Me and Bill Burr Go Waaaaaaaay Back. The Time I Met Bill Burr.

Bill Burr rolled through Barstool HQ to do a Pizza Review with @stoolpresidente and to record with @KFCRadio (coming soon) and @PardonMyTake.

Bill Burr is one of the funniest comedians in the world because he simply just says what he is thinking (groundbreaking review.)

I got to meet Bill Burr on a couch when I first got into entertainment/comedy.

There are other ways to get into entertainment on a couch than Casting Couch, you sick fucks. BUT, that would be a hilarious video for a multitude of reasons … great, now I’m the sick fuck.

When I used to work at a comedy club I developed a relationship with a show called The Bob & Tom Show by waking up at the ass crack of dawn, driving comedians to the syndicated morning radio show. When I arrived at the studio I’d take a seat on studio’s green room couch, and listen to the show while the comedian I brought went on air. I can’t remember what comedian I drove that day in my 1996 Toyota Tacoma, but guests and employees would come and go; you usually wouldn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t rare for the show to get great comedic talent, but for great talent to end up on the same couch as me?

Bill Burr walked in and sat down on the couch.

Burr politely asked if I was a comedian and if I’d been getting up. I knew he meant getting up on stage, not waking up.

(Rough break for @Francisbarstool when he met Burr, but if I were Francis I would have thought the same thing.) 

I told Burr, I’d only been doing stand-up at open mics for a little while

He assured me it was great I was starting comedy early and would figure it out. 

Still waiting to go on air; Burr started telling me about how some drunk maniac on a red-eye flight to Indy tried to fight him. Burr discovered every minute* funny detail from the encounter that someone with my level of expertise in comedy would have deemed inconsequential, but he didn’t. He’s a pro. Burr turned a confrontational encounter into a stage-ready bit from the airport to the radio station. 

**** small – I’m worried half of you skimmed and took the meaning of minute to be a measurement of time. Which unfortunately is why the phrase Grower, not a Shower is not as powerful when written, but cuts deeper when you say it.

To witness the wheels turn was incredible.

Burr asked me, You think I should tell that on air?

My eyes got wide as I thought of something to say, You’re Bill Burr. I don’t know. Would I? I mean … Sure. You’re Bill Bur, I think you should do it.

I know at no point in my rambling, incoherent response was I even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought, so I had no weight on his decision to tell a random story on air, but he stood up as he got called in by the show’s producer and went in and told the story on air.

After that brief interaction, 21 year old me felt like I went from driving comedians for a comedy club, to writing all of Bill Burrs material for him to being a part of entertainment/comedy.

If comedy were a crime I would say I left no trace of fingerprints on it; but it was an almost microscopic dead skin flake of DNA evidence that if found at the scene; a great lawyer could tie that evidence in and POTENTIALLY make a case out of it.

If we stick with this analogy Louis CK left a lot of bodily DNA on comedy.

With some people in entertainment/comedy turning out to not be who they say they are; or who they say they are just a much creepier. It’s refreshing to know a hilarious dude is normal.

If I could go back in time I probably wouldn’t change anything about our encounter, except thank him for teaching me in the funniest way possible I’m ashy as fuck and NEED to be using lotion. How do you think I stay looking so young?

Follow me on twitter @thejeffvibbert

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