there listening oh for real oh yeah dude this is what i'm telling you man like i fucking i looked at places like guys showed it up to the door in total drag uh hey and they'd be there you'd be sleeping like what the i'm coming from my parents house i'm like what the fuck right i remember this other guy down in Tribeca before Tribeca blew up. Or maybe it was the fashion district

or something down there. And I was down there and this guy opened up. He's like, hey, you know, it's just like, you know, everything in here is communal. Everybody, nobody owns anything. But blah, blah, blah. There's no door locks. It was all really like this.

It was fucking weird. He was shady. I was like, I'm going to go out to get myself a little fucking uh thing of oatmeal and i'm gonna come back and he's gonna be gone and so is all my shit so i didn't go with that one it was finally the last one this nigerian guy who played hockey and was into the rangers i couldn't understand a word he was saying oh god you're the rangers all i remember he's talking to hockey all the time so So I fucking get with him.

I move in with him, walk through bedroom and all that. And then, dude, for like fucking six weeks, I am just going up to Lucian at the comic strip. Hi, Lucian. I'm Billy Burr. I'm a comedian for Bob. All right, all right. I already have enough white guys.

I have plenty of white guys. And I would always think, and I'd be like so dejected, but I would think, I'm going to get in at these fucking places. And I just kept going around and around and around. They hated me at the Boston. I was known as Patrice's friend or Dane's friend. I was the driver of them. Like they had the star power, and they just thought I stunk.

So finally, I was like dejected. And then out of nowhere, I was at home and I got a message on my answering machine as I'm sitting there eating fucking spaghetti every goddamn night on my chair, which is also a table. And it's got this message said, Hey, Billy Burr, this is Amanda Schatz from MTV. I heard you're in my town. Tell me when's the next time you're going up. I would love to see you showcase. So my manager at the time, Jamie Dukett, I called him up. I'm like, Jamie, she wants to see me. Yada, yada, yada. And he's like, all right. You know, we had this thing called the alley-oop. And you know, you set up the thing and I'll fucking go up and kill. So anyway, so she, um, my manager, Jamie called Lucian at the comic strip said, I got this client. He's new to this town and he has a showcase with MTV. They want to see him. So they're like, yeah, yeah. You know,

set it up. So they set it up. I went down there. I remember being scared shitless. And I just did this thing. You remember the Catholic church when you do the sign of the cross? Yeah. I would start doing that, but it didn't mean the religious shit. It meant 100% positive. Positive thoughts, what I'm saying in my heart. Go up there and just fucking commit.

Get that first fucking laugh. Get up on the board. Ride it for five minutes. Yeah. So I went up there and i fucking killed i had a great set and remember you do you remember your opening joke no i don't but i was anything that was on there that was murderous i i was doing a whole thing about sponsoring a starving kid in uh in uh africa and how i never saw him it was a whole scam and blah i don't

remember how the bit went but that fucking killed and it was a great sort of like i'm a white guy but i have a little bit of flavor here because i'm sponsored i had some africa shit in there like i knew what i was doing i was just like all right because i was from boston i was used to all friggin white people drunk and shit. So this is so fucked up. This is how charmed a life I lived. So I do it. It goes great. Never really hear anything from MTV.

So it just so happens like a week later, I just stumble in there just to show my face again. And I came walking in. I think I told this on this show. I came walking in. They said, oh, Billy Burr. They're like, you're on in two comics. I was like, what?

He goes, yeah, you got the 935. I was like, oh, I had no idea. And the guy's like, Jesus, thank God you didn't miss. I just happened to walk in. And evidently, Lucian saw me and gave me a spot. There was some sort of miscommunication between my manager. I don't know what happened, but I just happened to walk in there. And then once again, and it was just like, and then the person got off and then all of a sudden I was on. And then that one,

it happened so fast. I didn't have time to be nervous. And then I just went up and then I was in at the comic strip. And then I just started doing sets there. And I remember the big thing there was I went on after Mitch Fatel. And for some reason, everybody was just like, you know, that fucking guy. I went on after him and I killed. And Michelle Garb, you remember her? Yeah. Yeah, Michelle Garb was like, you just went on after him and I killed. And Michelle Garb, you remember her? Yeah. Yeah, Michelle Garb was like, you just went on after Mitch Fatale.

So then I was in. And once that thing happened, somebody vouched for me at the Comedy Cellar. And then I got in there. And then they slowly started to fall. But like, I had like a good, like, I moved there in September 95. And all of that shit didn't happen to like January of 96. So I was just sitting there by myself. With my roommate watching the Rangers and shit, we end up being the greatest guy ever.

Right. We used to rollerblade and shit, you know, fucking 90s. Right. And I remember I was just watching my bank account going down and down and down I kept thinking I got to get a day job I got to get a day job and then I got a couple of gigs here or there my manager got me into the Lake Ontario Playhouse opened up for this guy John DeCross I remember all of this shit and then I started getting spots around town and then my mindset went from I need to get mindset went from, I need to get a day job to I need to get more gigs. And that's when I officially, I felt became a professional amateur comedian. When my mindset went from, I'm doing this shit and dick joke thing for money.

But I was really, I had no coping mechanisms either during those, that first year or two in New York, where if somebody said you sucked, that thing, I absorbed that. It went right into my heart and then into my uh you know my bloodstream up into my brain and i would just be laying there in in my little fucking bed at night just playing that on a loop you suck you suck you're not funny you should go back to boston and all of this shit so it took a while um to kind of learn how to uh to shake that kind of shit off, you know, and by a while, I mean about 12 years into the business. How did you get, how did you get passed at the cell at the, at the store? Oh, the comedy store. I went up when I was living in it okay then at the time so in 97 no yeah 97 98 you did uh the

uh the sitcom with with uh Molly Ringwald yeah no that was 96 96 and then that and then that one that was short-lived and I got taken up to the top and then slammed back down to the bottom. And then, um, and I saw you, I saw you. Then I was bi-coastal. Yeah. So what I really wanted to be was I wanted to be a comedian in New York. I want to be one of the guys in New York that other New York comics watched. I didn't want to be on a sitcom. I just ended up getting on one. And then I got exposed to that level of success. And then in my head, it's like,

well, I got to get on another one, you know, rather than being like, all right, well, that was a weird thing that just happened to me. Dude, it was all of four months. I got it in like July. We started shooting in like August and it was off the air by December. Wait, so wait, did you, did you, you went on tape in New York? Yup. And then they flew you out to LA. You tested for the networks in LA. You tested for the networks in LA? Yup. And then? You would go to network, and I went to network, I went to network with Moon Zappa, who was great.

I'm a huge fan of hers. She was fucking great, and with Lauren Graham, and Lauren got it. Lauren Graham, like roller girl? From Gilmore Girls and Batskin. Oh, Lauren Graham, Lauren Graham. girls and yeah yeah yeah beautiful who lauren graham used to be a waitress at the comedy cellar really i swear to god because i remember when i got that gig david tell going like saying hey yeah he goes that woman is playing your wife you know she used to be a waitress here so that was one of the first conversations I had with her. She was a sweetheart. Everybody on the show.

It was you, Molly Ringwald, Lauren Graham. Was Anthony Clark in it? No, Ron Livingston. Oh, wow. No, and everybody on that show, except for me, right after that, immediately went on. Like, I remember Ron Livingston, when we were off the air, Ron Livingston said, yeah, I got this movie coming out.

It's getting a good buzz called Swingers. And we're like, oh, yeah, we're going to check it out. And all of those guys, like, it's funny that I never met those guys because he was hanging out with them. Now you're friends with all those guys. Yeah, you hang around long enough, you end up meeting everybody, and then you realize you're friends with all those guys you hang around long enough you end up meeting everybody and then you realize you did shows with people or like you were at a party that they were at yeah it's real like you know whatever so um they uh i'm off track yeah so i just i got lifted

up dude i was at like the improv and they named a sandwich after me. The Billy Burr something or other. I'm just like, dude, what the fuck? And I hated all of that because I was not ready for it. And because they were looking at like, this young kid came, he came out of nowhere. I was in the business three and a half years, and all of a sudden I was on a fucking sitcom.

And Anthony Clark was on Boston Common. Seinfeld shot on that lot. Sybil, men behaving badly. Dude, it was fucking nuts. And you could like walk from like, you just walk in, dude. This is pre 9-11. Like I remember one of the PAs just said, hey, you want to look at the Seinfeld diner in his apartment? I'm like, yeah.

And we just walked, cut through their little studio thing. And I was looking at it. No cell phones. So there was no internet internet none of that shit it was internet 27 years old 28 so yeah so and making crazy money and then it all fucking went away so then and right when it ended was December so then we go into pilot season, um, was after that. And I just wasn't ready, dude. And like, I remember after like six weeks, my manager going like, Hey, all right, man, go out there and dude, get a call back. And then I first felt like that pressure at the clubs going like,

you getting anything? Did you, did you book a pilot and pilot season came and went and i didn't get one and then my sandwich went away at the improv i cursed too much at the laugh factory and and jamie massada came out to me body what happened you lose your show and then you fuck fuck fuck all over the place man and i laughed thinking he was joking and that little fucking cocksucker who i love now stopped giving me spots for real for real and then i made the mistake of calling up and apologizing hey bilber i'm sorry i said the f word too many times then he knew he had me his dumb moves then patrice was like and when patrice would get really mad at me he'd actually address me as with the n-word he'd be like, N word, what the fuck did you do?

I was like, I don't know. He goes, he goes, man, that's some pimp shit. He goes, now he owns you. He fucking owned you. And he was right. I fucking hated how much he was right. He was so fucking right. Right.

So he was right. So I stayed out. So then I was going like by Colson. I was just fighting this thing because people kept going, Hey, how can not on another show so in my head I started they got in me and I was thinking I need to get on a sitcom the last thing I ever wanted to fucking do yeah be on a fucking sitcom right so it took me from 97 beginning of 97 to like the summer of 99. And dude, I'm talking about like the phone not ringing, you know, me and my manager, you know, we were both young guys.

We will vol till we went our separate ways. I got rid of him and it wasn't even his fault. It's, you know, it was just being young and, um, lost my agent. Who's your agent, ICM? I forget. I had a couple. I left one stupidly. I should have stayed with them and went with these new guys.

And then they just couldn't book me anywhere. And then I didn't have a show and no one knew who the fuck I was. No one wanted the time because there was just so many comics on me. So then I had no manager, no agent. I got unincorporated the fees every year. Ooh, I got unincorporated once. Keep it going. And I went all the way back down. That's a really, that's a fucking, that is a, that is a fucking that is a that is a moment that is

it seems like a white privilege moment but man it sucks i got unincorporated too no dude there's a lot of rappers out there can tell you that fucking story i got unincorporated i moved back to new york back to my walk-in bedroom because i never gave it up i rented rented it out to Bobby Kelly. And now I moved back there and Bobby Kelly was... And I just said, fuck this. Because I was like, what did I want to do? I wanted to move to New York. I wanted to become a great comic. I wanted to be able to do white rooms and black rooms and all that.

So I moved back to New York within a fucking week. I was hanging out down to Boston. I got to know talent. My favorite fucking people in this business. He put me up on a sunday night one of the hottest rooms i've ever seen in my life ever yeah if you go it's a wine bar now if you go in there and you touch the walls you can still feel the heat from that sunday night show will sylvain's opening talent fucking host will sylvainins hosting the new Jack portion and then talent hosting the other

thing. That show, I learned about that show through Patrice cause they wanted him to do it. I went first time I went in there, it was fucking packed. Okay. I felt like I was the only white guy in there. I felt like I was in a fucking Wu tank video.

It was like, and to me that was, then that was my only experience with something like that. Yeah. Hanging with Patrice. He was the one that told me that first Biggie tape, yo, you should pick this up, right? So I picked that because I had all my white wrap tapes,

like Ice-T and all of that shit. He was throwing it out the fucking window. So he got me into all this shit I should be listening to. So we went down there, and what was crazy was I was looking around and I was just like, I was like this tourist going like, oh my God, this is New York City. And the way everybody was dressed, they looked like the people in all the rap videos that I had been watching. It was so like beyond cool to me. Yeah.

And an unknown Chris Tucker. Like he probably Fridays was just in the can yeah he he fucking went up and when i talk just like just imagine that guy at the height of his powers in that room at the height of like but people listening to this thing the sunday night at the boston comedy club if you killed on that night, and it was one way or the other, you either killed or ate your dick, you walked out of there either wondering, how am I not as famous as Eddie Murphy right now? Or why did I ever think I should ever even be in this fucking business? So Chris Tucker went up and was just riffing I remember he riffed something about

being a boss and eating something telling somebody they were fired like that was the level of the premise and he murdered with it and it was just such a level of performance and everything and I just remember thinking and they wanted Patrice to go up and Patrice was like just coming down to check it out and I could tell Patrice was nervous yeah you know and I was like you know which a lot of the times he was which is what made him great was his talent and then that that all the great ones had that vulnerability so that became a goal of mine I was like I'm gonna get in down here I'm gonna go up on the show and I knew I was I'm gonna fucking kill on this fucking show. And then I got that sitcom, and it just threw me off track for three years. So then I came back, unincorporated, living with Bobby Kelly.

Both of us, with all of our childhood issues, almost fucking killed each other, dude. It was like two rescue pit bulls put in a walk-through bedroom. And then Akeem had the fucking, he he had the lease so he had the bedroom and he would come walking through and like he just had the lease and he had his smelly hockey shit he had his smelly hockey shit he would leave it out on the hockey bag out in our fucking shitty fuck it was the worst kitchen ever with this this overcast gray linoleum with big chunks taken out of it. There was a hole in the floor this big where like the Polish guys who ran the place, when they used to go downstairs to fix the boiler,

Bobby Kelly used to fuck with them. They'd be like, fuck you, man, fuck you. And then Bobby would be upstairs. He'd be like, America number one, Poland number six. And they would be shoving fucking screwdrivers and up and they would act like they were really fucking mad and we had like there was this piss yellow fucking dirty sink it was so and his fucking hockey stuff so then i was back there so i called patrice up let him know that i moved back dude i drove across the country in a rental car all i kept was the the big fucking

square TV that I bought with my sitcom money, my fucking clothes and a couple other things. I drove across the country in like almost just under three days by myself. I was like a fucking zombie. I drove, the first day I drove from LA to just east of Colorado. The next day I got all the way just east of Indianapolis. And then the last day I was hauling ass dude. And I got a ticket at the George Washington bridge, swear to God. And I tried to make a joke about that to the fucking, uh, the cop. Like, you know, it's funny as I don't be, he didn't give a shit. Just gave me the ticket. So that's when I got

back there and I called up Patrice and I was telling him how he was like, you move back, move back. I was like, yeah. And I told him I got unincorporated and I didn't have a manager. I didn't have an agent. I think I might have just started working with Barry. And even then, Barry just hip pocketed me. And Patrice was just like, damn, Bill. I mean, I know I'm struggling out here here but at least i feel like i'm moving forward and once again i didn't know how to like be like what the fuck did you say to me you fat fucking hack i didn't know how to go at him and i just let that sink in i'm like i'm not moving forward oh my god and i was just in this but then i went back to new y York and I just was I then that's when I became me it's like I'm not

Billy Burr I'm Bill Burr I just did Billy because I thought it flowed better with my last name because Dane Cook told me that Bill Burr didn't sound like a famous guy's name I everything anybody said if you told me to wear a wig on stage I would have fucking done it I was so fucking insecure so I fucking I got rid of all of that shit, went back to being just my real fucking name, just became a comic. I didn't give a fuck. And then I met all these great comics, uh, uh, talent, Drew Frazier, uh, Gerald Kelly, Rob Stapleton, uh, Capone, all of those guys. Oh man, just so many, Freddie Ricks. I'm trying to not, I mean, there was just so many guys.

Fucking A.G. White. I just got to know Smokey, all of those guys. And I was doing all of those shows while doing The Cellar. And that was a big moment of growth for me where I learned how to just, you know, at first as the white guy, you do your crossover material. And the more and more I did it, the more I was just trying to be, no matter what room I go in, this is my act. And I really worked hard on that. I was thinking the other day, I should go back to doing some of

those rooms some more, you know, when this fucking pandemic isn't around but uh i think we're supposed to read some reads a long time ago i've never told that whole fucking story so bill i used to do before i want to hear how you got past the store but i used to do therapy on skype i stopped because i was lying because i was afraid someone was going to get a hold of the camera and then post my therapies online so um but my therapist i could tell like you could tell he had turned all his notifications and this was my impression of my therapist when i was on therapy he'd be listening doing this can you tell that he's surfing the web like oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah interesting yeah that's that's a tough job, dude.

Can you imagine just sitting there listening to people bitching about their childhood all day long? Oh, no. He, when I started therapy with him, I had said, I'd had issues with another comic that had come out on like a big podcast. And I had said, I'm going through this and I don't know how to compartmentalize my feelings. And he was like, I don't understand.

And I was like, okay, I need you to go back and listen to this episode of this podcast and then then listen to these other episodes and by the way so he listens to like five podcasts gets into comedy drama and then the next week he's like oh my god so okay I have a question so you're doing Rogan right and like all of a sudden I turned him into like I turned him into a fan of the story and he was like like you could see he was like what happened next yeah but his stories are interesting who was the comic he had beef with you don't want to start it up again no it was jay moore oh yeah i remember that one yeah and so and i and i i had a weird i had a weird feeling of like of not protecting a

friend but i i was in the right i was in the right after a bunch of therapy i was in the right but I had a weird feeling of not protecting a friend. But I was in the right. I was in the right after a bunch of therapy. I was in the right. But you still feel guilty. You still feel guilty because it was a boss-friend relationship. You wanted to protect the... I don't know. It was a nightmare to work through.

But I got through it. I'm here. Hey, how did you get past to the store? So, all right. So back up the story. So now the sitcom's over and I'm out in LA and I'm thinking I got to get on another sitcom. And it's just, I'm cold as a cucumber, as they say.

This is before you moved back with Bobby, right? This is when I'm bi-coastal and Bobby's already moved in. So when I go back to New York, I'm just crashing with him. It's not bad. I stayed for acoastal and Bobby's already moved in. So when I go back to New York, I'm just crashing with him. It's not bad. I stay for a couple of weeks and then I come back out to LA, but I mainly live in LA. So I finally get a showcase in front of Mitzi down in the comedy store. I don't remember, 98 maybe. Okay. So she's still lucid. I don't remember, 98 maybe. Okay, so she's still lucid.

Oh, yeah, totally. Okay. She knew exactly what she saw when she told me to go fuck myself. So I went up there, and I'm doing my shit, and I didn't really have a good – So I went okay, and I got up there, and it's like, you're not ready. You don't know who you are yet. You remind me of this person.

That's all I heard. And I remember that thing, I was just like... But the store was not the store anymore. No. The store was just this weird, dark, negative fucking place. I mean, it felt like it was on an ancient burial ground. It used to be a church and kids got molested there. Just every horrible thing that ever could have happened was in the walls there. And it was a horrible time. So I didn't really give a

shit because the way it looked then was the store had had its time. Literally, the comedy club was a has-been at that point. And the Laugh Factory was jumping. You know, but, you know, fucking Masada was like, you know, you fuck, fuck, fuck all over. Because I was kicked out of there. She's like, ah, ah, ah, you know, so that didn't work. And then the improv, I just was never an improv guy. I just never got in over there. Even though I had a sandwich there for a minute. Improv was kind of, at that time was kind of like, like a Sarah, Zach, Patton.

It was, it was a little alt-y at the time, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. Before the alt rooms like blew up. But here was the thing about the alt rooms then. The alt rooms were started by Monster Club Comics. And then that second way, I'm doing it. It was like Marin, David Cross, Bob Odenkirk, Janine, all of those, Dana Gould, they were monsters. Oh, yeah.

Monster fucking comics. So they started that because, you know, Dana Gould, they were monsters. Oh, yeah. Monster fucking comics. So they started that because, you know, mainstream comedy clubs like they had gotten hacky. And so the crowd was hacky. And then just they wanted to stretch out and do other shit. And then also stand-up had really become, like I remember, the purest stand-up doesn't even have to move when he's up there.

He just stands and it just became all of this shit. like literally fucking 15 20 years earlier you had fucking andy kaufman putting on a mighty mouse record here i come to save the day and it was okay for him to do that so anyway uh yeah so i didn't get passed and as always with all of that shit i anytime that shit happened to me i always in the back of my head i was negative in the short game and I was positive in the long run. I was like, I'm going to fucking get in here or whatever. And I was like, fuck her. She's a fucking idiot and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But looking back, she was 100% right.

I wasn't ready. I mean, like, that's the first time I said I didn't have a good set out loud. But I realized it in my head a few, you know, within the last 10 years, like now she was right. But in my, in my head where I was at, I had a good set and I should have been passed. If this guy's here, how come I'm not on the stage? All of that dumb shit. Yeah. That's what happened. That place closed. I was, you know, not closed. I, the door to that place,

I couldn't get in. Jamie Masada had kicked me out. The improv was barely giving me spots. me and my manager went our separate ways my agent dropped me and i was just drying up and i was just all of these great years where i could have been on stage doing you know back in the day when new york was new york eight to ten spots on a friday eight to ten spots on saturday and that's's when New York was the place before LA took over in the last 10 years New York was the fucking place and they were just sharper they were just better they would they were getting those fucking reps and um I remember LA comics coming to the Boston and being like and it was so clear that they had not done new york comedy like they'd open with that up and you'd be like that's not how this works like you gotta you gotta address the

fucking energy in this room like it was uh i remember uh i will almost say their name but i remember one very famous la comic coming in and he's like so i uh got in the car the other day and everyone's like huh like yeah like it was crazy no there was like and there was in defense of those la comics there was like uptown new york city comics afraid of the village uh bobby kelly used to call them the sweater comics these comics that hung out at the uptown clubs they had their sweaters they were clean and they were trying to get letterman yeah and then it was clear to me though what was going on downtown specifically the boston comedy club in 94 and 95 you're talking about a young dave chappelle before even like uh robin hood met in tights

Robin Hood met in tights. Yeah. Brewer. Had just, no, Brewer, year before he gets SNL. Jay Moore. Red Johnny and the Round Guy. Dude, it was fucking murderer's row. DC Benny. Ian Edwards.

I mean, Greer Barnes. Jeff Ross. I mean, all of, Louis CK. Dave Attell. It was fucking insane. Nick DiPaolo. It was fucking insane. And I just remember when I would come down there, I would just, I always remember the, you know, the Spike Lee when the background moves, but the character doesn't,

that's how I would feel when I walked on that stage and I would just, oh my, that, that room had my heart for so fucking long. I was defeated before I even got on stage there. So, yeah, so then I ended up coming back, and I just sucked it up. And I was, you know, back to watching my bank account again and just hustling. And, you know, I got a college agent, which was my saving grace. I mean, it was REO artists. And then Scott Bass and Chris Shuler went their separate ways. And then I went with them.

And I remember that was the first time like an agency was fighting over me. And Ross REO was calling me up. And I remember he had this real gravelly voice. He goes, I'll tell you, if you get with with me I remember his voice went all the way down he's just like you get with me I'll hook you like a motherfucker I almost had to I almost had to hold up what the fuck and then Scott was just like yeah Billy I could get you all the I get you in Aberdeen South Dakota so I worked all of these fucking, yeah, that was such a weird, I was so fucked up a person then. And I hurt two or three women really bad, broke three hearts during that period in my life.

And I'll never forgive myself for it. Although they've all gone on to get married. So now I feel better about it. But like, because I was, dude, I i was literally like if you just looked at me i was like right out of the brady bunch and i totally looked like the guy you could marry but i was a complete stealth fucking lunatic really just oh dude oh my god yeah dude i was a fucking lunatic lunatic like i i i don't even know where to begin i i don't i had no idea who i was i knew all these things that i wanted and they were right there and i didn't know how to just

walk across the street and get them like i wanted to get married i wanted to have kids and just because of all this shit that happened when i was a kid i i didn't know how to you know i learned through therapy you think it's a mountain that you have to walk up and you're really a lot of times just stepping up on a curb like, oh, that was it? Like, yeah, because a lot of it, it lives in your head. Right? Like, I remember one time talking to a therapist and because we were down the cellar one night, we were all talking about getting molested stories, right?

Which was one of the funniest nights at the cellar and we all had them right so we're all telling these fucking stories and just we're all crying laughing at everybody's story so they were all as it was oddly cathartic and i didn't really join in because i'd never shared mine i just listened to theirs they go bill tell us yours i was like no no no like oh fuck bill what happened to you like no no and i was going like it wasn't that bad it wasn't that right so then that week in therapy i went and i and i told him what was going on and i was at the comedy club and all the comics were talking about getting molested we were all crying laughing and he had like this was going on. And I was at the comedy club and all the comics were talking about getting molested. We were all crying, laughing.

And he had like this hurt look on his face. He's like, you were laughing? I'm like, yeah, it's a comedian thing. He's like, okay. So then I go, he goes, did you tell, did you have a story? I go, I kind of did, but I didn't really think that it fit in or whatever. And he goes, well, let me hear the story. I go, it's not that big a deal.

And he's so look at you laughing right so he goes let me hear the story right so i tell the story and then it was the first time i had ever said it out loud yeah and i remember i used to always laugh at people like oh i got sexually assaulted when i was a kid a kid. I don't remember. I'm like, how the fuck would you forget that? And literally, I had this story just hovering right to the side of my head as I was walking around being the perfect boyfriend. And then out of nowhere, just breaking up with somebody and just killing these women like an asshole. I fucking hate myself for that. But so I finally tell the story. And then even then, after I said it, I said to the therapist, I go, so, I mean, that wasn't really like, like molested, molested, though, right?

And he just goes, would you do that to a kid? And I just go, no, no, I wouldn't. And then he just goes like this. And then he just goes, just did one of those, put his eyebrows up. And I was just like, holy shit, I got molested. Wow, what the fuck, right? Would you do that to a kid? No, no, no, fucking way.

No, no, fucking way I would do that to a kid. Then he just literally goes like this. He just goes like this, Bernie. He just goes. Get his hands out. You know what? That wasn't that bad, right? Would you do that to a kid no fucking way yeah no fucking way yep oh oh yep yep yep oh my god oh dude. If I ever, I don't, like, I don't even know.

Like, I don't think I would ever share any of those stories. But if I ever told you the shit that I was going through, you never would have known. Oh. Because I walked around. And that was what was funny, was even my own friends didn't understand me. Like, I remember Patrice and Keith,

yeah, Bill and Bill was a killer. He woke up, there was like a, you know, he had like the complete breakfast with a square toast with a little, you know, a little square piece of butter on it, you know, a sink. And I remember thinking like, Jesus, this is what they think. This is what the fuck they think. Because back then, my anger hadn't come out yet. Yeah. And, uh, wait, hold on. I remember I, because I remember, I don't't remember i remember the first time ever hearing that you were angry i talked to my buddy cowhead and and you had called in and i i was calling in to or maybe you were in studio and i called in because i wanted to hear

your interview do you remember this it was a long time ago oh it's probably 13 years ago almost maybe even 15 years ago. So I called in. There's no way I remember that. You know what I mean? Those fucking, Cowhead was in Florida, right? Yeah, Mike Calte, he's still there. And so I called in and I'd never heard you go off on like a rant of like an angry rant.

I just hadn't heard it. And I went, oh, because I remember, I remember, I remember, I remember Billy. Like I remember the, I was just telling someone the other day, the, the pan, it's the fucking pan. Remember that joke you had? Oh, the, the infomercial one. Yeah. The infomercial guy. Yeah. That was the, uh, that was the first, like, uh, I think time when i came back from la and i had a big bit yeah that was getting making people laugh and bobby going dude there was a buzz

there was a when you came back dude there was a buzz there was a buzz about you dude and i remember feeling that's fucking awesome you know but then i remember that i remember that i remember the next one was uh you want you want equality ladies then then we get off the boat at the same time the burning the building starts burning and we all leave together i remember that was the first shift i saw of you like addressing your like your thoughts and being a little more true to your voice but uh but you know what so much of that fucking shit was especially a lot of my real misogynistic shit which I did you know I went over the double line a lot with that stuff

a lot of that what that really was was I wanted to be married and have a family and I didn't know how to do it I did not a step up on the curve I didn't know uh I didn't understand any of it how to let go how to let yourself fall in love I didn't understand how to step up on the curve. I didn't know. I didn't understand any of it, how to let go, how to let yourself fall in love. I didn't understand any of it. And so it was like, and I didn't know that that's where my anger was coming from. I mean, obviously it was the shit that happened to me as a kid, then created this. And it was just all of this, just this, yeah, it just like had no, it'd be like walking into a house that a tornado hit. All right, let's clean this up. It's like, where the fuck do you start? So you just keep spinning around and around. So, so much of my shit,

um, back then was because of that. And then also cause I didn't know shit about women i just the comics around me was shitting on women so i just was doing it too just so really just so people wouldn't fuck with me in a lot of ways um yeah i was i was a fucked up dude what it's you know what's interesting is that like especially i think i'm pretty open and honest about all my insecurities and all the fuck-ups i had younger and all the like doubting but i i never i never really saw that from you i always saw like confidence like the only the only crack in your so did the women i was dating at the time like they were like you know they get a fucking little while into it was like what the fuck happened this guy i gotta move a little bit because i gotta plug in my computer it's gonna it's gonna die on me here

well why don't you why don't you tell me i never found out how you got passed at the store i got passed at the store when um why do i do this came out and then i was a new york comic coming out and i wanted to work out. And they had all just seen the special. I had done an hour long special. Well, I'd done a half hour on HBO. Okay. Hang on one second. You, Louis. That is a drumhead signed by Vinnie Colliuta. Thank you. One of my prized possessions. You, Louis, Patrice, Jim Norton, One of my prized possessions. You, Louis, Patrice, Jim Norton, Kevin Brennan, all did half hours for HBO, correct?

Yeah, me and Patrice taped the same night. Kevin Brennan, Jim Norton. Louis. Yeah. Earthquake. Oh, my God. What's her name? From Sabrina the Teenage Witch uh Caroline Ray Caroline Ray uh I forget it was a while back but I remember I went down when Louis did his it was right before Louis just fucking ripped off like nine hour specials in four years yeah and he had done a half hour for hbo in 95 and now it was 2005 and he was doing another one

so that's what he i said louis any you fucking killed and he was like oh thanks you know and he fucking murdered and i said any advice and he said enjoy it that's my biggest advice enjoy it he goes because when i got one in 95 i thought i was going to be doing one every couple of years and it's 10 years later so who knows when we all get one another and i was just like holy shit and louis was you know so much better than me you know he was a god i mean he was just fucking a man i was just like oh my god if he's thinking this you know i was like i was a God. I mean, he was just fucking a man. I was just like, Oh my God, if he's thinking this, you know, I was like, I was a fucking nobody when I got that thing. So I was just like, and he was a guy that I really, really looked up to. So if he was saying, you know, I thought I was going to get this. It's like, if, if HBO blew this guy off for

fucking 10 years, what are they, what are they going to do to me? You know? So that got me in a really good mindset. so i did that and then i did why do i do this an hour-long special was that coming yeah and then it went on netflix and i was one of the first guys on netflix in fact i remember having yeah you might have seen this this next guy on netflix and people would laugh because they were considered the, oh, the guys who deliver DVDs to your home, you know? So I did those two things and I started coming back out to LA and I wasn't even trying to get past. They just said, hey, we hear you're in town. Mitzi loved your special. Come down when you're whenever you're in town if you want to work out come down and work out and I remember thinking like wow

isn't that how this business works isn't that how so much of my life has worked when I've tried to go out and get something when I wanted it nothing happened and when I just say fuck it I don't care it just kind of comes to you and there's a weird thing in life well you have to know when because sometimes And when I just say, fuck it, I don't care. It just kind of comes to you. And there's a weird thing in life where you have to know when, because sometimes you have to walk up to something. You know, the woman of your dreams, you got to walk up to her or else she's not, she's going to walk away. Then there's other times you got to let shit come to you and knowing how to do

that is a, you know, I don't know. It's part of the journey, Bert. It's, you know, Whitney and Chris D'Elia were walking a mule one time. And she was explaining to Chris that, and I wasn't a part of this conversation. I just overheard it. But she was explaining that if you just walk, it'll follow. But if you try to get it to walk with you, it'll never walk with you. And it so defines every chick I wanted to fall in love with me,

every casting agent I wanted to book me. Every time I wanted something, I would want it to walk with me. But the second I stopped caring and was like, fuck it, I'm just going to do stand-up on my podcast, that's when everything starts showing up. And you're like, well, fuck, where was this when I was younger? And then I was like, did Nick Swartzen just naturally have that? Because Nick, I always look at Nick as someone who has always been able to book or work or get people to love him or be outstanding.

And I go, so is a guy like nick sports and just born knowing how to get a mule to walk with him does that make sense no because he came he came to new york ready i remember when i saw him i was just like wow this guy is fearless he was in a barks commercial and he was fucking it was like there are certain guys that you just watch show up and just all of a sudden like get into the double dutch so quick and i'm sitting on the outside going i don't know i can't even hold the rope yet yeah yeah and then then what happens then you build a big soap opera in your head about him versus you yeah and then you finally hang i mean i didn't have that with him

because he came along after me but i had that with guys from my generation who they came in and they were just in. And I just, it took, it just, everything always took me, you know, a little bit, a little bit longer. But my approach to the business has always been like, you know, after those beginning years of asking for it and then that not working that just became at some point where and i i stopped giving a fuck about who was booking me i stopped giving a fuck about having a manager an agent i stopped giving a fuck about what other comics were doing and all i gave a shit about was getting better dude and then when i did that and i just fucking put my head down and then that's

what i did all of a sudden i looked up and there was something that i wanted standing in front of me telling me that it wanted me to do this thing i was like oh shit hey we'd love to have you come to montreal oh you mean that thing that i stood on my fucking head for for like five years in a row and you never fucking picked me? And now I say, fuck you, I don't want, I don't give a fuck. You're never going to pick me. And all of a sudden, oh, we think you're one of the best up and coming guys out here. It's like, really?

So that to me is what's so funny when all of this fucking toxic white male shit came out and stuff. Like when they describe the journey of the white male shit came out and stuff like when they describe the journey of the white male it's like they're describing the journey of the matinee idol looking white male yeah and you just show up and every door opens and there's no heartbreak and nobody steals from you like my favorite fucking thing is like i saw a thing recently and they were talking about this powerful woman in show business. And, and all these guys were saying what, you know, she was a cunt. Now she stole and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And all this. So of course, you know, this woman comes on and goes,

you know, if she was a, you know, that's just cause she's a woman. If that was a guy, they'd be like, Oh, great job. great job you know that that feminist fantasy thing that they put out there it's just it is so fucking ignorant it's just like it's like lady do you like to get stolen from do you like to get yelled at no right yeah neither do men and just because a guy is yelling at me and treating me like shit and stealing from me just because he's a guy doesn't make it so i assume oh you know you know if he had a vagina then i'd be like what the fuck but he's got a dick and balls not only am i not mad at you i actually respect you it's like what it's like all comics do is sit around talking about you know the predominantly

male club owners who fucking steal from you yeah you know steal money and all the bullshit we warn each other that guy's a fucking cocksucker when i get here i'm never working his fucking club again it's like how many of those conversations do you have to hear but it's just like it's this convenient like broad brush that no pun intended that's that fucking painting with where it's just like, no, it like I draw the line. What? It's easier. I go with that. It's not easy. They, they, they, they misconstrue easier with easy. Cause then it's like, it's just easy. Nobody steals from you. Nobody, there's no disappointments there's no hey i'm better than this person but this other person got it you know that's just like all of that shit exists yeah sorry i went on a tangent there no no no it's it's

it makes total sense because i mean we're especially in this business we always fucking i mean i i feel like we've been good at smoking out the ones that steal and getting rid of them but i you know boston was always good about that and god bless joe rogan dude what joe rogan did and and how much he suffered i mean he lost his agent over that shit and it was everything he lost all his work at the store he lost his agent over that shit. And it was just like... He lost everything. He lost all his work at the store. He lost his agent. His manager stayed with him. And I would argue if he didn't do that,

like that was him dying on a hill for comics. And then that gave his podcast so much validity with us that all of us were like... I mean, everyone wanted to be on the podcast. Everyone loved the idea of what that podcast stood for. Yeah, and there was always that thing where, you know, I saw it with the Me Too thing, where it's like, don't get involved. It's not worth it.

Hey, I'm podcasting. Oh, shit. Hang on a second. Fucking motherfucker. Oh, hang on. Hang on. I can always edit around it. No, no, no no Leave it in

This is what makes The podcast good Oh okay You can put it in the fridge Sorry Sorry about that What's going in the fridge? Um

Oh some provisions Provisions Cause uh Oh You know There's a pandemic out there So I think We haven't talked about

The pandemic once i like it who gives a shit everybody's dealing with it it's boring what do we do next make fun of donald trump i mean what's up with this guy um anyway so what was i talking about what were we talking about we uh a joean, Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan. Yeah, so there was so much of that. There was some of that stuff in the Me Too movement where you saw something that was just clearly, okay, that was just a bad relationship,

and it got sucked into the Harvey shit. Yeah. And everybody was sort of whispering, you know, male and female comments going like, yeah, that's not the same shit. Yeah. And on, on everybody was sort of whispering, you know, male and female comments going like, yeah, that's not the same thing. And then it was just not worth it. It's not worth it.

Yeah. It was worth it. It was not worth it. People were doing that with, with joke thieves where they were going like, yeah, dude, don't worry about it.

You're going to get yours. Don't get involved in the politics of this stuff. It's, it's all going to work out. And it just, it's like, no, it's no it's not unless somebody says something and Joe finally fucking

said something I mean dude that was like it was crazy where it was just like you literally couldn't do your act when certain comics came into the club you were on that Opie and Anthony when Joe came in and was talking about it. Oh, yeah.

You remember that? Yeah, you were on that. He had eaten a pot lolly. I mean, I've listened to the episode. I want to say I listened to it live because I used to have that little Sirius XM and I'd get up every morning and go to play tennis and I'd listen to Sirius XM. He walked in hot.

He'd written a blog post about it and was just lighting him up and you were in Opie and Anthony that morning and it was I mean it was like yeah and I remember I didn't know I wasn't I wasn't I was a New York comic so I didn't know what was going on at the store um but I had heard about it so I I kind of was just listening like, like, wow, this is, this is intense. This is definitely intense. And yeah, LA was sort of like for a while, there was this thing where if a comic was bigger

than you could kind of come in and take your shit. That shit, I don't remember that happening in new york no new york was um you know what it was there was i just think there was just too many good guys it was a different mentality in new york then where it was like a you know people were really trying to be themselves and they were just trying to, I don't know, find their voice. And in LA, LA was like you were trying to make it. I need a hook. I just, you know, any night, you don't know who's in the crowd, you know, all that bullshit.

There was never anybody in the fucking crowd. I felt like the thing in New York was, all of us looked at guys like, say, Attell, and we're like, I need to get there. I need to be able to write that good i need to like it's about my writing and and like and i think there were times where all of us younger comics were derivative of who we were who our heroes were but never in a i mean i remember hearing about comics stealing jokes when i moved to la and being like who steals a fucking like

wouldn't everyone know like it seemed to me that there were 180 comics in the world at that time. Yeah. No, but back then, though, there was guys, like, that they were on TV shows or they were hosting comedy shows and they had this level of power. And then you was an unknown comic. There was no social media to be like, hey, man, this guy, and then post your videos.

They were on TV. You weren't. They just took your shit and did it on TV, and then it was theirs. And that was like an L.A. thing because L.A. was like where the TV was essentially being made. So I think that like that happened there way more. that happened there way more. And there was a desperation to LA back then that isn't here now. No.

Where like now it's just like, there's no, you know, the power of, of making it is really truly in the individual's hands now. Like you can just totally build up your own thing now yeah um my life without the help of of of you know yeah back then like it's like you know you need like there was like the you know it was like the mount rushmore's of managers the mount rushmore's of agencies the Mount Rushmore of comedy club owners. And it's just like, you needed relationships with all of these, these people, you know? And then I remember when, when Bo Burnham came along.

Yeah. And everybody was just like hating on him. Like this guy's never done a fucking club in his life. And dude, he sold out the fucking, I think his first gig was he sold out fannuel hall comedy connection was a 400 seater 400 seater man that was big boy shit like two friday two saturday and then one on sort of like five or six shows and everybody's like this fucking bullshit blah blah blah and I remember thinking dude that's great because I remember all the

shit that I went through and all of the crap to get there and I don't know why my mindset was like if you could avoid all of that because from what I heard he went up and killed so it's like as long as he went up and he did the job and everybody went away and they felt like they were entertained what the fuck do i care yeah i remember hearing he was doing stand-up and i was like that makes sense like i listened to those songs on myspace and was howling fucking laughing pissed that we had we had a similar joke um and they were really well written songs songs too. It wasn't just like, I know a couple of fucking chords. Oh, no. He was a really good musician.

Now look at him. What was that movie he directed? He directed a movie that I saw. 13 or 15, I think. Eighth grade. Eighth grade? Yeah. That wasn't even the age of somebody in the eighth grade.

13 if you're smart, 15 if you stayed back a few times burke kreischer everybody we had a joke he had a joke in one of his songs that was a joke that i had in my act uh it was uh i read i read rosa park's autobiography i called shotgun and uh and it was in one of his songs and i and it was one of those times where you're like how am i gonna hate on a guy that has the exact... We had a joke that was identical. No way he saw me do it. There's no way he knew who I was at all.

And I immediately was like, I got to like him. We wrote the exact same joke. He's got to be good. You know what I mean? No, but that's also... That's the way to look at stuff like that. Because all of that, the energy that you're going to waste. Being upset because somebody you don't even know sold out a comedy club.

No, it's in. They're not even thinking about you and you're stewing about it like they took something from you which they didn't and now all of that energy that you could be spending you know writing something or just enjoying your fucking sandwich that you're eating is now you lose you know you only get so many days of life um but i actually i've had the greatest fucking day really hey yeah i've been playing a ton of drums and i broke a bass drum head for the first time ever um and i was like and like lynn when i broke it i was like oh no because i can tune up a snare and i can tune up toms but the bass drum has always been a mystery yeah so i went out to pro drum shop you know they're actually still open during this.

There's nobody in there. And when I was in there, two customers came in. We were all joking, staying like 12 feet apart from each other. And I went in and I bought a new bass drum head on the batter side. And I went down there, took the bass drum head off, cleaned the drum up, put it back on. Took me all the 10 minutes. The first try, I had a killer sound. And then I bought this, the little guard things for the double pedal. And then I sat down and I've been messing with this Zeppelin song forever. I'm still not playing it up to speed, but I'm up to about within 10 BPMs of it.

And what's funny is this, you know, John Bonham had a crazy fast bass drum foot. And what I've found, it's almost like not giving fuck when I relax, I can play faster and then I can get the muscle memory. And then you end up having command of it. And, and I kind of learned that. And a lot of times you have to get out of your ego you know the song's at 100 bpm so you're trying to get up to there a lot of times if you go the other way like i'm playing it at 90 and you're your fucking legs all tensed up if you actually back off down 10 bpms which all the great drummers have always said i finally took that advice

and now i'm in striking range of this fucking song that has mystified me. What song is it? Good Times, Bad Times. Oh, my God. Yeah. What a great fucking song. Yeah, and what really inspired me is there's a YouTube clip of this little girl in Asia, right? The Asian girl crushing it crushing it so hard they actually

played it to robert plant and robert plant was just going like he said yeah he goes yeah she's playing playing it like she fell up like she's falling off a log which is an easy thing to do and it just um yeah so it's just something that i was like, well, man, if she just said, I just never had the time. It took a fucking pandemic. I was the one who needed to be a man. I've done that in my car so many times. Good times, bad times. That is the best intro to a song, in my opinion,

that's ever been written. Dun-dun-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, dun-dun-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, dun-dun-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, dun-dun-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, dun-dun-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, dun-dun-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch, ch Put a video of yourself doing it. I would love to see that. You know what? At the end of this, I'll come over and play it for you. I am a big believer in not putting your hobbies up on the internet. I think like, look, I'm never going to play it better than that little Asian girl played it. And good for her. God bless her. And I hope she has a major career. But she inspired me where I was just like, you know, if I sit down and work at it, you know, that's the good part of the Internet. Where a little girl on the other side of the planet

does something that you do better than you and it inspires you to get better at it. That's the good part of the Internet. Did you see that movie about... By the way, I was scared saying the Internet and little girl while I was making that. I was like, oh, God, what am I saying here? What was the drum movie about the kid

who learns how to play drums and he's got the teacher that's a fucking asshole and it's an autobiography? Do you know what I'm talking about? Amazing acting. I could barely get through the movie. Really? With what?

I was just like, you'll fucking quit the band. Well, you don't need this shit. Go get with, like playing music is fun. It's supposed to be fun look every guy every professional musician i ever talked to they go it's weird when it becomes a job which i can relate to as a comedian like if i got bright a new hour it becomes like a fucking job but but it's still so much fun that it isn't but like that shit where this guy's just fucking screaming at you and humiliating you. It's just like, buddy, you know, what am I going to do? Are we all going to go on the road and split the door 160 ways?

There's like 5,000 people in this band. Go fuck yourself. I'll make more money and have a better time in a fucking cover band. So, and then also what I didn't like is when they show him playing um uh when he's playing real fast and he's making a face like that that's uh that's poor technique and he's gonna get carpal tunnel i know it's just an acting choice but like if you really learn how to play like the the stuff that I've been watching is you're letting the stick, it's like dribbling a basketball. You dribble a basketball, you're not going like

that. You're just letting gravity do it. So this should all be relaxed. This is relaxed. Your face is relaxed. You're sitting up straight. That's the way you do it. And a lot of guys like myself were self-taught. You lean into one side, you're powering your way through shit and you end up getting like physical ailments from doing this fun thing. And any drummers watching, I can't recommend enough getting with somebody that actually like Dave Elich is the guy. He taught me to sit up straight. I mean, I got to the point through years of driving on the road and sitting on airplanes i had a i had a sciatic nerve issue i have a sciatic nerve issue yeah and

i started playing drums and my feet were going numb and falling asleep like what the fuck is going on he hooked me up with the masseuse she worked all of that shit out i got on a a squats and all these different leg exercises to build up because my, my backside was just skin and bone from just sitting on Southwest flights and TWA and all these fucking flights to airlines that don't exist anymore. So, so everybody thought that that was the drum movie of the year when really it was the Ed Norton movie, Birdman.

Birdman. Birdman. That was the Ed Norton movie, Birdman. Birdman? Birdman. That was the name of the movie, right, Andrew? With Michael Keaton? Yes. Yeah. Listen to the soundtrack. Who's the drummer?

Antonio Sanchez? Andrew, can you look that up? Yep. Sorry. There he is. You got to say something so they see you. Look at Andrewrew all right yeah antonio sanchez what he does with the drums on that is is a it's a fucking masterpiece and he's

actually gone on the road and played it live and i was supposed to go see him ended up getting a gig or something something fucking happened and i didn't get to see him like um to me there's two different ways of like the way I play drums is I do drums and Antonio Sanchez plays drums where he is a player like the greats they like whatever emotion they're feeling they can then get out of the drums yeah i just go down and i listen to good times bad times oh he does this and then hit cymbal so i'm like doing it i'm not like playing from my heart so actually and i came to that realization when i learned how to be a good comedian, where I would go on stage, and if I didn't feel like

doing my act, I wouldn't do my act. And I would just sort of talk about the mood I was in. And then when I finally went into my act, my mood affected the way those jokes came out. And that is what I've been chasing ever since playing drums. Like, can I play two things? Like, you know, when you're in the zone as a comic, you just go on stage and as you think it, you can just say it. And these musicians get to the point that they can speak through their instrument. with each other, which is another huge thing that you should be doing, is playing with other people. And they do something which inspires you to do something. And it's an outside your comfort zone thing. And it's an embarrassing thing to do. If you play with the drummer trading fours and he's got killer licks and you don't, you have to go through the open mic bombing, flop sweat, humiliation of that. And then you get good at it the open mic bombing, flop sweat, humiliation of that, and then you get good at it the same way as a comedian. So a lot of the shit that I learned as a comic, I've now applied to working out, playing drums, cooking, flying, aviation,

everything. It's just like, all right, I'm going to get my instrument rating, right? Which is now fucking off the rails because of this pandemic. You haven't flown since you can't fly. I haven't flown since Kobe. My wife told me to stop flying. But then, you know, the emotions came down. And it was just like literally what that guy did would be like, it'd be like if some guy put a blindfold on and drove his car 140 miles an hour down the street, slammed into a tree and

killed himself and then the next day i go burt you got to stop driving cars cars are dangerous it's like well yeah if you fucking do that so can you fly during uh coronavirus yeah you can do you can i mean it's not like a it's i it's not a responsible thing to do. If I owned my own helicopter, which I almost did close, really, I came this close, but I'm a dad. I have a kid. I just couldn't justify the money, but I, what's the helicopter costs? This was a used a star, which was what the cops and the news people fly.

Oh, I see. I fly Robinsons, which, you know, the whole time you're up against the door. You know, they're small. They're lightweight. And when I flew this guy's A-star dude i kept thinking i had the door open i had to keep looking because it wasn't touching me yeah oh my god and just the power of this thing was incredible so there was a used one like a 1988 but it only had 140 hours left on the engine and they still didn't support the engine so after 148 hours I would have had to take the

engine ship it if I wanted to get it rebuilt I'd have to ship it to fucking France and they were going yeah and they're gonna fucking stare at it for like because they're the ones who built it they're gonna stare at it for like two three months and so the guy wanted 500 grand for it and I had talked him down to I don't know what he sold it but I had talked him down but it was just it was I mean it's like I was gonna buy a Ferrari and I was just like um I could have done it uh I did something better with my money instead. I made a real estate investment instead. Nice. So, but I have to tell you, every time, like I know what those things sound like,

especially with the cops, because they fly at about 300 feet. Yeah. But when I hear those things going over, I swear to God, every time I look up, I smile when I see, when I see, I absolutely love the helicopter. And what's funny is a lot of helicopter

pilots say for some reason they say that the thing's a little squirrely but like most of my hours is in an r22 which is the little two-seater egg beater and that's one of those things where they say like you know they go if you can if you can hold on if you can fly that thing you can you can fly anything which isn't necessarily true it's not like you can be rambo and just jump in a helicopter so that's not real well this is the thing first of all you have to there's a startup procedure with all of those things and when you have a uh that takes so much fun out of the movie hold on let me go through my checklist yeah no there's like a whole thing and like with the a-star uh you know i like the the robinson is just like it's a piston it's a gas combustion engine

and uh the a-star i've i've like i've been out of aviation for three months i already figured what the fuck you called it's like a um a turbine engine so there's a thing you're watching it as you start as you start it up, okay? And you're looking at the heat of the engine, okay? And as you're starting it up, it gets to a certain point. Then you've got to back off the fuel, let it come down for a second, or you could literally blow up the engine and burn down your helicopter. And it gets to a certain point.

Somehow some fan kicks in, and then your temperature drops all the way down. Then you can go full power and then it'll come back up again. Fully articulated main rotor system. So there's no, there's no mass bumping. There's no low G pushover. There's none of that shit. and just the power of those things. When you pull the collective, you just go up. It's just fucking, I mean, I felt like I was flying a sports car. It was just fucking, I mean, I flew one one time, and I was smiling for three days. Really? And I was just like, no, dude, I almost almost bought it i almost bought that fucking thing and i

was just thinking the other day when i went on i was like i should have bought it because right now i could have just sent the fucking engine during this pandemic to get fixes i couldn't fly anyways but there was a whole fucking thing like i was going to keep it at like whiteman and then i'd have to buy the the fucking helipad maybe build one for it to sit on and the little truck to drive it out. It's just, it's so much fucking money. And as a dad in the back of your head, it's like, or I could leave this for my child or I could pay for private school grades one through 12

and just keep renting these things and look at it as like a hobby and stop acting like I'm in Magnum PI and fucking Tom Selleck needs me. So I had to get, you know, you start selling tickets, you know, you got to really understand that like you're in your heyday right now and you got to squirrel some money away. You you know you go up and then you go back down again and every generation is gonna they want their own rock stars they want their own comedians and that type of thing so a real estate investment during this time of my

life is way smarter than buying a fucking a-star with only 140 hours but oh what are those 140 hours have been fun burke that would have burke first of all i could i could have fit like five or six people in there dude and i was gonna get good enough where like we flew to big bear one time i flew in a robinson now big bear i've driven there one time and it was like a fucking it took me like half the day to get there with all of the traffic dude we were there in like 20 minutes 25 minutes out of burbank dude you don't understand with aviation everything is right there you just as the crow flies you just you get up to altitude and then you just fly straight to it and nobody is in your way put some snowboards on there oh my god oh yeah no it is it becomes like uh is anybody owns a plane or flies private they say it's time travel it is it's just like like i

don't understand comics who fly private because i don't get how do you keep your gig money and then they go oh well you build it into the contract it's like yeah but that's your money yeah that's money that would have gone to you they're not going to just pay for a private plane and give you all the money that they were going to give you yeah so um i wonder how many i wonder how much time this is a morbid thought but i wonder how much time kobe got back on his life by not sitting in traffic meaning like you know he died now I wonder if you're gonna stretch that out you're like actually he got another 10 years because he wasn't in traffic he was flying back and forth on this helicopter that's a morbid thing yeah depending on how much you fly I mean I bet uh the quality of life that that you have

doing that like he used to fly to like Laker games all the time. And if you can afford to do it, it's still a great thing to do. And it's just helicopters really get a bad rap and because so many people don't understand them and all it takes is somebody to do something like that. And somebody's famous on board. And then, then, then, you know, helicopters right now are like the pit bulls of fucking aviation where everybody's oh my god it's this it's that and like like i like i always give you shit you're like helicopter it gets one bolt i'm not getting on that and i just everything in aviation is one bolt

any one of those rivets on a jet comes off and it goes in the engine there goes your fucking engine and there's a big there's a big uh um urban myth about dual engines in aviation oh really where it's safer to have two rather than one it that's that's and it's safer to have two rather than one. And that's just painted with a broad brush. And from what I've been told, that's not true. Really? Well, it depends on how powerful your engine is. Okay? In commercial aviation, what we fly onto our gigs,

one of those engine cuts out. The other engine not only has to have enough power to maintain altitude it also has to be able to climb because god forbid you're you're you know like in utah where you're surrounded by fucking mountains and there's one in front of you it's not a helicopter you can't auto rotate and try to set it down in some little fucking grassy area yeah like you need to climb now in private aviation those little fucking grassy area. Yeah. Like you need to climb. Now, in private aviation, those little fucking Cessnas and all that thing, how light those things are.

You have two engines. Now, picture this. What do you think those engines weigh? Like say four, 500 pounds each? Oh, at least, right? Okay. So one stops working. Now, you went from having two that were producing power to now you only have one, and now you have a 500-pound fat guy sitting on your fucking wing not doing shit.

So the joke with those smaller things is the second engine has just enough power to take you to the scene of the accident. So two engines isn't necessarily safer. That's what I'll be thinking when I'm flying to Hawaii. They're like, we're going to turn around. We've lost power in one of our engines. I'm going to be like, oh, fuck. No, no, you'll be fine in those things. I mean, I guess the argument would be also that the other engine will keep you in the air longer.

Yeah. Because it's still going, and maybe that could get you to your spot. I don't fly airplanes, but that's just what fixed wing airplane guys have told me. Because all the guys are twins. I mean, then you're pretty much safe. And the guy goes, no, I would rather with a plane that size, I'd rather have the single with the parachute. Oh, I know what you're talking about.

But the parachute, dude, that's also not 100%. What? Because now, okay, so now you've pulled the parachute, then you're like this, and you're going down, and you can't steer. You can't control where you're going to go. And you could be like fucking just the wind blows you. There's a bunch of kids playing in a fucking schoolyard.

You could be going down into some water. You could be like all of a sudden, like there's like a fucking cliff and you fucking, you ever see it? The parachute guys hitting you like that. And then the fucking, you know, there's, you know, it's like, what's his face? And, uh, Evel Knievel in the Snake Canyon there. But it came out too early.

Oh yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you could drown. There's all kinds of shit that could happen. It's not for the faint of heart, but like 999 of the time none of that shit happens and they're so meticulously maintained that um driving a car is way way way more dangerous you said that one time i think you said it on stage you go here we are in formation with a bunch of people we're not communicating with on the drive down the highway

yeah i'm texting they're on fucking information drugs weed is legal yeah dude and it's like like i mean i don't think you die as much but you can like the odds of like getting paralyzed really fucked up is just off the charts i mean dude you drive down all these fucking roads you see wreaths and crosses all the fucking time and people go let's go there's more people driving yes there is and you're right in the middle of it buddy look up in the sky there's fucking nobody up there compared to the one up there now yeah you no one up there now. Yeah, you're way safer, I think, in LA in gridlock traffic. The scariest thing out here is the highway when there's not a lot of people out there

because people drive crazy because I think they can finally make time. They don't know how to handle that power. And then they'll fucking pass you 90 miles an hour on the side or whatever. What are you doing tonight? Well, my daughter's getting up. She's actually getting up right now.

So we're going to ride bikes. Then tonight's movie night. And she's hooked on this movie, Brave, which stars the great Billy Conley. That's a great movie. One of the great comedians of all time. I got to see him do a two hour set in New York one time. Fucking blew me away.

And he also, I saw him on Conan one time. He had the funniest response to a groan. He was talking about how to solve the homeless and the hunger problem at the same time. He goes, you feed the homeless to the hungry children, right?

So the whole crowd goes, and he just goes, oh, shut up. That great Scottish accent. And they did. They did and they left. It was so, because that guy's vibe, you feel like you're in his house and you're kind of part of his family. The way he does his shit, man, is fucking amazing.

So, yeah, so tonight we're going to do movie night. She loves Toy Story and she loves Brave. But my wife, Nia, is so great at, like, getting to take a chance on something new. What did we watch? We watched Ratatouille with pat and oswald great movie great fucking movie fucking movie and she got a little upset when that evil chef was chasing the rat around she was like why he do that what why he do that it's okay it's okay but um i think uh i don't know i think um We watched Frozen 2 the other day.

I think we might do Frozen. Is it good? Frozen is such a great... Frozen 2. We watched Frozen 2, man. I think I ended up crying during it. I always cry at all the Disney movies. And my daughters mock me.

Literally mock me. I know, but you know what, dude? They love it. Yeah. They love it, dude. You're a fucking awesome... Dude, you're an awesome dad. I mean, I can't speak on the husband thing thing only your wife can say you're an awesome husband but like you're an awesome dad dude you really are they lucked out well i don't care what i don't

care what your dad thinks of you you did all right by the way i haven't drank in like uh two weeks i drank with rogan i drank with rogan but i but i haven't really i haven't had anything other than that how fun is joe oh dude we got i had so i when the thing started i stopped drinking and then it'd been like a week or eight days and then rogan was like man i'm he goes he had found out michael yo got coronavirus and he was like man i'm freaked out he's like i need a drink to do this like to calm down and i was like well i'll have a drink with you i've been i hadn't had one and it wasn't like i was quitting and then he lit a joint and I was like ah I'll smoke a joint and then I lit my own joint you couldn't pass it right it was the perfect buzz Bill it was the two drinks of buffalo trace and a joint and I was perfectly hot like perfect you know I told

Nia that I said you know what Bert told me when we went to that XFL game? Which, by the way, I was joking on my podcast that the NFL came up with the coronavirus to get rid of the XFL. Because think about it. They got – and we knew about it, and they still got to do all their playoffs right into the Super Bowl. Yeah. NHL gets canceled.

NBA gets canceled. MLB delayed. The golf – everything is fucking canceled. They got all their money. This shit's going to be over, hopefully, by the fucking preseason. And they took out the XFL. But I told her that you said your perfect buzz was two hits off a joint and a glass of red wine.

And she goes, oh. Yeah, so. Oh oh it was perfect this will define my dad my dad tells me when the coronavirus hits he's like buddy stay away from the booze get healthy lose some weight get your blood pressure in control that's true and so i did it i'm like you know i'm down like 10 pounds. You look good, man. Thank you, Phil. And so, but this is my dad. My dad just sent me a text that said, top 10 gin drinks that are actually good for you.

And I'm like, just when you tell me not to drink, then he goes, oh, gin's not that bad though, buddy. He's actually right. I always, I was always, what's that? 29 is actually what they gave to the british soldiers and told them to drink when they were out in the woods drink tonic because it has quinine and it was uh and it helped uh stop the spread of something i'll look it up yeah i'm sure it's he's just so much smarter than us isn't he yeah it's it's really evident like that just became a completely different show this has been a lot more fun that's good it's good i didn't i didn't

i was i was skeptical of doing uh doing the zoom but i enjoyed this is fucking great no you know what i'm hoping i'm hoping that all these businesses that are finally embracing video conferencing, look how clear the sky is. It's great. And everybody's more chill and relaxed, especially here in LA. Wouldn't it be great if you could just pitch a fucking show like this? Nah, you got to be in the room and blah, blah, blah. Every time you have a fucking pitch meeting, it's always on the other side of the 405 at 5 30 yeah this would be perfect yeah i'm uh i'm gonna win well i think at atc we're going to embrace what we learned and we'll say that we're doing it for the environment rather than our own selfish reasons um there's

another thing too you could fucking do like three pitch meetings in 90 minutes, half hour each. Yeah. Thank boom. Never fucking leave your goddamn house. I mean, I'm kind of getting into this dude. I'm starting to understand people who are agoraphobic, agoraphobic or smart when we return. I heard this. I heard this, uh, very, uh, there's a black family, but it was just the dad and his two kids right very manly uh dad i was getting picking up medication at rite aid very manly dad and he's like uh he's like i remember keep your distance and his daughter is a little more attractive but the son was real skinny and nerdy with glasses on and he says you know dad as a natural introvert i've been practicing for these days my entire life oh no i it's like you know when you see it like god man you're

fucking perfect don't change who you are fucking fell in love with this kid just as an introvert yeah and he's smart he also has a sense of humor. That kid's going to do well in life later. Yeah, later. It's going to be well. Loud people run your life. Oh.

All right, so we're going to do this next week? Fuck yeah. It's perfect. It's perfect. Let's do it. I'm going to go start dinner with my family.

This is fucking perfect. Yeah. All right, man. You know what's so all right so fucking funny is the amount of times like i just kept looking at you and then looking at that painting of you you know what you look like dude you look like you know if you weren't naked you look like you're you're part of some great cigar family like making family Nicaragua or something like that. You were an aristocratic family in Cuba when, when the, uh, the fucking, um, whatever the revolution came Castro, you got kicked out. They still know how to make them.

We were, we were, we were friends with family, friends with Batista. Watch frozen. I'll let you know what I think. And thank you to everybody for watching. Stay home, stay home, thank you everyone for watching. Stay home, stay home, stay home. And this fucking thing will be over sooner than later. Awesome, brother. Thank you for watching.

The Bill. Bert. Pod. Pass. All right. We'll see you guys.