Legendary Comedian Bill Burr — Fear{less} with Tim Ferriss

i'm tim ferriss author entrepreneur angel investor and now tv host i've spent my entire adult life asking questions then scouring the globe to find the answers on this show i'll share the secrets of pioneers who have faced their own fears we'll dig into the hard times big mistakes tough decisions and how they got through it all the goal isn't to be fearless the goal is to learn to fear less i'm calling for fearless i'm your host tim ferriss and on this stage we'll be deconstructing world-class performers to uncover the specific tactics that they've used to overcome doubt tackle hard decisions and ultimately succeed so imagine yourself all alone on stage in front of 14 000 people staring directly at you for many of us probably most of us that'd be a complete nightmare but for my guest tonight it's just another day at the office the man you're about to meet is one of the most prolific and respected comedians in the world he's done five hour long comedy specials hosts one of the most popular podcasts of all time and is the co-creator and star of the animated series f is for family please welcome to the stage bill burr [Applause] [Music] hey how are you what's going on tim how you doing buddy i'm good i'm good [Music] [Applause] this uh this looks like a ted talk like we're going to be out here talking about artificial intelligence or something we might this is really creeping me out oh yes it's very sterile all right i've wanted to sit down chat with you for so long yeah we've been texting trying to get it going yeah well here we go and here we are welcome to my home yeah and i thought a fun place to start might be with philadelphia so we have a video to show and as context and feel free to correct me and we can add more afterwards but at least some or all of the comedians have been booed off stage up to that plan no that's the uh that's the urban myth that's your first guy got booed okay and um the lineup was killer and we were just playing these outdoor like amphitheaters so it was like you know kind of made for music and uh and we got down to philly and um i don't know they were all wearing like eagle jerseys and tailgating and throwing the football it just seemed like they were ready for a playoff game and it was still light out and there's something about jokes they don't work when there's lights on like it has to be seedy and that so not only was it was like daylight it was sunlight and uh half the people were still out in the parking lot and there was like just like maybe like 2 000 people just milling around walking around so he basically got thrown to the dogs but what happened is they booed him off stage and it kind of set the tone but then you know everybody was kind of doing their thing i mean it was crazy it was like patrice o'neill tracy morgan ralphie may bob saget i mean uh bobby kelly jim norton da mairera i mean it was just murderers row so but you could just feel like there was something um people were surviving and i saw a few people who always went long went short that night i'm not going to say who but one who always burned the light and it wasn't patrice it was somebody else i mean he was literally mid-joke and just stopped and said it was you guys were great good night god bless and walked off and that's when i started thinking like uh oh it's like if that dude who always goes long just pulled up he's supposed to do 20 minutes i don't think he did i don't think he did 14 and at that point i didn't want to do the show and i wasn't nervous at all i just kept thinking like i could have just been in a funny bone in front of 40 people who gave a [ __ ] and wanted to come to the show and so then i wasn't nervous at all and then i knew i was probably looking back i probably knew i was in trouble because i wasn't nervous and i went out there and i was like oh [ __ ] and i did my first joke which i didn't realize they were playing in the advertising on the radio so everyone already heard it and nobody nobody laughed and i was like literally i was like already neck deep and it was so long ago and then i just remember i went to another joke and i just bailed halfway through i was like you guys aren't gonna laugh at that and then they booed and um let's maybe we should roll the tape i don't want to see this i think you guys want to see it [Applause] [ __ ] rocky is your hero the whole pride [Applause] infested [ __ ] shoulders and your awful man tank top seven minutes left [Applause] six minutes left and i will be selling my cd after this [ __ ] [Applause] minute left in the period [Applause] this doesn't change anything this set i still [ __ ] hate you people you guys all gonna go see rocky 19. oh dude i think you can win listen i'm out of time i've never seen that are you serious i've never seen that enough really no so did you decide to do the countdown before you went out i mean is that something you no no no what happened was luckily i had been booed before so it wasn't a new thing so the first time you get booed is a you know it's a hell of an experience because you have what you want but it's the exact opposite emotion you have the entire crowd's focus except there's no love it's just hate so the first time that happens it's really uh i didn't know what to do but i i also i remember just afterwards thinking about it going like why didn't i let that fat guy boom me i let that chick with the weird glasses like why didn't i say something i just remember thinking i was just mad at myself going like all right you got booed you know they didn't think you were funny uh but you sat there you know it was a variety show they had like a contortionist and somebody with a snake and then somebody's saying saying like pour some sugar on me and one of these leather pants and then they'd bring a comedian out it was just it was a complete [ __ ] show so i just remember afterwards i just remember being like upset at myself that i that i i was like dude you could at least throw one punch you should have done that but but but then i didn't think of it again i didn't think of it again because uh you know you don't plan on something like that happening so i don't know why i did that i just started doing it and that they had the clock was there and i was just looking at it and i i just i don't know i think in that moment i decided i wasn't going to leave so i think the countdown was kind of for me like you're doing cardio you know that and you're like i'm not going to look for one song you know and then look all right another three minutes went up so here's the funny thing so we still had one more date on that tour something was telling me don't do the last one and then i went to cleveland and it was like as i walked out on stage everybody booed because they wanted me to trash their city so then it became these things like i can't do this again or then this is my act this is like gallagher smashing the watermelons i got to come out and read about all your sports teams and [ __ ] so that was the one i freaked out about because i thought it was like i thought my career was over i was like everywhere i go i'm going to get booed and blah blah blah i'm glad that people enjoyed it because i was definitely i was embarrassed that the whole thing happened you grew up in mass correct what was your childhood like growing up in massachusetts i was sort of like you know this shy kid i had like orange hair i mean i was just like i was a mark the second i walked in the room everyone was on me like every one time i think it was my birthday my mother got me this my parents got me like this little cowboy outfit i was like four years old you had like the hat there was a little vest and then i had like like the belt with the guns and it's supposed to be like the mother of pearl handles but it was like plastic so she sends me all i even had like the little bandanna she tied it around and she just sent me outside and i don't even think i made it to the end of my driveway and like these big kids came by and they just took the guns out of my holster and just smashed them on the ground and i sat there looking i just was like crying they laughed and just walked away and then i picked them up and i walked home and walked back into the house my mother was like who did that who did that i was like big kids and she's like i can't remember she just like made me a sandwich and that was kind of it but it wasn't like a big deal back then i remember you would just do [ __ ] in the neighborhoods and parents just watched they just figured out what you did i mean we threw rocks in this kid's pool and before i even got home my mother already knew what happened and uh there was a lot of that stuff going like they were building new homes and you'd go down there and you would steal [ __ ] for to make a tree for it or you just vandalize them for no reason when did comedy enter the picture for you i always made i always got kids to laugh and i moved around a little bit when i was a kid and just making kids laugh was a way to get people to stop beating the [ __ ] out of me um or bigger kids you know wailing on you or whatever so that's how i would make friends i would just i would just make people laugh and i remember making people laugh in the in the uh in the classroom you know i get that made you feel good you know made the pretty girls care about who you were hopefully you know it was just an attention thing i guess which people influenced you when you're a kid i mean are there particular comedians that you gravitated towards or memorized or anything like that i watched all this my all the stuff my dad used to watch all the things that they now sell on tv all the uh all those dean martin rose foster brooks i loved uh remember bob hope my dad would always laugh and i never got the jokes there was always some obscure references and then as i started to get older uh cheech and chong and i remember um buying richard pryor's album not even though who he was i just knew he looked funny i'm not going to say the name of the album but it's the one when he's like that's got the n-word in it um george carlin yeah i just started buying him i remember buying the eddie murphy record when he had the rose in his ear i bought that just because he was a black guy and i knew that richard pryor was funny and i was just a little white kid going like well this black guy was black guys are funny can i just like i just bought it and i had no idea who he was did you memorize any of their bits or how did you yeah this is how out of touch i was with what i wanted to do and i used to do my paper route and i would be uh doing the bits i missed eddie murphy's got hit by a car bit i would be doing that out loud to myself as i was riding through the snow where pretending i was in front of the school doing it and everyone was laughing thinking i was great but it still didn't dawn on me at that moment that maybe i wanted to be a comedian i don't know why it just it just seems i think for kids today that's hard to understand because they can just shoot something instagram or whatever the whatever the hell they do youtube it on the internet whatever the hell it is and um but back then it was a zillion miles away it was a zillion miles away like it did like even like thinking about becoming a comedian i thought you had to like move to hollywood to do it like i had no idea um yeah there was like three channels you had no idea in high school what do you think you were going to be when you grew up do you have any idea no i was failing miserably but like i did great in school i did great in school and right until it counted i did great right up to eighth grade and when i in my freshman year i was going in i was like i'm gonna go to notre dame and i'm gonna become a lawyer and by like sophomore years it's like i'm going to be a construction worker and go to wentworth i'll drive a truck um yeah i just i don't know i think somewhere along the line i just wanted to have a fun job i wanted to have a fun job i did know that because uh you know i i hated everything else i didn't like carpeted areas i didn't like wearing suits like i liked working in warehousing i liked i liked having a job where i could walk or walk away from an area i always just remember seeing people who had to sit in cubicles like they just had to be there and if you're not there and immediately they know that you know you're screwing around like you know where is he he's supposed to be right here he's not getting what he's supposed to be done so if you work in warehousing you could be on like a forklift or unloading a truck or cutting up boxes or just doing something as long as you were in this giant area they were all right with it and um like warehousing is great it's all class clowns musicians like addicts alcoholics and [ __ ] i remember this dude yeah i remember this dude coming into work he came in like three hours late it was like 90 degrees out and his hair was soaking wet from a shower like dripping down he's like oh yeah the traffic the traffic was was brutal just like dude your hair's still wet from the shower and i remember um yeah he had a major coke problem and uh yeah he'd be why i remember my boss had a coke problem i remember getting that job and the first day i saw him he was this guy was like probably six four and couldn't have weighed more than a buck 60. he was just just wired and they had this pallet jack that was like electronic and they're like yeah let me take you over to meet the boss and he saw me and he was just so just geeked out he was just like driving it towards the dock back and forth going i'm going to drive it off the dock and just coming back and like lifting his look at his lips and [ __ ] and i was just like all right this is going to be my boss and i i i worked the third shift and it was all people like me working our way through college like if you know if you didn't get student loans or whatever i got laid off from that [ __ ] because there was this this fat [ __ ] used to come out from the uh he was fat and he was a [ __ ] [Laughter] so he would come walking out he come walking i mean he's wearing short sleeve dress shirts and you know those guys so fat he had to really swing the arms to get out he just come walking out and he look around and all these bad ass dudes all of a sudden would be grabbing boxes and pretending to work and i just had that thing maybe it's the stand-up comic thing where that that that thing you just like i was like you know what [ __ ] this guy [ __ ] this guy and i just look at him like hey what's going on like i'm not i'm not doing this little [ __ ] i'm working out here i don't want to [ __ ] extra work when you come out here [ __ ] you why don't you pick this up your tub of [ __ ] that's what i was thinking so then i ended up uh right after that moment like an idiot i then asked the other the coked up guy for a raise and and then i think the fatty was just like the hell with this guy so then i got laid off from that and um then i was collecting unemployment which i had never done and i felt real i felt like a piece of [ __ ] doing it because my parents worked so hard and uh it was a bad economic time and i couldn't get a job and i just decided that i wanted to be a comedian because working in the warehouse i was working with this guy who was hilarious and he wanted to be a comedian and he was the first guy that said it he said you know one of these nights i'm going to uh take a shot of jack daniels and just go on stage and then and all of a sudden it wasn't on tv once again you know we didn't have youtube so it was sitting next to me i was thinking well if he can do it i can do it so um i knew that i was a baby step kind of guy so i had rather than just doing it i transferred to emerson which was more of a performance school so and then i just went there and i just every class i could get up in front of the class i would do it no matter how nervous i was and i was a really shy withdrawn really withdrawn kid and um i just forced myself to do that and every time i did it even if it didn't go well i felt good that i did it and then i started to like it and i started doing radio because radio was a good baby step between performing and being funny to like a live crowd because it was like i was on a microphone there was an audience but i couldn't see him i couldn't hear him and i remember i did this shift 2 a.m to 6 a.m on 6 40 a.m wecb and all it did was broadcast to the dorms nobody was up nobody was listening if they were they were listening to a better radio station and i just remember and i'd always be i'd always be on like the thing going like you know whatever there's some that was dinosaur junior if you have any requests give me a call no one ever called and finally i just said jesus i go somebody just call in tell me you hate me i don't care and then the phone lit up and i picked it up and this guy goes i hate you and then hung up and i just remember just being like in a total panic i was i was mortified and then he called back and he apologized said hey he goes my girlfriend's working the next shift i just happened to be listening she told me to call back and apologize but like i felt like such a nerd and um which i was i was a nerd i commuted to school i didn't know anybody i just walked in with my stupid book bag and i would do the things whatever and then i would just go home and i would go to work like i kind of had a job once i had my paper route in third grade i had a job ever since i've been working so did you have any particular at that time i don't have to remember but when you were shy how did you was there any particular milestone point do you remember when that changed when you became more comfortable um no it just slowly got better but i don't i still in certain situations i am sort of it's weird because what i do but i am also a very like i'm one of those guys like the second the show is over if nobody knew who i was that would be that is that is the ultimate that would be perfect like before the show i need you to know who i am so you buy tickets you know or else i would be screwed but the second it's over like i don't need it to keep going do you remember your first open mic gig getting on stage yeah what was it walking i signed up for a a talent contest at emerson because i made a new year's res resolution in 1992. this is how scared and shy i was about doing this i was like i made a new year's resolution that at some point in the calendar year of 1992 i was gonna go on stage i gave myself a year to do it and i was gonna do it and and then that was it my baby stepped way into it um because i knew if i said i'm doing it next week i'd go into a panic and i might not ever do it so i said that january 1st and literally three weeks later the emersonian newspaper they said uh nick's comedy stop was having a uh a talent contest find boston's funniest college student which was just this total scam to pack it with college kids watching their drunk friend go up there and bomb and then they make all this money i remember it was a contest and i didn't on any level try to win it my whole goal was just having the balls of when they called my name to walk up there and start talking that's all it was i remember sitting down trying to write material and it's just like and i'd been funny my whole life but then all of a sudden to sit down and like sort of artificially create the moment where it's like if you and i are hanging out socially and you say something it's like you don't even think and then you just sort of and then i say that and blah blah blah but now it's like with the stand-up i have to create that moment bring the crowd in to the world create that moment and then say it and i had no idea how to do it so i remember i can't even what i wrote i basically i had some sort of ideas and i went up there and i remember taking the mic and it was the only time i've ever felt having an auto body experience where i thought i was watching myself was probably this panic thing where you know the emotional me just left me like we don't want to be i don't want to go on this ride let's see what happens so i remember taking the mic out i still remember what the mic looked like and this guy billy martin was hosting it was now like this big shot on bill maher's show i just went i completely forgot what i was gonna do and i just started talking and i i went into the middle of what i was gonna do then i went to the beginning and then to the end it was like a tarantino movie you know like with travolta walking by in the background in the diner scene it was kind of like that but i sort of was able to do all right and i think i only did like three minutes i was supposed to do five and i got off stage and i didn't i didn't care about anything and i remember that was it i was like this is what i'm doing and i tried construction i was in warehousing i tried sales i i remember i got a health insurance license i even passed the test i got certified to take x-rays i was working in a dental office i did all of this [ __ ] and none of it like none of it like i didn't care about any of it and this is the thing i just did it i was just like that's it this is what i'm doing with the rest of my life but that night after i did it even though somebody else won i didn't care i just remember driving home in my truck listening to motley crue kickstart my heart oh great song yep and uh just literally screaming that was so psyched that i did it now and i was only like i was middle of the pack i was nowhere near even remotely the funniest person what was it about that experience that made it click for you one of those one of those things in life that you don't have to think about it just it was what it was right it was awesome and i was just like why wouldn't i want to do this like my first thought was like i'm doing that for the rest of my life then i did my next show was at this comedy club stitches and that one went okay and then my third show that was my first what's called a hell room which yeah it's not a doesn't sound good yeah it's not a comedy club it was a bar the people there were eating they had no idea there was going to be a show they turned off the bruins game and then they bring you up and uh that was my first time experiencing a crowd watching a show that didn't want to see a show and uh i just remember i remember doing my first joke my first joke that really just got nothing and feeling that punch in the chest of something bombing and then having to regroup and i had nothing to regroup with and i remember i bombed so bad i got halfway through my time and this guy jack lynch was the host and i said on the microphone i said jack i'm bailing i'm bailing and i got off and i was so embarrassed i didn't want to walk past the crowd or the comedians and i sat down in the first empty chair and i just sat there like this scolded child for like two hours waiting for the show to go and and i wanted to leave but i was so embarrassed i just sat there it was horrible and i just remember and then what sucked back then was there was so much time between your shows oh yeah you know there was like weeks between shows so if you had a good show you could ride the high of that but if you bombed that was one of those things like i got this thing like when i when i embarrass myself for some reason it comes out to me like when i'm in the shower and i have to like shout the memory out you know like i'll be in the shower and i just think about it i just be like ah i just like make these noises just these noises of like humiliation like oh god i did that or i said that i still do that in the my car like i'll think of [ __ ] that i just did or something i did 10 years ago and it's this thing i'm just like because i don't want to think it and you know there's a self-loathing about it that you know that i never i kind of never got past those teenage years of that oh god i'm such an idiot like i never i kind of never got past that i mean i knew i was gonna bond it's inevitable it's like if you fight if you fight long enough somebody's going to come along a little faster and you're going to get caught and it's like it's still telling jokes it's it's it's inevitable it's going to happen and um then it's just something you have to get good at you have to get good at bombing yeah and um i had enough experience of doing it you know that eventually you get good at it then it doesn't it doesn't hurt you anymore and is it just exposure is it like getting a flu shot every season it's just about the number of repetitions you can just exercise yourself to it yeah you just keep doing it and and um you know bombing is there's something hilarious about it there's something like if you but what the turning point for me with bombing was was seeing how funny was being able i remember one time just being on stage and i was bombing and i just pictured all my friends watching me laughing at me in in the in the back and then that got me to laugh at myself and then i just started thinking how much can i get these people to hate me and i just left my act and i just started trying to annoy them and i didn't get them back they still hated me but i had such a good time i was like wow what was that that was that was this new area of up that you know i i didn't know existed the the clean and not so clean kind of before and after bilbo i find really fascinating so we actually have a video that this shows the contrast a little bit i love my dad man he's hilarious he's such an emotional guy you know i know my dad was his funniest so was whenever you like broke something because my dad my dad would totally flip out right but the words he used he would actually thought it was a good thing you know i mean like he'd break a window he'd be like nice real nice oh that's beautiful that is just beautiful hey why don't you break them off dude there was an epidemic of gold digging [ __ ] in this country and every night i put on the news and i'm waiting for someone to address it [Applause] every night never see it you know and every night i bring up gold digging [ __ ] and the whole crowd pulls back like i'm up here talking about bigfoot right like i'm saying the moon's made out of cheese or something talking about [ __ ] people they're everywhere how many how many more great men are going to get chopped in half before we do something [Laughter] why is it so quiet in here [Applause] god damn i don't get it so when did you go to opening up to more of i'm not gonna say profanity just being yourself maybe failing by just failing just trying to do what they that i thought they wanted whatever they were responding to and um then that just morphed into well if i'm gonna fail i'll fail doing what i want to do in this business and then that led to me starting to succeed and once i started to succeed doing what i wanted to do um my view of the business changed where i then looked at it rather than like it's this thing i'm running towards it was like no i'm in it so this i just look at the the business like it's a giant mall and i have a little store right probably like those ones that are in the middle that you walk by not that sure yeah a little kiosk and i just i have what i do this is what i do you come in right this is what i do okay if you want to buy something great if you don't you know you keep going but this this is what i do and rather than i used to view it like oh they're selling shirts i should sell shirts and i got to sell candles and i got to you know do nails and have like this one-stop walmart thing and it's just like that just didn't work for me i just i do a podcast i tell jokes i act when they let me you know because i have to audition space you know but then i also just found with um you know the people i grew up didn't talk like that the stories i had to tell people weren't like that very volatile and they used colorful language as they say and um there is this thing with comedy purists where they're act like okay if you work clean um you know then that's pure comedy that's that's real comedy because you didn't say any bad words but you know which i do understand because you can definitely use uh curse words to to you know sort of steroid up your stuff but i've also find what you know when people say they want somebody to work clean it doesn't just mean don't say any bad words it also means don't have any opinions that will make people uncomfortable because i could i could easily work totally clean and there's groups of people that you could completely piss off and wouldn't want to pay you just by your opinions on things so um i just felt like it was a limited thing and i've always liked the rawness of um with everything with music with film with comedy of just going off more um the realness of that rather than this totally polished thing which i had to completely have an appreciation for but the amount of times i've heard comedians go like say something so funny in the green room and be like yeah but that's like dude you got to do it on the stage you got to do it on stage like nah man that's not me that's not me it's like it is you you just [ __ ] said it whatever you're doing up there that's not you that's you on stage and that's what happens with comedy is like there's this big like mystery thing about you got to find your voice and oh is this who i am is that who i am and i have this theory that you walk in with it as an open mic and then you go on stage and the weirdness of looking at people and talking you become this is me on stage oh i'm holding a microphone and just becomes weird it becomes weird and then you spend i don't 8 10 12 15 years trying to get back to who you were when you walked in who was this guy who was making people laugh in the bars because like you just walked into a bar and something happened and then you're just riffing on it but you you were cut you were comfortable then you go on stage and it's just like oh [ __ ] everybody's looking at me and i have to handle all of this uh what am i doing with my hand how do i get this out of the stand and it just becomes this whole you know just looking at yourself and then then that who you are goes right out the [ __ ] window a lot of folks consider the comedian's comedian right i mean a lot of comedians look up to you and they're like oh bill burke can not only talk about anything he's willing to talk about anything but he'll this is self-employed you can't get you can't get too into this business yeah if you get too into this business then you're [ __ ] and then you become that guy you mean just having contracts and relationships with people no you get in business with people but that's not your only thing like i'll i'll never stop doing stand-up and i have my podcast so i can and i don't live a lifestyle beyond those i live way behind those so no matter whatever happens whatever [ __ ] slap on the wrist i'm ever gonna get from the the social media i'm still gonna be fine it's when you um you know it's when you just go into this business if you're just an actor on a show or you just host something or or whatever it is that like all of a sudden like if you just did this you didn't have your podcast or any other way to make money if all of a sudden you know there's some [ __ ] rumblings if the people above you go you have to go out there and apologize you're in a situation of like or else i can become homeless yeah so then you have to go out there and even if you're not sorry you have to say you're sorry and i think that that's uh that doesn't look like a fun thing because i've seen people going out there squirming yeah trying to like how do i apologize without apologizing to the 40 drunk soccer moms who all tweeted at the exact same moment so this became a thing for eight seconds yesterday that i now have to address so haven't said that if i'm an [ __ ] i will say sorry but i'll say it to the person yeah you know yeah like i don't get i don't get this whole thing where somebody secretly videotapes you at a comedy club and then they upload it on the internet and then you have to now apologize to people who weren't at the show yeah it's like you weren't at the show and you decided to what so why don't you get mad at the kid who [ __ ] filmed it like that's it i am guilty of being a comedian in a comedy club that tried out a joke that didn't work right yeah i don't know it makes sense to me in my head everything makes sense so the podcast uh so your podcast was a very early influence for me i love your podcast and uh i see you've gone past me oh well that's a cute one yeah you got there freckles now look at it [Applause] well i think there's there's one thing that arguably you do better than anybody else and i'm sure it's one of many but i want to listen to some of your ad spots so we're going to pull up some audio of a couple of your sponsor reads and i think uh i think we'll pull up sherry's berries first this might be my favorite name of anything i've ever advertised here uh other than one white charlie's uh sherry's berries for my listeners double the berries for just ten dollars more here's the only way to get this special 1999 sherry's berries offer call 866 fruit i'm sorry what the [ __ ] am i selling did i approve this this is [ __ ] ridiculous who the [ __ ] is gonna buy this [ __ ] this is the funny [ __ ] in my [ __ ] life call 866 fruit everybody oh punch truck oh please spell out the words oh by all means berries b-e-r-r-i-e-s berries click on the microphone in the top right corner and type in burr hey you [ __ ] better buy some sherry's berries because i'm going to get in trouble for that [ __ ] read and i'm not changing it because that was hilarious [Laughter] when did did you do that from the very beginning with with the host reads uh did you start kind of taking the piss out of sponsors from the very get-go with the podcast because you were really i mean early early pioneer this is 2007 or so i mean it was early this is way back in the day so you were one of the first kind of long-form guys did you have standard sponsored reads for a while and then well i did it for years without doing sponsorship so when i started doing reads it felt weird to be this guy just saying whatever i was thinking and being funny and all that to all of a sudden be like you know the chrysler cordoba blah blah blah blah it just felt weird and i was just like people are going to have the ability to just fast forward through this and skip it so i didn't feel like the comedy should stop and um so i always you know i'll just throw in a boston accent i'll just do something to get them to listen and with the sherry's berries thing that i did um i i hadn't read the copy and it was so like homophobic yet homoerotic the whole thing it just was so ridiculous to me like i couldn't believe it was true so i legitimately started laughing and i remember they were calling us saying take it down take it down and i was just like yeah tell him he didn't get to me like i'm i'm not taking it down that's hilarious and i don't give a [ __ ] because i got all this other stuff you know once again one of those moments i'm self-employed so you know i don't need some chocolate-covered strawberry people to pay my rent i didn't put myself in that position which i very easily could have i didn't so i said i'm not taking it down but what they learned because they're a cool company what ended up happening was people ordered this stuff because i said i was going to get in trouble and then it turned out evidently they were delicious and they sold a bunch more so what ended up happening was was companies that were younger and kind of understood it's like oh this guy's he's making fun of us and he's singing songs and he's cursing and all this type of stuff but people are listening and they're buying this stuff so it kind of became one of those but there's been others that haven't had this sense of humor like i remember uh nature box came out and i for some reason was reading it as nature's box and ed and i was you know and i was like joking around i'm like oh you're gonna go down on mother nature right just just [ __ ] around but i also think it was just it was this weird sort of stupid thing where they were gonna like bring you a banana at like three in the afternoon it's like i can't [ __ ] do this by myself like i need you to like if they are really stupid i i will say it and um because i just look at the podcast whatever money i make often is just gravy anyways like i can live off my standup money you know and i mean like i said i i lived well within my means because i i've been in debt and i didn't like the way it felt i just would be waking up at night going i owe these people this [ __ ] money how am i going to get out of this my car's breaking down that's going to be more and so i've avoided that stuff i know a lot of comedians have trouble going to tv developing tv shows how did you find your way to efforts for family i don't know all my live-action stuff that i wanted to do and all live action means is just this regular people everything that i wanted to do that i really wanted to do they would just be like oh that's like you know that's sexist that's homophobic this is what this is going to say to kids this is mean to dogs and they just would de-ball the whole thing and then it would suck oh yeah i did i did a pilot they shot it down and then like two weeks later they're like hey you want to do another show with us and i said yes and it was with another comedian and then we did it and we we all got together and we were just like hey let's just give them exactly what they want let's just do exactly what they want and we did that and they still shot it down and then that was it that was it i just went off the reservation i was just like [ __ ] trying to develop a tv show i'm not doing it all right i'm just gonna be a comedian that sells tickets hopefully and if that's all i am who gives a [ __ ] i'm telling jokes for a living i'm killing it um that was it i didn't have any ideas and then one day i opened for this comic uh steve byrne and he knew vince vaughn and the guys at wild west and vince was in the crowd he liked what i did so i took a general meeting with them and they were like so do you got any ideas for tv shows i was like no no i got none i'm all out of them no they never [ __ ] work nobody ever picks them up i'm just sick of it there's always like i'm always pitching to a woman they always say women don't run the business i haven't got to that [ __ ] level and this i'm always going in just pitching and there's always some woman there going like i don't think that can't get a [ __ ] power hey what if the guy's a complete [ __ ] [ __ ] and doesn't know how to dress himself but his wife does oh that i like that's a good one yeah so just because you have a vagina doesn't mean you can't be you know in the wrong sometimes so anyway so then i just i was on my way out of the meeting they were just like you know what else what are you don't have any ideas i was like look i know you guys are doing movies with vince i'll play some a waiter in the background i'd love to do something with you but no i got nothing so and as i was walking out i remember uh peter billy's sort of walking me out i was like well you know i do kind of have this idea this cartoon idea or whatever and he's like oh we want to do an animated show let's sit down and it basically stemmed from my childhood stories that i told on stage as a young comic and everybody got it but as i became the older comic and this new generation came up that had play dates and helicopter parents and they wore helmets when they rode bicycles like they were in a [ __ ] race or something um they didn't laugh at the jokes they started beco everything was labeled like oh that's bullying that's you know that's mental abuse physical abuse and i would literally be standing on stage going guys this is funny this happened to me my mother was right i was telling all these stories like so anyways i just stopped telling the stories on stage and then one day i was walking my dog i thought what if i just made animated shorts on my website i could do that that would be cool i could ramp it up and it'd be animated kids and no one would give a [ __ ] and uh but of course i never did it but then when i ran into them and they're just this force of nature then they ended up hooking me up with uh the great mike price from the simpsons who's done like 300 plus episodes over there so and um we came up we've just fleshed out those little i was just gonna do little stories like you know we go to get a christmas tree or somebody buys a new bike they turned it into this whole world we helped develop this whole thing and then we pitched the cartoon and i think they were just like this is a weird choice for a comic in 2010 but they just saw that's vince vaughn all right we'll give you six bill's a little [ __ ] christ he falls apart if you just look at him all right he's got no spine you gotta rub his back during war movies he's scared of everything gee i wonder where he got that from susan what do you mean he gets it from me ah you cuddle up too much and you know it you know i work hard to keep this family happy i keep everyone everyone from killing each other well today i would actually welcome it do that again i hate you you take my socks off oh yeah touch it yeah you like that yeah you like that yeah oh yeah oh yeah [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] very family-oriented show so and i got a feeling you're going to ask me what everybody asked me which is did that ever happen you know i was just going to leave it open and just say anything any comments no that's like that show is like loosely based on all of our childhoods so it's it's it's an amalgam it's an amount hey he showed it i didn't make it it's an amalgam of like all our dads like i wanted like my family to be able to watch this and not be like mortified like i have a big respect for the fact that i decided to put myself out there and especially it gets weirder every year with technology and everything so like i didn't want them to watch it like this elements of the show right that my dad would be like all right like i'll put you through that [ __ ] wall he used that was his catchphrase i put you through that [ __ ] wall he used to say that right he never did it he just you know it's just an empty threat you know but um but you know the other stuff is like writer room stuff like that was just like okay what if what if you know they start having sex and it just it seemed like they had this big huge fight and he says this mean stuff about his son and he doesn't know he's there and it's just like well how do we get out of this comedically how do we defuse this what if they have sex so it's that that aspect of it was like a like a writer's room thing who drew the balls they're very photorealistic i actually [Applause] i actually met the woman who drew it i was doing a gig in um ottawa canada big jump is the animator up there and uh i i just happened when i had the gig to come over and meet them i just happened to be in town and they were animating that scene and she literally had like sketched three different ball bags that she they looked like little speed bags that she was gonna make and just so you guys know you were mentioning bombing and then just turning it into an opportunity to vent being like i'm not sure what that was but that was fun i enjoyed that so i was talking to the team about whether to use this video or not i was like at least i can say i had a pair of animated balls that i forced an audience to watch swinging around so you're welcome there you go so i thought we could we have a lot of questions from the audience so i thought we would we would throw it over the audience get to those and we have some in studio we also have some from the internet who have been uh kind enough to chime in as well so the first one's from facebook this is joseph swam so effectively how do you generate ideas and what is your process do you still write stuff down what are the sort of key components of of where you start when you're developing well i used to write it all out and then i i don't write it now i just i just treat it like how i used to treat like if something funny had happened at work if i was gonna go tell my friends i wouldn't write it all out memorize it rehearse it in front of a mirror i would just go up and i would just tell them the story and i would act out all the characters and all that the way i did but what happens is when you go on stage is like you know you know it just you know you can bomb you can have a bad show there's all that self-conscious stuff so um i guess the process was trying to become as comfortable as i was in a bar shooting this [ __ ] with my friends being that comfortable on stage that took a while long time what are the sort of key components of where you start when you're developing when you're starting uh meaning where you start with say if you were gonna if you're starting right now to do a special well usually it's just i'm walking around i see something or i hear something that'll get me going but if i'm in a writer's block which is a big thing for a comic how to get out of it i find is i try something new or i'll just i'll be at an airport and i'll j i'll grab a magazine that i would never read i'll grab like cosmo i'm just going to get a different point of view because your brain can get bored and when it gets bored it goes into autopilot and then you just stop seeing [ __ ] and um yeah i'll just do stuff like that and i also when i'm building a new hour i take all rules of hack like this is hacky material i'll do an oj joke i don't give a [ __ ] i'm just going on stage just anything just to be saying something new something different and that'll eventually lead into something um that's worthy of of of keeping but i i definitely write on stage but if something happens like i'll just usually just make a mental note but sometimes i'll just write down like a word i'll just write down like ipad you know or or you know whatever boots or something i just but i know what that means like if something i know that means something like you know somebody stepped on my foot that day and blah blah blah blah and that's the cue yeah and so and then i just sort of write on stage writing on stage meaning you are taking notes as you go through yeah people say right on stage what it really means is you just go up and just wing it you just the same way you would like i said earlier you come home if something funny if you saw a car accident you you'd come home and just tell the person you're with you wouldn't have to write it all down so um i've done stand-up long enough where i'm comfortable enough to do it and all the great people that i see them all the great men and women that i see doing stand up today most of them do it that way but some people want to do a little bit of that a little bit of writing it's but i would say for that person is you got to find what works for you um just kind of be open to all of it and then as you through trial and error just sort of streamline it into your your so-called process so if you met let's say 25 year old 20 year old you can pick the age who you seem you seem to think had some promise as as a comic and they wanted to be a stand-up comic and they they had the same commitment that you did at one point which was at some point in the next year i'm gonna get up there on stage and do a set i guess there are two two questions how would you assess if someone could stand a chance and then how would you train that person i mean or or have them practice um i don't you know what's weird i can watch somebody young and and everyone's like you'll just see somebody be like that person if they do everything they need to do could be great at this and it's like a uh it's a uniqueness it's just something they'll say or something they do or something the way they handle a situation you just see it's like it's like being you know like an nfl scout you just see them you know make a throw or something like that's an nfl arm right there we'll see if uh if if he or she develops it or whatever but um i i don't i would never tell somebody what to do because like uh how my brain works everybody's unique so what i would do though is go out of my way to encourage that person like if i saw somebody young and they they were funny i would go out of my way to make sure that i said that because they need that i i realize you know you got to do that so this is from anna clara ortoni her question begins with some people just don't have a sense of humor and how do you relate to or deal with these types of people and i'll just leave it general like that so whether it's you get trapped with them at a cocktail party or in general crowd whatever it might be oh cocktail party i would just walk away yeah um if i'm doing stand-up yeah oh man i shouldn't this is another one that i i probably should this is some inside [ __ ] all right this is what i would do when there would be somebody like you're killing everybody and there was just that one person that's just sitting there and they're not laughing and they're not laughing and they used to always bug like that bug's a comic you're just like they couldn't [ __ ] get that one person it would ruin their night like you'd let him i started realizing how stupid that was i was like if i was a president and this was my approval rating i would be [ __ ] killing it so i finally decided i'm going to have fun with this person so what i would do is like you can't see the people who are doing it in the back it was the people who were up front yeah so they would be like right there and they're just like you could feel the energy so what i would start to do would i would over commit to my jokes act even sillier and i would send all of them right out over their head and the best thing would be if they were close in the front row i would be standing right up on them and my favorite thing to do would be make some sweeping gesture like over their head like i would literally be like and my dad says to me and i'm just totally just living my dream like right in their face right over him and it would just drive him up the [ __ ] wall and then i would keep throwing in like god you guys are great i am having such a great time up here and it was all that was the show within the show for that one [ __ ] [ __ ] and like i learned all of these these those types of things through years of doing it through basically am i going to take this as a negative or a positive and realizing i i have the power to decide like i can let this guy ruin my night or let this woman ruin my night or i can i can have fun with this um it's the same thing like if you ever do like the late show and only like eight people showed up i made the mistake of coming out with eight people energy and it sucked and then one night i was just like you know what [ __ ] this i'm gonna go out and just try to kill these eight people enough that they bring eight more and then i went out with this positive thing and then i i that so got ingrained into my work ethic like the other day i had a buddy of mine who's on his way up going like he was going out dude he goes you know the old club normally just told me that we only got 34 people on the late show tonight i literally felt like this jolt going through me like just being like [ __ ] destroy them [ __ ] destroy them and make them bring 34 more because if you're not the guy which i wasn't i was never the the whatever the [ __ ] they were looking for that's the only way to do it you just kind of hack your way through so we we saw you battling philly in the beginning and uh you ended up at one point at madison square garden and i mean there are only a handful of modern comics who can play that venue or have played that venue what was that like can you walk us through what that experience is unbelievable yeah it was awesome and uh what i ended up doing look at that that was and i i had um i enjoyed every single second of it every every single second i i made sure on that one and i um because you got to rent that thing out okay which is not cheap so most of the money you make that night goes right out the window so i was like well i rented it for the day right they're like yeah so i'm a big led zeppelin fan and you know they shot song remains the same there and that's also where uh robert plant said does anybody remember laughter which was the name of the show so i rented a drum kit and some amps and all that had made a bunch of my friends came down and in an empty madison square garden we just jammed and played all this cockrock from the 80s and some you know uh yeah all that all that [ __ ] that we used to listen to all the hair metal stuff um some black sabbath guns and roses motley crew we just had the best time and it kind of and like what was cool was the union guys setting up the chairs i was like is this going to bug them they're like no they're used to bands rehearsing and stuff and they kind of i could say had an appreciation that we had an appreciation for what it was and they ended up putting us up on the the screen they did the lights in the end and uh now i had everything my agent played guitar and i got him up there and uh all these comments came down uh josh adamer's ben bailey and all these guys we just had the greatest time but what was cool was it took away the scariness of doing that place and it we just kind of came in there and got our stink on it for a little bit and then i remember i went home um went to the apartment and uh my wife was there and i was waiting for her to get ready and i was drinking a beer she's going drink a beer you never drink a beer you never knew i said don't worry about this one don't worry about i just knew it was awesome it was awesome what did you think when you were on stage when you were finally up on stage well the best thing was joe derosa for paul version joe derosa opened for me and joe wore like this old lady like looking knitted sweater and sometimes one of your friends just dresses in such a certain way you're like willing the crowd to heckle them which you usually don't you usually rooting for the comic and nobody heckled them so it like annoyed me so when i went on stage i was like yeah keep it going for version how about joe derosa and his [ __ ] golden girls sweatshirt and everybody started laughing and i just stood there [ __ ] on him for like 10 minutes and then i just felt like i was in a comedy club and um no i just knew i knew and i was like they i had 90 minutes and i did 90. i did the whole i was like i'm doing the whole thing i'm totally taking this in i recorded and i'm only going to put it out on vinyl because there's too much overlap between that material in my next special so it's just it's just something who for total nerd of whatever i do and uh it was like yeah it was awesome i never talked [ __ ] about you know i killed but i i [ __ ] killed that night i definitely that was that was a good one yep if you could have any billboard you wanted non-advertisement but just a message you want to get out to the world what would you put on it the first thing you fan did was go [ __ ] yourself go find yourself kidding i'm kidding i'm kidding um [Applause] uh maybe i would i just i just have uh no it isn't no it isn't no it isn't i like it no so much people don't know what the [ __ ] they're talking about and they're just so so much time getting you into this [ __ ] panic and then this is going to happen and just read that no no it is you got to be fine even if you're not going to be fine isn't it better to just exist thinking you're going to be fine until it's not fine and then when it's not fine then you can just [ __ ] handle it then but there's no sense to ruin right now right ladies and gentlemen thank you thank you very thanks for much me [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Tim Ferriss

Views: 955,437

Keywords: tim ferriss, 4 hour workweek, 4 hour body, 4 hour chef, timothy ferriss, entrepreneur, author, writer, angel investor, ferriss, tim ferriss blog, timothy ferriss speaker, Tim Ferriss Podcast

Id: RG0cjYbXxME

Length: 55min 59sec (3359 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 23 2022