Speaker 1: Joining me now is a guy that you have probably
Speaker 1: seen somewhere, because Billy Gardell has been doing his job
Speaker 1: as a stand up comedian and then comedic actor on
Speaker 1: so many different TV shows and movies and everything else.
Speaker 2: And now he's back on the road.
Speaker 1: Because well, he didn't have anything better to do, so
Speaker 1: he thought, why not, I'll just go back to Denver
Speaker 1: to Comedy Works the Landmark in a week or so
Speaker 1: and see the great people of Denver. But now he's
Speaker 1: going to talk to you first. Billy Gardell, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 3: Thanks, Mandy Hollow is good to sit again.
Speaker 2: It's good to see you. You look fantastic.
Speaker 1: Can we just start right there, because you are a
Speaker 1: great example as a guy who said, Okay, this whole
Speaker 1: big guy thing is not physically healthy for me anymore,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to do something about it. Tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about that journey for a second.
Speaker 4: Well, I always say I went from a young Jackie
Speaker 4: Gleason and now an old Paul Move. That's kind of
Speaker 4: what that was my transition. I had to you know,
Speaker 4: after Mike and Ball, which was just a life changer
Speaker 4: for me career wise. You know, my health was getting
Speaker 4: bad because of being you know, you can be big
Speaker 4: for a long time, but you can't outrun those numbers
Speaker 4: when they start clicking up.
Speaker 3: And then I started losing weight.
Speaker 4: On Bob Hart's Abashola and but I was in that
Speaker 4: then a lot of heavy people suffer. I was gaining
Speaker 4: and losing the same thirty pounds for about five years.
Speaker 4: And then you know, when when COVID first came out,
Speaker 4: like my doctor was like, listen, you need to really
Speaker 4: be careful because at that time I had, like you
Speaker 4: know when it said all the most dangerous things like
Speaker 4: sleep out in the asthma, type two diabetes smoker, like
Speaker 4: I was like, bingo got a full card. So I
Speaker 4: had to I had to really look hard at changing
Speaker 4: my health. And so I decided to just stop everything
Speaker 4: else and get healthy and uh and now, yeah.
Speaker 3: It's weird, man, I made myself unrecognizable.
Speaker 4: The only time people catch catch wind to me is
Speaker 4: like when I talked is you know my dad said
Speaker 4: my voice was like a car horn.
Speaker 3: It should be on an ambulance on the way and
Speaker 3: there's been an accident.
Speaker 4: But otherwise, man, it's it's it's been a weird transition,
Speaker 4: and that has kind of made me want to write
Speaker 4: about that.
Speaker 3: And then my kid went.
Speaker 4: Off to college, so we're empty nesters now and it
Speaker 4: made me want to write about that. And then my
Speaker 4: wife and I just celebrated twenty three years, so these
Speaker 4: things start started percolating, and that little itch came and
Speaker 4: I was like, I'm going to get back up.
Speaker 3: And I had some buddies that were really really encouraging
Speaker 3: to get back up.
Speaker 4: Ian Bag and Steve Byrne and Jay Leno and Christopher Titus.
Speaker 4: These were all guys that were they weren't letting me
Speaker 4: completely go away. And then finally I just went over
Speaker 4: to an open mic night and jumped back up, and
Speaker 4: boy wanted to hit you.
Speaker 3: It hits you.
Speaker 4: And now I just it feels like the early days. Man,
Speaker 4: I feel like I'm starting my band over. So it's
Speaker 4: really it's kind of really cool.
Speaker 3: I mean, and I've always wanted to play. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: want to ask.
Speaker 4: You listeners please come out and watch the show, because
Speaker 4: I've always wanted to play the comedy books.
Speaker 3: Even when I was a younger.
Speaker 4: Comic, I never heard anything but phenomenal things about these clubs.
Speaker 3: So I'm very excited to complay the comedy works South
Speaker 3: in the Landmark. I believe.
Speaker 2: Yes, you're at the Landmark. Yeah, you're at the Landmark.
Speaker 2: They are.
Speaker 1: Whenever I talk to comedians, they all say this is
Speaker 1: one of their favorite clubs to play. We are great
Speaker 1: audiences because everyone is stoned all the time, so.
Speaker 2: You're receptive to comedy. And you know, talking.
Speaker 1: About you've been in comedy since you were in your
Speaker 1: like lateeens, early twenties.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I started when I was seventeen.
Speaker 4: My first open mic night was December twenty eighth, nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty seven. Back when life was pretty fun. We had
Speaker 4: a pretty fun time being from gen X.
Speaker 3: Man. I mean, we had our troubles.
Speaker 4: I was telling my kid this look, I go, and
Speaker 4: I tell his buddies, take the phone and take a
Speaker 4: one day a week break from it. I know you
Speaker 4: can't get off of it, but take a day away.
Speaker 3: I go.
Speaker 4: That's how we got through it in gen X. I
Speaker 4: go the follows program to tell you everything's horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible.
Speaker 3: I go. But we had bad stuff too.
Speaker 4: We had we had aids, we had cracked, we had homelessness.
Speaker 3: I went a contra fair like. There was stuff going on.
Speaker 4: But Friday night we were at the club, so instead
Speaker 4: of it being horrible every day, it was like horrible, horrible, horrible,
Speaker 4: I'll stop the world and now for you, and then
Speaker 4: we would go back to it on Monday.
Speaker 3: So I just talk.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to come from a place where I can
Speaker 4: give the youngsters some life action. Gen X, I wass
Speaker 4: telling them think of me as the ghost of Christmas path.
Speaker 3: I'm here to help you.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I agree. I talk about stuff like
Speaker 1: this all the time. And I have a fifteen year
Speaker 1: old daughter who's definitely jen Alpha, and she's so dismissive
Speaker 1: of when I talk about the olden days when we
Speaker 1: only had three channels on television, and.
Speaker 3: Then she's just.
Speaker 2: Like, Mom, what is wrong with you?
Speaker 1: I go, you guys, you think you have it better,
Speaker 1: but in so many ways you have it worse. Like
Speaker 1: my parents didn't know where I was from ninth till
Speaker 1: twelfth grade, Like no clue where I was.
Speaker 2: And it was fine. They were like, she's always over clothes.
Speaker 2: It's fine.
Speaker 4: If you were in gen X. Nobody was watching us.
Speaker 4: They used to have a commercial at ten o'clock. It's
Speaker 4: ten pm. Do you know where your children are? They
Speaker 4: had to remind them they had kids, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. But like I said, I think there's a
Speaker 4: I think the stuff we can teach them that might help,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. I think there's see you know,
Speaker 4: I'm a big believer. You know, remember the song video
Speaker 4: killed the radio. So of course I think that's what
Speaker 4: social media has done the television and the movies.
Speaker 3: And I think it was a mistake.
Speaker 2: That I absolutely agree with that.
Speaker 1: I mean, you talk about a shift that is not
Speaker 1: I mean, we weren't depressed. If we were depressed or
Speaker 1: had anxiety when we were kids, our friends would have
Speaker 1: just been like, suck it up, Buttercup, let's go.
Speaker 2: And it would have been over. There's no time to
Speaker 2: wallow when you're a gen xer.
Speaker 4: I think gen X definitely has to suck it up.
Speaker 4: But we were also pretty open with.
Speaker 3: Each other, which I think these kids kind of have.
Speaker 3: I watched them.
Speaker 4: They're very kind with each other, but they're very traumatized.
Speaker 4: And I don't think that's fair to lay all that
Speaker 4: on them. Because we raised the generation of housecats, and
Speaker 4: that's because we were just fair running through the streets,
Speaker 4: and so we overworried for our kids. So some of
Speaker 4: that's on us, you know, So I try to I
Speaker 4: try to hit the middle of the road with that,
Speaker 4: like I call balls and strikes, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Billy Gardella is my guest. He's going to be
Speaker 1: at Landmark Comedy Works. Not this weekend, the following weekend.
Speaker 1: I look today, either tickets available. I am going to
Speaker 1: come to one of your shows for sure. I just
Speaker 1: I mean again, could you add that, Nae?
Speaker 2: Because we're getting.
Speaker 1: Older, Billy, could you add like a two thirty maybe
Speaker 1: a four o'clock show for you know, the elderly among
Speaker 1: us who have to be in bed by nine thirty.
Speaker 4: West and Mandy, I'd be happy with with a three
Speaker 4: o'clock dinner and a five o'clock show. I'm talking with that.
Speaker 4: I'm just fine. We could all be home by eight o'clock.
Speaker 4: That'd be wonderful. We would make it the g there's
Speaker 4: some pretty early showtimes. One on Thursday, one on Friday, too, Saturday.
Speaker 4: And it's nineteen twenty and twenty one.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you one more question before we
Speaker 1: run out of time, because I'm about to do this
Speaker 1: on my program here tonight is the big presidential debate.
Speaker 2: We're about to.
Speaker 1: Like, I'm going to ask my listeners to either come
Speaker 1: up with an over under that we can put together
Speaker 1: for tonight's debate, or maybe a bingo card square.
Speaker 2: Do you ever talk about politics?
Speaker 1: Because I have to say, at this moment in time,
Speaker 1: it is almost hard to make fun of politics because
Speaker 1: we're in such an absurd time period.
Speaker 2: It's almost too strange to make fun of it.
Speaker 4: I actually don't talk about politics on stage for that reason.
Speaker 4: I don't think at this point where we're at, we
Speaker 4: we can change anybody else's mind. It's kind of you know,
Speaker 4: I know they always say there's undecided people. I'm not
Speaker 4: sure what they're undecided about. It's pretty clear what's going on.
Speaker 4: You're one way or the other. But the one thing
Speaker 4: I do try to to encourage is to give you
Speaker 4: you know, I'm from Pittsburgh, so I'm a mister Rogers guy.
Speaker 4: Give your neighbors some room, compassion. I always vote for compassion.
Speaker 4: What do I think is the most compassionate. And then
Speaker 4: when my dad taught me to vote, you know, he's
Speaker 4: an old Navy guy, and he said, never listen to
Speaker 4: the politicians and never listen to the news. Go to
Speaker 4: us dot gov Org and look at their voting records.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 4: That's all you need to know, because they're going to
Speaker 4: tell you whatever they need to tell you in your time.
Speaker 4: But if you go look at their voting records, whatever
Speaker 4: you're going to vote for, look up their voting records.
Speaker 4: Do they vote in accordance to things that will help
Speaker 4: your family and maybe help.
Speaker 3: America as a whole without all.
Speaker 4: The rhetoric, because I think we're in this cycle now
Speaker 4: where we watch whatever news we want to watch, we
Speaker 4: hear a talking head and then we scream that at
Speaker 4: someone else, and I don't think that's the way forward.
Speaker 4: I think the way forward is to hold them accountable
Speaker 4: for their votes, what do they vote on, and let
Speaker 4: people evolve in their issues, like if they see something.
Speaker 4: This is one thing I wish politicians would do, all
Speaker 4: of them think, no matter what, you have to be perfect.
Speaker 4: I think that American people would like to hear someone go,
Speaker 4: you know, I felt this way, but now I feel
Speaker 4: this way because I'm changing to be.
Speaker 3: Honest man and go forward and look what is best
Speaker 3: for the whole. You know, our common welfare and must
Speaker 3: come first.
Speaker 1: That's Billy Gardelle. Everybody go see him. Not this weekend
Speaker 1: coming up at the Comedy Works Landmark. We've got to
Speaker 1: give him a warm Denver welcome. This is his first
Speaker 1: trip to comedy Works, so you're popping your Comedy Works
Speaker 1: cherry on this one and.
Speaker 2: You're gonna have a great time. Billy. It's good to
Speaker 2: see you, Billy. I appreciate you making time today.
Speaker 4: Mary, you're the best. I appreciate you. Thank you very
Speaker 4: much for your support and your continued support over the years.
Speaker 1: All right, thanks, that's Billy Gardell and you can see
Speaker 1: him at Comedy Works