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HBO:
So how would you describe your show, what you're going to do tonight for One Night Stand?
Bill Burr:
Uh, try not to bomb, and have a good time. Those are probably the two biggest things. I'm concentrating on just going out there, having a good time, going off, and finally being able to say exactly what I want. Because I've done enough of network TV, and they always cut the balls off of everything that you say. So tonight I'm really using this as 'these are all the bits that I've wanted to do on TV, and I can't do them on the other shows that I've done.'
HBO:
Someone else was talking about how audiences often seem like they've never seen comedy except on television, and so they're totally taken aback at how raw live stand up can be
Bill Burr:
Oh yeah, I would definitely say that if you really want to see stand up comedy, you go see it live. All kinds of things happen. You get heckled, people can come up onto the stage. I had a show this past weekend, and there was a table full of girls just sitting there talking to each other. I started off nice, 'Hey guys, you know, cut it out.' And then it really escalated to, 'Will you shut the f*** up?' I wasn't even trying to be funny, but it got really, awkwardly quiet, and I enjoy that part. It's the greatest thing. They were gorgeous girls, you know what I mean, so nobody ever really told them to go f*** themselves in their lives. Because in the back of their heads the dude is always thinking, well maybe she's going to f*** me. So in a way guys are responsible for their behavior. So I would be saying sh** like that, and a bouncer came and kicked them out, and the crowd was really uncomfortable, like I was being mean, and I loved it.
HBO:
Bonnie McFarland, another One Night Stand comedian, said that women are the worst hecklers of all, of all the heckling she gets.
Bill Burr:
Women are definitely the worst. You can't control them, because there is no threat of physical violence with them. You can't hit them, and they know that. I'm sitting there, and a bouncer comes up to me, he's like 'Yo, you need to shut your mouth.' I know that all I can do is agree with him or he's going to put a chloroform rag over my face, drag me out and beat me in the alley.
Whereas women, it's like kryptonite, they can't do anything. The bouncers grabbed two of them and took them outside. But they only know how to get physical, which they can't do with women. So these women ended up going back into the show and sitting down, which totally pissed me off, because now in their heads they were reinforced that what they're doing was right. I don't mind that you talk, but don't come to the show and do it. Or at least have the decency to heckle me so I can go back and forth with you, you know?
HBO:
What about before a show, do you have a ritual in the dressing room, or do you go through some kind of rehearsal?
Bill Burr:
I don't have any ritual before I go do a show. What usually happens to me is I get really tired. I don't know if it's some sort of weird nervous reaction, but right before a show I could literally lay down and go to sleep for eight hours. And right after I'm done with the show, I can't fall asleep until four in the morning. You get so wired, especially a night like tonight. It's going to be unbelievable. Mainly tonight I'm just going to try to block out the fact that my mother and my father are going to be in the audience.
HBO:
They are? Is that unusual?
Bill Burr:
Uh, yeah. My parents usually don't come out. They live up in Boston, I'm down here in New York. They have a life, they have jobs. So, no, my parents usually don't come out to shows. But I just made sure their seats are where I can't see them. There will be a couple of bits where you might see my eyes dilate a little bit as I'm thinking, oh f***, my mother heard that. Maybe she'll think I made it up.
HBO:
What was it like working with Dave Chappelle?
Bill Burr:
Dave Chappelle was great. He's just the way he is in the wraparounds on the show. He's a really laid back guy. Just doing five skits on his show gave me enough exposure where I was able to move up a few notches, which was like night and day from where I was in this business. So I'm always thanking him, 'Hey, Dave, thanks for getting me on that show.' He's like, no man, thank you. [LAUGHS] Just laughing, like, 'It's your show, man.'
HBO:
And then you went on a Chappelle Show tour with him?
Bill Burr:
Yeah, I went on tour with Charlie Murphy and Donnell Rawlings, also known as Ashy Larry. And we did around 50 cities in about eight months. We just had a great time. I kind of needed to hang with some white people after that, though, kind of get back to my roots. [LAUGHS]
HBO:
Let's talk about how you got started. What did you do before you did full-time comedy?
Bill Burr:
Before I did full-time comedy I worked in a warehouse, and after that I worked five years in a dental office with my dad, assisting taking out wisdom teeth. It sucked.
HBO:
As a hygienist or...?
Bill Burr:
No. I was just the guy who handed the tools to my dad. I was still living at home, it was a real pathetic period in my life. And I remember, he always knew when I had a gig, he knew when I was driving all the way up to Maine, and that I wasn't going to be worth sh**. And he used to curse me out right in front of the patients sometimes. [LAUGHS]
HBO:
So what was it that made you want to get into comedy? What was the breaking point?
Bill Burr:
I think when I was a kid I always loved comedians. I'd listen to Eddie Murphy, that first one where he had the rose in his ear. I remember doing my paper route in sixth grade and doing his bits at five in the morning as I'm delivering papers, pretending I was doing them in front of the class. But it wasn't something I ever thought I could do, because no one I knew growing up was really into the arts or entertainment. So I started working in this warehouse with this other dude, and we started watching Stand Up Spotlight or something like that on VH1. We'd sit there watching it and think, these guys suck. We're funnier than these guys. And the guy I worked with was like, 'one minute, I'm going to take a shot of Jack Daniels, never forget this, and I'm going to get the balls to go up on stage.' And the second he said that, it stopped being on TV, it was sitting right next to me. I was kind of like, well if he can do it, I'm going to do it. So that's what ended up happening.
I can't even remember where the hell I was going to college, I think it was Emerson at that point. They had some sort of 'find Boston's funniest college student,' which was a total ruse. They just wanted to get everybody in the club with their friends drinking, watching everybody else make an ass of themselves. I went up, and I was supposed to do five minutes. I think I bailed at three and a half. I don't even know how you do that at this point. But it ended up going good, and after that I just started doing it. I pretty much sucked at everything else I ever did. I was awful with sales. I didn't like the dental office, thought it was disgusting. And the warehouse was probably the most fun job I had, but it was loading and unloading trucks, like mentally I was prepared to do that in the third grade. Sixty boxes? [LAUGHS] Count them.
HBO:
You were doing stand up gigs, and then how did you get recruited to the Chappelle show?
Bill Burr:
I auditioned for the Chappelle show. But I mean, I've known Dave since about '98, and I used to never talk to him, because I was intimidated by Dave Attell and all the guys like that, anybody beyond me, Louis CK, one of the guys doing this special - all those guys. I wouldn't even talk to them. They were just amazing, how funny they were. And Chappelle came up to me one time when I was at the Cellar and said, 'you know, you're really funny, the stuff you're doing. It might take you a little longer to get where you want to go, but just stick with what you're doing, because you have a really cool angle.' After that, I saw him as just a real, cool, down-to-earth guy. Years went by, the show came on, I auditioned for that Law & Order skit where I shoot the dog (she had her titties in my hand). I did a good job, and they've been getting me back there ever since. So that's probably, up until this show tonight, the biggest break in my career.
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