Hall of Fame Manager Jim Cornette Part One - SAS CLASSIC

Transcript

There are 2 things that are absolutely true. Grandma loves you, and she would never say no to McDonald's. So treat yourself to a grandma McFlurry with your order today. It's what grandma would want. And participate in McDonald's for a limited time. Get the job done with Big Spring offers a screw fix. Save 14 year on the Magnuson level set for just 49.95 and save 12 ?1 the Titan electric lawnmower, now 149.95. Shop now at Screwfix.ai or in over 35 stores. Delivery fees may apply. Price of balance early is June 2nd. Subject to availabilities at Screwfix dot ae for full t's and c's. The following program is a podcastone.comproduction. From Hollywood, California by way of the Broken Skull Ranch, this is The Steve Austin Show. Give me a hell yeah. Hell yeah. Now here's Steve Austin. Sitting here with Bill Burr, one of the funniest guys I've ever seen on YouTube. I thought he's here in person 316 gimmick street. The guy was kind enough to drive across Los Angeles in his Toyota Prius on a Saturday afternoon. Welcome to my house. Thank you for coming over. Thank you for having me. God. You immediately broke my balls the second I pulled up. I knew I was gonna get s**t for that. I went over to Stone Cold's place, you know. Well, in a 9 year old dented Prius. At least I got it washed before I came here. People people on my show have been listening to me knock the Toyota Prius for years. And just because it wasn't really so much the car because the car is a very unique piece of mechanical engineer it's engineering. It's well, it's badass, you know, the technology behind it. And here's the thing. I'm such a car freak. It's like the Crown Victoria, which is what you know, you've been in New York City. You're from Boston. You know, basically, all the cabs were, you know Crown Vicks. Crown Vicks or all of the Lincoln Town cars. Same thing. All those cars, 300,000 miles, 400,000 miles, they last forever. Right. And so when I get in these Toyota Priuses to think about it, when you get into a cab, those crown Vicks, the leg room in the back is for s**t. All of a sudden, when these Toyota Priuses start coming into Vogue and they started putting the taxi signs on them, you get to the back of those things, you've got twice as much room as than a Crown Vic. So I started loving the Toyota Prius from that aspect. Right. And then the other day, I bought this Ford Focus that I showed you out there on my curb. Right. I'm a make you a sweet deal before this podcast is over. You just bought that? I just bought that. And you're already and you're already trying to get rid of it? Well, it's because You tried to sell it to me on the phone right over here. And when I pulled up, you're like, hey. Nice to see you, Bill. I wanna show you this this f**king pea soup green. It's metallic pea, Bill. Oh, sorry. I'm gonna make you a sweet deal on this car. Alright. But, I was I was on my way over to the, pick up my Ford Focus at the dealership because I bought it from my mother-in-law. I figured I was doing the right thing. She decided to to sell it. We kinda settled at a price. It was low retail, high trade in. So it was a fair deal for both of us. And then the repair bill came in, and they these the brakes are squeaking all kinds of bulls**t, you know, put it in the shop. And the repair bill costs more than I paid for the son of a b***h. Oh, yeah. That's why you you don't buy off a relative. But so well, anyway You don't buy off a relative amount of money. Give her a dirty look during the holidays? g*****n it. I got taken to clean by my mother-in-law, Bill. I know the same. As soon as I drove off, he was just laughing her head and shaking her head at me. He said, I got that big motherf**ker. I got him. Well But I was in the I was in the Prius going to the Ford dealership. I started talking to the cab driver. Dude, how's the single repairs? Never needs a repair. It had, like, 200 something 1,000 miles on it. Still going strong. So I respect the the Toyota Prius. No. It's a Toyota. It's a if you change the oil every couple 1,000 miles, it's gonna last I mean, technically, every car should never die if it's made right. I mean, the engine block's made out of steel. All you gotta do is just just change all the fluids and not drive like an a*****e. I mean, it should last forever, but people don't. They drive around with the fluids too low. They beat the s**t out of it, you know, and then they, then they think they need something new. I love it, dude. I'm telling you right now. That car, you know, I just got it washed, so it's looking halfway decent, but when that thing needs to be washed, I could literally leave that car in the middle of a riot running, and no one would take it. They might throw a rock through it or whatever, but I can come out. That's what I love about that car is I can take it anywhere. And it always runs, and it gets great gas mileage, and I don't give a s**t when people open their door into it. So I am finally getting a nice car, though. I ordered a I got a car coming, but it's not getting hit till October. And that's gonna kill me when some a*****e just opens their door into a But that's new that's new car blues when you get that new car. You know? It's just getting you it's like getting a new pair of tennis shoes. You gonna scuff those things sooner or later. Except it cost you 50 grand. Yeah. A little bit different. Yeah. So when you bought the Prius, what was the inspiration behind that? I mean, because what were you what were your other options? This is the my inspiration was that I was already doing enough damage. I put my own hole in the ozone layer flying every other weekend or whatever. So I was just like, alright. And, like, the air quality out here is not great, and you can't really go that fast. And, and just I don't know. And I I don't know. I just I knew it was a Toyota. I don't know why I bought it. I just I think back then, I was really into the whole let me let me try to, you know, do something positive for the environment, which I still try to do. But there's just until they deal with the population program problem, you you no matter what you do. I even think like these Teslas. What I want to hear is when they get rid of the battery, what does that do? Is that worse for the environment? Now, you know that's going to come out and the gas combustion engine guys are gonna, you know, fund the study for that. Right. What about that dude who put it on autopilot and got himself killed? No. I didn't hear about that. Well, these kids were putting up videos. I saw one where they had the self drive option on the thing, and they literally took a nap. They're going down the highway, and they wake up. They're like, oh, there's like an hour of the trip gone. And I was just like, I would never have the courage to do that. So some poor bastard was making those kinds of videos. And what happened was whatever, he was asleep and not paying attention. I don't know what was going on, but it the sun was shining. There was a giant, you know, 18 wheeler that was all white. It didn't read it properly. It read it as daylight and just just drove right underneath the thing or something. Now granted, I'm telling you, like, 20 people told me this. I've never looked at at any video or read anything about it, so I'm just paraphrasing what they say, which is what I do. I I'm not a big reader. I I don't even like watching videos. Like, if whatever you tell me in the hour or whatever, I'm gonna take his law. Yeah. But And I'm gonna repeat. But here here's the thing, Bill. Whatever technology is, they've been talking about these cars that drive themselves. And, dude, at 51, you're clipping in here at 48? Just 48. Just turned 48. Just turned 40. So you knew that The odometer just flipped. Just flipped. But, man, I've been around long enough that, you know, I'm pretty skeptical. I I dig technology, but I I used to spend my life on the road. 15 years, I've driven all over the United States of America. We go to foreign countries. We get on buses because the driving laws are all f**ked up over, and you're driving the wrong street road. And you don't know where the f**k you're going. But over here, you Rick Rude, Ravish and Rick Rude. Are you a wrestling fan? Big time. So Ravish and Rick Rude, we should say, g*****n it, Steve. Arrive alive. So that's we always try to get to the places safe and sound and perform in front of people, put on a g*****n good show, and get on to the next rodeo. So I ain't gonna trust no machine to guide me because I was real picky about who I would let drive the car. Right. Like Mick Foley, love the guy to death. Don't let him drive. Diamond Dallas page, one of my best friends. Don't let him drive. f**king Jersey guy. No. Because they drive too aggressively or this too just Mick. And I and I love him. He's one of my best friends. But just Having said that Just just you just don't trust him behind a wheel. I don't know if he is distracted. He's one of the smarter guys in the business. If I was wanting a good opinion, I'd go to Mick Foley. Kevin Nash, Goodwill man. Badass Billy Gunn, Goodwill man. Okay. All of a sudden, you got the Tesla. You dial in. Hey. Here's your destination. I'm gonna trust this GPS system because when I moved to LA, I remember I had the Garmin thing that you should put on my windshield, and Garmin would be telling me where to go. So they've advanced the the whatever the GPS thing is to drive his car. I ain't trusting that motherf**ker to get me where I'm going. I gotta have the steering wheel in my hands, Bill. Maybe it's a a control issue, but, like, it's like when you when you punch in the direction on your iPhone and Siri's telling me where to go and what to turn on. I can dig that. She can get me there, but I'm I'm I got the steering wheel in my hand. So I had to switch it to a guy's voice. Oh, so you didn't let the girl tell him what to do. Because I thought that was some subversive feminism s**t for me to get used to taking orders from a woman. I didn't like it. Turn I used to I used to find myself fighting it, like skipping streets and everything every once in a while just to keep it even. So now it's just like a guy's voice and I don't have that. I got major like control issues too when it comes to that stuff. And I don't like I think technology was fine right up till 1995. Somewhere in the nineties, we had it right. Right. And then that's it. Okay? And I know there's advances in medical and that type of stuff over the last, whatever, 20 years or so, but like it's not in the long run, overall, it's not helping everybody. We're just living too long. People gotta die. People gotta get out of the whatever the the the magic number is of of human beings that can be on the planet. Yeah. Like, I think we're over it by a good, I don't know, 4, 5,000,000,000. Yeah. It's gotta be. Well, you said you don't like to read or or you don't read much. What is it? You're not getting it. It takes me, like, an hour to read, like, 5 pages because every word reminds me. I have ADD, so I just start thinking about stuff. And I'll just go on some journey in my head as I continue, like, reading but not retaining anything. And then I'm like, what the f**k just happened? How am I on page 30? That's basically Yeah. Because you don't remember the first 29. That's the same thing I do. There's some s**t that I that I like I I like to if if it's like, I'm good about autobiographies. Like, he got all this, you know, the Stevie Ray Vaughan stuff. Like, I I any stuff on him, I would be totally focused, riveted reading that. But if it was, like, you know, back in the day, if I had, like, a book report and they just said read this f**king book, I'd I'd just be like Yeah. Yeah. I I I hated it. Absolutely hated it. So I was good at screwing around in class, and somehow, I turned that into a living. Hey. Did you god dang. You went to college. Right? Yeah. I went to a bunch of colleges. But you got a degree you got a degree in what? Communications. What do they teach you in communication? Because, obviously, you're great at it. You're one of the funniest cats who goes around doing stand up. I I don't remember. It was a fun like, I finished at Emerson. I I went to, like, 2 other ones, was accepted to another one, and I just by the time I was, like, 22, 23, I was still a freshman. I I was going part time. I had to pay for it myself, you know, working my way through college and stuff. And, I don't remember. I went to that school and I finally just it was like a performance school and s**t. I could do stuff on the radio. But, I wanted to ask you just as far as being a wrestling fan. I mean, you asked me when I was was I a wrestling fan? I watched it hardcore from, like, 78 to right up early nineties right when I started watch started doing stand up. And then, like, I missed everything because when you guys were on, you know, the big stuff, I was out doing standup. So I missed like all of Seinfeld. Like, I didn't see any of that until it went into reruns. I missed a bunch of sports in the nineties and all that. And I remember in the late nineties, the late great Patrice O'Neil. Yeah. And he's the great him and Mitch Hedberg to me with the in David Tell. The pledge you brought me to the Yeah. When people always say like, man, you're like the funniest guy out there. It's like, yeah, because like the top 5 guys aren't here anymore. If they were back, I'd be featuring at an improv. So in the late nineties, I was living with another comic, Robert Kelly, and him and Patrice were really into wrestling. And that's when when you and The Rock brought it back And like all of what I've always admired about all of you guys because I never understood the amount of pain you were going through was how g*****n funny all the characters were. And, I mean, all the way from like, you know, Captain Lou Albano to mister Wonderful, you know, Rowdy Piper, all of these guys. I used to watch all of those guys and just laugh my a*s off watching them. And then when you guys came along, you took you guys took it to a whole other level. And I always felt you guys were, like, prolific. Like, each week when you thought you had all your guys' catchphrases down, you came up with new stuff. And we used to me and Bobby would watch it, and we'd have Patrice on speakerphone. He was living in New Jersey, and me and Bobby were living in, like, this this walk through bedroom apartment, and we would sit in the living room on his pullout bed. Obviously, he'd, you know, fold the thing up during the day, and we'd watch it on this little kitchen TV and just waiting to hear what you guys were gonna say and all the different story lines and stuff. It was great, man. You know, I had so much fun doing that s**t, and finally, I had to ride off into the sunset with injuries and stuff like that. And so although it's it is entertainment, it's a rough ride in there or can be. The best thing that happened was once they just said this is sports entertainment, then you guys could actually talk about the the real pain that you know, people just look at because they were thinking, oh, you know, it's it's it's it's worked out. It's fake or whatever. But it's like, dude, that guy still has to take a chair to the head at, like, whatever, 3 quarters speed. Do you want to do that or jump off a top rope and land or get slammed on your back? Like, I couldn't believe when I saw Hulk Hogan one time. So first time I saw him was in the airport, and then I saw him when, he did the, the Opie and Anthony show. And I remember going like, man, I thought he was tall. I thought he was, like, 6 foot 7, but, like, his arms hung way down to, like, his knees. And he said, I used to be 6 foot 7, but after all those years of his finishing move jumping up with the leg coming down, he lost 3 inches of height. You know, here's the thing about Hogan, and I I always give that guy a ton of respect because he had a tremendous run. You think something so simple as just jumping up and dropping that leg. Here's the great thing about that leg. First of all, it worked. It looked good. He was charismatic as hell. Had a great look, but anybody could take that finish. So when you come up with finishing pro wrestling, you want it to be something that everybody can take. So if it's a bunch of damn, you know, crazy toss around whirligoot gigs, you know, and it's acrobatic Right. Hey. Not everybody can take that, but anybody can lay there and get a leg dropped on them. But my point is, when you're 66, you're 320, when you drop that leg for 30 years, man, it's like interest. It compounds daily Yeah. Especially as you get up on it in the years. So, you know, he's paying the price of that, just a simple leg drop. And, you know, there was times that I would my finish was a stone cold stunner. So sometimes I'd go to TV on a Monday Night Raw. Monday Night Raw bill was like therapy for me because it was like, okay. Yeah. I get all my s**t out. We used to take that night off as stand up. The globby and priest, we would take the night off. We'd have him on speaker. And one time, I think he actually made the journey all the way in from Jersey just to watch it. And all 3 of us sitting on that little couch, we ordered, like, Chinese food. It was it was the greatest, man. Sometimes you could go to the building like, hey, Steve. He would give you about, you know, 6 rate stunners tonight. You know, bam. They here's gonna come down to the ring, give him a stunner, give his guys stunner, give his and, like, g*****n, my back's all f**ked up. But you're not gonna say, well, Vince, my back's gotta f**ked up. I better take tonight off. Right. Yeah. They're ringing up stunners with a f**ked up bag. So it it catches up to you. It seems a lot like pro football where they they their thing is always like, can you go is the question. And there's only one answer to that or else you're out the door and someone else is gonna take your job. So I don't know. I mean, one night, me and Bobby, we were gonna we were gonna thank God we didn't go through it, that there was this whole comedy club, the Boston Comedy Club, and it it people used to always joke it looked like an old like, ski lodge that sort of burned down. I mean, it was a s**thole. Had this wooden stage, small one too. And we were talking 1 night, and he was gonna do the rocks finishing move. What was that? The Rock Bottom, is it what it was called? Yeah. He was gonna do that to me, or I was gonna do it to him. And fortunately, I mean, I was already, like, 30 years old during that time. That would have f**ked me up. He was somehow gonna do it. And, we were gonna get into some phony argument on, like, a Tuesday night, like, with 8 people there, and he was gonna pick me up and slam me down. We would try to work the whole thing out. And, fortunately, smarter, we we actually just because remember when you were a kid and you tried to do all the wrestling moves to you for the first time? First time, I remember doing the Polish hammer, and you didn't know not to interlock your fingers. He'd slammed to you. You you little buddy's chest, and all your fingers felt like they broke off. And we didn't understand, like, all of those things. I used I I fortunately had, like, you know, 3 younger brothers, so, I could, you know, try out the airplane, spin everybody's move. But I remember the first time, one of the first two times I really f**ked up my back. 4th grade, this kid put me in a figure 4 leg lock because he was trying to show me how to do it, and he got in he guided me into it. And then all the kids started going nuts. And he kind of was, like, into the crowd cheering. He wasn't letting me out of it. So I, like, I got up to try to undo the leg, and I felt a pull on my lower back. That was 4th grade. And then the first time I I messed up my upper back was Tony Atlas inspired. His finishing move was to put you up over the head, and I picked up my brother who's about 4 years younger than me, and I went to pick him up over my head. Swear to god. It felt like it felt like my spine bent. And I I got I got I got about halfway over my head. I still remember where I was at. I was in the living room, so, fortunately, there was a rug because when I I had to drop him immediately. He was crying because he f**ked up his shoulder. And, you know, so that's the funny thing. So everybody said they go, yeah. Wrestling's fake. Wrestling's fake. It's like, really? When I do it, I still get hurt. So Well, it's funny because on your Twitter account at Bill Burr, there's a picture of you and Nature Boy Ric Flair. Arguably one of the funniest dudes you ever lived. Oh, g*****n. He's hilarious, and he's my favorite pro wrestler of all time. But my point is it plays back into your story about being in the figure 4. Bill, next time you get put in the figure 4, don't try to unleash your your legs. You roll. Roll over. You reverse the pressure. Which way do I E either way, whether all you gotta do is go belly down, and it puts the pressure on him. Allegedly. That's how it works. So just Do you know how cool it is 40 years later to hear it from Stone Cold Steve Austin? This is how you got out the figure for. Gonna teach I'm gonna teach my wife how to put me in it, see if it works. You go, dude. Just go get on YouTube. YouTube. Go push it. You put in just push push flare versus steamboat and watch him put steamboat in that in that figure 4, and all of a sudden, Ricky will get that crowd. He's getting that crowd at g*****n. He's almost got him. He's and finally turns it over and the pressure goes to Rick Warren. He goes to the rope, so now he's settling the leg just like steamboat's selling the leg. So there's no reason why, you know No. I I Kinesio Kinesiology or, anatomically, why rolling over would reverse the pressure? But that was the story. Yeah. The Steve Austin Show. The Steve Austin Show. So tell me about starting off, dude, because you you said you got 3 brothers. Right? I have 4 brothers. Four brothers? Yeah. Okay. So, like, were you the funniest guy in the family? Were you always funny? No. I I was not no. My older brother was 10 times still is 10 times funnier than me. Everybody in, like I grew up in the, you know, the suburbs of Boston, and I just just everybody was funny. I don't can't explain it. There's something basically But there But there's something about Boston where it's just like, I don't know. If you watch those reality shows, more times than not, at least the ones that my wife watches, those survivors and stuff, there's always some Boston lunatic. You know, he's got the crazy accent. They're just they're just bunch of characters there. So I just think everybody, was so funny growing up that you just sort of like absorb it. And it was all big families and stuff, and like fighting was accepted back then and and drinking and driving wasn't wasn't like yeah. No. I used to fight. Days, a fist fight. Yeah. My parents the the rule was don't hit each other in the face. It was like, hit each other from here to here. That was considered working it out amongst yourselves. Yeah. I remember my my mother one time tried to smash a brush over my head because my brother said I kicked my other brother in the face, which was bulls**t. I kicked him in the stomach. I don't know why to this day he said that. So my mother was brushing her hair. She had this big, like, the seventies plastic. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Who's the fairest of them all? Brushes. She turned around and smashed me in the head, and I, like, did that that that pussy duck. Basically, you put your shoulders up and got and she caught me right in the middle of the back. Right? And it would have been great for wrestling. The whole thing, the whole brush exploded. And my mother was like, we had so many kids who are just so cheap. I just remember she just picked up, like, the brush part. And for, like, the next 10 years, she was just holding the brush part. And every once in a while, I'd catch her using it. I would still be pleading my case going, I I kicked him in his it was his chest. I think that's why my brother had a bad angle. It was like a quick play at the plate or something. He had a bad angle. He thought I kicked him in the face. I didn't. To this day, I'll go to my grave denying that. Dude, the thing if you popped off to my mom, she had to be in the kitchen. She had one of those wooden spoons in her hand, and she got you cornered. Oh, yeah. She was gonna wear your a*s out with a wooden spoon. Yep. And she'd break them, and my dad just go get them all wooden spoons. So My grandmother broke one. Talk s**t to your mom when she got a wooden spoon. That was my deal. I learned that real fast. My grandmother tried to break one over my head, but I got my arm up quick enough, and it snapped. She I kept messing up this rug, which she was looking at little throw rug, and she kept going like, who keeps messing this up? So it became like this game. And she went in the kitchen, and she stopped real quick and looked back out. She caught me messing up, and she, dude, turned into the devil. Just came flying at me like it was a hatchet. Yeah. And I just put my arm up. It was really weird because she I I only saw her a few times a year, so it was kinda like a stranger coming at me. And it snapped over my forearm, and then she just just went, wow. That's the end of that spoon. And that was it. Went out and bought another one. My other grandfather used it to, remember the seventies refrigerators? We had the side by side. He he just he couldn't handle the fact that we just kinda went in there and got something to eat whenever we wanted to. So he jammed the thing in there so we couldn't open it. So we're sitting there starving, just an ornery guy. What? That's amazing. Just Jerry rigged this thing. We couldn't get anything neat. Okay. So we'll we'll go on back to your, your stand up deal because on, you know, in researching, it says you started in 92. Yep. But, you probably had to you were testing s**t out before then. What makes you decide to just turn pro and start 92 on the stand up career? There is no turning pro as a comedian. It's just you just get thrown in the deep end. It's not like you can't, like, try out material. It was just it was a talent contest. This place, Nick's Comedy Stop, which still exists, which is crazy because I've been doing it for, 24 years that the place that I I just stepped on stage first still exists. Nick's Comedy Stop, had a contest, find Boston's funniest comedy student. And it was just basically, you know, a big hype thing to get a bunch of college kids in there drinking, watching their friends go up and bomb. And I just I saw it and I just immediately called the number before I chickened out, before I really had to think about it. And, I do remember vaguely sitting down trying to write material, and you're just sitting there going like, how do you do this? Like, I've always been funny in class, but how do I but, like, funny just happened. You just sort of improv in your whole life. Like, you know, you see something, you make a joke, you make people laugh, you're throwing s**t in or whatever. But now I'm gonna sit down and artificially create this moment. Like, how do I get to the funny and stuff? And, you know, that took took a while. Definitely took a while. But is that like, I mean, I would imagine it's just like, some of the guys that watch history of the Eagles. Were you a big Eagles fan? Yeah. I looked in a warehouse, so they played it. They it got to the point they played them so much that there was a few groups that I had to take, like, a decade break from. Right. They were one of them. Zeppelin. Yeah. The Eagles, Crosby, Stills, and Nash. We had, like, classic hits on. There was the guys who worked in the warehouse also played in the band, and they played a lot of that classic rock stuff. So they listened to that. WZLX was what it was, and they played that s**t from, like, 9 in the morning till 5 at night, and it got to the point of like I I I can't listen to stuff anymore. Yeah. I can get you on a decades off stuff because they hit them so hard for so long. I need to break myself, but and listen to how those guys learned how to start writing songs. It was an interesting process. So here you are. You come out of communications. You get on the stage. You got you're gonna write this. You're first gig. I was not communicating. I don't When I when I got on stage, the communication was not going well. Did you win the gig, or or how long was your first set? It was supposed to be 5 minutes, and I think I did, like, 3 and I bailed. I made fun of the host, and then I just got off. Mike Mike, my first time do doing stand up, and I would say this to anybody who's getting into it. Like, the first, you know, 10, 20 times you do it has nothing to do with how well good or bad you're doing. All it has to do with is when they call your name, having the balls to go back up there or go up there the first time. That's all it is. Like, you know, and I just was joking with the buddy, Rogan. I was joking with him just going like, I am so glad YouTube did not exist when I was going through my, am I the next Bill Hicks phase? You know what I mean? There is a phase that a lot of comics go through, myself included, where you think, hey. Am I gonna be the guy with the leather jacket smoking the cigarette, you know, telling them how it is? You know? Yeah. It's sort of like, you know and and everybody, whether you had the jacket and the cigarette, you know, kind of, tried that hat on for a minute. And thank god. I know they exist they exist somewhere. The footage is on a VHS tape somewhere in the back of one of my closets, but, it'll never see the light of day. Right? But when you don't get so you hit the stage and all of a sudden you start getting booked. I mean, what's the dues span process? Are you doing another job on the side? It's it's a lot like when I read books on like, I've read all your guys' books. Like one of my favorite ones was Ric Flair, To Be the Man, You Gotta Beat the Man. I own that in hardcover. Like I read all of those things. And what I the the stuff that I related to the most was the, dishonest promoters and being in a car with another performer and laughing and joking and having beers afterwards. But, obviously, the level of physical pain and the s**t that you guys went through is is way beyond. Our stuff is more, like, just absolute humiliation. Just like, you know, there's still sometimes, like, I will think about stuff that happened to me when I was on stage. It always happens when I'm in the shower. I don't know why. And it's just some of the like, where I just got so owned by a crowd and had no comeback and just how embarrassed I was. And there's always friends in the crowd when it happened. Every once in a while, when those memories come up, I literally have to, like, shout it out of my brain. Like, I'll just be in the shower, and my wife will be down the hall. And she just hears me go like, and she'll be in the kitchen going like, are you okay? I'm like, oh, yeah. So I just, you know, my back. Yeah. And it isn't. It's me thinking about like, you know, yeah, oh man, I took some bad, it's weird. The older I get, they're starting to fade from my memory. But I mean, there was, yeah, there's definitely a lot of horrific gigs, not getting paid. I mean, in the first, you just have so happy that you're getting any stage time. And that's another big thing. At some point, you gotta put a worth on what you're doing because you're just coming to the business hat in hand, like, I'll do anything. I'll I'll clean the bathrooms. I'll sweep up. Just give me 2 minutes. I'll drive you know, I was in Massachusetts. I used to drive up to New Hampshire and Maine for 5 minute sets. And I would, you know, I was working with my dad in a dental office. Right? And we'd be numbing up people and pulling teeth while he would be. I'd just hand him the s**t. And then the second the gig it was over, I'd go out and go do a gig. And my I was still living at home, so my dad knew I was going all the way up to Maine. And he would book patients at, like, 7 in the morning. Like, my dad was just a lunatic how hard he worked, like, 7 to 7. And, you know, I would come home. I get home, like, 3 o'clock in the morning, and I would wake up, and I wouldn't be worth s**t. And he'd be, like, chewing me out in front of the patients. Like, Christel, you're out to lunch, like, right in front of somebody sitting there with their mouth open and s**t. But I still remember I the first time I got paid, I got paid $5 in gas money, and it blew my mind. I just remember I had this 83 Ford Ranger vinyl seats piece of s**t just like the anti pussy mobile. Right? Just driving this thing. And I just remember just looking at that $5 bill thinking like, I I got that for doing telling jokes and just that whole idea of, like, can you imagine if I could actually, like, not have a day job? I remember just it was very the dream was very incrementally. Imagine if I I became a paid comic and I was just a host, and then imagine being the feature and then imagine being the headliner. And then I remember, just fantasizing about the day I could quit my day job. And, I started out also with Dane Cook, and I remember he was working at Blockbuster Video. And I remember the day, like, he quit. He was telling me he was quitting. Like, I vicariously lived through it with him and I was and then, like, I remember, like, calling him up or seeing him at Nick's, like, later on a few days later being like, dude, what's it like? What's it like? He's like, oh, it's awesome. He goes, you wake up whenever you want. You just sit there. I remember he said this. He goes, like, you know what? I'm gonna have some toast. And, like, that freedom has never. I've never taken that for granted. Like the the unbelievable freedom that you have once you start once you're a working comic where you can just, you know, you work when you wanna work, you know? I mean, it doesn't happen. I mean, this when I got to that level, it took like 20 years to be like, okay, I can now, I have a following. I can I can work like that? But I still remember how awesome it was. And when I would do the road, I was a big sports fan. So I just, you know, I would just look at, like, you know, if I was had a bunch of college gigs, I would just take out the baseball schedule, football, hockey, whatever the hell it was, and I would just book gigs around there. I would drive out of my way to go see s**t. But a lot of that stuff was unlike you where it was just me by myself, those college gigs and s**t. Went to, like, the Mall of America. Yeah. But if you're if you're driving down the road by yourself, you're just sitting there thinking, okay. You see a billboard or you just start thinking about something. Are you trying to think of s**t all the time? You know what I would usually I was usually listening to music, fantasizing that I knew how to do that. And, like, I have this like, I just constantly daydreaming of me being a hero. All the f**k I don't know why that is. But, like, if I listen to a Stevie Ray Vaughan song, right, I'm Stevie when he's doing something great, which is usually most of the song. But if I listen to, like, Stang Swang, then I'm thinking I'm Chris Layton playing the cool drums in the beginning. And it's just so I was use it was music, sports, and making people laugh. That's like my my, you know, triangle offensive, like, trying to be happy. And so, like, all that making people laugh was the only thing I was actually good at. Everything else, I was just like, you know, weekend warrior stuff. But music was a huge thing to me, so I was always listening to all the s**t I grew up on, like ACDC and Guns N' Roses. And then when I met Patrice, he got me into, like, you know, Biggie Smalls and Ice Cube Cube and all that. I remember I'd always try to buy rap tapes, and he would just look at them and just throw them out the window. And then he just laugh at me. He go, this guy stinks. And then he'd tell me the guy is real. But then he was funny. I I would you know, I tell him about Led Zeppelin and all that type of stuff. He got totally into the Beatles and stuff. It was really funny. So when you're going out and you're doing your first gigs, I remember, when I first started the business, in Dallas, Texas for 2 months, I'd work 2 days a week, Friday night Saturday morning. And the bad guys would come in and just kick the s**t out of me with kendo sticks and weight lifting belts. I was paying my dues and then they shipped me off to Tennessee and that's when I started working full time. And I show up and I'm a have my first match in a territory that I don't know anybody. I'm 2 months in the business and all I've been doing is getting the s**t kicked out of me. Right. And so the Now what's your job tonight? Are you supposed to win or lose? Yeah. I'm gonna win the match, and, I'm a baby face as as we would call it. And, Dutch Mantel says, Steve, you're working with, what's what's his name over there? He's wearing a mask. He goes, go out there and give us about 8 minutes, and you'll beat him. I can't remember how I beat him. All of a sudden, he told me, 8 minutes. I'm thinking to myself, g*****n. What the f**k am I gonna do for 8 minutes? Yeah. You know? Because you're scared of time. Yeah. You know? And then as you as you get, you know, couple more months, a year, 2 dude, you need 20, 30, 40. Right? So how did your routine grow from, you know, your first, you know, 5 minute gig, which turned into be 3 minutes at the Yeah. College thing. It's so crazy, the similarity of this. Yeah. How do how'd you get your time up? That's what we call it. How do you get your time up was basically, alright, so you had, like in Boston, it was Nick's Comedy Stop, The Comedy Connection, and Giggles. Those were like the a rooms. So that would be like working for the it was WWF when I was a kid. Yeah. WWE. Right? And then you had all these then you had the b rooms and c rooms. So these would be like different different wrestling circuits. So it'd be, like, in a rooms, I would be a host. In b rooms, I could feature. And if it was just some absolute s**thole Actually, I never I never headlined in I think maybe one time I did before I moved to New York. When I moved to New York, I knew I had 45 minutes at that point, but I had never done 45. So I had 45 minutes I could talk for 45 minutes if I could remember all of it. And I remember, I talked to this guy, Roger Paul, and I had already sent him my tape, and he really liked me. And he was the first guy that headlined me, and he goes, he goes, did you headline up in Boston? And I just lied. And I said, oh, yeah. Yeah. I can handle that. And what would happen was when you first start headlining, you're used to doing 30 minutes. And what kept happening was I get to 30, and it would go great. And then there was, like, 7 minutes of what the f**k Yeah. As I'm saving my basically, my finishing move was my closing bit. And I'm saving that thing. Right. And so my sets would, if you go to graph them, would gradually build, build, build, build, build, and then they'd just be this lull. And then I then I then I would get out on the on the closing bid and go back up again, but it wouldn't get to the same height as 30 minutes. So it was kind of like, yeah, that's what it was. What are you thinking when you put your set together? Because here's the thing. I don't have I don't have I I have an idea what I'm gonna open with, and I know what I'm gonna close with. Like, I kinda know all the jokes, but then, like, I don't have, like, the set order. Like, it goes much better if I just think about the joke and then I just do the joke. And sometimes I have callbacks to jokes, but I are I I haven't told it yet. And but what it does is is it gets you to be present. Like, I am, you know, whatever. I am at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles. I'm at the Punch Line in in San Francisco. Like, I I am here right now as opposed to being up there. Like, I I did the whole write it all out word by word, memorize it, always say it the same way, do it in the same way. I did that, and I found myself on stage. It was like when I was reading a book, like, my brain would just be going. And then I would start thinking, like, going, like, I have not thought about this crowd or what the f**k I've been saying for, like, 3 minutes, which is a long time. And then I would start thinking like, why are they even laughing? Like, what is even funny about this? And then the second you think that, for me, I just start bombing. Like it's like I'm in a plane and it starts losing altitude and I can't figure out why. And so I have to go, you know, I have to switch it up. What I found works for me is I have I, you know, my buddy called me recently. He goes, man. He goes, we you know, we get the 3rd show. He goes, there's only, like, 30 people gonna show up, 30 reservations. And I from all of those years, I got, like, this jolt that went through me because I did the whole, oh, there's only 30 people up here, so I'm gonna go up and, you know, act like there's 30 people. And then one day, I was just like, f**k this. I'm gonna murder these 30 and make them wish that they brought 30 more, which is not the most original thought, but I don't I can't remember. Somebody told me to do that, but I just started approaching it like sports. Like, it's alright. We're down 18 runs, but you're not gonna win by 19. And I'm gonna make this f**king miserable for you, and I'm gonna try to file file off as many pitches, whatever I gotta do. And it's like that athlete like mindset of not losing, like, if you apply that to stand up, you know, you're always like, there's gotta be luck, there's gotta be the talent, but the biggest thing is you have to have that thing where, you know, you're in the middle of Dallas and some s**thole and everybody else is sitting there going, like, do I really wanna do this? Should I get married and have kids? And you're out there just f**k this flying across. And you have to kick the s**t out of them or it's gonna start dipping, and they're not gonna come back. Gotta give them bang for the buck. You have to. They they bought a ticket. You gotta give give them everything. You have to. This is the Steve Austin Show. Going back to one of the points you made a while ago, I think you'll agree with I'll put that I'll put the the hammer on what you were saying. I was talking with, Zach Wild. Oh, yeah. He's awesome. You know Zach. Yeah. It's a funny thing. Before I started Sabbath. Before I started rolling the, the the recorder, Bill walks into my house. He meets my wife and my dogs, and we come in here. And I have a guitar on my wall as most of you people that listen to my show know about my Stevie Ray Vaughan guitar. And he goes, Jesus Christ. He goes, is that real? And he dug the guitar. And so I told Bill, I said, out of 95% of people that come here, nobody ever notices that g*****n guitar, and it's one of the prized possessions. I first saw the Stevie Wright picture, and I was just like Found out. We were from Santa Barbara. Just and we've gone through an old little file thing, and I that's all the Stevie Ray black and white and had to have that thing. But Zach Wild told me just speaking of guitar players, I told I asked Zach one time. I was at OZ Fest somewhere in San Antonio. Man, I think we're about to get lit up, hammered, and, I I told him he was in his, in his room just f**king shredding. And I said, g*****n, Zach. I said, what are you thinking when you're doing that? How do you play all that? Yeah. He goes, Steve. He goes, bro. He's from Jersey. Yeah. He goes, Steve, if you're thinking, you're stinking. Yeah. You're just flowing to it. Flowing to the next session. Same with pro wrestling, dude. I mean, you gotta think here here's the thing. And and I wanna get your your feedback on this because, dude, okay, just say we're at Chicago Rosemount Horizon. My favorite building, they renamed it. My favorite building to work in because of the acoustics and the people there are just rabid for wrestling. And so 18,000 strong. You go on there, and when you're having your match you're listening to the response of that crowd because each time you go to the spot if I'm working okay. Say I'm working a heel in your baby face. I'll be the bad guy. You're the good guy. I'm calling the match. Boom. We're we're we're working. We're working. Bam. I'm I'm working that crowd. I'm popping them, popping them, popping them, popping them. I'm a bring you down. I'll settle them down. I'm a piss them off by getting some heat on you. Fire them up by giving you a little bit of something. Cool. And then boom. We're gonna we're gonna make them come on this comeback and then the finish. It's explosion. So my point is, we're listening to that f**king crowd. I can't hear for s**t, but I can hear a crowd. If you've got 18,000 people in there and 17,999 of them are cheering and 1 motherf**ker up there in row 100 e is doing, I can hear him. Yeah. And so I'm I'm tuned in that crowd. So you have got to be like you said, sometimes those 3 minutes goes by, but you to me, you read a crowd like a motherf**ker. It well, you do it long enough. You you don't You're very instinctive. It it's it's a it's a it's this big thing. It's this big noise. It's a big noise that you're controlling, then you gotta know when to bring them up, when to bring them down. That took me the longest time to learn. I remember one time, one of the one of those times when I was, you know, when I just told that guy, Roger Paul, that I I closed rooms. So he put me in some room. I can't even remember where the hell I was at, But this guy in the middle just murdered, murdered, and I I forget what bodily fluid joke he ended on. And they go into the proctologist, ologist. And he's got his finger up my ass, and the f**king place is going nuts. Yeah. Like, he has him up to 11. So I made the mistake as I went on stage and tried to start at 11, and I had nowhere to go. I got about 10 minutes into my set, and I was literally out of breath from telling jokes. And I was like, and then I was fine. And it's just like and I when I lit what I had to do, I I just started bombing for, like, 5 minutes, and then I gradually built it back up again. I mean, I got off stage and I had a headache. And, you know, and I was a baby about it. And I called the comic. You know, I talked to an older comic. I'm like, this f**king guy is doing all his bodily fluid stuff. You know? He's f**king screaming. It is f**king I've seen a 1,000,000 guys do that joke. And he just said, dude. He goes he goes, don't ever do that. He goes, just go up. He goes, keep it going for that guy. Wasn't he great? And just start slow. Start slow and just gradually build it up again, but blah blah blah. And I was like, you can do that? I guess, yeah. Just just do that. And that was like, you know, I mean, so much of the stuff that I learned, I learned by completely failing, and then an older comic told me, you know, how to how to work that out. But I remember the first time where I I was conscious that I was being able to read a crowd, but, I was working this place, Harvey's, in, Portland, Oregon, And, the dude who ran it used to he had, like, all these telemarketers who just paper the room. So you do a Tuesday through a Sunday, 3 shows Saturday, 2 shows Friday, you know, like, you know, all inclusive, like, a $1500 thing. So by the end, I think after taxes, you walk with, like, $300 to do, like, 9 shows or some s**t. Right? So I come in there Tuesday night, and it's just packed. And I was like, holy s**t. Like, this is like, I thought it was Selena on the mic and and f**k around. So once you establish that you're there, I didn't have to be there, like, an hour before the show. So come Thursday, I came walking in about 10 minutes before I went on. And I walked in. And I walked in the room. I was in there for, like, literally 3 seconds. And I looked at the waitress, and I said, what happened? And she goes, well, the guy on stage, he kinda told a joke that people thought was, I don't know, kinda sorta sounded racist and blah blah blah blah. Like, I just felt the crowd. Like, it wasn't like it wasn't the energy of this guy's bombing. It wasn't an energy of, like, you know, we're drunk and we don't care and we're rowdy. It it was this energy that something happened. Like, did somebody just get thrown out or whatever? And I remember thinking like like I remember trying to afterwards think about what was that sound, and it isn't a sound. It's just a feeling you get. It's so weird. It becomes and it becomes back to that exact thing you were saying. Well, if you're thinking, you're stinking. Like, so when I when I tried to, break down the thought of what it is, you can't verbalize it. So that's the same thing, the same thing. Like, that's so f**king cool. You're listening to it, building it up, and bringing it down. Yeah. But I'm watching you, Suss. That's unreal, man. But here's a story that goes Yeah. You guys are beating the s**t out of each other. I'm just up there going, you know, what's up with Obama? You guys are like you guys are like I tell you one time, like, when I I miss Ric Flair when he came up because it was back then you had territories. So we were we were Vince McMahon's WWF. Yes. And well, I forget what what he he he NWA. NWA. So I missed all of his stuff, and I just but you still heard about him. Oh, yeah. And it wasn't until, you know, like, the mid 2000s when, you know, YouTube came out and everybody post the clips, and I just went down this rabbit hole one night. And I went from just hearing about the legend of Ric Flair to being I mean, like, he had like so many times, like, if I would have bad gigs, I would watch your guys' clips and stuff and guys being on the mic. And, and his stuff I mean, it's still my favorite one ever is when he held up that loafer and he told the guy shoes cost more than his house. I remember when I was trying to describe that line to my wife, I was literally crying laughing, and she was going like, you know, because she's not into the I'm just telling it secondhand. She goes, Was it really that funny? I was like, Nia, you had to see the guy's face. It was probably true. If you looked at the guy he was saying it to and this guy was standing there. And what I loved was he was so bought in to the character of of Ric Flair. Like, it was so f**king real to him. I loved it. Oh, dude. And you're hitting it a 100% on the head. He was so convicted. It was a shoot. I mean, that in in our business, like you said, a shoot match. I mean, that's when somebody buys in that deep, he's loving it. And it was it was real to him. Just just a parallel to a quick story. I always tell the story all the time, but I'll give it to you because you've been there. Talking about following that guy who had the bodily fluids, you're like, g*****n. How do I follow that? It's Yeah. Right to start out at 11. Dude, we used to go over to Japan, and all of a sudden, you're in the slot and you're right behind either, like, a Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero. I mean, just, some of those guys that are cruising, which they just go like crazy. Nobody's business. Just extreme workers. Right. Badasses. And all of a sudden, I got my limited move set. You know, I got a right hand. I can kick somebody, and that's about it. Right? I got a headlock. But after these guys wouldn't blow the roof off a place, what do you do? How do you follow that? What would you do? You just go do your s**t. Right. I can't try to emulate what they did. I I've never done it in my life. So now all of a sudden because they went out there, lit the crit lit the Did you have it? Fire. So you just go out there and you do your s**t, and you you're convicted like Ric Flair was on the on the promo with the shoe. You just do your match. You lay your s**t in, and your your intent your your your intensity's high, and you don't rush it. And so that that's how you follow what's and our Did you ever have did you ever try you must have early on, like, okay. I I I gotta do some moves like that even they even though they weren't part part of your No, dude. When I was over in Japan, you know, I used to do a top rope splash, and the dude moved. He was supposed to, and I tore my tricep off my arm. We was in Japan for 3 weeks. I tore my tricep off on the 3rd night. So I gotta wrestle for 2 and a half weeks with the torn tricep. You know? So I that's when I knew that sticking to the ground was gonna be, you know, where I was gonna make, you know Have a long career. Yeah. Well, I was gonna have a long career. Ask answer me this question because sometimes, dude, we'd go out there and just say, like you said, sometimes, one time a long time ago was me and Flan Brian, we were wrestling Shane Douglas and Ricky the Dragon Steamboat, and it was a big snowstorm. One of the greatest names ever. Yeah. And so, nobody could get to the building, and there were literally 50 or so people there. And, man, we went out there just like a store you said a while ago, and we lit that place on fire. 30 minutes of bust a*s tag team wrestling. Hey, man. Do you own or rent your home? Sure you do. And I bet it can be hard work. You know what's easy? Bundling policies with GEICO. GEICO makes it easy to bundle your homeowners or renters insurance along with your auto policy. It's a good thing too because you already have so much to do around your home. Go to geico.com. Get a quote and see how much you could save. It's GEICO easy. Visitgeico.com today. That's geico.com. But sometimes when you go out there, whether it's 50 or whether it's 20,000, sometimes you go out there and you've been on the road for a long a*s time and you're in pretty good hand. Maybe say at the 5 year mark and then I'll go to the the 10 or 12 year mark for me. But sometimes you go out there and you just get a crowd that ain't buying s**t. As over as you are, Stone Cold Steve Austin Austin, or as funny as you are at a scientific level, Bill Burr, you ever get a crowd these days that just all of a sudden, they're just kinda lukewarm to the s**t you're doing, or are those days gone by because you're so good at what you do now? It's more once you get known Once you get known, then like You're a big guy? It becomes easier. Yeah. Like I'm not as if I went up against a crowd like that, I haven't done it in a while. Like I can remember the last time that happened to me. I was gonna do Letterman and I needed to get 5 minutes and I was new out here. So I went to some This guy had this room out in, Glendale, and it was just a bar. It was just a bar, and most people came there to watch the Laker game. And he the the host goes up. He bombs. The next person goes up. They bomb, and, like, 2, 3 people in a row are just bombing bad. And I was in the back going like, I'm gonna get them. I'm gonna get them. He's he's they they knew their kids, blah blah blah blah blah. Once I get up to hey. I bet some people are gonna know who I am. You know, I've got a half hour on Comedy Central. I did a little something on HBO, and I went up there and nobody knew who I was. And I had to work totally clean and just go through this this. Hey. What's up with this? You know, late night TV show, dude. And I ate my balls. Ate my balls. And then I just abandoned my TV set, and I tried to turn it around by giving s**t about the Lakers, you know, rather than going a positive route, which I never go. I should have gone like, hey, man, you guys like the Lakers. Alright. You know, just something to get him in. Yeah. I was like, yeah, f**king Kobe's overrated. How much free agency healthy like? And they were just like, hater. And then they just turned back around, and it was just like they just ignored me. And I've been in it long enough where I just laugh. Well, there you go. You egomaniac. That's what you get for that. You know, you thought you were gonna go up there and everyone was gonna be, you know, thrilled to see a guy that was on VH ones. I love the eighties, whatever the stupid talking head show credit I had back then. And but, like, you know, I guess, you know, recently, I I've opened for a few bands and that can be a difficult thing where they are when a crowd's standing up and they're there to see music and then you come out, that it's a really, you know, I I have major, I I don't care how long I've been doing stand up, how big I ever got. They I there would never be a moment where I wasn't plotting backstage for a gig like that going like, alright. I need to do this. Right. I need to do that. Make sure you don't do this because it didn't work the last time. I got to open for Queens of the Stone Age one time, which was killer, man, because, you know, one of my favorite bands ever. And, and I just knew it. I knew going out there that I was like, oh, man. So I went out there, and I was having a good set, and it just it just always gets to that point. You know? Like, they've had enough. Yeah. They didn't come here to see you. Came here to see rock stars, not some sickly looking Ron Howard jacka*s. Right? So I got, like, 12 minutes into this, and this this fat chick just started screaming at me and wouldn't shut up. And so I I kinda trashed the the lead singer, Josh said. He goes, no. No. It went great. It went great. It's funny. He didn't like his set, and I didn't like my set. I ran into recently. He was like, dude, you were better than us last night. Look at the no. I wasn't. I got that fat chick screaming at me. He goes, no, but you handled it perfectly. Yeah. I was like, I just told him to go f**k us up. I didn't do anything. And then I was just like I sorta got her to shut up, and then I just kinda gracefully tried to get off the stage. But way back in the day, I used to open for, like, Winona Judd, and I did, like, maybe 4 or 5 gigs with her. And those things were either great or they were just like, if it was inside, I had a chance if they were sitting down. But I know I think we did Del Mar one time. We did, like, that outdoor racetrack, and it was, like, in the middle of the day, comedy during the day, outside. Sun's out, and I just come walking out like it was, you know yeah. So, like, if if there's situations like that, then I I I still can't get out of those. I mean, there are impossible situations. So you just have to sit what I do is just mentally I just start thinking of all the comics I'm gonna call the second I get off stage to tell them how bad I eat my balls just and then you can laugh about it. You know? Yeah. But it's it's always feels to get get it off your chest because, I mean, sometimes you go out there and you think you're gonna rock the place. I mean, you get them, but you could've done better. And it's it's always you you're always hanging. And this is going back years for me. You're currently still doing that stuff a long time ago. But you just hang on that last performance. I mean, when Oh, yeah. You rock them. I mean, f**k you on cloud 9. All of a sudden, it's kinda like, you know, when you're wrestling business, it takes you to, like, maybe 5 years to really get it, and then you go from there to the other levels. But at 5 years, you should be pretty proficient. So you think, okay. I got this s**t. All of a sudden, you go out there and you just just lay a big pile of s**t in the ring. Nobody gives a f**k that didn't get with the match, and you just go to the back. Everybody knows you stumped the joint. g*****n. I thought I knew how to do this s**t. That's Yeah. Worries. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. Yeah. You walk backstage and then everybody's avoiding eye contact. You're just like, oh, man. The next night, you go out there and your your confidence level has got a just a little bit lower. So you're hoping you you you get this crowd to get your confidence back because, dude, if you lose your swagger and It's over. I mean, you ain't got it no more. That was me in 99. 99 or 22,000. Well, I had failed in LA, and I moved back When did you first come down here? To New York, like, 96. How did you fail out here? I just was not booking anything, and I couldn't get stage time. And once you're the new guy and then nothing happens for you, they just they're kinda over you, and then there's the next wave of new there's always gonna be, you know, the thing about it is when you come out here, if you don't have a voice or anything like that, you're just a piece of meat. And they threw you up. So I was a piece of meat. They threw me up there and, you know, I was like, hey, potential, potential, potential. And after a little while when nothing's happening, another 3, 4 waves of young guys come in, you're out. And that's basically what happened. So I moved back to New York. I had a manager and agent. They dumped me. And I had no manager, no agent. And I I just remember when I made the decision to go back to New York, it was just like, alright. Why did I get into this business? I wanted to become a good comic. So I can't get the stage time out here. I gotta go back to New York. And I'm just and I remember thinking I'm gonna go back to New York, and I'm gonna get so funny. They have to book me. That was that was the only game plan I had. I went back to that walk through bedroom. That was when I started living with Bobby Kelly. This is the nineties, you know, rollerblading and all that s**t. Right? Way back then. And I just did a zillion shows, just a zillion shows, and then one day, I don't know, come out the other side. And, yeah, you start thinking, oh, how the hell how the hell did I get here? It's just like, I just put my head down and did a 1,000,000 shows. And, Dave Chappelle and Neil and hooked me up with a couple of episodes of Chappelle's Show, and then that thing blew up and I got to experience, like, you know, you know, from a safe place where it wasn't me. It was I was standing near the guy and watch somebody go up like like The Beatles. You know? And then, you know, and then it cooled down again for a little while, did a little half hour for HBO, Opie and Anthony, that was a huge year. 2005, Jim Norton got me on the Opie and Anthony show. So those guys with the HBO special coming out, that gave me a little bit of a bump. So I got the I could sell tickets on the East Coast and for whatever reason in San Francisco. I don't know why. But I think that was more the HBO special. But, like, all the Opie and Anthony territories, I was doing really well. And those guys used to let me do promos and s**t on the, on their show. Like, they they really helped all of us out. And then, I guess maybe Breaking Bad and Netflix. Yeah. Those were those were the big the big ones where you just gradually kept going up and up and up till I'm sitting here talking to you, which is still blowing my mind. Alright, everybody. Give me the go home, Cuse. Time to wrap up his podcast and ride off in the sunset. So let's stop here on that career trajectory note and pick it up next Thursday. Bill Burr hanging out at 316 Gimmick Street, and we'll continue the unleashed conversation again next Thursday. Hit subscribe at Itunes so you don't miss out. And while you wait for that, why don't you check out Bill Burr's comedy special on Netflix? It's called I'm sorry you feel that way, and you will laugh your a*s off. And if you don't have Netflix, just get on YouTube and type in Bill Burr. If you don't think this guy is funny as hell, I'll kiss your a*s. Thank you for joining us for another classic episode of the Steve Austin Show. Please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends. For more Steve Austin show, go to podcastone.com. That's podcastonedot com. Stream your favorite drama movies and TV shows on Pluto TV, all for free. Watch all your favorite crime dramas like CSI and Blue Bloods or your favorite action dramas like Breaking Bad on stories by AMC or The Walking Dead Universe. Plus, Pluto TV has hundreds of drama movies and TV shows. Download Pluto TV on all your favorite devices for free. Pluto TV, stream now. Pay never. Hi. It's Kellyanne Conway. And I'm David Plouffe, and we have some surprising news. We're teaming up for a brand new podcast, The Campaign Managers. I know what you're thinking. Why would Pluff and Kellyanne do this? Because frankly, Kellyanne, we disagree on just about every issue except about what it takes to win a presidential campaign. Kellyanne ran Donald Trump's campaign. I ran Barack Obama's campaign. We understand things like early vote. We understand how to leverage an opportunity and how to play defense when you've made a mistake. 2024 is an election like none other. And David Plouffe and I are going to take you behind the scenes like no one else can. 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