Name: Special Edition of the Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast with Guest Paul Anka
Uploaded: 2023-05-18T19:00:17.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Special Edition of the Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast with Guest Paul Anka' from Bill Burr on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-05-18. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Special Edition of the Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast with Guest Paul Anka' from Bill Burr on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-05-18. Transcript available.

Special Edition of the Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast with Guest Paul Anka

Hey, what's going on? It's Billy Blue Blazer.
I'm wearing this jacket. You know why? It's out of respect.
I'm about to interview one of the biggest legends in show business.
I got to see this man perform live a couple of months back.
He absolutely blew me away.
I'm about to sit down with the one and only Mr. Paul Anka.
Once people find out you have cigars, you get them by the truckload.
You could literally start your own shop.
So what I did was I bought a humidor comedy store for the younger comics or
whatever.
I just brought them all down there.
So my thing is if I'm one of those guys, like if it's in the house, I'm going
to consume it.
Cookies or whatever.
So I got to make sure, so if I have 100 cigars in the house, I'm going to smoke
100 cigars.
So what I like, I have to get back to what a cigar is supposed to be, which is
it's an event.
Yeah.
You're sitting down with somebody, you know, usually it's one of my knucklehead
friends.
It's not usually Paul Anka.
What do you do, Cohibas?
What do I do?
You know, I actually, I don't have a hookup for real Cubans.
Really?
It's easy.
Is it?
Yeah, Miami.
People always tell me, this is a Cuban and I light it and they're all excited
for me.
And as I'm tasting, I'm like, this isn't fucking real.
Oh, no.
This is how I know a Cuban.
This is how I know a Cuban.
I can tell a Cuban's real.
As I light it, I always, after one or two puffs, I go, oh my God.
Right.
And the last time I did that, I was in Tel Aviv.
Tel Aviv.
Tel Aviv.
And I was in Jaffa, right outside, right outside of, are you kidding me?
Where did you work in Israel?
I worked this great place in some...
Did you use that big historical outdoor place?
Because I just got back there.
I did two shows there this summer.
I had a great time.
You know what's funny?
I love it.
You know what's funny to go there is like not living there is you just look
around and it's
like there's all these beautiful women, Palestinians and Israeli and all that.
You're sitting there going like, what is the problem?
Right.
The Mediterranean Sea?
I know.
I know what the problem is.
But like...
Well, we know that.
There's been a mess over there for years.
It's people are idiots.
They just can't get them.
But they're amazing.
I know.
As an audience.
You know, they live life to the fullest.
And I've been going there for years, even though I've been getting calls from
people,
you know, why are you going and all that bullshit.
And I finally went on television.
I said, just mind your own fucking business.
You know, because you're trying to be a big deal.
It's like a little push bar.
Yeah.
Why would you do that?
It's like, why do you give a shit?
Because I want to.
I'm not telling you what to do.
Yeah, exactly.
Fuck off.
And then they go, oh, all right.
I feel like this is a really like a big bully time with that type of stuff.
And I kind of learned that if you just sort of, you know, look, you got to be
open-minded.
If you are doing something and it bothers somebody, like, you know, I don't
give a shit.
Oh, I didn't realize that.
Sorry.
Right.
But, like, if it's just, like, politically motivated, which I can't stand.
I hate that scene.
I hate both.
I'm sick of it.
I'm backing off.
Yeah.
Oh, I haven't watched the news in, like, since before the pandemic.
It's one of the greatest things.
My buddy the other day, we go, dude, this whole country's going to shit, blah,
blah, blah.
This happened, this happened, this happened, this happened.
And I finally said to him, I was like, buddy, you know what happened today?
A whole bunch of great things happened today.
And they're not going to show it on the news.
Right.
And now you're sitting here and you're going to flip out.
And then also, the way they present it is when something happens, it's always
like, this happened.
They act like this is the beginning of the story.
You know, especially when they're dealing with, like, race, class, and all of
this type of stuff.
They don't go all the way back and be like, well, it started with this, and
because of that, now we're here.
Yeah.
And they just get people, like, I feel like CNN and Fox News, their job every
day is to divide America.
Totally.
It's a circus.
Like, they should be shut down.
Yeah.
They're being told what to do.
These guys are making a shitload of money reporting it, told what to do, and it's
become like a, it's a circus.
Do you know anybody who watches CNN or Fox on a regular basis that even
remotely sounds sane or happy?
No.
I don't.
Yeah, they always got their eyebrows up.
They're like, they're going to do this.
Yeah.
But you know what else it is?
Most people watching that, I figured out, when you talk to them, and you've got
to be careful who you talk to,
they don't know how to get to the source of what the issue is.
Right.
They're taking what's on the surface.
They don't do any homework to get to the source of what's real.
Well, then they also, and they also, like, politicize.
Like, everything is like, you know, look what the guys with the red ties are
doing.
Look what the guys with the blue ties are doing.
I don't know.
So you're telling me this coffee is, uh, this is, this is your secret here?
No, no, I don't know anything about this.
I'm saying drinking coffee.
Oh, four a day.
Four a day, minimum.
But I like how you wouldn't co-sign on this immediately until you tasted it.
Yeah, got to taste it.
So what's your favorite cigar?
I like the Cujibas.
I do some Monte Cristo.
I like a Robusto.
Yeah, Robusto's good.
I like the Partagas, uh...
Partagas, I've been smoking for a long time.
Series D is great.
Yeah, that's a smooth...
Yeah, they hand those out at all the casinos for years.
When you work Vegas, whether you're winning or losing, they'll walk over and
give you a box of those.
What was that like back then?
Oh, God.
When the mob ran in, it was the best, right?
Bill, look, I came down from Canada.
Used to hang around Massachusetts, Lowell, Hampton Beach, Salisbury.
I mean, that's your hood, right?
Oh, yeah.
I won my first contest in Salisbury Beach when I was, like, 15 years old.
I went to this little club, and I won a contest.
Is that right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I used to go down from Canada because it was close.
We'd drive down.
My dad would drive us down every summer.
So I knew the whole area.
And then one of the first places I played was Blinstropes in Boston.
You might be too young to remember it.
I don't remember that one.
Yeah, your parents would remember it.
But Blinstrom was the place.
Between the Copacabana and Blinstrom's, once you did those two places,
the word got out to the boys, to the mob.
Then you got to Vegas.
Oh, so if you were killing it.
Yeah, I was killing it at the Copa.
I was the youngest one there.
I was, like, 19.
In fact, I hired, my first comic that I hired was Jackie Mason.
Oh, my God.
He was my opening act, right?
I love Jackie.
I saw Jackie do a one-man show.
Yeah, Broadway.
It was basically, yeah, it was, like, two hours of comedy.
Yeah.
Or maybe even more than that.
Like, he did, like, an hour and 15, took a 15-minute break and came out and did
another hour.
Yeah.
And, like, murdered.
And this was another one where I went to go.
I saw him in, like, 99.
So I don't know how old he was.
He was maybe pushing 70.
I don't know.
So I went to go see him.
And there was always that thing, like, I love this guy, I love this guy, I love
this guy.
Please, please don't be sad.
Don't be as sad.
And he came out beast.
Yeah.
Murdered.
He's one of the guys that stayed consistent.
You know, in that world, and I've watched it for years, guys make their big hit,
guys that we probably love.
And then it's a sliding slope from that.
I mean, look how you've kept it going, right?
But forever you.
You know what that is?
That's fear-based.
Because I see those guys.
Yeah.
You know what it is?
Yeah.
When you start out, when you're coming up, you see, like, do you remember the
first time you opened for some guy you couldn't believe you were, like, opening
for?
And they were, like, sliding down.
And it was a combination of this thrill of working with them and then the
terror of, like, oh, that's what that looks like?
Like, I thought this guy was just going to stay there.
And it's like, no, you don't.
Look at the guys.
Look at Kinnison, who I used to love.
Look what happened to him.
He was brilliant.
Yeah.
No, he's one of the greatest ever.
I mean, you know, you look at the list of guys that hit the slide.
But he was coming out of it.
That's the worst part.
There's so many of those guys that got sober.
Kinnison, Stevie Ray Vaughan, all of these guys, like, they get sober.
And right as they're either just put out, like, Stevie put out In Step and then
you did that great album, Family Style with Jimmy Vaughan.
It was just all, like, what is he going to do in the 90s?
This is going to be great.
And then it's just, it's over.
And, like, Kinnison, like, I don't think I ever saw a guy like fame just, I
mean, the difference between.
You like the shit.
Yeah, his first Letterman set.
I love that.
His first Letterman set was, like, what's this?
Yeah, and the vibe, the vibe.
I saw it.
In that studio was, like, they always try to build comics up, like, this next
guy's wild.
Like, there was a legit, like, fear.
Like, we don't know what this guy's going to do.
I didn't think he even knew.
And it was, like, it was just one of those.
There was before he did Letterman and then after.
He did the marriage bit.
Yeah.
And he went into the crowd.
Yes, he went right down to the front of the aisle.
And he's, wow!
Yeah, yeah.
People were like.
But then the second one he did, you could see, like, his foot was off the gas.
Yeah.
And he was, hey, Dave, what's up, Paul?
And that was the beginning of him.
I mean, it was also one of the things I felt made him so compelling was he was
so vulnerable and he was so, like, blowing around or whatever.
But, like, I think he learned a lot.
And, like, from what I heard, he had got, like, sober and just the irony of
getting hit by a drunk driver.
Yeah.
But that's also one of those guys.
I always think of those guys, like, when someone will say, like, man, you're
one of the best comics out there today, blah, blah.
I always think, well, yeah, because Kinison's not around, Patrice O'Neill's not
around, Mitch Hedberg's not around, Bernie Mac is gone.
Like, so many, we lost so many, Robert Schimmel, so many of these huge, huge,
huge, like, just, like, these guys that were going to have a career like yours
where you don't, oh, new decade, you're gone.
No, I'm going to still go and I can adapt.
How were you able to do that, by the way?
I feel like music, it's way harder than comedy.
You know, when you're a kid at 15 and you're writing your own stuff and all of
a sudden you get lucky and at 15, 16, here I am living the dream.
I'm working the New York Paramount, I'm up at Boston, I'm working with Chuck
Berry, Fats Domino, all the guys who were my idols.
Oh, my God.
You make a decision at that point.
You go, man, I can't let this go.
Right.
You're sitting with Frankie Lyman, who's so talented, but he's shooting up
heroin.
You know it, he's giving you an offer on it, you're passing on it, you're
making choices, but it was tough because what I found out early in the career
was every one of us that make it, we're not sophisticated.
You don't meet sophisticated people.
They're given this gift, they're given this talent, but off the stage, they go
home, they're with the fucking bathrobe, you know, they're just down-home
people.
Yeah.
Not sophisticated trying to deal with the success.
So you're going along this journey, and all of a sudden you get a little wisdom
how to deal with it.
When it clicked in for me, when I started working for the mafia, they
controlled the record business, you know, it was a time of, even when you went
in to make a record, some kid would walk in with a hit song, and so one of the
guys that I know would be nameless, would go, well, instead of saying, don't go
over there and t