Name: Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast 5-11-23
Uploaded: 2023-05-12T12:52:48.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast 5-11-23' from Bill Burr on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-05-12. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast 5-11-23' from Bill Burr on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-05-12. Transcript available.

Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast 5-11-23

Rolling.
Rolling.
All right.
Hey, what's going on, everybody?
It's Bill Burr, and it's time for the Thursday afternoon,
just before Friday, Monday morning podcast,
and I'm just checking in on you.
And as you can see, it's video,
which means I have definitely a special guest.
This is the only time I do these,
is if the guest is special.
I don't mean mentally challenged the way that used to mean.
Right back in the day, that meant special.
I don't mean special like that.
I mean a special mind who wrote an incredible new book
that is going to be out on May 16th called Harold.
I actually read the whole thing.
I feel like I should have a sticker on my forehead.
The legendary Stephen Wright, everybody.
Thank you, Bill.
How are you?
Let me get you in towards the microphone here.
There we go.
I'm good.
How are you?
I'm good.
That amplifies the sound.
Really?
And gets you out to the...
I've never heard of such a thing.
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate it.
I appreciate you coming out to the podcast.
And I have to tell you, this might come as a shocker.
I'm not a big reader.
You know?
I'm not either.
I'm a big watcher.
Me too.
Or somebody tells me something happens and I just go like,
all right, that's easier than fact checking.
I'll just agree with you.
I sat down.
I brought this.
I was flying to Ottawa and I started reading it, waiting for my plane and I did
not put
it down until I landed and I loved it so much.
I actually started slowing down because I didn't want it to end.
Like, I don't know.
Have you ever finished like a video game and there's like that depression that
you can't
go out and kill any more zombies?
I got that feeling in a literary way.
This book is called Harold.
It's about a kid in the 1960s in third grade.
And the whole book takes place one day of his year as a third grader.
And I can't, I can't even tell you.
I can't wait.
First of all, it's the fact that you couldn't stop reading it is like, that's
an incredible
compliment.
You know, I mean, people, it's just only a few people who were involved who
worked, you
know, the editor and stuff already.
You're like the first person.
I couldn't put it there.
Can I read anything that's in here?
Sure.
It opened right up to this because I actually have read this so many times.
He remembered his grandfather telling him that there is no time and time is
moving slow
and fast all at once.
The kid is, he has a real close relationship with his grandfather.
So he's sort of daydreaming a lot slash ADD during his entire day at school.
Time is moving slow and fast all at once.
He continued.
And the grandfather says a snail is taking tiny, tiny steps on the armrest of a
seat, a seat
that's on a 747 cruise speed, 580 miles an hour, or the Concorde cruise speed,
1,356 miles
per hour.
That's your life.
You're a snail on a jet.
He said some people don't respect the little time they have and waste it, a lot
of it, throwing
their time into a wood chipper.
They also destroy other people's time by being upset over meaningful fucking
bullshit.
Harold's mother did this all the time.
And it's just like...
I had to set the book down when I read that.
Really?
Because I was like...
First of all, the idea of the two types of time, like how long it's taking the
snail
to go across the armrest while that thing, you know, which I think is a
metaphor for being
on Earth, flying through space.
And then what killed me there was people wasting other people's time bitching
about meaningful...
Meaningless bullshit.
I'm just like, oh my God, that's me.
How much of my wife's time have I wasted going like, this fucking goddamn guy
said he was
going to be there at 6 and he gets there at fucking 6.30 like nothing's wrong,
you know,
just an idiot.
So like I really...
Like, and the people that have wasted my time, but I kind of saw, I was like,
wow, I'm sort
of on both sides of the coin there.
But like, I really felt like this is the first book I've read since, you know,
the one that
everybody had to read growing up, Catcher in the Rye, this is like Catcher in
the Rye on
mushrooms is the only way for me to describe it.
But I actually liked this character where I didn't like the character in Catcher
in the
Rye.
Because he was kind of a hipster douche.
Like when he went to go see that, he snuck out, he goes down to the village and
he goes
to see that piano player, right?
And he says, he goes, and the guy was really, he was great at piano.
And he goes, but he knew he was great.
Oh.
So that ruined it.
And it's just like, no, he was great at it.
He was confident.
And you knew he was going to get a bunch of pussy after it.
And you weren't.
So that bothered you.
And rather you trying to tap into your own Burt Reynolds, you're going to
resent this
guy.
And it also tapped into like.
Your own Burt Reynolds.
Yeah.
And I feel like the beginning of like that sort of hipsters, nerds taking over
where they
tore down the idea of what a guy's guy was, you know, which needed to be lampooned
after
all of the action movies and shit in the 80s.
It didn't need to be lampooned, but they did it to such a fucking level that
they acted
like that guy didn't even exist.
And it's like, no, that guy did exist.
There was like, everybody went to high school with some kid that was crushing
it in sports
or something and was literally all was getting celebrity level pussy.
Yeah.
They're the famous people in the school.
Yeah.
And they were that they didn't have to like, you know, go on stage and do a
dance or whatever.
They just were that guy.
And we all like when I was a kid, you didn't make fun of that guy.
You looked up to that guy going, fuck, I wish I was that guy.
I wish I had that guy's gift of gab and everything.
And that that was the thing that, you know, and I also think that the movie
stars that
I grew up with, the Charles Bronsons, the Clint's, the McQueen's and all of
those guys
were Lee Marvin.
I mean, I love Lee Marvin.
Yeah.
I mean, that guy actually, you know, he fought in Korea, I believe everyone.
But like three people in his platoon died.
So when this guy was in a movie with a gun going, I'm going to fucking kill you.
Like he had actually done that shit.
So like that was my idea.
The guy's guy.
And I feel like they, they, they started making fun of like the, the action
heroes of the 80s
and they went all the way back to like Lee Marvin.
Like this, these guys are like fucking war heroes.
So anyway, what I like about this kid is, um, I liked that he had, you know, he's
a crush
on the girl, uh, Elizabeth, I believe his name is.
And he's afraid to talk to her and he, and it is, and so much of it is like ADD
and you
have like your worldview in it.
Like this book, like is like when you talk about the time, how it's, it's going
fast
and slow, it's going frontwards, backwards and sideways.
This book like is doing the same thing.
Wow.
I feel like it's like he's in the class, but he's mentally, he goes on these ADD
trips.
He comes back and then there's all of this, you know, that, that, uh, beginning
of a comedian
where you have all this funny shit that you want to say, but you don't have the
balls to
say it to the teacher.
Yep.
And the pretty girls can't see you.
Yeah.
And because your, whatever your, your beautiful peacock tail is all in here
where like the
kid out on the field, you know, tossing the football is, is just, there's a
no brainer that that's the guy that they should go bang instead of you or
whatever.
There's just so much of that, uh, in here.
And I was wondering like, you know, how long did it, I read the forward and
everything.
It seems like you, you started to write this a long time ago and it gradually
came together.
Yeah.
It took about seven years.
Dude, I gotta be honest.
I just, I'm not sure.
I, I think that's funny too, but I don't, why?
No, because you are this book, dude, you, you and I are in the same, we're
living on the
planet at the same time.
All right.
I'm going, I'm on the 747 and you're this snail.
You're just like, ah, you know, it took seven years.
And like how, like, and like how, I feel like I was joking.
Like, I feel like I'm in the matrix and I'm just, and I just react to
everything where you're
outside the matrix looking at it with like, I said to my wife like three times
while I was
reading this book going like, this guy is operating on such a higher mental
plane than I could ever
even hope to get to.
And like, I love how you live your life.
Cause I, I, I like how, um, what you do is one of the greatest standup comedians
of all time.
And you have earned that too.
You have earned that.
And, um, but what you do is so public, but you are so private and quiet.
And I found that the longer I've been in this business and, and, and the bigger
things get,
the balance is, is then I just keep having like this, this reoccurring fantasy
of, of being
in the middle of nowhere.
And I'm just not even, I'm not even on my front porch cause I don't even want
to see somebody
drive by.
I am on my fucking back porch and I am just sitting there.
It's funny.
I'm enjoying myself and I'm slowly killing myself.
Like my wife isn't there.
My kids aren't there.
I'm smoking, I'm drinking, taking drugs and I'm, and, but I'm also
simultaneously enjoying
nature and I'm just sort of shutting the whole thing down.
And like, I love like, like, you know, everybody back East, it's either you go
to Nantucket or
you go to Martha's Vineyard, no one goes to Block Island, right?
And you're like, ah, what's up with this block?
I want to go where nobody's going.
So I wanted, I was wondering like, how did that, uh, is that something that
like, cause
I mean, you had like this meteoric rise, those legendary tonight show
appearances.
Um, just to get people the quick backstory that this was been hashed over a zillion
times.
The tonight show people came out to the ding ho, the first like real, like
official beginning
of the, the, the Boston comedy scene that all you guys started.
And they went down there to see, you know, Gav, Sweeney, Lenny, and all of
those guys.
And then you went up and they, you ended up being the guy they picked and you
get plucked
out of this Chinese restaurant to go on the tonight show that got like a 30
share, like
to have 30 million people watching it.
You go out, you absolutely destroy, he, he ends up talking to you on panel.
You handle all of that.
You blow up, you make the short film, you win a frigging Oscar.
And then it's just like, you just went into like the ether and then, then you'd
come back
and you'd be like reservoir dogs.
You're doing the DJ voice.
And then you just like your ability to like disappear and then come back.
And it never dips.
You, you, you like your ticket sales don't go down.
It's just people have accepted that this guy is going to be like, he's going to,
he's going
to drop a bomb every seven years on us and it's going to blow our minds.
Jesus.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
You're like the Sade of standup comedians.
She comes out with an album like every eight years and it's still.
Never been in a sentence with her.
Thank you.
No, the Beastie Boys are like that.
I feel like Chris Rock is good about, hey, I'm out there, I'm out there and out
there.
Now you don't see me.
And right, we just, right as you think.
What, what the fuck is Chris Rock doing?
Bam.
He made a movie.
Well, there's been no plan though.
None of this was planned.
Like, I mean, you know, going on the Tonight Show and everything happening and
everything,
but then I would just write and do the specials and everything.
But I didn't, I never looked at a, like a, okay, I'll do this here, then I'll
do this
here.
Right.
You know, it was all just like, okay, it was all very fun.
I never felt like, like a big pressure.
I'm picturing you in like a meeting after you destroyed and they, all the
Hollywood guys
going, let me do this.
And you'll get a sitcom, you'll be as big as Cosby, blah, blah, blah.
And you're kind of like, all right.
Like you exist on like your own time is, as I think that's what 