All right, hey, hello, everybody. How's it going? And welcome to another wonderful episode of the film or podcast, What's going on?

But I've been wondering, Bill, with your growing acting resume. I want to talk about the first few things you did or you were nervous and or fucked up and got like I'm curious about the first, because you you seem to me is someone very comfortable in the acting space. And I know that like your growth and where you've gone to, you often play like the brother at a dinner and then you did the the Breaking Bad shit and now you're in the Mandalorian and all these things going on.

I want to know about the very early stuff because I remember the first thing you ever booked was a sitcom with Molly Ringwald.

Right way back in the day. Yeah. Were you comfortable acting in that? No, no.

I replaced a guy that got fired. So I was like, wow, you can get fired and I saw people get replaced, do the sitcom world as much as it's all just like, oh, good, okeydokey, you know, these cornball jokes and shit, it's still cutthroat and it's about money. So if you're if you do, like, run Theroux's and shit and if the industry wasn't feeling you. Or the producers, you just were fucking gone.

It wasn't like. You I mean, you came in Monday, did a table read, and they shot it Friday, you don't have time to find. And then and then if you come in as a replacement now, it's fucking Wednesday. Yeah, you got today. Tomorrow we're blocking Friday we're shooting.

So so that was your you're on Telnaes. You you showed up late.

No, I replaced a guy that was in the pilot. I replaced the guy that there was no rhyme or reason for it, I don't even know why they did it, but they did. And I remember that was like they spent all this money on a big. Wedding scene.

So they were grain screening me into it and had me stand exactly where he was standing and like somebody came up to me and said, just do yourself a favor, do not look at the monitor, because if I looked at the monitor, I would see he after I was replacing.

Oh, my. Once I looked and it was like I felt like I was a body snatcher. So the entire time. I was never comfortable.

My my favorite thing on that show was when they didn't write for me like I remember, because they didn't know who was going to play my character on the first episode, I had like four lines in the cold open and then I was done. It was my favorite. My favorite episode of like the eight or nine that we did before we got canceled, because, um, where I was. Who I was and how I felt about myself was I didn't even want.

Like, I wanted the gig and I was excited that I was there, but my self-esteem and what I felt about myself, I mean. Know you'll see it, you see it at my early stand up, my early acting and all that, you know, you see like a nervousness to me, like jumping around and wanting to get the fuck out of there because I fucking hated myself and and like it was like it was weird. It was like the reason why I was doing this was because I hated myself.

Like, look, if you have a good guy, right, please laugh and applaud, so I feel better about myself. So there was that.

You know, and then I got that gig really early on, and, you know, some people talk shit about, you know, it was all these made up things about how I got it. I got it through auditioning, but I was just like, no, he was doing stand up in a place in Boston. And the creators were in the crowd was fucking some Chinese restaurant in Worcester. Right.

These Hollywood people were there. Right. And they just they saw him on stage. They're like, yeah, that's the guy. And he didn't even have to audition because that's what they wanted to be true. Because if I actually auditioned and went to network and did all of that, which I did.

And I mean, you want to talk about nerve wracking, I think about that every time I go through the KOHANGA passing, is that that what does that that Sheridan, UNCHR and I lived there for seven months.

I stayed there waiting to test. For the going to network, dude, I was literally living at home with my parents at twenty seven like a fucking loser. In the summer of ninety five in a year from them, I was on a sitcom with Molly Ringwald. And I had moved to New York in September, dude, it just fucking and like, I was just dealing with being in New York and fuck do I need to get a day job.

I was just dealing with that. And then all of a sudden you just got this right as I was getting in New York, just getting comfortable, then I just, you know, and then if I was like a Dane Cook or a Kevin Hart type of personality and had that poise right out of the gate. Yeah. Like I do. Like, I could have fucking made it in like three and a half years, but I fucking. Negativity and doubt and all of that, I mean, I can't say that I would have made it that quick, but like, I could have been able to sustain it.

And I know exactly what you're saying.

I look at how I use Kevin. Kevin and Dana are both friends. The guys I like are. And so I can use that as an example. I look at Kevin and I remember running into Kevin in Hollywood a few times when he, you know, he'd done the knocked up and not knocked up a 40 year old virgin. And he was he stole the scene. He stole that scene. And he was great in that. He was great.

Great in that and fucking hilarious. And then it was almost like he showed up in Hollywood belonging, you know, going like I'm ready. Like I'm.

Yeah, I was just going to say, some people just show up. Ready. I showed up. I showed up at twenty six in Hollywood standing at Universal Sheraton, and I never felt ready. I never felt like I belonged there. Never felt like I even testing. I never went in confident I was nervous is fucking shit like sick to my stomach ass cheeks sweating. And I was like and then there's some people who just and Kevin wasn't like a trained actor.

He was just funny as fuck. I remember I used to sit there when I would when I would. When I would test for something and go to network back in the day, my big thing, I'd be like, OK, the audition is at one. OK. You know, at two o'clock, it's going to be over and I can go to some bar and just to stand up and I can relax and just this is where I want to be.

And it was weird where, you know, a lot of that was low self-esteem, but also was another thing, too, like like you're not supposed to be doing this because I never felt. You know, and I stayed after that, we got canceled. I stayed in L.A. for like another two and a half years. As as this voice I was ignoring was pulling me back to New York, when you got unfinished business back, that you wanted to become a good comedian.

You're not a good comedian and you're not getting on stage out here because I went out there and it was like. The Improv had a sandwich named after me because they were like, who's this young kid who just got on a sitcom?

So they had like the Billy Byrd and I dude, I was fucking mortified.

I was mortified. I was like, oh, my God. Because I knew my place and I knew how funny I was and I knew all these other guys in men and women were funnier than me. And I'm like, oh, my God, they're all going to hate me. I got this way too quick. I just I couldn't handle it, dude. I really couldn't handle it. And then it got canceled. And then everybody was looking at me and then I became the guy who used to be on a sitcom.

And then I got into that like, oh, I need to get on another sitcom so people will like me again. I just I was dude, I was outside myself. Do you like this shirt? Is this the one that makes you smile? I wear this every day like it was a horrible, fucking torturous time for me. And then finally I just said, fuck it. In ninety nine, after spending three, three and a half year, three years out there.

And I was just like, I don't want to fucking do this. I don't want to be in a sitcom. I want to be a comedian that goes on stage and says whatever fucking wants to say, I need to go figure that out. I want to go back, I want to do the uptown rooms. I want to learn how to do those. I want my my shit is built in fucking sand. I stink. I want it to be built in in.

I want it, I want to take every fucking step in sand is a great.

Yeah. Why is it then do you think and I want to keep talking about this. Why, what is it about. Let's use Kevin Hart as an example again. What is it. Do you think that's just his like why is he so why was he so ready when, when all of us, all of us feel he was blessed to those people, like they don't come around. And the thing is, when you're younger, you the thing is, when you are I didn't have this with like.

Kevin, because Kevin came after me, I love this is something about Kevin, I just loved him. Everyone loved him. The first time I saw him in Boston Comedy Club, I just it's like you fall in love with the guy is like the sweetest guy in the world. There wasn't a negative side, in my opinion. Just he wasn't this pussy hound. He was hanging out with a comics guy. So he wasn't, like disappearing and chasing tail.

You'd hang out with the comics fucking cool shit. Wait, it's not a fucking asshole.

And worked and worked his ass off. But like those guys watching them, like, you know, it's all where your mindset was. You could be inspired by them or you could end up like you could be so. Hate in yourself that you resented them. Like, I didn't have that with Kevin, but like me and Dane started off at the same time and it was just it was impossible not to compare, you know, that.

Who has that? What's that comparison is the death of joy. Yeah, yeah, I forget who came up with that. So that that's like what my generation was all doing with each other. I mean, it wasn't just specifically Deyn or something like that, but when game was like skyrocketing up, not not not when he did the super fingered shit, I was settled into who I was then, more like in the 90s. Like when when he would get like, you know, like an MTV showcase, get a deal with something or whatever, you know, I was always happy for him, but I always had this feeling of like I started when he started.

He is here and I am here. Therefore, I am a failure. So I couldn't enjoy. Watching what he did to that guy, came down to fucking New York and was got passed at every club in one night, I've never seen anybody do that. He went in and just fucking leveled and that shit. We were just talking to D.C. Beny about how Steinberg and Frosti used to try to bury you. I remember one of them going. We couldn't bury Dane no matter who we put them on after.

We could not bury this guy. And he would fucking and I remember being on the subway talking to him. Go, do do you realize what you just did? You just in one night passed like ten thousand fucking comedians. And he was. And he's just like, you know, you come down, you just positive and I would just be like listening to him like, is that how you come down, motherfucker?

Because I was just like.

Yeah, I fucking hate myself and I can't stop, I just said, you suck, you suck, you suck playing, which looking back, it's so fucking funny. It's like, how will you how was I supposed to get anywhere? You know, and I had that in my head. I think I got Townley's because I didn't want it, it was too big and I was so I just went in there like, I don't want to get this shit.

I just came, is it going to the theaters?

And like this guy, he's got this relaxed confidence where everybody else I remember I remember when we were testing this whole fucking competitive, the shit was back then. I'm sure it still is.

But when we were testing. One of the guys who showed up to network brought a basketball like a prop. Exactly, exactly.

And I was like that guy and he ain't getting it, which is stupid because I was in the hours in the the the comedian mindset of if you bring a prop, you're a fucking hack.

And I was just like judging this guy. And. It's funny, I still remember that the first time you go to network, I still remember it, and one of the people I read with was Moon Zappa and she was fucking unbelievable. I read with her and Laura Graham, Lauren Graham and Lauren got it.

She and Lauren, obviously, obviously, everything she's done was fucking unbelievable. But Moon Zappa, I became this huge fan of. And she used to she used to do. Oh my God. She used to do stand up down it like it was at Luna Lounge. Remember the one across from Qantas. Yeah. Oh dude. She was one of my favorites to watch. One of my favorites. Like truly you had no idea what the fuck she was going to say.

I remember doing some bit about like. Scientology, when no one Scientology was just like, don't don't fucking know. Yeah, oh dude, it was just like and to watch her do it in that room, which was sort of the pre woak Hollywood. Yeah. Yeah.

So I remember I remember talking to Louis C.K. He had hit a pilot called St. Louis and and I remember we I auditioned for it and then and I knew he was doing well, like doing too successful. And we worked together at West Palm for Fort Lauderdale maybe. And Joe was like in the green room. Hey Lou, is it cool Burt gets a ride to the airport with you in your car and you can see Lou is like, fine. Yeah.

So we get in the car and Louise got apologize if these are mis faxed in, like Louise, like I've never worn those then whatever. But this is my my recollection. He gets in and he opens his computer, a 45 minute drive up his computer. He puts on seasickness bands on his wrists and he starts working. And you know me, I brought like a tallboy with me. I'm not going to I'm going to have a beer for the ride.

He's driving and typing. No, no, no. We're in the it's a limo.

It's like a car service. And so I said I said, Hey, Louie. So I started grilling them about comedy, and he does not want to talk, he was like, he's trying to work, but I'm I have a tallboy. I'm I'm not we're talking. So I need to be like, yeah, and he's being quiet and he's that just gets you all in your fucking head. That's hilarious.

I said, hey, what's one thing like a. You could give me advice for auditioning and he goes, OK, and he shuts his computer and he goes. Just go in and read the lines, just go and read lines, got a busy fucking day, a lot of people come in and they put their they have their bag on and a cup of coffee and they put their bag down, they put their coffee down, and then they open their bag and they pull out their sides and then they start doing a little small talk and they're trying to get everyone in the room to like, um, and then they go, OK, let's do the sides and they give you just don't do that.

Leave your coffee, leave your bag in the lobby, be off book, sit down, do the audition. Don't say a word and walk the fuck out. It's just a part. And I said, That's so funny, Louie. When I auditioned for St. Louis, I feel like I did. He goes, You did? I could watch because you brought in a coffee and you brought in a bag and you made a bunch of small talk.

And he goes, and quite honestly, I just thought it was getting in your way. And I, I, you know, I'm glad we're talking about this, but you did all of those things and I went, thank you. And I just sipped on a fucking cold beer back to my beer now.

Yeah, it's funny. If I was shooting that you would then slowly turn to the window and a tear would come down. You're right on the side. He can't see.

Oh. You know what? What changed over the years? With acting was. I kind of fell in love with it the way I did was stand up and it's just like I want to get good at this, I want to respect it the way I respect because I feel like a lot of people don't respect. Don't respect it, and it was just like I. And then what I just used the same games that I created. To get me out of my bullshit, to get me out of the way of myself so I can just do what I do, I just did that with with acting and I'm still doing that.

It's just like, hey, here's an idea I have, but I am afraid to do this. Because there's a camera crew here and there's all these people and this is this actors way more famous than I am, and then it's just like, well, that's why you should do with that, you know? And it's I just started doing that. The same way where there was a room I was afraid to do or a crowd. And I always say, my head, what's going to feel worse?

Going up and doing that show in that room and bombing or waking up tomorrow morning knowing that you chickened out, didn't do it, and was obviously going up and just taking your fuckin lumps. So I just sort of applied it. Baffling stuff, and then I just, you know. I had, like, this sort of work ethic thing where it's like I'm going to show up on set, prepared, ready to go, and if something slows this thing down today, it's not going to be because of me.

That's No. One. I'm fucking going to be here before you like. Hey, five minutes, Bill. I just start walking down, get miked up. Let's fucking go. Let's get out of here. Let's fucking get this thing done. And, you know, and then that dude, that's the type of shit more so than you delivering the lines I think gets you more work. How was it. Dude. Never had to chase him.

Never had to find him. He was there, he knew his fucking lines, he joked around, he didn't know he wasn't an asshole, like, what was that get you more work?

What was the what was the acting role or not role? But like, I'm trying to do the trajectory of your career where bad Vince Gilligan had given me a shot to play an asshole rather than just a goofy, red headed guy, which was really all that was available for me. Like I used to go into auditions and there was an unwritten rule that if you already had a guy like that, they had what you were going to play. It was going to be some sort of Ron Howard shit.

Like I was always going to be Richie and you guys with your colored hair, we're going to be Fonzie. You're going to be the cool guy. You're getting the gun, you're getting the girl. And I'm going to be like, boy, oh, boy. How'd you do that?

Right.

You do that well, though, Bill, you did that really well.

I mean, know it's a lot of who I was, you know, so. It just so happened that I saw I saw the billboards were Breaking Bad, I needed a new show to watch. It just looked interesting. That first billboard, was it the classic one with the green shirt, with one thing tucked into the tidy whitey, I didn't know there was something that was just something I was like, that looks interesting. I'm going to watch it.

And I immediately I watched the pilot. I was like, I fucking love this show. This shows really dramatic and it's funny, it's one of the great dark comedies I think of all time. So I was part I immediately called my agent, Phillip Grens at the time at William Morris before it was WME, I believe might have been WME at that point. And I said. I want to do this show. So I think I was part of the first wave, because if I literally waited to the third episode, I don't think I would have gone on it.

That's how many people immediately love that show, I think. Interesting. Yeah. So then they said, I've told the story a zillion times.

They sent me sides, put yourself on tape and I think I read Badger cites one of Jesse's friends on there. So they just want to say, like, OK. And they were like, yeah, he can act and they said, OK, they put a pin in you. And I was like, what does that mean? It's like they got you up on the board or some shit like, you know, they have your name. They Stecchino, you know, if something comes up and it took another two seasons.

Another two seasons before I got the call, and I still remember where I got the call, where I was because I knew I knew it. I was like, this is a huge break and this is going to lead to other things. I knew it. I knew it was just one of those. The show was too fucking good. And they were just doing such unbelievable work and to be to get on that show, I. It was one of the one of the few times in my career that.

You know, you get so much stuff and it's just like, dude, I had no idea, just went in and I did it and all of a sudden people, blah, blah, blah, blah, like Chappelle's Show was like that. I had no idea. I had no idea that it was going to be, dude, that first season people were fucking into it. But that when that second season came out, dude, it was like.

It was like being near the Beatles, like how big that, too, I was walking down the street, I hear people yelling out lines from the show. I get like. I remember when I did Bonnaroo and the lights went down before a band went on, and this is right as a show is was starting to take off. It was before the I think before the I'm Rich fishsticks sketch came out and I heard somebody yelled, what?

And then somebody else on the other side went, Yeah. And then someone went, Oh. And I was just like. Judy, I felt like I was in The Truman Show, like, how the fuck do these people know that here? Yeah, this is fucking crazy and. But I remember one night when I. Yeah, I still remember my apartment and hugging my wife in the hallway between our bedroom and our living room. I was like, I got it.

She gave me a big hug. It was weird. We we like we like both for Breaking Bad.

For Breaking Bad. Yeah, I knew. I knew. I was like. I was like, all I need to do is just say what they wrote and hit these marks and they're going to make me look like I know what I'm doing. And that's exactly what they did.

You did you were you happy with your performance in Breaking Bad? Yeah. The first one was just a little chorus saying the thing that put me over was when we went to Ted Bernanke's his house, and I finally got to play that guy.

And it was such a fun scene because just his presence, how big he was. OK, and they wrote all this tough guy dialogue, but it's like, I don't need to be tough. I got this guy with me so I could kind of deliberate with half a smile on my face, like, basically look.

We don't want to do this, you know, and it was so much more fun, see, the but that was sort of. The. That was when I was starting to get a little more seasoned as an actor, where before I was just like this is written angry, so I'm going to perform it angry, like I want to explore different ways of doing it. Yeah. Oh, like sort of doing that, you know, it's I mean, it's based basic level choice as an actor, I think at this point where it's just like, oh, it's written this way, I'm going to go the opposite way, you know, and then there's a million like colors in the middle that like crazy.

It's like guitar with chords like what the fuck is that chord?

How do you do that, that the Philip Seymour Hoffman's hit those whole like how did that work itself out and then resolve?

I've never heard something go like that. I can't do that shit. So that's what you know, I just take baby steps. You know, I watch a lot of great actors and stuff, and I just. Just try to baby step to be like, I can't do that, but how close can I get to it? So wait then what? So so what do you think has been your most challenging role that you've done where you're like, wow, you're like, I don't know if this is in my wheelhouse, I'm going to try.

And then you did. I mean, I would I would say probably it's got to be Pete's movie. Right? Yeah, playing something that had like a romantic storyline, I never did, you know, having to kiss somebody to have a kiss scene and stuff like that. Yeah, I never did that.

And I was like, yeah, I had to talk myself mentally off a ledge. And now it's just like Marisa Tomei is so fucking good as an actress. Yeah, she's she's like, I mean, man, she is phenomenal. I'm really starting to I never really gave a fuck about acting like I just didn't it didn't really speak to me. Like, for me, it was like I think I was stuck in where you were in like ninety nine I guess where you're like, I know what I came here for.

It's this, you know, I want to be good at this stand was so is has been because, because I got distracted with, you know, Travel Channel and hosting shows and that stuff early. I think when I got back to stand up for the past, I don't know, for six years, whatever, seven years that I've been really focused. I just was like, I don't want acting to be a distraction, and now for the first time, I'm like, I'm like, no wonder like that is the real challenge is to.

To be funny on screen, I mean, just even when you think of, like the it's bizarre that you can write a joke, you can tell a joke, you can put it on a special and people laugh. But if I said, hey, Bill, write that in a scene and make sure it's funny in a scene. So it is I feel like it's so much harder to write something on paper, have people act and have it shot and have it be as funny as us telling it and standup, you know.

Yeah, it's like it's it's a. It's a different thing, but Chris Rock was a big thing, was bring the pain was a big thing for me to see that cause. And that was part of my decision. You know, after that sitcom I was on and it went off the air and then I was like, oh, I need to get on another one. You know. When I finally made that decision to go back to New York, I mean, Chris special had been out like three years probably that I think it came out in 96 or 97.

I came back in 99. But I remember going like, all right, here's a guy. Who offer stand up special just blew by nine million actors, and I remember all of a sudden I'm watching him and his second lead in a movie with Morgan Freeman. And I'm like, all right, if I think I'm going to sit out here and go head to head with every actor out here. I mean, I don't know where I'm going to end up, but I know that I can become a really good comedian and I and as long as I keep taking acting classes and just trying to get better with that shit.

But my main focus is to stand up when the acting stuff comes along.

I'll I'll I'll be ready.

But I could get big enough that they could want to build something around me. And then I'll be surrounded by all these actors that know what they're doing. And I can do the Seinfeld thing where he I mean, one time you accepted an award and Emmy was so funny because my name is Jerry Seinfeld and I am a bad actor, but I'm smart enough to surround myself with the. He really he's being self-deprecating, right? Yeah. To say that he.

You know, with all the people that that Juliet, Michael and Jason Alexander, all those guys, people that he surrounded himself with, it's like you just get better. It's like playing sports with somebody who's better than you.

You're just going to get better and. They're going to help you out. Well, my whole life, my whole career, I think I've just tried to be around people better than me. I don't think I've ever been better than anybody. Well, this is just me.

Yeah, I did the same thing, but it wasn't it wasn't on purpose. It was just by, you know, whatever gifts I was giving you. Yeah. I would never felt like like as a comedian. I always felt I could hang. I knew I was funny, but there was always there still is. There's always somebody that's funny or there's always somebody who has like a better joke.

Like, you know, there is like there is a real there's a piece in just like. Just having a sense of humor about yourself and knowing, you know, you're not the best is always somebody fucking better and that your time is going to like you can have your time and that's going to be somebody else's time.

And then you get to be the older person in the scene who gives a shit. I was I was work. And you're getting away with murder. I was talking to somebody today and they were like, dude, I can't believe I'm talking to you. You're like my favorite comic. And I was like, Oh, thanks. And they're like, you are the fucking greatest, like. And I said, Oh, cool. I said, Who else do you like?

And they're like, I don't really follow comedy. It's just you. I just found you and I really love you. And I said, do you have you ever heard of Bill Burr? And he was like, no, is he a comic? And I went, Oh, great, I'm about to not be your favorite comic.

You know, it's a better one.

Like when you go, you're like one of my favorite comics and you go, Oh, thanks a lot. You and then so and so it names a comic that absolutely sucks.

And you just say, oh, you. Oh. That's fuckin what's up? What's the role you want to play, like what's like what's the role you really want to play? You want to be an action hero? No, no, I don't necessarily have a role, I just want to do quality shit, my whole thing is like is whatever I get. What? No, like if whatever I'm doing. If the people on the project are going for greatness, might not make it as long as they're trying to make something great.

Amen. Yeah, because I've been on shit where the people don't care. Not going to say what. But, you know, I did an acting gig one time. And the way they were shooting it. The guy just picked the most cliched, had been done a thousand dollar just to Bing, Bang, boom, and I remember thinking like. Yeah, that thing that we all saw that was played out fuckin 20 years ago. I'm thinking that in my head like and then that was that just that.

That feeling of like, oh, this isn't going to be good. If the guy driving the sled. If that's the effort you're going to put into it. Yeah, and it wasn't it's funny, I hear I've heard people do that with specials where I where I hear someone's preparation for a special and I go, oh, that's not what I did. Like, I go, I actually left my house for a month. I didn't come home for a month.

I worked every single night. I did did the road. Then when I came home, if I did come home, I was at the store doing four shows a night, working on one bit like work. And I remember hearing people going, yeah, you know, I did the road. I went out on the road for like a couple of weeks and I got my power tight, you know, like.

OK, if that's what you say, yeah, that's your act, that's your act, that's what you're going to be as you forever fuck.

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Let's go over to learn more like I have so much material right now for my next hour and I'm really not ready. I'm really not ready.

Like, OK, you'll get it up front. And I was, I was getting. You know, right about now, I would have shot another one like. You know, I'm not going to do one of these fucking covid ones that are like it's already enough, people have done them. So it's been documented.

So I look at it like it's not. New. Because. You know, Kevin did one naked one, and I thought they were great. So it's just like, all right, I'm going. So I'm just I mean, it was a lot better than I expected it to be to be dead. Honest with you, I was like I kind of thought, how is he getting reps in? You know, like where's he rehearsing this? Like, where is he running this hour?

And I thought it would be, but it was not, man. It was a really like it makes you think like he might, you know, he might just be special. Like, I know it's silly to say about one of the biggest movie stars of our generation, that of course he is. But he's also like one of us.

Oh, dude, I saw you on Afghan. I saw him one night at down the Comedy Store in the the main room. When he was going to his first marriage was was on the rocks and dude, he went up there and he was just talking and it was just like as just like, oh, wow, this is like. This is like what Pryor would do if he was having a tough time in his life. He went up, he talked about his life, and he was not trying to be funny.

It was the funniest I think it was a different kind of funny. It was just like. You know, I wasn't I was weird, I wasn't necessarily watching somebody doing stand up anymore. It sort of transcended.

I think Chappelle Chappelle in a weird way, has transcended standup. I wonder if there's going to be people that follow his lead and do less less like. More of a long form thing, I wonder if there's going to be if that's going to be a thing we see. It's like a I would say Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction, by the way, he wrote lyrics where it's just like, why does it have to rhyme? Yeah, I'm here to sing about what I want to sing about, and I have something to say I felt like was his way of going into it.

And it's so it's brilliant. That's a brilliant move. You've hit to fucking analogies out of the park today. My career was, hey, I'm having a good day. My career is built on sand and peripheral. When you say peripheral. The first thought I had was three days.

Well, you know, that built in sand is an expression. I know, but I never read a book and I never heard. I just want to make sure. Yeah. Hey, hey, Burt. A stitch in time saves nine. I'll get it. I think that means I don't really so I don't so. I remember him as I think if if if if you take me, does that mean if you're taking your time, oh, God, we sounded so brilliant about a minute ago now.

So I think it means you take your time. And do it right. You're not going to have to undo another nine that that are fucked up. OK, that makes sense. That makes sense. But when you say peripheral and you say Dave Chappelle and I know the shot, this is not going to people are going to not get. What I'm trying to say is. So three days was one of my favorite songs ever. Three days was this big, long song theoretically about about him losing a girlfriend and then not telling anyone she was dead.

I don't know what it was about, but it's one of my favorite fucking songs. But I couldn't I had a girlfriend where she didn't get it, like I'd start playing it. She was like, this is stupid. It's just not doing anything. And I was like, you're missing. Why? This song is great. The song is great because you're taking a journey with them. And it's it's funny. I played, you know, one of Chappelle's one.

So funny is to be in that cassette. When I hear that whole back side of that, I used to meditate. I learned how to meditate. That back side of that album. Yeah. And. Like, I used to feel like I was like floating or sinking into the rug, like in Trainspotting when I would just get into that meditative space, when I would listen to that, to listen to you being, like having to be outside of all that feelings that that music created, being like, no, you don't get it.

This is like fucking amazing.

He's going three days was running like three lovers in three ways.

Oh, my God, it's such a day.

The dynamics of it and the drumming on that album doing just like, oh my God, that the whole fuck it was just for geniuses coming together.

Everybody talks.

Everybody talks about never mind, never mind. Cannot fucking touch. No ritual. Cannot even touch it. Ritual Delawares ritual might be one of my favorite albums ever. I ran I ran on one of the channels they have on on cable that, you know, is like a music channel where they play live concerts, they shoot them in HD. I get on the treadmill one day and I go, and this is in UC Irvine. What's so funny is that I know that that I know that it's not it's in Irvine, wherever they're doing.

This is in a in a place in Irvine. And I know that Irvine is very, very conservative. So as he's saying, like, you know, it's like talking in the middle of this. I got a transgendered rise in the like are going to play the song, Barry. And so I get on, I turn it on. And it's a full Jane's Addiction concert. I'm on the treadmill. It starts in. And I think the first words out of his mouth is, I'm coming down the mountain.

And so I just crank it up to a six bill. I ran probably eight miles, nine miles in this concert just hauling ass. And it was great because it's like watching a live concert and you don't know what songs next, but you hear the doom and doing what a fucking great, great, great band.

I'm listening to that tonight and I'm listening to it. I'm going I have that on vinyl. I'm turning out the lights and I'm going to fucking listen to that whole that whole back side of that album. And you know what's great about when you when you meditated to that thing in the end, you know that the song fades out and then you just hear Perry go, good night. And then he goes, good night. That weird phrasing. Oh, dude, that was just an I was to hang on.

Let's the what's the what's. Hey, Andrew, pull up the pull up the songs because there's so many songs on that. And I think people think when they think of that album they think of like the big hits. But there's so many songs that are Sleepers I and Skin and Bones.

I am going knows but a motherfucker makes me try but it don't get to know.

Yeah, yeah. Jane's Addiction one US Addiction. I was in college when that album, our high school album came out and we were, I was taking Spanish and all of us learned it was like that was the one phrase we could say in Spanish class, Oh you want the track listing in your senoras nosotros to influence.

Yeah, I don't know what you mean Conesa he hosts. I think it means we have a lot of influence on your kids, but don't worry, we love them something like. Yeah. Yeah, give me what's the what's the. Stop. Oh, my God, what a fucking. And no one's leaving, ain't no right Abdelal runaway, no ride, they'd been caught stealing three days, caught stealing three days because stealing was like their their pop song like I did a year ago.

That was the chart stopper. And it was like them in a fucking Von's. Now that you know where they were, they were on a von's.

But even like his phrasing. Being caught stealing once when I was five, just saw the punches and I was yelling, it's as simple as that. But you know what I liked about it because I thought there was like a snot nosed vibe to it and he was almost acting like a little kid. Like, that guy is like he's so fucking he's one of the great front men that people, I don't think still understand how fucking unreal that guy was, the best the biggest joy I ever had.

Or is, I should say, sorry. The biggest joy I ever had in life was being a big Jane's Addiction fan in high school. Like he was like senior year, maybe maybe junior year when that came out. And then getting to college and someone introducing me to all the Jane's Addiction, like, do you ever get to Jane's Addiction? Triple X was where they sang Sympathy for the Devil and Pigs and Zen and just going like, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God.

I used to like to do nothing shocking and ritual. And then I followed them, Perry and Stephen into Porno for Pyros. Both of those powers, great, and I was listening to Bali in my eyes the other day, I think it's such a beautiful song, beautiful song, and the drumming on that, too. Once again. He he he did, by the way, he has a hog on him to oversee Pearl naked. I know, didn't you can you can you share the screen, it's OK and he has a hog on him like a logit hog.

What does that do? I knew he had big balls, the fact that his lyrics didn't fucking rhyme, it didn't rhyme.

He is and he was and he was so rock star started Lollapalooza. Yeah, I mean, where does that bring.

So do you think I would love to think about how that album came out in 1990, which means you were working on an eighty nine. Think about the music that MTV was playing and what they were doing. It's fucking crazy.

That was like when all those bands I was watching Skid Row hit, I think in eighty nine we are the youth gone wild then and now and I love all of that shit.

Yeah. And then when this stuff came in I was. It was weird just to just seamlessly go from that, because I could still go back because after that album came out, Skid Row, next one came out Monkey Business and all of that. And I love that one, too. Common, it's it's. It's funny, I. I remember I remember reading an article about Perry Farrell, about the way and once again, if I misquote this article, whatever I want, I'm not a good reader.

So if I read something and I lay that message to you, it may not even be a reader.

One of the quotes around reading, what is that?

But I'm not a good reader like I read the words, but I'm not that smart. I don't like taking showers. I like to eat ice cream with a knife. So I think that's an old Chris Farley bit. But I remember saying I was on SNL. But yeah, I remember sitting in in my girlfriend's apartment at the time reading an article in like Spin magazine or something. I want to say it was maybe it wasn't spin and then but it was like Rolling Stone or something.

And Perry Farrell talked about hooking up with dudes and having to read it like three or four days back when you're in college and homosexuality is not like a commonplace thing, that was the first thing I ever read was like, oh. I think I need to be more open minded. I was like, if I love this guy and he lets do sarcastic at parties, then maybe I need to be like, all right, that's fine, you know.

Well, it's such a big dick he had to share with everybody, Burt fucking Hornbill, I mean all. Terry Farrell, God damn, I remember meeting Dave Navarro, I, by the way, I met Dave Novato a number of times. Never once would he ever remember one, but Dave Navarro would work out at Crunch.

I worked at a crunch. Please don't talk about his dick. It's not talking about his dick. I actually I definitely like going to the showers and is Dick knows this honor and but I would read him because he had all those tattoos. I would just sit and read him. Dave Navarro used to train in a hyperbaric chamber. They had one in Krunch, it was like they'd lower the oxygen level and it wasn't a thing.

And he would just these are the little they were doing a thing where they would lower the oxygen. Yeah, it was a it was like a bubble over an elliptical machine. They didn't increase the oxygen.

No, you lower the oxygen y so your heart rate goes up and you're getting less oxygen. And that corporate gym was not worried about the.

Yeah, it was. It's like training in Denver or training in in Colorado Springs. It's like training at altitude, so David here, here's my here's my quick things I know going to see that expression training at altitude.

What altitude? High altitudes. Well, there you go. Why don't they say that? Because everybody does it, because you can't train to the bottom of the ocean, Bill, but you can be below sea level and you can you can work out and fucking work out in New Orleans. In New Orleans, I believe there I forgot there are places I thought below sea level just meant like in a submarine. No, I was I was training for a fight in a submarine.

Let's take you back to ground school pressure, altitude, density, altitude. I got to brush up on that.

I used to know what all of that oh oh one of them is correct. Pressure altitude is density. Altitude. Corrected for standard temperature is something I can't remember. You just fucking sit there babbling that shit. To nine point nine or to the I need to brush up. What, what, what what was the last time you flew? I was, by the way, I was in my backyard. I flew off. I soloed the other day.

When were you in a red helicopter? No, dammit. And I was I think there's more than one out here, Bird.

I know. But I saw I saw the I saw a red helicopter. And I every time I saw the helicopter, I go fucking Bellbird to my daughters and they go, actually, dad, that might be him. And I went, Why? And they go, this is the same area that he flew last time so that you might want to check and you go, I saw the other day and I was like, shut the fuck up. What if I knew it?

What if I called it?

No, I flew I saw the other day and one of the airports I went to because it's very intimidating to go to an airport that you. You're unfamiliar with. Yeah, so I just decided that I'm going to solo to every single airport in the L.A. area and this is zillion of them and I'm just going to get comfortable with that. So if I ever need to, like, it's just it's like confidence. It's the same thing with, like, acting.

Same thing with the thing. It's just like this makes me uncomfortable. This is a baby step I can handle. I'm not getting past myself.

So this airport, the guy in the tower yelled at me on my second solo like seven years ago. So the same way the Boston Comedy Club made me sick to my stomach when I was having bad sex and I would walk by it during the day. We might go to that club owns me. I would avoid this. Guys, you're just a grumpy dude. And I was a student pilot and I was saying student pilot. Like, so I just I'm going to pick a different airport, let's just say we'll just say Long Beach.

All right.

Yeah, if you're talking to Long Beach, your call is Long Beach Tower. Then it's who you are, where you are, what you want. Right? Long Beach, tower, helicopter, blah, blah, blah, at the 6th. So 5:00 in the fucking 5:00 would like a full stop with Charlie or whatever.

Right. So. And then when you're in between airports and you're out of everybody's airspace, say it again, say it again. It's it's it's who you are, where you are, who you are, where you are, what you want.

So who you are, what you are and where you want. So and what you want.

So Long Beach, Long Beach, tower, helicopter, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Would like a full stop at Atlantic with with Charlie.

Pancakes with pancakes, pancake with papa is. Before you go into the airport, you listen to a recording, it's called the Eighties and that's the information. What, what, where the winds are, what runways they're using any sort of, you know, shit you got to look out for whatever. Right. So in every hour, it changes. So at eight o'clock safe, it was Alpha, 10 o'clock, nine o'clock, this new information, that is Bravo.

So you're saying you're just letting know? I have the current information. I know what runway you're using. So when you're in between airspaces, you're just on a common channel for helicopters, so then you're just saying like, you know, the Pacific Design Center, you know that thing. All right. Or Capitol Records. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You'd be just know base and traffic would just be like, you know, white helicopter Capitol Records southbound on the one on one at thirteen hundred feet.

You tell them, you know, basically. Right. So. I was making a common traffic channel call I was referring to to this airport at. Like we'll just say we'll say Longbeach instead of saying Long Beach Tower, I was saying Long Beach traffic. But I would say I said Long Beach traffic student pilot would like a transition and the old timer in it, he goes, this isn't traffic, this is a tower you're calling the airport. I just kept going to the pilot traffic.

I just can't do it. So it wasn't that it was a different airport. And this guy fucking yelled at me on the way out. And yelled at me on the way back and I remember thinking. I was just thinking, this fucking guy knows what I'm asking. And I'm saying, who yells at a student pilot, it's like a seasoned comic and you're yelling.

It wasn't like I was flying where I wasn't supposed to fly. I wasn't going to hit anybody. He was just being a cunt. So anyways, I just avoided this guy. This guy, so the other day I was like, it's time to slay this fucking dragon, I'm going to fly down there and he yells at me and I don't give a fuck. And I went down there and like most things, when you face it, it was no big deal.

Everything went fine. It was a different person. I came in, I was fine. He knew that I wasn't familiar. He because you. Are you familiar at this airport? I was like, no, sir, unfamiliar. And he goes just like, you know, there's a there's you know, he told me something to look out for. I had it in sight. And I came out and then it was just like, huh? All right, and then that kind of gave me the whole thing.

All right. I'm just going to do this all the way around L.A. and it's been fun as shit because I'm back into doing like I got to show you this man. I'm doing this fucking I'm trying to get my instrument rating. Do you want to talk about your you know, I'm not the brightest guy to talk about your fucking brain exploding. Yeah, yeah, just like it's you know, if you're in, like, you know, you can't see anything, so then you have to fly with, like, your instrument.

So you have to use those instruments as your eyes in the sky. Explain the shit so well in this video where how your inner ear works with balance, how you know, like bank your and if you're going up or if you're going down, it's your inner ear working with your vision. And when you take your vision away, this no longer works.

I always wondered about JFK Jr. like how you could not realize you're flying into the ocean.

This guy explained it perfectly. It's I don't I don't know if I have the right thing. It's the centrifugal force of this. So if you're in a spin. The gravitational pull is still the seat of your pants, and you're like this in like a death spiral or you're like an a total fuckin spin, but your ass is routed to the it's like that carnival ride where they start spinning it and they drop out the floor and you're stuck to the seat.

You're stuck to the wall. It's the same principle except your attitude. Can can can just be anywhere, and you have no idea. I see what you're saying. And the thing about it is, is you have to you have to not listen to this because this is now listening to your ass in the seat and it's telling you that you're straight and level and you're not you're actually doing this. So you have to look at your instruments and override what this is telling your brain, you have a voice in your head.

Don't, don't, don't. We're fine. We're fine. What the fuck? And then you're looking at your instruments and it's showing you in like a bank or a nose up attitude or like went down a thousand feet. That's why. If even if after you get that rating. If you don't stay up on it and you can get yourself in trouble very quickly, even as a high hour pilot, which is always terrifying for someone with low hours to see our pilot fuck up like that.

So this is a scan that you do. You have like a six pack of instruments stowed in like. And you learn like you have your main I'm going to get it all the names of them stuff, but you have like your attitude and that's where you are, then it's the bank, your HSA, your vertical speed, your altimeter, and then your your your airspeed. So you're just sitting there and they're all giving you information as you're looking at that thing.

And you've got to train your eyes to to always, you know, not look at the other ones for more than a few like a second, and then get back on that thing. And you got to make a smooth fucking movements and shit through it is. That's just to stay straight and level, then forget about getting into a holding pattern. How do I answer this direct parallel teardrop and then when you're going in for a landing, you've got to tune in like another Vascellaro, DMAE, and it's following you with these radar things.

And on each shelf, you're gradually going lower and lower. And then when you're at a certain level. If you can't, you're out of the clouds, if you can't see the airport, you then have to do a missed approach and there's all information on that, too. It is like I would I'm never going to bitch about a fucking commercial flight again in my life, just trying to learn how to do this shit.

Good God, I mean, God is right. They take you up at some point and like, put a blindfold on you or like what's called Foglesong.

So they give you these it's just like the same glasses that you would wear if you would like using like a chainsaw or something. But they just have, like, almost like a bathroom window. So it's like that. But you can still see the horizon because I don't think they want the liability. So you've got to put duct tape on. So basically, if you're sitting like this, you're just looking all you can see is your instruments. And if you were to look up, you can't say anything.

Obviously, you're flying with an instructor, so it's not the same. It's not the real deal, dude, until you get your rating and then you're soloing and you go into shit like that, which I'm never going to do, but I just wanted to do it.

It's not it's not just wait until the fog's gone, right? Yeah. Yeah.

But the point I fly when it's nice outside. Yeah. Well that's why I like that the the pros are the guys that end up getting into these situations because they're flat, they fly for money. So shit has to take that a lot of a lot of helicopters deliver like kidneys and hearts and shit for organ donors, you've got to get it up there, the fucking Windsor, this, that, the visibility, this. And you just have to fucking do it.

And they they they fly. Do I sit there if I'm going to go out towards. Like Palm Desert or something like that, Palm Springs, if I'm going to fly out there like this, there's a way the mountains are creates like this venturi in the air can really fly through and it's dangerous for light aircraft. I just have an app. It's called Windy. And you just look and it's just like, oh, the winds are too high.

I'm not going. I'll go somewhere else. So you can you can minimize. You know, it's like playing the odds. But I will tell you, it is so much more safer than driving down the fucking highway, and there's no way for you to understand that unless you explain it to me one time.

And I think it every time on the four or five, all you said was your information with a bunch of people who you don't know are prepared to be drunk.

They don't even know what they're doing. The shit that I see people do and lay highways. I'm telling you at night when there's actually space, these fucking people do. Last night I was driving down like my street in this guy went by me like fucking 70 miles an hour on like a 35 mile an hour street. And he's and he's in like a fucking GMC Yukon.

I've seen. I've seen, I've seen that where people fucking fly down my street. And I had I actually had to go to therapy for it because I would be like I would get so upset. And my therapist was like, Hey. Can you stop it? I said no. And he said, then you need to let that go because you the your and let your neighbors die and let you die.

I was thinking about setting up a softball, like getting my kids out there and gloves. And then when they do that, throwing a softball at their car and hitting their car and being like, sorry man, I don't expect to be going down this fast, Buck. And I was thinking of getting like the cop to spike things that they throw up because, you know, it's great after you do shop for their tires, they can they just press the button and rose up and you just run back in the house.

I took there was a period where it was street next to me was closed. And so people were just dodging up and down our street. And so I bought a bunch of traffic cones and just put them in the center of our street and, you know, their cars parked on the side. So you kind of got to, like, weave in between them. And I was like, yeah, that's it. That's what I'll do.

That's probably better than blowing out all four tires.

And then I started doing it and all our neighbors started doing except kids. And if their kids are playing the street, they put traffic cones out, just put them so that they just totally rearranged traffic, like down. But that's yeah, that's an easy way to do it. I hope I don't have to do that someday, but I imagine I imagine I will, yeah. And I chime in on the hyperbaric chamber and so there's actually more oxygen and those.

Chambers. Sure, a oxygen therapy chamber. The air pressure is increased two to three times higher than a normal normal air pressure. Under these conditions, your lungs can gather more oxygen than would be.

Oh, you can work out harder and get more muscles. Yeah, more. Got my bad. My bad.

I just it just didn't seem like something that corporate people, corporate lawyers would sign off on. Hey, let's have people do cardio with less oxygen in the air. Everybody good with that.

It's a good call. And by the way, I'm sure Dave Navarro watched this whole episode was like, first off, his dick's not that big. Secondly, there was no there's lots of oxygen in this.

Who are these two idiots?

Who are these two idiots? Who have you have you ever have you ever been coming in for a landing, bill, and been like and said something? And then someone goes, is this bill flying in? No, but I mean, the guys that I've flown with the recognize each other's voices, you just say really quick. All right, here's the other question, Mike and Billy. So there's there's ah, there are there helicopters? Are there airports in all of L.A.?

Like, is there an airport in Compton? Yes, and so is it white people running it or is it black people running it? Are you going to cancel me or.

No, I'm just curious. Like when you go to a golf course in Compton, it's not white people. There is black people there. And so I was wondering if you go in, if you're going flying into Compton or if you're flying into East L.A., if it's Mexican guys, or is that a horribly racist question?

No, no. Actually, there's a funny bit. That's how white people go to content.

They fly in because they don't want to do it because they're too scared. Yeah, it's an uncontrolled airport, so that means there's no tower. So you talk to the other traffic when you go in. OK, OK, so not every airport has like mission control or whatever, but tower.

No, some have or some of them don't. Yeah it's true. It's so much fucking fun. I can't even tell you how much fun it is. It's so much fun, I, I wish I had something I like that much other than drinking. Well, I quit drinking, so I needed to fill some I had to fill it up with something else. Dude, I'm like. Going straight edge this whole month. I know, I just I just told my sisters, I said you were doing a vegetarian and they were like, oh, he's got to try this restaurant.

We're going to try to tap out.

Dude, I didn't know enough fucking I didn't know enough recipes. I was just like, I can't eat another fucking chickpea. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. OK, get ready to edit this out. OK, and then and then let me do that to the listeners, let me know if I need to edit this out of my podcast, but I did the math. I did the math, and I think I know where you got your mushroom's.

OK. Maybe I was wrong, never mind, I know I was trying to remember where I got him. Well, no, it should have gone really quick. Should never mind. I was wrong.

All right. All right, people. That concludes another wonderful episode of the Bill Hurt cast.

See you next time.