# Billy Gardell: The Grit & Gratitude Behind the Fame - Episode 82

- Podcast: genx-adulting-podcast
- Published: 2026-10-26T23:00:00.000Z
- Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2398379/episodes/20024192-billy-gardell-the-grit-gratitude-behind-the-fame-episode-82.mp3
- Page: https://genxadultingpodcast.com/transcripts/podcasts/genx-adulting-podcast/episodes/episode-82
- Source: https://genxadultingpodcast.com/episodes/genxadultingpodcastepisode82.html
- People: Brian Barker (host), Nicole Barker (host), Billy Gardell (guest)

## Summary

In Episode 82 of the GenX Adulting Podcast, hosts Brian and Nicole welcome actor and comedian Billy Gardell. The episode explores Gardell's journey from his childhood in Pittsburgh to his career in comedy, discussing themes of grit, gratitude, and the unique experiences of Generation X.

## Key takeaways

- Billy Gardell was born in 1969 and grew up in Pittsburgh before moving to Florida.
- He attributes his work ethic to his family's strong values and experiences growing up.
- Gardell emphasizes the importance of connection and community for Generation X.
- He discusses the challenges of parenting Gen Z and the need for balance between support and independence.
- Gardell believes that humor can stem from personal pain and experiences.
- He highlights the significance of mentorship from teachers in shaping his career.
- Gardell's journey in comedy involved working in various cities, including Atlanta and Chicago, before settling in Los Angeles.

## FAQ

### What year was Billy Gardell born?

Billy Gardell was born in 1969.

### Where did Billy Gardell grow up?

Billy Gardell grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, before moving to Florida.

### What does Billy Gardell say about Generation X?

Gardell emphasizes the importance of connection and community for Generation X, highlighting their unique experiences.

### What challenges does Gardell mention about parenting Gen Z?

He discusses the need for balance between providing support and fostering independence in Gen Z.

### How does Gardell view humor in relation to personal experiences?

Gardell believes that humor can stem from personal pain and experiences, making it relatable.

### What role did teachers play in Gardell's career?

He highlights the significance of mentorship from teachers in shaping his career and supporting his aspirations.

### What cities did Gardell work in during his comedy career?

Gardell worked in various cities, including Atlanta and Chicago, before settling in Los Angeles.


## Referenced links

- [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxYs429QqFQ)
- [Listen on Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/billy-gardell-the-grit-gratitude-behind-the-fame-episode-82/id1764838823?i=1000798268680)
- [Listen on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/5nebylDXTzKs7kdVll14EN)
- [Listen on Buzzsprout](https://www.buzzsprout.com/2398379/episodes/20024192-billy-gardell-the-grit-gratitude-behind-the-fame-episode-82)

## Transcript

GenX Adulting Podcast: Welcome to Gen X Adulting and today we have actor and comedian Billy Gardell with us. Welcome, Billy.
Billy Gardell: Well, hello.
GenX Adulting Podcast: We're so happy to have you here with us. This has been a long time coming. We've been trying to get Billy on, I think for over a year, and he's so busy. So this is a very special day for us that we finally got him.
Billy Gardell: They're very, very kind and it it was been my fault. This has been like the never ending story. I we have tried and tried and then I had something come up and then I didn't have the right equipment. I had to get my kid to hook all that up. But I really wanted to meet you guys and talk to you because I do love what you're doing. And I think it's it's
GenX Adulting Podcast: Well.
Billy Gardell: it's really cool to hear the voice of our generation in in such a cool way. And you guys are always so honest and open and you know and and it it it harkens back to I don't feel alone. You know what I mean? I look for
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
Billy Gardell: things that make me feel connected and and your podcast has kind of been that and you kept catching my eye and was like, I'm gonna reach out to them and then you gracefully said, Yeah, sure, we'll have you on and then it took me a year to get here. So don't blame yourselves for that. That was my fault.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Well, th again, thank you so much for that high praise. And I love that you said never ending story because that's so on brand for Gen X. So that's absolutely perfect. And we're just
Billy Gardell: It's my pleasure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: thrilled to have you. And our first question is always, what year were you born?
Billy Gardell: My I'm 1969, so I'm right in the heart of things. Right in the heart of things. The summer of love. I
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Okay, so was that I was gonna say, yes.
Billy Gardell: share a birthday with Robert Plant, so Yep.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay, okay. I was gonna say that's summer of love. All right. And where were you born?
Billy Gardell: originally born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And then
GenX Adulting Podcast: Nice.
Billy Gardell: was there till s about right about my teenage years, and then Like everybody else in this country, my parents woke up and realized we don't have to be married, we can get divorced. And then so my mom married some guy that took us to Florida and then I kind of split my time between Florida and Pittsburgh and then by seventeen I think I was out of
GenX Adulting Podcast: Pittsburgh is a cool town.
Billy Gardell: Great town. Taught me so my
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: grandfather, my father, all the men in my family from there were really decent men that were that took great pride in their work and their work ethic and taking care of their families and like they took pride in that. And I and I think I inherited some of that. And then what was cool about Florida was it kind of taught me to daydream. So I got I kinda combined my work ethic with daydreaming and it it kind of worked out.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's a perfect balance. Do you know why Pittsburgh? Like how far back the generations go in your family, why they landed there?
Billy Gardell: I there's a we we did one of those those what do you my wife got that thing yeah yeah yeah like that it tracks you back but my family's like
GenX Adulting Podcast: Genealogy things? Like yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: a it's just like a broken paper route. So I
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: think there's three generations a and it it ends with this guy, Matthew Gardella, who was I he's just got a sketchy past, like he he was he was in Italy and then he was in Germany, but he's not Italy or German. And then he comes to Philadelphia, and then they kinda lose track of that until his daughter or wife land in Pittsburgh, and then that starts there. And so we go back in Pittsburgh about I want three or four generations, I think.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So so you're not Italian, you're saying? 'Cause Gardella sounds Italian.
Billy Gardell: No, for many, many years I thought I wasn't. My father was kind of olive skinned, dark hair, and you know, it was one of those things that you find out these days where you think one thing and then you get the DNA done and you're yeah, that none of that's true. And then there's some crazy
GenX Adulting Podcast: What a trip.
Billy Gardell: stories in my past, like who who's this guy and and how did they connect? And that's not right. And so it's it's we're mutts, so it's a it's a real confusing trail to pick up on. But what we did find out was I am what am I? Thirty eight percent Irish, I'm like forty two percent Scottish, and then I got a few sprinkles of, you know, French and some other things in there. But mostly an Irish Scotchman, just filled with guilt and humor. That's basically that's basically how I walk around.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah. I love that. I love that. Do you know how your parents met?
Billy Gardell: I d I don't know how my mom and dad met. I know it was early, it was in our neighborhood in Pittsburgh. they both lived in in Allegheny County and they lived in a little burro you know, they're boroughs in those working class
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: towns and Swissfells right outside of Pittsburgh and that's where they met. And they got married way too early. They just you know, they were just two people that shouldn't have been married. And they had me when they were twenty, 'cause that's what you did back then. And then my
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: dad did some time in the navy from 69 to 74 or something like that. And then and then they came back and still didn't get along, so they had two more kids, because that's the answer. And and you know, by the time we were, you know, by the time I was twelve and my brother and sister were eight, that that that was just done. That was just done for. And they just, you know, look, some people just doesn't work for, you know. But back then they didn't know how to, you know, they thought we need more kids or we need another job. They didn't look at
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: Hey, we have to communicate, you know, because we're very different people. And so they just didn't it didn't mesh for them. Now my dad remarried and had a very successful marriage and and I had a stepbrother who I love like a brother, and they stayed together forty six years. My mom, tougher road, you know, three kids until she was over thirty-five at the time. You're not getting the cream of the dating crop at that point. So we had
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: a couple that she was married to, and she ended up divorced from both of those men and which was good. But it was also that time and and that I think women were I think women were a little more forced into a situation for survival, you know, because they just were doing what they and you don't learn this till you're older. Like I was, you
GenX Adulting Podcast: Good.
Billy Gardell: know, I was my mom I remember we had periods where there was no man in the house, so I became that. You know, I was the oldest. So it was like at fifteen I was working forty hours a week, you know, and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: and I You know, she got me this work pit. They used to have this permit at high school, like if you did you guys have DECA? I think it was called DECA, where like if you had a job, you could leave school two classes early or two periods early if you were going to work. But you were only supposed to work twenty hours a week. Well, my mom
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah. Right.
Billy Gardell: talked to the guy at the warehouse and I was doing forty and then I got the perfect parenting
GenX Adulting Podcast: My gosh.
Billy Gardell: gen X signal. You know, I'm I'm doing forty hours a week from four to eleven every night. Then I'm getting up and going to school at seven. I'm sleeping my way through school
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: and I'm failing so that I can go to work. And then, you know, like a good Gen X mom, she's like, Why can't you get better grades? I'm like, I can do 40 here or 40 there. I can't do 80 yet. I can't, I'm not, I'm not built for that yet. But
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: as you as you go through your life, you realize that situation dictates circumstance. And so she
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yes.
Billy Gardell: she was doing the best she could to keep a roof over our heads, and sometimes Those are really hard choices, especially for women of that time, you know. So I and and and
GenX Adulting Podcast: One hundred percent.
Billy Gardell: the the the the double edge of that sword is later in life it made me a very good provider. You know, it it really it made me a guy that could could switch into that gear when I needed to.
GenX Adulting Podcast: There's nothing like the Gen X work ethic, I think. I mean that it's something yes. Yeah, yeah. Yep.
Billy Gardell: Nothing. Well I we'll out dude. We will grind you to death. We don't and we're not and we're not gonna be happy about it, but we will get the job done. We will
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: get the there there is something about that generation that I've tried to pass on to my twenty-three year old man that I don't know how we all inherently know this, but every Gen Xer I've talked to that's survived this far has this thing. We have that and my dad used to call it the so what now what attitude.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: Was like, yeah, that all happened. Stuff it down and what is next? How do
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: I get through you like we just had that innate ability to to go, all right, fuck it. Let's go. And and and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: that that turns out was a huge gift when you when you look at it later in life. Now when you're a kid, it's just a tornado, but but as you get older, you're like, man, am I glad I had that survival technique, you know?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Absolutely. It's grit. It's grit. I mean, we are the scrappiest. We have the most grit. And
Billy Gardell: It is great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we are. We are.
GenX Adulting Podcast: you know, and and as we've, I think so many of us have tried to give our kids the childhood maybe we always wanted, but it's been a such an effort to also try to give them grit and scrappiness because you have to be so careful when you do that, you may eliminate
Billy Gardell: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: all of that grit, all of that scrappiness by making things too good, too perfect. And so it's funny, between our three kids, by our youngest, we kind of have figured out, okay, we have to make sure there's still enough grit in our parenting. Whereas with the first one, we're like, no, let's make everything wonderful. So I think that's
Billy Gardell: One hundred. One hundred.
GenX Adulting Podcast: been the challenge is Gen X parents.
Billy Gardell: One that's huh. I'm so on board and we only have one, so he's under surveillance all the time. And and that I think, you know, I talk a lot about this on stage, you know. I chose to when I came back to stand up because I'd taken some time off, but when I came back, my it's always been important to me what I'm talking about because we are from the generation of I'm not selling out. I'm not doing something cheesy. I'm not joining your club to join your club. Go fuck yourself. I don't care. I'm not interested.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: If I don't believe in it, I'm not with it. And that has served me well. But I am guilty too. I I gave my kid everything that I didn't have, including affection and telling him I love him every day. Like I used to say to my pop, you you learn later in life, like, he just didn't have those tools. 'Cause my dad was my hero, but he just there were certain
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: tools he didn't have from his parents. Like I would tell my dad, I love you, Pop, and he'd go, That's good. All right, that's good. Like there's not a day dude, you can't Yeah, it's a working class. You can't go into a bar
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Especially from Pittsburgh. Yeah. Pittsburgh's a tough town. Yeah, it's a man's town.
Billy Gardell: or put your arm around a guy and go, I feel fragile today. They're not having that. So yeah, exactly. So
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. You might find yourself on your ass. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: I I I really and I and I gave him all the toys I could have and made it easy for him and I think our gen one of the things I came back to talk about is defending these kids. I see a lot of comics that just rip on this generation and I don't think it's a fair shake because I think they're going through everything we went through. Who am I
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: gonna be? Where am I gonna live? Is anybody gonna love me? How do I fit in? But then you had AI, you had politics, you had the environment, you had all the the the the the the money is so screwed up. Like we could hustle two jobs and get a six hundred dollar apartment. They can't do that.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: And so I think our generation really overcompensated because no one was watching us. No one we
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: we were feral children. But what we had, in my opinion, and I'm I'm curious about you guys' take on this, what we had in Generation X was we all belong to that tribe. The phone is this okie doke where it pretends to connect everybody, but it actually just isolates you and puts you in little bubbles. Gen X was a feral generation, but if you were in your teens, late teens or 20s and you were out and about, we were all part of the same thing. And the
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: beauty that came from that was at a musical event, you would see, you would see Public Enemy and Natalie Merchant on the same bill. Like we didn't have, we just knew we were a collective. And I think these kids are so lost because they're bubbled into these different, you know. these different algorithm bubbles that they don't feel connected to anything and then they have a generation of adults that are saying, You need to Hey man, the game ain't the same. The game ain't the same. I always felt
GenX Adulting Podcast: No. Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: like I belong once in fact there was so much comfort when I would go out with my buddies when I was in my late teens and like I said, early twenties to to music or events or bars or Whatever or open mic name, whatever we were doing, we were it just felt like we were part of the same thing. We felt like like we had we had a real we had a heartbeat amongst us. And and and I think these kids don't have that that gift. I really it's so I think they kind of wander. They're wandering souls and and they have to be careful which bubble they fall into. So I did a lot of overcompensating and I paid for it later, you know, because I can't get mad at him for something I didn't prepare him for. And that's where my frustration
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
Billy Gardell: was for a while. And I was like, nah, buddy, I didn't. I and the reason I'm so, you know, I always joke with him. He's like, you know, he's like, you know, you you did, you you helicoptered a lot. And I was like, I did that because literally I was out wandering the street with no one watching me. And I know what I got into, and I didn't want you to get into any of that. So I overcompensated
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: in every way.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Oui.
Billy Gardell: So I'm trying to I just try to talk to him through that now, you know, in a in a in a kind way and go, Okay, here's where I fell short. So here's
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
Billy Gardell: here's what I did, you know, and now he's on his own and he's he's getting there, you know, he's getting there.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. No, I agree with you on everything you just said. and the connection that I think we all had as a generation, it was authentic, it was real. Whereas what they have
Billy Gardell: yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: going on, it's almost an illusion, I think, of feeling connected. I like the way you sum that up. You're so connected, you're isolated. In that
Billy Gardell: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: and also you're you're way they're way too exposed to everything at once and they know way too much about what's going on everywhere in the world. are you're not supposed to know about everything going on with everybody in the world. And we had such a privilege of not having that exposure where we could really live in our little bubble other than being scared of Russia.
Billy Gardell: Right.
GenX Adulting Podcast: You know, we were in the milk carton and the milk carton. But I mean that was it and that was intermittent. Quicksand. Yeah. Absolutely. Quicksand.
Billy Gardell: And for some reason for some reason quicksand. Quicksand was big in Argentina.
GenX Adulting Podcast: But yeah, it's a hundred percent. You know have you run across quicksand yet? Have you had to escape no, I mean yeah.
Billy Gardell: Never and not not this one time. And with all the shows we watched, I thought for sure at some point I was gonna be in peril in some quicksand. I don't know why.
GenX Adulting Podcast: For sure. Yeah. I'm ready. I'm still ready. And stop, drop, and roll. I was ready to stop, drop and roll at any moment. And I knew that if
Billy Gardell: Yeah, exactly.
GenX Adulting Podcast: if Russia threw a nuclear bomb our way, we go under our school desk and we're gonna be good. This the school desk
Billy Gardell: Yeah, you get on y yeah, the
GenX Adulting Podcast: is like, you know, kryptonite or something, but but they have like that times a million of of stress. And no wonder they all have anxiety, right? And they're de desensitized. I will say where they are ahead, where I think we did do a good job is with mental health. an emotional IQ. I mean they they
Billy Gardell: Yeah. Yeah, I agree.
GenX Adulting Podcast: they can they can define and speak to what they're feeling, what they're thinking, and I think we gave them the space to feel comfortable sharing it. They trust us.
Billy Gardell: I agree with that.
GenX Adulting Podcast: so it's like So that's awesome. We did that. It's now balancing that with more grit, like I talked about before and independence,
Billy Gardell: That's your
GenX Adulting Podcast: you know. So it's but it is that delicate balance. But I think you a hundred percent nailed it, you know, where and I don't think it's fair to get on them, on where they're at, for all the reasons you stated. Well, it's a fine line. It's a fine
Billy Gardell: No, the they need they need yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: line. It is.
Billy Gardell: I think they need they need an adult that shoots them straight and they need an adult that instead of saying you need to says here's what I did when things got
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
Billy Gardell: tough. But the thing I think they and and I blame these the the the the nerd Reich, these these AI guys and these big billionaire man, these are the dudes we used to tape to a locker. I don't know how we let them how did we
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, totally. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: let them get in charge, man? Because I think
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: they robbed this generation of of not just the ability to To go explore, but everything like they're not allowed to make a mistake because everything's on the phone. They're not allowed to, they have
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: no moment of privacy with themselves. They they have no,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: I have to figure this out. They have no daydreams because everything, everything, everything is just stuck in
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: this. And then and then when the you know the lockdowns came and all that, I think that had an effect on our children. You know, that hit my son right in 11th and 12th grade. That's when you're supposed to be prom and
GenX Adulting Podcast: man. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: you're supposed to be, you know. with your buddies and staying out later than you're supposed to and they've missed all that,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: you know, and so I just root for these kids. I really do root for you know? I do. And
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. They don't they go ahead themselves. Or are you on the West Coast? You all in California or Yeah, I mean co you guys handled COVID
Billy Gardell: Yeah. Yeah, California. I live in Los Angeles.
GenX Adulting Podcast: in Florida, it was over three, six months later. I you guys Yeah it didn't happen. Totally. Pretty much. It doesn't work for all things, but for COVID it was great. It was great.
Billy Gardell: Well yeah, that it just didn't happen. You you had you had the Florida rule is we don't like it, we're ignoring it. La la la la and okay, you know. But we were yeah I yeah. I I I think I think you guys you guys undercompensated and we probably overcompensated because again
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: we we haven't had we haven't had unification and what's better for the country in a long, long
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, it's wild. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: Like we just haven't had leaders that were like, Hey, listen, this sucks, but this is what we're all gonna do until we get through it, even though we all don't kinda know what's happening right now. And we used
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
Billy Gardell: to have that kind of thinking and it's just it's really deteriorated, I think.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, no, and and that also I think social media and t and the phones affect that too. We were just talking about that. I
Billy Gardell: One hundred. One hundred.
GenX Adulting Podcast: was saying like back in I think World was it World War Two where the whole country knew there's only so much sugar everyone's gonna get 'cause of the war or we all need to pitch in because of the war. That unification
Billy Gardell: Right. Right.
GenX Adulting Podcast: you're talking about, it just doesn't exist. Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: Yeah, we used to know how to no, we used to know how to do that. And I think that was passed on by that, you know, the boomers get very little credit, you know, everybody likes to blame the boomers. But
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: in in that time they did know how to go, I know this sucks, but and I don't agree with it, but we're just gonna go through it together. Let's get to the other side, then we'll sort it out. And we
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: lost that as Americans when we started just being divisive and and screaming at each other and and and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: again that comes from all this this this horses
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: on this phone.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Too much information at your hands. There's manipulation going on. Yeah, most of it's bullshit. Yeah. Yes.
Billy Gardell: You know, we we divide each other. And most of it's not real. That's the other part. We're just being drilled with stuff, exactly.
GenX Adulting Podcast: And the bots and everything. Well, to go back to okay, so you're in Pittsburgh. Growing up in
Billy Gardell: Mm-hmm.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Pittsburgh, in your early formative elementary years, were you latchkey? Was your mom a stay at home mom or did she work?
Billy Gardell: I wasn't a latchkey key kid till about eight. I think I made it to eight and then I was a latchkey kid. But yeah, I did the walk I mean, we walked a kindergarten by ourselves. I mean you got, you know,
GenX Adulting Podcast: I'd love it.
Billy Gardell: the they you know, they they they it was about six blocks from the house, the school. And you know, me and my my buddies, I had two dear friends in Pittsburgh and you know, our parents walked us there twice and then they went, All right, you got it? That was that was that was it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. I love it. I wasn't a latchkey kid
Billy Gardell: Ha ha ha.
GenX Adulting Podcast: till eight. I'm thinking I don't know if my oldest was wiping his ass at eight or if we we still weren't doing it. Eight. No, yeah.
Billy Gardell: No. Ha ha ha Dude, I'm not sure they're doing it now. Sometimes I think to myself, I get did you remember to shower, son? Did you run a comb through that hair or something?
GenX Adulting Podcast: No, but that is such a genetic statement. Like I I wasn't a latchkey till eight. I was thinking like twelve and you drop you dropped the eight. I'm like, wow, that's pretty good. I love that. So what did your mom so what did your dad do during that time for work when he came back from serving?
Billy Gardell: My my dad my dad was like I said, he was in the Navy for a little while, and he was on a ship called the Sylvania, which is a resupply ship. And that was late sixties, early seventies with the Vietnam conflict going on. And you know, my dad in his heart was an artist, which is why I think he was my biggest fan. He was the only guy in my family that was like You can do this, don't ever quit. Like he was my biggest fan. And I was lucky that he he lived to see some of my success on Mike and Molly and I got the
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's awesome.
Billy Gardell: was gr the greatest joy. But his dream was to be an animator. My dad was a really good artist, but he never got to live that 'cause he came back, you know, he had a new baby, then they had two more, and then he ended up working he he was a cop for a little while and he couldn't stand that.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow.
Billy Gardell: And then he that lasted I think like three months and then he he painted houses and he hated that. And then he ended up getting a job at a small you remember when banks had like six teller windows and they were like smaller? Yeah, okay. He worked in one
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: of those little banks. He got a job as a teller, and then he worked his way up to the manager and he did that for thirty five years. And he used to just tell me that was one of the things he would tell me is look, I gave up. I gave up.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: Don't ever quit. You're gonna hate it. You're gonna hate yourself if you ever quit. So He's really the biggest reason that I think I succeeded.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow, that's awesome. Was he was he drafted into the navy?
Billy Gardell: no, I think he signed up before the draft and I
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: think he was just looking for, you know, a way to support, you know, his family and and and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
Billy Gardell: have a have a job that was steady and maybe travel a little bit and then, you know, it all escalated.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Do you know what your mom you said you were a latch key, you became latch
Billy Gardell: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: key at eight. What did she end up doing?
Billy Gardell: My mom was a legal secretary. I don't even know if that
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
Billy Gardell: is a job anymore, but she was a legal secretary for an attorney and then a little lawyer little two man lawyer operation in Swissville and then part time she cleaned houses on the weekends to make a little extra
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
Billy Gardell: extra money for the family and then divorced of course. I think she I think at one point she had three jobs. So I always say
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow.
Billy Gardell: it like this. I always say I got my humor from my father, but I got my balls from my mother. Because my mother
GenX Adulting Podcast: Hmm, I love that.
Billy Gardell: my mother just she she could she knew how to work. That was the first thing she used to ask you when you sh you know when you left the house. You working? Got a job? You got a job? Got a job? And and it, you know, that stuff when you hear it the right way you go, Wow, they were they they were trying to really make sure I was okay, you know.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's that's amazing. So and I love the way you sum that up. So what's the the age difference between I'm assuming your younger siblings are twins because it sounds like they had yeah. So they
Billy Gardell: Yeah. Very good. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: they were four years.
Billy Gardell: Four years, exactly right. And then my step brother is three years older than me. And and so
GenX Adulting Podcast: So when your parents were still married and you were latchkey, were you in charge of them?
Billy Gardell: yeah. I mean by by the time I was ten, you know, I was making breakfast before school and making sure we made our beds because she was already gone and then you come home there was a there was a list on the fridge of the chores that had to be done before you could go out and play and you know, yeah, man, that we had that that You know, you you you're up and you can walk. You know, you if you got time to lean you can clean. Like that was that was our and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Ha ha
Billy Gardell: then my dad, you know, when I stayed with him, he you know, he's a navy guy. So everything I mean,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: you nothing was crooked, nothing was out of place. I mean, that guy was all squared away all the time. But boy did that serve me later in life.
GenX Adulting Podcast: for sure. I have a question about Pittsburgh. Were you a local sports fan at all? 'Cause you grew up when the Steelers were good,
Billy Gardell: one hundred.
GenX Adulting Podcast: the pirates were good.
Billy Gardell: They were literally my solace. And my grandparents
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: who lived a couple blocks from us, when when my mom and dad got divorced, they're they're two people that would have never left that neighborhood, but they knew this guy was trouble and they knew they needed to be we need they moved down to Florida near us so that so that me and my brother and my sister had a place to go when things got a little weird at our house. because this guy was a drinker, he liked the hit, he was one of those guys. And they just wanted us to have a safe place. But my grandmother was the she was the reason for the season, man. She knew she she knew the pirates lineup, the Steelers lineup, she knew the trades. Like she I really
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yep.
Billy Gardell: got my sports from her and my dad. But that whole city were obsessed with our team. But listening
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: to the games on the radio with my grandmother, like that was like the most peaceful time in my life for a good six or seven years. So sports was my Stealers
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, no, I I grew up spending a lot of time in Morgantown, not too
Billy Gardell: Okay.
GenX Adulting Podcast: far away, right? We so we'd fish on the river. We'd I'd had
Billy Gardell: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: to listen to pirate schemes as a kid in the summer. So they had a great year though. Yeah, n I think it was nineteen eighty.
Billy Gardell: Bob Prince. He was the caller. Yeah. Yeah, set seventy nine was the best. Seventy nine and eighty, 'cause we won the
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: Super Bowl, the World Series, and then in eighty they won the Stanley Cup. And then my parents got divorced and I moved to Florida with a douchebag. So there's always a balance. There's always a balance, brother.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. With no sports teams. Yeah. So your grandparents lived a couple blocks from you. So even when you guys were out being feral, did you kind of always know you had a place someone was home if needed, right? You had that little bit of security?
Billy Gardell: The yeah, that was the I would say that'd be the little security. It was more of a you know, when I look back it looked more like a refueling station, you know, we
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: 'cause they actually had enough money to have food in the pantry and stuff like that. So
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: we would stop by there and get snacks. But they were such good people. Like they were such good and kind people and especially me and my brother and my sister, we were running crazy and we didn't really want them to know what we were doing, you know.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: you know, I remember when I moved to Florida, I met these kids in junior high and it was like you know they were the kind of kids who like we're gonna we're gonna sneak out and we're gonna sleep in the woods and we're gonna camp out and we're gonna like no one knew where we were, you know, and and we didn't tell any
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: just we kind of did that survived and made our way home but they were always a place where if there was any normality through divorce my grandparents provided that they were they were an
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: example of it could go this way too you know what I mean it doesn't have to be
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yep.
Billy Gardell: a nightmare it could be it could go this way as well
GenX Adulting Podcast: Were your younger siblings as feral as your were you guys a pack and you were responsible for them or could they kinda go on their own and you went on your own with your friends and n no you didn't know what they were doing, or were you guys a unit when you were out?
Billy Gardell: We we were a unit for a while and then they got into their teenage years and around thirteen they started kind of doing what we used to do, you know, just for kind of running off, sneaking out, just being where, you know. And at seventeen I was like, I I left.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay
Billy Gardell: I left the house at seventeen with like a suitcase and twenty-six bucks, you know. And
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: I just went to a friend's house, slept on the couch for a little bit. But that was the thing that we had that that that we didn't give this generation. Is we just
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: had this, I don't know how this is gonna work out. I may fall on my face, but I'm not thinking about that right now. I'm just going to my buddy Moses house. You know. So
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
Billy Gardell: that's like we just thought, okay, I I got tonight covered, so you know, we'll see what happens tomorrow. I don't know, you know. And and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes, yes, yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: but there was there was kind I don't know if it was naive or fearlessness or a combination of both, but it was just like, nah, I'm gonna go do this and and see if it
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: works out. And and that I think was a big gift.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I think it's it was ignorance is bliss too, where again we go back to they have too much information which creates anxiety. So to take they can't be uninhibited. They can't take that
Billy Gardell: No.
GenX Adulting Podcast: leap, you know. So I think they don't have the freedom to just say, Well, I have tonight covered, I'm not gonna worry about tomorrow because everything that's sent their way is you need to worry about tomorrow. You need to have this and that. You need to worry about everything.
Billy Gardell: You need to worry about everything. And then we didn't and we didn't help because when they did leave the house, it text me when you're gonna get there. Are you sharing your location? Do you know where you're at? Like I'm my mom
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yep. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: didn't even get off the couch when I moved out. She just went, Shut that door. All right. dude.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Our son was out last night. We knew where actually all three of our kids were out. I knew where all of them were. My oldest And mind you, our oldest is twenty-nine. Yeah. And we knew where he was. Yeah. I even knew where I was. I'm like, I'm at home.
Billy Gardell: no, mine's twenty three. I do the same thing. I'm like, where is he? Where is he at right now? Is he driving?
GenX Adulting Podcast: So during those elementary years, were you involved in any like Sports, art, drama, choir, like what did you show any interest then?
Billy Gardell: You know, I didn't I I was a I was in baseball, I was really good at baseball all the way up to high school and then I sort of gained a lot of weight and but and I think that had to do with, you know, it's a lot of different circumstances. You know, my dad's in Pittsburgh, my mom's in Florida, she's married to a dirt ball, she gets divorced from him, she gets married to another What what saved me was in the in in high school, I found the drama department. And it was the first group of kids that I had been around in my life that there's this thing that we all do and and I hate when I see adults that are still stuck in this. they have the inability to just go, you like that? Yeah, it's not for me, but cool. And this was the first group of kids that I had found that didn't you didn't have to have the same shirt, the same tennis shoes. You didn't have to have the the same book bag. If you were the weirder you were, the more welcome you were. So it was like, no, you dig this. you like Duran Duran? Dude, I was a closeted Duran Duran fan forever because I thought it'd get because all my buddies were listening to the Clash, who I love, but I'm like, hey, you know the girls are dancing to Duran Duran. Maybe we
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: should no, we're just gonna stay here and be greasy and listen to
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: London's call. Okay, we'll do that. So it's i it was around those people that I learned to be comfortable, like that I like this and it's okay that I like this, even if you don't like this, we can still we can still chill together. We can still go places to you know what mean? And
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: where I I think that that every other group, like the jocks or the preps or the they they all had the they all had the same uniform on. And I w I I don't for something in me very early knew that like I'm not I don't fit in. I'm not like like I don't wanna be a part of something just To be a part of something. I want to find out what I like, what I feel, who I am. And the drama department in my high school became this magical place for me, man. Because I also had a drama teacher who who was teaching us even in 11th grade, like like he wasn't doing our town. This guy was teaching us Stanislavsky and Meisner. And the plays
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow.
Billy Gardell: were like the ballad of the sad cafe, which has a rape in it, and and and the The the horrible outcome and and fallout from that. And then we did the book of Job from the Bible. Like this guy really, and I this guy was the first adult that took me seriously, too, when I said, Look, I want to go be a stand-up comedian and I want to be an actor. And he was the first guy to go, okay, well, let's talk about what that actually looks like. Instead of you're gonna work at the gas station, who we bullshitting, which is what most of my other teachers thought, and that's okay
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: too. But he was the first adult, so that place was a such a safe haven, and for what was going on at my house, it was like I could cling to this this hour or two a day and then if I got into one of the productions, I could cling to that time. Like there is another world out there that's very comfortable for me. And I'm gonna have to figure out whatever I have to figure out to get into that world because it brings me comfort. And and so that drove me.
GenX Adulting Podcast: And what grade was that when you discovered the drama department?
Billy Gardell: I would say probably tenth grade, tenth grade. And then I just lived in that place, man. I I was supposed to graduate in eighty seven, but I had to take another lap. And I barely got out of there in eighty eight too. And I wouldn't
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
Billy Gardell: have gone back. I would have dropped out, but my my grandmother with the Irish guilt was like, If I could only see a grandchild walk the stage one time in my life, I could die happy like, shit, I gotta go back. But what
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, you're on.
Billy Gardell: but the that final year I only had to take three classes to graduate.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
Billy Gardell: And that same drama teacher said there's seven classes in a day. You're only here for three. You really want to take a shot at this after you're done. Why don't you come over here and help me with the the c the last three classes of the day? And while they're doing their activities, while they're working on their scenes or while they're building sets, you and I can talk about what it is you're actually going after. The guy's name was Kit Haskett, and I I will never forget it. He changed my life. And that was also back in a time where a teacher could talk to a student straight up.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah. Yes. Singing the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: Without fear with it, yeah, and and and he was a good man. But then but then I I I think about some of the crazy you guys ever think about like our high schools and shit? We had a we had a smoking section. Did you get I bummed I bummed
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Yes. Yes.
Billy Gardell: cigarettes off of teachers. I got they
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: were they were so getting us ready for a 40-hour work week. It's like, yeah, take
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: your 30-minute lunch and go hit a two-minute cigarette between gym and PE. I'm like, what the fuck? Like like when you think about your kids now, can you imagine if they came home and said, they're opening a smoking section at the school. We we were smoking at school. Exactly.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, and and the tea and the teachers are giving them c cigarettes. I played baseball in my I would we chewed back then and I would give my if my
Billy Gardell: Yeah, yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: coach was out, he'd like, you know, hey Brian. And we would Yeah, exactly. Yeah. What was your
Billy Gardell: Yeah, you got a pinch?
GenX Adulting Podcast: smoking section called?
Billy Gardell: there was it was just a smoking section that was it was it was near
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. Okay.
Billy Gardell: the cafeteria outside in between there and the auditorium. And
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: you you know, sixteen out there banging on Marlboro Reds, just like, the Mesopotamians. I don't understand any of it. You know.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: I'm like, what a what are we doing? Are we gonna be children at any point? That I would love that.
GenX Adulting Podcast: No, and the and the exposure that teachers had or the access teachers had to us too, like was way
Billy Gardell: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: crossed way too many boundaries. Like like you had a great example like a a great experience with that teacher. He pretty much
Billy Gardell: I did, I got lucky. I got very lucky. Yeah. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, you got lucky. Well now that's why they're not allowed to be alone. I know, because I can tell you right now, I know
Billy Gardell: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: of a couple situations where I'm like, that's not good what happened there. But you know, they had full access, especially to girls. Our dark room got shut down for
Billy Gardell: No, no, horrible. Horrible. Yeah, God, yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: photography club. I think I'm sure. Quick question though for you all. Yeah, we're
Billy Gardell: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: we're in Boca. Boca Raton. Boca Ratone.
Billy Gardell: you your way around there. where are you guys in Florida, by the way? give both you're in the nice area. All right. I used to play the black box theater down there. But I come down. next time I'm down there,
GenX Adulting Podcast: We've we've spent enough time in Orlando. Yes. Yes. Do you ever come down?
Billy Gardell: I would love to have you guys as my guests. I I'll let you know. I'll let
GenX Adulting Podcast: we would we live we live ten minutes ten minutes from the But only because of traffic lights. Yes. please keep us posted because we would love to come. Yeah, it's a very cool club.
Billy Gardell: you know. Right on, right on. I th I certainly will. I certainly will. No, I grew up in We started in in Orlando, we we ended up in a place called Union Park, which is kind of rednecky and so and we were broke. And we were so but you know, every school thinks they're helping out by grabbing a scoop of poor kids and taking to the nice school and they don't understand that they're sending us to the Lord of the Flies. That you're just gonna get
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
Billy Gardell: derailed for your clothes, the way your teeth are crooked, and and and that I had it all crooked teeth, glasses, I'm chubby. you're gonna send me to a prepper school? Fantastic. So
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: but Union Park was we were on the border and we were those kids that got scooped and we ended up at Winter Park High School, which back then
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: was a very, you know, sixteen year olds had BMWs. You know, I had a
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: I had a two hundred dollar sunbird that rattled in the muffler pop that I bought myself because I was working at Rax Roast Beef. So it was a
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: but again, those are experiences that when you go through them you learn You know what, I g this is what I have, this is who I am. I don't care what you think, but it takes time to learn now. But but
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes, yes.
Billy Gardell: the gift of that school in the middle of all that stuff was that teacher. And my English teacher too, I have to give him credit, Bill Adams. He was a guy that knew that I what I wanted to do and and right before I graduated, he knew I wanted to be a stand up comic and I wanted to be an actor. And a lot of that came from my dad. My dad had a great you know, he wanted to be an artist, but he also had a great wealth of film and stand-up comedy I listening to records Pryor and Carlin and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: Bob Newhart. Like my dad turned me on to all that and I just found that's my thing. But Bill Adams was my English teacher and he was he was he gave me Mark Twain's complete short stories before I left high school and he said if you really want to be a stand-up comic you need to read this you gotta read this guy. And I didn't read it for probably four or five years and it was at one point where I didn't have a car or a license, I think I was like twenty or something. And I had to get to Lancaster, Pennsylvania for a gig from Orlando. So I took the train, you know, and I you know, I thought, all right, that'll be cool. I'll take a train ride up the coast and, you know, I got my little Amtrak ticket and my wooden suitcase and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: and I took that book with me and I read that book all the way up to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and I wrote him a probably a five page letter when I got home thanking him for really understanding what it was I was trying to do. 'Cause I was like,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow.
Billy Gardell: wow, wow can this guy string a sentence together? Like I've never read anybody before or since, except maybe Hunter Thompson, that you
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: could read a line and laugh out loud, put the book down and go, my God, was that good? And so that's
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: that's the the you know, what's the old Mark Twain how did he say it? He goes, the the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug is the comma.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. I know what you're talking yes, yes, yes.
Billy Gardell: You know what I mean? Yeah, and and I just I just thought this guy really gets how to how to turn a phrase. And so I
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: just kinda started steeping myself in that stuff.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Interesting. And I and I love I mean, and it's such a art that's been lost, but you wrote him a five page letter. Like that
Billy Gardell: I do.
GenX Adulting Podcast: doesn't happen. You know, that's another thing our kids never have experienced, but there's something about writing a letter to someone that
Billy Gardell: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: really captures every single nuance of what you're trying to express that can text or email can never capture made his day too. absolutely. There's no question.
Billy Gardell: you know, no, we had a we we had a great phone call after that for probably three hours and the the ability to write it lights up a certain part of your brain. It's the same as when you hold a book in your hand rather than doing this. There's
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: some part of your brain that that lights up that doesn't light up any other time. And it's it's been journaling and writing has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. And I did get I was able to give that to my son because they took in cursive out of schools.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: And my joke on stage is that, well, that's because the Constitution is written in cursive, and we don't want you to know what that means in a few years. We want you to pack your box and deliver it for the robot. So, you
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: know, well, you just talk to the computer, it'll be easy. And I go against that too, because look, Gen X proved
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
Billy Gardell: that these computers are are killing our cognitive thinking. When we were
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: younger, we had a hundred and fifty phone numbers in our head. The
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: minute the phone came along, that muscle's gone. So I made
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: my son against his will journal at least once a week. And that ended up being very therapeutic for him when he was up in college, 'cause they go up there, they're alone, they don't know I'm like, write
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: it out. You get that vomit that stuff. Get it on the paper. And he still does it to this day, but I I I said you gotta keep right. You can't lose the ability to to write. That's it's It's so therapeutic. It it it hits a creative part in your brain that that doesn't live anywhere else. It lights up that that special creative place in your life. And what I taught them was when you journal, just write. Don't think about
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: what you're writing. Just write. And eventually you're gonna catch something and then you're gonna write about that. But you gotta get all the the anxiety, horseshit self-talk out of the way before you can get to what it is you're trying to write.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I agree 100%. And what a gift you gave him. And what a great parenting move. I wish I would have thought of that. Like that's that's amazing that
Billy Gardell: It was a good one, ma'am.
GenX Adulting Podcast: that's a gift you gave him. That's that's so awesome. I I love writing as well. It's one of my number one outlets. And I never that never occurred to me to give that to my kids. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: Well, it's so thoughtful too. Isn't it? Well, you know what? I look, believe me, I left him with just as many nooggies as any other parent. You know, I didn't know what the hell I was doing either. But there were a couple of good ones that I gave The other big one was, and this was one my father preached to me, is you know, the energy you exchange with the people around you is everything. So when you pick your friends, you gotta pick people that understand that The deal is we have equal respect for each other. And that means we can tell each other the truth without harming each other. I used to always preach to him the truth without love is abuse. The truth without love is abuse. That's why Gen X understands sarcasm. Sarcasm, you can't read a text of sarcasm because you're going to read that thing in whatever mood you're in. And if I'm not making eye contact with you and I don't know you, I'm not going to get that as anything other than an insult. Sarcasm works when it's a truth I know about you. I exaggerate it to be funny, but there's love underneath, and that's why there's a laugh. This
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: this thing we've slipped into where people are, I'm just telling my truth. No, you're a dick. There's a difference. There's a difference. There's a difference. Like
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: when you watch the roasts nowadays with comedians, it's just about being mean. To me, mean
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
Billy Gardell: isn't funny. Sarcasm is funny, but there has to be love underneath it for it to work. Like if you watch the roasts from when we grew up.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: with like, you know, Dean Martin and all those guys. You you could tell those guys all loved each other. You know, the men and women that
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: were on that dais, they you know they loved each other. Now
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: it's just like let me let me just be mean to you and see if you can squirm. I don't think that does that good. And I and and so when I said, look, when you go to school and y you know, we sent to a private school in seventh grade, you know, 'cause you could do it at seventh or tenth and I didn't want to be the new kid in tenth grade. So We sent him to a private school because I was able to do that at the time because I was on television. And I'm trying to get him the best education I can and safety and all that stuff. And but I said, look, when you go over there, you're gonna be around a bunch of kids with old money. So here's what you do: you go into school, don't make any friends for about a month. Just watch everybody. Watch every you're looking for character. If the coolest kid in school likes you and he's a dick. Be politely busy. That's not a circle you want to be in because you're just going to become beholden to that. If there's a kid that's maybe a little odd, but he's kind, keeps your keeps your privacy, you guys can talk, there's an equal respect there. That's what you want to build around you because those are the people that are going to lift you up. And they're also going to be able to tell you the truth when they have to without weaponizing it against you. And he really held true to that because he's got a group of five friends that he made in high school. You know, and we were that house that like everybody my wife could not
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: not come home with like five other ducklings. Like my son would come in and then five of his friends would trail. And I love being that house, man. I love that. But you know, to this day, those kids have all either gone to
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes, yes.
Billy Gardell: college or gone to trade school or got more, but come around Christmas time or the holidays, those kids all stopped by this house. I was just in the neighborhood and wanted to say hello. So there's some old school there. And
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's what Yeah.
Billy Gardell: That I would say that was one of the biggest gifts I I gave him was an example of how to make good friends. 'Cause that's that's that's what you need in this world.
GenX Adulting Podcast: You taught him how to read people. Yeah. And that's that's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You taught and and c talk about a life skill. I mean that that alone will get is huge. It's huge. It's
Billy Gardell: yeah, I guess. I didn't think about it like that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's huge. It's huge. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: so big. And to go back to what you said about being mean for comedic value, I've always felt that That really doesn't require a lot of talent. We can all be mean. Any of us could get up and with a microphone and be mean to someone. Being a comedian requires
Billy Gardell: No. Yeah, it's easy. It's easy. It's easy. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: talent. And so I I think it's kind of lazy comedy when you do that. That's just my opinion. It's lazy comedy. Yeah. It's it's like anyone can be mean or spiteful, but to
Billy Gardell: I no, I'm with you. I'm with you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: truly be funny in a sarcastic way, that's talent. And so I think that's the difference
Billy Gardell: And and I also
GenX Adulting Podcast: there.
Billy Gardell: Yeah, and I also think that when you can admit your awkwardness and make it funny, then it makes it okay. People
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, self deprecating.
Billy Gardell: it make well it makes people okay to go, shit, I do that. That's funny. You know what I mean?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: So when I when I came back to the stand up world, I wanted to have something to talk about and I like, Well, what do I really believe in right now? And the thing I believe in is, you know, I'm rooting for this generation. You know, I always tell them I go through I tell when I get because I get younger kids from Instagram now. I only got to the internet about three years ago. That's how Gen X I am. So I finally
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: am starting to gather fans, younger fans from Instagram, because I don't talk down to them, I talk to them. And
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: so there's been this and and I have this nice group of people because I have older people in my audience from my television days on Micah Molly and stuff like that, and Bob Hart's Abba Shola. And then the other side of the room is just kids that know me from Instagram or their parents watch the TV. So what's neat is there's a group of all ages in there. And that's Gen X to me. That that's
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: the collaborative thing. And I always say to him, I go, you know, look, man, we're we we we we have to be good stewards for these kids. It's real low-hanging fruit to just go, you need the, they need the buck, that buck. That's head look, think about when someone tried to tell us something.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: You need to do fuck off. Fuck all the way off. You know what I mean? But if
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Yes. Yes.
Billy Gardell: you start a sentence with, hey, here's what I did, now you're opening a conversation and you're allowing that person the dignity to have their own choice. And that's
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: where, to me, that's where I try to stay in my comedy. That's where I try to keep that. That's the kind of connection that I like.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, well and and the word their dignity, that's it. You're you're giving them you're secure enough in yourself to give them the dignity and it to pres
Billy Gardell: Yeah. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: the space with dignity and you're not just rising trying to level yourself up or your comedy up by punching down. And I think that that's that's
Billy Gardell: No, and I if you're hurting people that can't defend themselves, you're not a very good comic, you're not a very good artist, you're not a very good person. Mind your fucking business. The other thing that we
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: had that was great, our whole generation has this, and this is another thing I love.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
Billy Gardell: Me and my buddies talk about. Change the fucking channel. You don't like it, turn it off. You don't need to start
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: a group and a fucking you don't have to have a parade. J click. I'm going out.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Hundred percent. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: And I don't know why that is so like and again I think it comes 'cause we're so separated that everything feels like an attack.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
Billy Gardell: Some people look if you don't if if that ain't your gig, turn off. Ignore That's the greatest thing you can do. It's the greatest thing you can do, yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Scroll on. Yeah. And the the worst or something the the the worst thing you can do is comment because as soon as you
Billy Gardell: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: comment, you're seeing more of that. Yeah, you just fucked her algorithm. You just engaged. You just engaged. Yeah, yeah. Just
Billy Gardell: You that's the hair that's the hair that's the hamster role. Yeah, exactly.
GenX Adulting Podcast: scroll on, scroll on. Okay, so but when so your parents got divorced and your mom remarried, do you know
Billy Gardell: Mm. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: why they moved to Florida?
Billy Gardell: this genius thought there was gonna be a construction boom in in the early eighties. We're gonna make millions. We were bankrupt in like three years. And so that was just but yeah, well it's it's really bad now. But but that was
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. It's happening now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: like at the time he thought I'm gonna go down there, seize on the floor to construction and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: yeah, and then he just ended up being a bad guy and and and then he he destroyed us financially. And so then that that was ended in
GenX Adulting Podcast: So did sh did she have
Billy Gardell: divorce.
GenX Adulting Podcast: okay, so did she have full custody of you guys?
Billy Gardell: She did, yeah. She had full custody of us and we went to Florida, which we weren't real happy about because I got yanked away from my dad, but I and you know, I kinda understood. My brother and sister didn't understand. Why are we
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: so far away and all that? And so what we would do is we would do the school year in Florida, and I'm pretty sure this is against the law now. They would put us on a Greyhound bus June
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: second or sixth, and we would take a Greyhound bus all the way up to Pittsburgh. And then my dad, and you know, back in those days, they got a week of vacation. So we were just sitting in an empty house in Pittsburgh with, you know, and my dad had a modest house with, you know, it was hot, but they had they didn't have central air, so they had the the living room had the the window air conditioner, the one window air conditioner. So we would
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: just sit in that living room till five o'clock when they got home. We'd have dinner and we'd, you know. hang out for a half hour and then my dad would put something on T V. We watched it and they'd go to bed and then there was one week that they'd be off and we would go do something and then back on the Greyhound to get back down for the school year in Orleans.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So would you just go up there for two weeks or the whole summer?
Billy Gardell: No, we w we would go for June June through August, you know, and then we would have to just figure out stuff to do during the day, you know.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So pretty much every so every week you were kind of just chillin' and then you got the one week where they were off and you guys maybe did things, planned something.
Billy Gardell: Yeah. And then they would plan something. We would go we would go we'd go to Lake Erie or we would go to you know, like that's that's a big northeast destination. You'd get like one of these little cabins by a a run down lake and you know,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: be the kids sleep on the floor, the parents sleep in the bed and you got to swim and you thought, Woo, we're on vacation.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: God, man, I lived there. That was to this
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. It's one of the best amusement parks.
Billy Gardell: Brian to to this day, that's a hundred year old amusement park.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: And and there's three roller coasters in there, the jackrabbit, the thunderbolt, and the racers. All wooden. And the Thunderbolt at one point was the fastest
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: roller coaster in the country. And when we would get the days to be able to go there, to this day I've taken my family back just to take them there. And I'm the one they have to get out of the park last. They're like, Can we go? Can we live they're like, okay, out a little more.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: And but I remember, man, that place was magic because it was an old time amusement park, wooden roller coasters, the carnival games, and brought me such joy. And but I remembered a Thunderbolt. I didn't ride that thing until I was like fourteen because I swear to God in my head it was like it was like a those eighties films that captured
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: our childhood. So like you looked at it, you just could swear it had a mouth like like it
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: terrified me until I finally got on that thing and now I I can't ride it enough even to this day.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, we used to go there every summer. Yeah, you've talked about it. It's a great amusement park. Which the potato bats. I don't remember that. I I think they had those old cars.
Billy Gardell: The potato patch, right? Gotta go the potato patch, man. That's that's they have a legendary French fry stand in there. the the the wooden track, the wooden track that looked like the thirties cars. Yeah. And if you didn't steer ride it would bang you off the wood.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, like the with the beam in the middle and you c yeah, that was fun. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah. Was that one of the things that your dad and stepmom would do with you guys, was was take you guys there?
Billy Gardell: yeah, like they would have usually there was one day you would get to go with your school. It was always a big school outing, you know, like your school day would be there. And then
GenX Adulting Podcast: Hm. Okay. Like a field trip.
Billy Gardell: yeah, and then like his bank company picnic was always out there. So they had those they had those big
GenX Adulting Podcast: cool. Okay.
Billy Gardell: pavilions where you would bring your cooler in and your area and there's a bunch of picnic tables and everybody would kind of bring a dish or hot dogs and burgers and you'd eat midday
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: and then you'd run back into the park and go do that. That's another thing that our parents did that that we could never do with our children is just let you loose in an amusement park and go, Meet me by the merry go round in four hours. Woohoo! I'm gone, you know.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. No. I mean, I think when we've been in Universal, we've they were older though. They were like high school. Yeah. We never we never did that until like yeah, no. No,
Billy Gardell: Yeah. Yeah. So that's the time. But when they were little, yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: never. Are you kidding? They could get kidnapped. That was that was even at carnivals we'd be all up in their ass. totally. Yeah. So how long was
Billy Gardell: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: that Greyhound bus ride from Orlando to
Billy Gardell: yeah, it was about two and a half. Yeah, two and a half days with stops and Yeah. Yes.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. So you and your two younger siblings would just sit on that bus, get off to when sometimes use the restroom, get back on as young children on a Greyhound bus for like two and a half days.
Billy Gardell: Yeah. Yeah. Children. Thir thirteen and eight. Thirteen and no thirteen and nine. Thirteen and nine were.
GenX Adulting Podcast: There's always weirdos. How many summers did you do that?
Billy Gardell: We did it for three summers and then and
GenX Adulting Podcast: wow.
Billy Gardell: then it just got to be too much. It just got to be too much.
GenX Adulting Podcast: so your mom so your mom was on her own in the summer then, when you guys were with your dad. She was sh just were doing
Billy Gardell: Yeah, just working and saving money, you know.
GenX Adulting Podcast: her own thing. So how long were they was she married to your first stepdad before they got divorced in Florida?
Billy Gardell: You know, th those numbers so blur for me, but I wanna say she probably made it with him I don't know, seven to ten years somewhere in there. And and then there was
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay, so that's
Billy Gardell: then there was like a three year maybe maybe maybe s may yeah, maybe a little less than that. And then and then there like a three year gap in that and then she married another guy But I was and then I was just gone. I was out of the house after that.
GenX Adulting Podcast: then you were gone. Do you know how long she was married to him?
Billy Gardell: Mm-hmm. I wanna say probably five years for that third one. And then I think she was just like, Ugh, this is not for me. And so she's been on her own for a long time. And then now my little sister lives with her, which is a gift because and which is crazy. That's that's another Gen X weird loop. Daughters and mothers, just a fist fight all through the teens, and now these two are inseparable.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: Like and I'm grateful because like she's there to help take care of her and then I I
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: help this way financially if I can if they need anything. But my little sister has been a a a gift because she's but they every day they text me where they're going, what they're doing. Like they're psychos. They're just always together.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: And there's like there's like eight cats. I don't know what they're doing down there. But they're safe. That's all that matters, you know.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Is she still is she still Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is she still in Florida? Okay,
Billy Gardell: Yeah, they're in Orlando. They're in Orlando.
GenX Adulting Podcast: so they stayed there. So and did your dad and stepmom stay married?
Billy Gardell: They stayed married forty six years. They're both past now. But what was
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
Billy Gardell: funny what was what was funny is they when they retired, they were both big Disney fans. Like my dad wanted to animate for Disney, she loved Disney. So they moved to Orlando when they retired. So then I had them on opposite sides of the city. And that that was just like, God, two Christmases, two Thanksgivings, two opinions, two arguments. That's just what that was. But they they when they moved down they got a part time d job at Disney, one because they loved it, and two, they knew they would be able to slide the grandkids in on a couple passes so that we could afford to go to
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: Disney. So my dad was always thinking like that. You know, like I can get three passes a year. The kids can go to study, you know. So
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. I love that but no, but that wasn't during any of your formative years, right? That was when you were an adult. Okay,
Billy Gardell: No, that that was later on, yeah, later on.
GenX Adulting Podcast: okay. It's he he was into animation. Do you have a collection of of like his artwork
Billy Gardell: I
GenX Adulting Podcast: at all?
Billy Gardell: yeah, I have I have a couple of his of his paper paintings or doodles like that. But I also have there's before he passed, I have a great painting on my wall from him, which is like a mic stand with a bunch of ha's around it that he made for me. So it looks like the audience is laughing at the microphone. And then he he did
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's awesome.
Billy Gardell: he he did something there's two in my son's room too. There's one for His baseball team, my son's a Dodgers guy. I said he moved the I said, Look, you you can have a team out here, but the Steelers are not negotiable. So it's either hockey or baseball. And he picked baseball. So my dad did a logo for him. And then my son's favorite cartoon character when he was growing up for some reason was Gru from Despicable Me. So he made
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: one of those and And and so that that everybody everybody in our family has a painting from my father in one way, form
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's cool.
Billy Gardell: or another, in their homes. And you know, what he did was really cool in his garage in Florida, he got all the grandkids favorite cartoon characters and made a list and then he painted the entire inside of the garage with all those characters. So when the garage
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's cool.
Billy Gardell: came up they got to all see their characters and stuff like that. So
GenX Adulting Podcast: That is so cool. And and I'm so happy for him that he hit a point in his life and also with with your kids, but with you, and then his garage, where he was actually able to have an outlet for what he always wanted to do. I mean, that is really cool. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: Yeah, he never never stopped doing that. Yeah, he never stopped drawing. He just never got his chance to go pro, he would always say. He goes, I never got to go
GenX Adulting Podcast: I love
Billy Gardell: pro, son. I never got to go pro, but I still love to do it. You gotta love to do it. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's did you ever get like a a video or pictures of the garage?
Billy Gardell: I don't think I maybe somewhere, but I don't remember ever
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: ever taking pictures. I probably should have, you know, that would have been a nice thing to have. But like I said, I got him hanging on my wall and he's hanging on my kids' wall, so that's cool,
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's awesome. That's awesome. so basically to go back, you played baseball, you got into the drama department,
Billy Gardell: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
GenX Adulting Podcast: you had this amazing, these two amazing teachers, it sounds like that guided you. You do the extra year of high school and then you basically say, I'm out of here. What'd you say? You had twenty six dollars or thirty six dollars in your pocket? Twenty six bucks. And and
Billy Gardell: Twenty six bucks in a suitcase. That was it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: and you and you were gone w and where did you go? Did you leave Orlando immediately or did you just go spend the night on a friend's house
Billy Gardell: No.
GenX Adulting Podcast: in Orlando?
Billy Gardell: I I went to my buddy Mose's house and he let me crash there for a couple days and then I was s I was probably seventeen, just turning eighteen, and I had been sneaking in to open mic night at this comedy club on Wednesdays called
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
Billy Gardell: Bonkers Comedy Club. And my first time was December twenty eighth, nineteen eighty seven. So all through the eighty eight year Wednesday night was sneak into the comedy club and it was run by these wonderful guys, John San Felipo and George Maltezos and John's brother Joe was was the big boss. And there was so it was two Sicilians and a Greek. And I'm at this old
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: school comedy club and it was great. And about midway through that, I I had been crashing on buddies' couches and anybody that would put me up and few few nights in the car or whatever. And I finally just came clean with them one night. I said, Look, I'm underage, but I really want to do this for a living, and I and I just need a way to be. At the club, and I'll do whatever you need me to do, but I don't want to lie to you about sneaking in here anymore. And they were like, Yeah, we knew you were underage. We just wanted to see if you were a douchebag. So then they talked a little bit and they ended up giving me a job where I would vacuum the club and I would reset the stock for the bar at night and, you know, straighten the chairs and all that. And that led to answering the phones during the day and picking the comics up at the airport and their little you know, shuttle van they had and and telemarketing and all that stuff. But what they did was they gave me a way to legally be in the club because I had a job there. And then
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: they had this back in those days, they didn't put comics up in hotels. They would put them up in what they called the comedy condo. And what a comedy condo was is basically a two or three bedroom apartment. And each week the two comics that were performing at the club would stay at that place. Well one of those rooms was kind of like a overflow room. There were blenders in there and some bar stools and then and they just put a little cod in there with a little light by a little end table and they said you can stay here rent free. So I was making a
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow.
Billy Gardell: hundred and fifty bucks a week doing whatever the club wanted me to do. I was getting stage time and I had a place to sleep and I thought, hey, I already won. You know what I mean? I look look at this. And so
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: I was so I did that for probably two years and then I had enough money to move in with three other two other three other comics and and we had this place in Orlando and it was it was on Crystal Lake Street, so there's a Friday the thirteenth reference for you. And we
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: lived up to that. This place was insanity. I mean comics would stop like in the middle of the night, someone would show up with, you know, a bag of weed, some mushrooms and a bag of chicken and a party would break out at like in a cookout at like two AM I mean, our poor neighbors, it was It was just it was chaos. It was a blast, man. It was such free
GenX Adulting Podcast: Sounds like fun.
Billy Gardell: I've never had freedom like that before. And
GenX Adulting Podcast: No.
Billy Gardell: so we all were in that place for a while. And then about two years into that, my first manager, Chris DePetta, who I was with for 30 years on a handshake, saw me in Atlanta and he said, you're a great performer, but your act sucks. Why don't you move up here and evolve in your writing and I'll manage you? And he was the one that really took me from nothing to the success of television. And and he just recently retired. And I have another friend in the business who's probably the best comedy manager in the business right now, Judy Marmel. She runs Levity. And I've known her for 30 years. So when my manager kind of stepped back, he made the call to her. to say, hey, do you wanna take him for the fourth quarter of his career? And she very graciously said yes. And so somehow I'm still in the game at this age, at this point in my career, and I'm just incredibly grateful for all of that. But again, no
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's awesome.
Billy Gardell: no map. That was all just how we kinda did stuff. We were talking about earlier, like
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: I'm just gonna go do this. I don't know what's gonna happen. I'm just gonna go do this, you know?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Well and when when you talked about how you you guys were in that house and all of a s on Crystal Lake and
Billy Gardell: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: it it it kind of made me feel like those were like your form of college years in a way of just like parting and you had a group
Billy Gardell: One hundred. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: 'cause did did comics kind of have their own group where you guys would all hang out?
Billy Gardell: Yeah, we had we had it we had a great group of people. I I think I found that the comics were a little more there's a little more camaraderie back then than there is these days. And I maybe
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: that's just my old eyes, but that's what it felt like. But but the the the three guys I was with, one of them ended up being a real dirt bag that none of us talk to anymore. But the other two are like my brothers. They I found the brothers that that I that I all long lost brothers that I needed. And so
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: and we're all still in touch today and ever everybody has a pirate tattoo. And
GenX Adulting Podcast: that's awesome.
Billy Gardell: and we got those last year when we were all together. And it and it's just
GenX Adulting Podcast: Let's go.
Billy Gardell: we we got known as the pirates because we used to wear do-rags and we were always out having fun. We had a night in downtown Orlando that we hosted at a place called the Blue Note, and Monday night was our comedy night, and we would bring comics in there and do our own show and And we just kinda were the rogues of the city, which was just a marvelous time to be figuring out who you are and and being a comic. And then and then we all ended up, you know, we had to go our own ways and figure out what the next path was. And for me that was Atlanta and then Chicago and then finally Los Angeles. And then there was a short stint in New York, and New York just whipped my ass because I went up there way too early. I thought I was you know, I was I'd I'd won a couple of contests in Florida, thought I was funny. New York informed me, no you're not.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: You're not it wiped me out in about a year. It was brutal. But a great lesson.
GenX Adulting Podcast: How old were you right. How old were you when you moved to Atlanta and why did you choose Atlanta?
Billy Gardell: I chose Atlanta because of my manager, Chris was up there and he owned a club called The Punchline and that was a very premier club at the time. So that was a great place to work out and actually find my voice. And he lived up there and then I've I was working the road a lot. So
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: so Atlanta was a nice location because I was working the southeast and it was, you know Four hours to Nashville, it was an hour and a half to Chattanooga, it was four hours to Charleston, it was you know, I mean, so you could f you know, it's it was four hours to Jacksonville, it was four so you could get the gigs and afford to drive to the gig and not get beat up, you know.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So how do you do that where you start out I mean, you obviously had such a strong work ethic from working your ass off in high school pretty
Billy Gardell: Mm-hmm.
GenX Adulting Podcast: much. so you're working hard at this first club that gave you that shot and it sounds like then you got some time up on stage and then it's blossoming into are are you just getting to work at larger and larger venues in front of larger and larger crowds and it just grows and then you leave Orlando and you do your first gig at a different city and then it's like word of mouth. Is that how does how does the growth occur?
Billy Gardell: Well it was a it was a it was a different thing because it it back then comedy clubs it was just about a night out. It wasn't about who was at the club. There was always a special event. Like in the late eighties comedy
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
Billy Gardell: was booming. So there would be a special event that ended up in a theater, but it would start at a comedy club like certain guys would sell out quicker than other guys and like that was from HBO or Johnny Carson and it was the time of, you know, Bill Hicks and Kinison and Dice and Paula Poundstone and Rita Rudner and so but the the work in comics, it was just about people it was cheaper to go to a comedy club than it was dinner in a movie. So it became this
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: thing where they just they didn't really have to sell the act, they just sold the sign. So we were all working about the same size rooms. And I did that, I did the road for eight years and I went to California and I thought I was ready because I had a decent act. And then ten years later I got on television. But for me, this happens to certain people every now and then. You either you don't match up with your crowd, like Bob Sagitt, who hosted Full House or he was star Full House hosted America's Funniest Videos. One of the dirtiest, funniest comics ever to live.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
Billy Gardell: But his audience was from those places. So when they would come see him as a stand-up, they were horrified. They were like, whoa, this is not the guy.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. Yes.
Billy Gardell: So it took him time to kind of call, but he never got that full acclamation that I think he deserved. With me, I did two television shows, two sitcoms back to back. And I still to this day, and I don't know what it is that connects all that, I still to this day will get messages on online like, I didn't know you did stand up, even though I've been doing it since like eighty-seven. So it never crossed over into that big success for me. The the highest I got was during Mike and Molly I could do maybe 25 excuse me 2500 seat theaters and casinos and that was probably at my peak and then I disappeared and so now I'm literally rebuilding it. But the cool thing about social media is if the right piece of your art catches on, you never know. You know I
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: mean look at the success of Leanne Morgan.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. I love her, by the way. Love Love her.
Billy Gardell: Adorable, lovely, lovely human being. As kind as you think. I've known her for 25 years. As kind as you just grace. She is walking
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's awesome. I love hearing that. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: grace. And she struck gold at 60. So
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
Billy Gardell: one of the good sides of this stuff is you're not out of the game, man. You if you
GenX Adulting Podcast: No? Yeah.
Billy Gardell: just keep putting stuff out, you just never know what could happen.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It's so true. It's so true. So how long were you in Atlanta? You said eight were you there?
Billy Gardell: I was in Atlanta, I wanna say God, those years all so blur together, but I wanna say I was there from probably nineteen ninety. No, 'cause I was in New York in ninety. So probably ninety one until Ninety six, maybe? No, ninety two to ninety six, I think. So four years. And then ninety six was when I made the move to California.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay, and did you live in Chicago? 'Cause you mentioned Chicago.
Billy Gardell: Yeah, I spent one year on my way up. My poor manager was screaming, You gotta go to LA. I'm like, I think I'm gonna spend some time in Chicago. So I did about a year in Chicago and then came out here. So it was
GenX Adulting Podcast: And then
Billy Gardell: a year in New York, four years in Atlanta, a year in Chicago, and then finally Los Angeles.
GenX Adulting Podcast: When when you say you're in Chicago, were you like
Billy Gardell: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: booked at a regular club or were you kinda doing what you described for Atlanta, going all over the place?
Billy Gardell: No. Same it was the same thing. Yeah, you you would w the in the Midwest you would work, you know, Ohio and you would work St. Louis and you would so you would
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, Saint Louis and yeah.
Billy Gardell: do all that stuff. And then you would work this clubs in the city that you could get into and It's funny, New York whipped my ass and taught me you're never gonna be as good as you think you are. New York humbled me in the best way, sent me home broke, penniless, and hopeless. And then I regrouped in Florida and then I went up to Atlanta. Spent some time in Atlanta growing. When I got to Chicago, things just didn't go right, man. I couldn't get booked and I couldn't get a gig in the city. Like for some re like the first gig I was supposed to do, the place got fire. I was like, this is not a good, this is not a good omen.
GenX Adulting Podcast: jeez. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: So finally I moved out to and I kind of felt like maybe Chicago was giving me a shove because then I get
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: to play I get to play Mike from Mike and Molly in Chicago and now I go back to Chicago and the whole city opens its arms to me. So looking at the time it felt like
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: they don't want me here. But if you look at the karmic map, maybe it was saying, You gotta keep going. You gotta we need we need
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. Yes. Yes.
Billy Gardell: you to get out to California. And so now I can look at it that way and see it and go, that I think maybe that's what was happening. You know, so you
GenX Adulting Podcast: I have two questions. That makes sense. Go ahead. Go ahead. When you're
Billy Gardell: Yeah. No. Go, go, go, go, please.
GenX Adulting Podcast: doing comic comedy like that in Orlando and you're doing it regularly, how do you come up with material? Like do you are you rehashing
Billy Gardell: Well
GenX Adulting Podcast: the same thing and tweaking it or is it just the same set? The same sets?
Billy Gardell: You know, there's there's so many different philosophies. I always look at comedy's subjective, it's like jazz. You gotta find your style, your voice, and that comes from your influences. And then you have to figure out what you wanna talk about. Do you wanna be observ observational? Do you wanna be political? Do you wanna be do you wanna be a guy that's trying to heal? Do you wanna be a guy that's trying to connect? So you gotta figure out what you are and then w the the what I was always taught was write what you what you believe. Like one of the greatest writing exercises a a comic gave me when I was first starting was you have to know who you are if you're not going to do observational comedy. Like I and I always kind of adhered to the guys that were telling the truth about themselves, like Carlin and Pryor. I really love their confession and how they made it
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: funny. And especially Pryor because he made pain funny. He made a a messed up childhood funny. And I was it's just astoundingly brilliant.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm. He was brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, amazing.
Billy Gardell: So this guy gives me this exercise. He goes, get a piece of paper out. Draw a line down the middle of the paper. On the left side, right, I hate. And on the right side, right, I love. And don't try to be funny. Just make a list of those things. And then take one and start to journal about that. And so as you journal through that, do that for a week. And then go back and read them and understand that you that's not Shakespeare. You're just trying to get your thoughts out. Don't be hard on yourself. And if there's a funny line in there, highlight it. Make notes of the funny lines. Then take that up on stage.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: And start to try to talk that to life. And then that became a piece. So you so I say I got five funny lines right from my writings. I would take those up on stage. And this is just how I do it. Everybody does it differently.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: And now people are just talking to the audience. That's their thing. You know, it always
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
Billy Gardell: evolved. It's gonna be, it's just you gotta find out what you do. So
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: I would take those five lines up on stage and I would tape that set with a little micro recorder and like say lines one. Three and five worked. So I would take two and four off that list and tighten up those three and then try to add two more to those. And then before you
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: know it, it becomes this piece. So it's it's just a matter of tinkering. And then once you get it polished, I come from the place where you had to have a lot of material because In the internet, you can kind of be under construction. You can do the same bit four or five times. You can change it and you can put that up. And it's just about connection with your audience. Back then our windows were a little different to try to get successful. You had to get a tonight show or a a letterman or an HBO shot. And on a lower level, they had some cable shows that were coming to fruition, like the MTV Half-Hour Comedy Hour and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: Evening at the Improv and stuff like that. But you if you've got one of those. You only had a seven minute window to make your mark. So you had to have polished, perfect stuff for that time slot. Like if you're gonna go in there, you get this one shot, you can't go in there going, Well, what else you guys think? What else is going on? Like you had to go with something to say. And so
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: there's been a little bit of I I had to get over that for the internet to try to just because I'm always like, Hey, well, here's now it's finished. You don't have
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: to be finished as you're doing this. And I had to let go of of that old thinking to try to kind of to
GenX Adulting Podcast: yeah. Makes sense.
Billy Gardell: to get but it's also a little bit freeing too to be able to go, I'm
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: still banging on this fender. It's not quite there yet. You know what I mean?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: And and that that wasn't that wasn't possible for when I was coming up.
GenX Adulting Podcast: The internet's organ is more organic, would you say? Just more like you could just Yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: I think it's just more real time. You know what I mean? It's it's like real time 'cause I think when you polish a bit and it's perfect, it's like finishing a painting. And you know you're gonna deliver that for your audience. Now the thing is you you have to keep evolving. And I think the best way to do it do that is to keep to keep paying attention to what you believe, how you change, own that. And sometimes you can call back and change a bit because you think differently now. And so, you know, I I think all that and again, that's the way I do it. There's a bunch of guys that do it, girls that do it different. We all
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: have a different horn sound. I I tell you, I was very grateful for the open mind. Mic night guys that I had because when we were at open mic night, we had an incredibly eclectic group of open micers. At the time, it was me, Daryl Hammond, Carrot
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: Top, Wayne Brady, Larry the Cable Guy, Tom Rhodes, Jim Brewer was down in St. Petersburg, and we knew the Tampa guys and the St. Pete guys because we you know trade dates and get each other gigs. But We were all broke and we were all just nobody knew anybody was gonna get famous or do be successful. And we would just do open mic night on Wednesday night and then go to Denny's and we'd have shit written on cocktail nap. He's like, does this work for you? It doesn't work for me. Hey, how does this finish? Hey, I got a punch sign. It sounds like two tennis shoes in a dryer. I got no joke for it. And then you
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: would so we had this collective group, but what was really cool about that group is everybody had a different voice. Everybody was so different, but yet it was a collective. And I think that's probably
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
Billy Gardell: how bands are able to to do their thing. So being a part of that creative time was was great. But the lesson was your voice doesn't have to be like anybody else's voice. You just have
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: to find your voice and you find that through, you know, you find the the people that inspire you and you go, okay, you you can hear Gleason in some of my acting. You can hear Carlin and some of my stand-up God willing. You can hear Pryor in some of my standup. You can hear Kinison because I yell on a few things. You know what I mean? So you find these, but you never want to take anybody's words. You never want to take their presence. But it's like if you listen to the Rolling Stones, you hear muddy waters. If you listen to the Beatles, you hear the Beach Boys. So so you you you take your influence respectfully, but you don't steal anybody's personality or their words. That was that was always our
GenX Adulting Podcast: I think that goes back to it to what you were saying earlier, how we grew up in the right time, the best time. All those comics you
Billy Gardell: hand.
GenX Adulting Podcast: just reeled off are all top notch. They're
Billy Gardell: Brilliant. Top notch.
GenX Adulting Podcast: top notch in in the annals of history. Those guys are all just same with the musicians, right? Yeah,
Billy Gardell: Mm, yeah. Legends. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I think you just nailed it. And but and you what you're describing, it's so collaborative. It's so collaborative. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: That's the thing. We were all we were just all i and again that goes back to that thing where I don't know how we knew, but we all knew as Gen Xers we're this is just our time period and we're in this.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: And I always brag about the music thing, especially, because music is everything to us. You know, I used to say,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: fuck a Hallmark card, send me a mixtape. Then I know what you think. Then I know what you think of me. I know how much time you put into that. I know what you're trying to convey to me, you know? And and so,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Yes. That's brilliant.
Billy Gardell: but we caught like think about the music that we caught. We caught the end of the 60s, we caught all of the 70s. We caught the pop of the 80s, and then we got grunge in the 90s. Like we have,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: you wonder why every Gen Xer has a playlist and a soundtrack, because that was safety for us. And we had
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: artists, and this is what I tell my son to seek out. We had artists that were expressing how we felt, whether it was rap, whether it was pop, whether it was hard rock, whether it was death metal. They were expressing that same angst and fear that we had in. When you talk about it, you it it gets smaller and right sized and you feel like you can give through it because you're not alone. I don't feel
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: like this generation has a band. Like they all have separate bands, depending
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: on what bubble they're in. But we just had those we just had musicians that it didn't matter what the form of music was, they were speaking about how we felt. And that I don't think this generation g I don't think they they have that. I I think,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: you know, like if you're a Swifty, you're not listening. to you know a different brand of music and that like we just like when you
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: think of Lollapalooza or or or Lilith
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: Fair or you or you just think of the crazy mashups. And that actually harkens back to the sixties in San Francisco where you would see
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, you're yeah. Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: Joan Baez and the Grateful Dead. Like they understood that
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: was the chemistry. Hey come have a new experience but we're all in this vibe. We're all in this river. And I don't
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: think these kids have gotten that because I think the phone has divided that up for them. And they had they live in these little techno bubbles.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I think you're right. And I think that that again is all collaboration. Everything you just talked about is collaborative. And that's what's been lost is that you know, if
Billy Gardell: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: you are a Swifty, you're a Swifty and you might be collaborative with the people within that community, but you guys
Billy Gardell: Right.
GenX Adulting Podcast: are a community and you're not being collaborative with this community of Where with Gen X we were all over. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: Right. And that's pointless. That gets us nowhere. Exactly. And that gets us nowhere, man. And so so the the the feeling of being a part of something was I think what kept us all sane. You know, I think that's how we survive.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I agree. I've just I've learned that from us doing this podcast talking with various people. It's it's remarkable that Gen X collective experience. You
Billy Gardell: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: grew up in Pittsburgh. I'm in New Jersey. She's in Oregon. We have people in England, in Russia, Scotland, all over the place. And it was just
Billy Gardell: That's awesome.
GenX Adulting Podcast: it's wild. It's just collective. No, I can't tell you how many people from all over the world are like we were do we have a woman coming on next month that grew up in the eighties. in Russia in the so in Soviet Russia. Yeah. And I'm so excited to hear her Gen X. She's I had a Gen X experience. And I was like,
Billy Gardell: Right. Wow. Wow. Yeah. What her version is, yeah. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I'm like, I'm gonna be like, we were scared of you guys. Yeah. And I wanna
Billy Gardell: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: hear her perspective because we grew up with the Cold
Billy Gardell: Absolutely.
GenX Adulting Podcast: War. So did they. And so I'm really excited to hear but but it's
Billy Gardell: Yeah. That that'll be a great one. I'll watch that. That'll be a great one.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It will, but it's it's collective. So I wanted to ask you, but I you said you had two questions. Well, my other question was and it I'm a little bit off track. I'm gonna have a statement and my
Billy Gardell: That's okay.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I'll follow up. musically, Billy Strings, check out. Yeah. It
Billy Gardell: I'm I'm a fan. I just saw him at the I j and now he's got a th this is the thing. You see these kids come up and you're like, you were watching our stuff.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Nice. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: You and and it makes me feel so good. I just saw him at the Hollywood Bowl and and again it was a mashup. It was him, Willie Nelson was there. There was a the there's a young kid that my son loves, and that's why we went. My son, there's a young kid, he's kind of got a Dylan thing happening. He plays the guitar and he has the harmonica, and he's very on top of what his
GenX Adulting Podcast: No kidding. Wait, who is he?
Billy Gardell: I can't think of the kid's name. I I have to get it to you.
GenX Adulting Podcast: You have to let us know. Let us know. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: But my son turned me on to him and he was on that. So now I got him, strings, and Willy. So there was something for everybody
GenX Adulting Podcast: Awesome.
Billy Gardell: to go in. But that I go, this I and I tell him when we're there, like I'm just spewing at him. I'm like, this is what it this is this is what it's supposed to look like. This is
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: yeah, all ages, everybody, all races, which is a jam. Like that's that's when you're alive, man, when you're having other human experiences like that. But yeah, sh he that kid blew me away.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Billy actually just sat in with Yeah. find out our youngest is named after Bob Dylan. So f I'd love to know. His name's Dylan. Yeah. Billy just
Billy Gardell: Love it. I love it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: sat in with Eddie Vetter in Pearl Gym at the place at Dana Point. I don't know what the Yeah, I don't know what it is, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: There you go. There you but there you go. That's the stuff. And it's it look, there's a why saying that like when old people listen to young people,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: old people move quicker among old people. When young people listen to old people, young people move quicker among young people. But they have jammed a phone in between all of that, and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: then they've banged us out economically. I mean, when you think about what we could survive on. Like like if there was a six hundred dollar wood floor apartment with big windows, I'd move into that motherfucker today if I could have that back. I really would. I need a record
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yes, yes.
Billy Gardell: player, a futon, and an incense burner, and the world can fuck off. I got four friends
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes, yes.
Billy Gardell: coming by unexpected. I'm fine with it. You know what mean?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: So but we could survive like that. But if you look at the chart from the 70s to now, the Cost of living with what these corporations have done to gouge us has gone through the roof, yet the working wage has barely moved. So when
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: our kids, when you say to our kids, well you just need to toughen up and are you insane? That's math.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: It would take nine of these kids like rent in Los Angeles? A two-bedroom apartment out here is three thousand dollars. And that's not even in
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: the greatest of neighborhoods.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: That's a house when we grew up. So they have tilted the system so much that it's just it's they they feel like they feel hopeless because they feel like, well, how am I ever supposed to get above that? How am I ever so you know that's the journey for them is to figure out to get the right people in places of power that actually think about the people. And a lot
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
Billy Gardell: of times the way you get that is your art reflects that like a bullhorn. And I think Say what you want about Gen X, man. There was a lot of surplus in that time. And we dealt with some heavy shit. There were AIDS,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: the Iran Contra affair was going on, but we were a collective. You know what I mean? We were a
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: collective. We all knew, all right, well, this is what we're going through. We're gonna go through, and like you said, the Cold War with the Russians. And I mean, we went
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: through our stuff too, but I feel like we still had a chance financially to survive. We we I think
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: we're the last generation. I always my my son always, when I'm with my buddies. He's always like it like he'll see us and a couple of his friends go, you guys want to hang out? And they're like, he goes, no, that's the keepers of the old knowledge. Let's get out of here. I
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: go, you're gonna need that. You're gonna need that. You know where to come when you need that. You're gonna need that.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Yeah. It's so true. It's funny. I s you know, I was thinking about the the phone. And if there were ever a was ever a fight when we were younger, there was no one filming. You were getting in the fight to protect your buddy and we were all in it together and we'd talk about it later. well that goes into the they can't be uninhibited. They they can't because there's a risk of being recorded. Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you and and that's the thing. You c you can never be awkward, you can never be wrong, you can never make a mistake and learn from it, you know.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: But the thing about fighting, you know what I remember? And this is where I just think, I don't know, maybe we were a little more of an evolved society. I don't know. But I remember fights after high school. You know, you'd go out and be in the parking lot out by the ba and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: and there'd be two guys fighting and if one guy really started to get the better of another guy, there was always like a big dude there from the wrestling team or the foot that like would grab both and go, Is you done? You guys done?
GenX Adulting Podcast: You break it up.
Billy Gardell: Okay, he won, right? Right? Okay, we're done here. And then it just kinda mellowed out. There wasn't
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: it didn't go to just such crazy extremes and and that all comes from fear and fear comes from
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: not feeling safe and not feeling a part of something, you know?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. No, I agree. All right, my long winded question just to go back. I'm curious,
Billy Gardell: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: the what's the difference between doing a club and a twenty
Billy Gardell: Mm-hmm.
GenX Adulting Podcast: five hundred seat theater? It's gotta be a
Billy Gardell: the
GenX Adulting Podcast: different vibe there.
Billy Gardell: the club is intimacy because they're on top of you. Because club owners are like gonna put a chair, they put a chair in the bathroom if they could, you know what I mean?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
Billy Gardell: So you're right here. So you learn what what that teaches you is you learn to be authentic because when someone's looking at you that close, they could tell if you're faking it. So that builds
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm things.
Billy Gardell: that muscle. If you're lucky enough to get into a big audience. then that teaches you presentation. So you learn to reach many more people in the same hopefully intimate vibe that you had in the club. And when you can cross those, the best example I ever saw of that was Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: I said I've seen him up there five times and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow.
Billy Gardell: he plays the piano in Madison Square Garden and sings us great hits. And it feels like we're in a corner bar in the village having a beer. That's a master.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. I could see that.
Billy Gardell: That's that that is an absolute master. And the great artists do that. The great artists do that. They make you feel like we're at that club, yet we're all here in this giant venue. So the big
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: venues, you have to learn presentation. The little venues, you have to be authentic because the audience smells when you're faking it. Especially our age group. Like
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
Billy Gardell: we're the quickest. Well, fuck this. Let's go home. Like we're the quickest at that. We just have no mercy with it, you know? This sucks. Let's roll.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever see Yeah have you ever seen Carlin Life? 'Cause I imagine he he probably is the master of that if I had to
Billy Gardell: I did, yeah. Yeah, app 100, the the the hands that to me he's the heavyweight champ. He's pr he's
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: my heavyweight champ of all time because and then he did this thing that was the most the most powerful thing he could do is he could hold the mirror up to us and show us our hypocrisy. And if you
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes, yes.
Billy Gardell: look back on his material now and you look what's happening in the world, it's like he had a third eye. But
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: but then he could turn on a dime. Because you listen to him talk about the political system and how it's skewed against us, and it's a big club and none of us are in it. And then he would turn around and go, You ever pick up a suitcase that has nothing in it? And for one second, you think you're really strong. Like he could, so he
GenX Adulting Podcast: Ha ha ha.
Billy Gardell: would k he would reward you with a simplistic fun joke for going with him through the scary stuff. And I think
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: the only guy that I've seen come close to that now, and I think he's probably the best right now. if if not the best, one of the best is Bill Burr. I think Bill Bill
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: Burr is fearless. His compass is right. He's a brilliant writer, a brilliant performer. And that guy, I think he's the closest thing to Carlin that we're ever gonna see, and you gotta be able to I'll die on the freedom of speech hill. But just understand
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: that when you say stuff, it has consequences. And I think
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: some comics now coming up don't understand that, yeah, you're being mean and awkward, but you can't do that and expect no pushback. You can't
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
Billy Gardell: you can't expect people to know, you know, if you're gonna go to a touchy area, you gotta you're gonna find some touchy people, you know? Yeah, 100, 100. And I think you have a responsibility
GenX Adulting Podcast: What it it's a dance, right? It's a dance. It's a dan it's a dance with your audience and
Billy Gardell: to not. to not do harm. You d y
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
Billy Gardell: you can point out things, but I don't think you should do harm.
GenX Adulting Podcast: You know who else is good with the mayor? is Ricky Gervais.
Billy Gardell: That guy is other level as well. But he's he's
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: another one that's great at and at at pointing out the hypocrisies. And I think
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: that's that's the big ones. Like you if if that's gonna be your vein, you have to be really smart to write in that vein. And Gervaise
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes, yes.
Billy Gardell: is brilliant, brilliant guy. Brilliant.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I I feel like comedians though are brilliant in general. To be able to do what you guys do is a next level of intelligence. And I don't think people realize that. But what you guys are doing is you're kind of a little bit that what we're discussing here, not the being mean for being mean's sake, but to really
Billy Gardell: Yeah, yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: to really be able to be good at that dance, you're functioning on a little bit higher intellectual level. And I'm not saying that I'm not saying it is like a cliche, but I'm being legit. I
Billy Gardell: Maybe. No, no, but the No.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I do think that.
Billy Gardell: I appreciate that. I think there's a just I think there's a gear in the comedic mind that kind of can see more than one angle on things. When you
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: when like your eyes begin and the more you write, the more your eyes kind of look this way is you don't just see things as one dimensional. or two dimensional.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
Billy Gardell: You see them in three and four dimensions, 'cause you because you're always trying to figure out the ankles. So I think you kind of walk through life looking at things from a lot of angles, which is, I think, a healthy thing to do, because you you do want to be able to consider maybe my thinking isn't the one way this should be. Maybe my thinking
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: is that is not the end all be all, but if I looked at it this way, you know, it can you turn it on its ear? How does it look that way? So so maybe, and I think musicians have that too. I think probably any great scholar probably has that, you know. I I imagine an athlete has to have that. I think it's just enough form of jokes, but I think most people that are awake and and and are are trying their best to do good and and be decent and and be cool. And I I think they they're they have that ability. I just think it's what you practice. I think the more you sharpen that as a comic, the more it more it helps you. I think. Perspective is everything, yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, and perspective and widening that perspective, which aligns and that aligns with the advice you gave your son about the life skills of read people first before jumping into a friendship. Yeah, so it's all yeah.
Billy Gardell: Yeah, wait, wait for you open that door. What I always tell I say a vam vampire can't come in the house unless you invite him in. I learned that in the Lost Boys. They can't
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. So so true. So true. Okay. I have a question too. So I my question is you talked about I can't remember the name you gave of who told you to make the list of what you love and what you hate.
Billy Gardell: I didn't tell ya. His name was Ben Creed. That was my r that's my one of my mentors in stand up. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay, so when he said that and then he said journal about those things that stand out, is that when your discovery of journaling happened was during that process?
Billy Gardell: No, actually before that even and then that goes back to my English teacher again, Bill Adams. He would make he made us journal once once a week in class. And I found out
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. Right. Okay. Okay.
Billy Gardell: like wow, yeah, at first I didn't want to do it and I'm turning my work in. He's like, you know, th this will help you. And he he didn't know I wanted to be a comic or nothing. He said, this will just help you understand yourself. You have to calm down the static to hear the station. And the way you do that
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
Billy Gardell: is you get this out on paper. Because I'm not asking you to write prose. I'm not I'm asking you to clear your mechanism. I'm asking you to see how you feel about things. And that was because he never said you have to write about this. He said you just have to write. Pick a topic,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
Billy Gardell: and we're gonna write for 10 minutes. And you that's get out what's inside you, because inside you Everything is bigger, louder, scarier, at least in my head, you know. I I I always joke with my kid. He's like, Why don't you watch scary movies? I'm like, dude, I can scare myself way more than anything I'm gonna see
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: at the theater. I'm looking for relief, you know? And
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: and so journaling was a way to do that, but that that like enhanced that took it up to the next level for me.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Had you continued journaling up until that point, or is it something that kinda died off and you circled back to it when you were like practicing it for comedy?
Billy Gardell: Yeah, I I I think it's like anything else. I think you start experiencing a little success, so you get a little bit lazy about the gym and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: then and then it comes back to you again. That's it like
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: I'm in it now. I'm pretty in it now because I'm just trying to write new stand up and stuff and so I I know where to go and do because that was it. You know, I I probably should do it even more than I do these days, but but when I do it, I always feel better immediately when I do it. Always.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It's a fantastic tool. Okay, go ahead. no, just to go back to the the comedians, I find their the the perspective, the the insight is I'm always blown away. Again, you go back to guys like Carlin, Red Fox, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy,
Billy Gardell: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: and and and a Bill Burr D do any of them th you think come from mom, dad, two dogs, white picket fence? Or is there more of is there some trauma and some turmoil? Adversity. Adversity there. It's 'cause the insight is typically from the top notch comedians is even yourself, man, you've got your your insight is is there always the foundation of adversity? Yeah.
Billy Gardell: Yeah. No. I I I listen, I I was I I well I was gonna take the smart ass answer and go, not any of the good ones. But I I I think it does I think it it's not necessary, but I do think When you come up in chaos, you know, whatever your chaos is, whether it's Beatons or Stepfathers or alcoholism or what whatever your shit is, and everybody has it. Like the idea
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: that we're looking for these people that are perfect to to to be in charge of things, are you out of your fucking mind? People are messy.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: And and I think and I again Yes, with comics, I think it becomes a defense system and a way to feel safe. You know, if you can make people laugh, you feel immediately safe and comfortable, you feel a part of. So it becomes a defense system and some of us get really good at it. But I also think this is a this is a Gen X thing, man. We we just got tired of crying. You know what I mean? And I think that's why the sarcasm in a I love when I see those memes. online about gen X I follow this one guy on Instagram, I think it's Gen X Humor and I just he's like a
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: letter from home because you know like you know you'll see the the millennials like be nice to each other the boomers,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: you know, you know, you need to lose a little weight and then you get to Gen X like, I know five fat people and you're four of them. You know what I mean? We just we just but for some
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes, yes, yes.
Billy Gardell: reason we don't take that as a as a it's not a wound. Like we just
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
Billy Gardell: I don't know, man. There's just something special. I think our generation was, we felt like we gotta be funny or we're just gonna be crying all the time, man. So we gotta
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: find a way to be funny. The other one I saw the other day that I love the best that really describes us, it was a picture of Ally Sheedy in the Breakfast Club. And it it had six pictures of her, and it just said Gen X emotions, and it said happy, sad, angry, and it was just her
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Yes.
Billy Gardell: going.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I saw that. We we follow that that account. I love that account. I love that account. I do.
Billy Gardell: Though every picture was the same. I really like that account a lot. I do too. I'm excited when that pops up.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah. Okay, so you leave Chicago, you go to LA. Was this was
Billy Gardell: Yes. Yes.
GenX Adulting Podcast: your manager basically saying you have to go here? This is your
Billy Gardell: he'd
GenX Adulting Podcast: next step.
Billy Gardell: been the poor guy'd been screaming and pulling his hair out. He wanted me out here three years before I got out here. But I finally got out here and that was ninety six and me and my buddy
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
Billy Gardell: from Pittsburgh, my one of my best friends my best friend in the world, Joe O'Connell, and we We came out here with whatever the car would hold and two grand, because back then you could do that. If you had two grand, you could move anywhere in America. And so we drove I had an L T D. Of course, gas was only like ninety-eight cents a gallon.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yep.
Billy Gardell: But we drove out to California. We got a one bedroom apartment and we had a couch and an air mattress and ninety-six and we settled into California and It took until 2010 before I got my opportunity on Mike and Molly. But a producer saw me in 2000 and I want to say five, maybe a little bit earlier than that, maybe even earlier than that, 2002. Greg Garcia, who created My Name is Earl, and he created Yes Dear and he created Raising Hope and Just a wonderful guy. And he and I auditioned for Yes Dear, which was a show with Michael Malley and Anthony Clark,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: Liza Snyder and Gina Louise Kelly. And I Michael Malley beat me out for the lead, but Greg said to me, and he's our age too, and he said, he goes, Hey man, I'm gonna bring you back as his buddy as a reoccurring character. Well, you hear those promises in LA all the time. Like, yeah, whatever. about a week later he called me. And he had written a part for Jimmy's buddy Billy. And so I got to reoccur on that show like every four episodes. And that was kinda like my college That would be my if I had a football career, that would be my college team before I got
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
Billy Gardell: and before I got to Chuck Laurie in 2000 2010. So, so and then I got little bit parts, you know, I would just be out here auditioning for yogurt commercials and pizza commercials. And you, you know, you're just trying to find some way to get in. And the what got me my representation was the fact I was a pretty good stand-up. 'Cause they used to have two comedy festivals a year, Montreal and Aspen. And that was a time where the whole industry went to these things, the agents and producers and all that. So if you did get at one of these festivals, the very least you might come out of there with is representation and agent. And once you had an agent, you could get auditions. And so I I went to the Aspen Comedy Festival. I I qualified for that and I went there and I got my first agency and then I was able to start doing auditions. And ten short years later I was on TV study.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Were you doing stand up from ninety six until Mike and Molly or until those guest appearances even on yesterday?
Billy Gardell: Yeah. That that's how I that's how I survived out here. Yeah. Because you had to do something to pay the rent. And
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: so there there used to be a t everything's blurred now with the streaming systems and people filming outside the country and like it's it doesn't have a a a set time anymore. But it used to be like
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: this. Middle of January To the middle of April was what they called pilot season, which is where all the studios would go, okay, we're gonna do these 40 shows and see what gets picked up. So you'd be in a lot of auditions hoping to get on one of those. Maybe they shoot a pilot, maybe it gets picked up, which you would find out in May or June. But you would be there nothing would be going on by end of May, June, July, and August. So what you would do is you'd you'd hustle on the road and do stand up for those months, save up enough rent money and food money so that you could be home. for September, October, and November, because those were guest starring seasons. So for all the shows that were on or that just came on, they needed guest stars. So you'd have a window to make a little dose September, October, and November or get on or get an appearance. Then December through January, the town shut down, and then pilot season again the next January. So you would be here for those six months. The other six months I was on the road doing stand up one, because I wanted to keep my stand-up sharp and two, that To gather up some acorns so that we could be here and survive and not have to have a a regular job while pilot season was going on.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So h how does healthcare work when you're working like that? Are you paying directly out
Billy Gardell: Ooh.
GenX Adulting Podcast: of pocket? Is there any type of comedy health care group? Okay.
Billy Gardell: The n there's nothing in stand-up. There's never been anything in stand-up, which is a crime. They should, especially with all the comedy clubs across the country. But like I said, if they're not gonna give you a basket of chicken tenders, they're certainly not paying for your insurance.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: But in show business, in SAG and AFTRA,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: you could qualify for insurance. Now, when I first started, you had to make seventeen thousand dollars for the year, in acting and you would get health insurance for one year. So like and like back then a guest starring part would be like thirty five hundred dollars for a guest star or five grand for a guest star if you got a good one, right? So if you got
GenX Adulting Podcast: Each time
Billy Gardell: yeah each time no like if you guest starred on one you'd get thirty five hundred dollars.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
Billy Gardell: And then if that
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
Billy Gardell: re-ran, you would get a residual which was like half of that, and then forty percent of that, then thirty percent of that, then twenty. But all of that is gone. That's all changed now. That there's they've evaporated all that. Now,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow.
Billy Gardell: nowadays, to this day, even after all the success I've had, I still have to qualify with making it's I think the fee now is thirty thousand dollars. So you have to make thirty thousand dollars. with legitimate sag or after projects and they give you a year like like my qualification say it's from october to october in that year i have to make a thirty thousand dollar worth of appearances to get my insurance for next year and that's how that works. I didn't have
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm. Wow. Wow.
Billy Gardell: any insurance till I was probably I don't know thirty eight, thirty-nine. So again, so I I rolled the dice for a long time and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay, okay, okay, yeah.
Billy Gardell: And now it now it's my absolute terror that me and my family won't have health insurance. You know what I mean? So that's so so here's
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: the here's the deal. If you if you see me on a game show, you could just go, Billy Billy Billy's qualifying for health insurance. That's exactly what that is. Exactly.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Health insurance. Yeah, because I saw you were on like Celebrity Weakest Link or something, right?
Billy Gardell: my God, I got smoked. I w I was out and I think I was the second or third out, just like busted out. But again, that money goes towards health. It does. It counts. And in fact, I
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. But it counted. Okay. It counted. Okay.
Billy Gardell: do I do another one called Funny You Should Ask. I'm doing that one Monday. And I always I bother my game show guys around because so much has left LA and is
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
Billy Gardell: now being outsourced and f there's that big merger happened, which nobody's really happy about because Anytime one guy owns everything, everybody's money's going down. Everybody's residuals are going down. That's just how greed works. But
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
Billy Gardell: the upside of it may be more productions in town. So maybe we get a few more opportunities. Plus, it'll force Netflix and Hulu to keep up with now that we know what this picture is. But
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
Billy Gardell: so so I I always have hope. I always tell my kid, don't If you bitch about the game field, the game field is always going to change. I don't care what you get into. I don't care if you're a pipe fitter, a doctor, a lawyer, it a nurse, whatever. If if if the field is always going to change. But wasting
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: time bitching about that makes the task of survival twice as hard. So just understand that the game changes. Now find a way through the game. That's the most important skill I think you can have. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: just you have to always great advice. That's great and it's great advice for our age too. Like it's it very especially right now in our lives. Like if y if people
Billy Gardell: God, yes.
GenX Adulting Podcast: can embrace that, you are gonna have a full second half that's gonna be very enriching and it's successful, but you have to embrace that. Okay,
Billy Gardell: Right. Right. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: so so you're doing stand-up, you're doing the guest appearance on Yes Dear. When did Mike and Molly appear in your life?
Billy Gardell: and a and around two thousand eight I was at a real low point. my son was five years old. I was I I hadn't booked any television and I couldn't get a gig out here. And then the housing crisis happened.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
Billy Gardell: So people didn't have expendable money to go out to the comedy clubs. You know, live entertainment and restaurants and bars take the hit when the economy dips. And so there wasn't a demand for stand-up. There wasn't, I wasn't booking anything. And I and my wife and I, we've been married for 25 years. And I'm incredibly grateful to be still married to
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm that's awesome. Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: this woman. And we are in the sweet spot. But as you guys know, every marriage goes through the rain season. And it's whether
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: or not you come out the other side. That and can still choose each other and forgive and still accept and grow, is whether or not you're going to get to the sweet spot. We're at the sweet spot. But
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: in that time, it was like got close to getting divorced a couple times. Things were just shitty. I was trying to quit drinking. It was a whole thing. And my buddy back in Pittsburgh, who's been on the number one radio show there for 20 years, WDVE, it's a classic rock station, it's a legacy station. It's been there since 69. He said, Come back to Pittsburgh. I'll put you on the radio show. You'll make a decent living. You can regroup. You can take care of your family. You'll be home. You'll be a big, big fish in a little pond. And so I said, I you know what? I think I'm gonna take you up on that, but I'm gonna ride out one more pilot season. And so I stayed one more pilot season. And in that pilot season, I only I think I got I I I it g it goes between three and six auditions in my head. I can't remember, but it was a three month period. I only got three to six auditions. The last one was Mike and Molly.
GenX Adulting Podcast: No way.
Billy Gardell: Literally a Hail Mary into the end zone. And then my life changed. It was crazy.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So when you audition for that, how soon did you find out you got it after the audition?
Billy Gardell: Mm-hmm. I auditioned, I want to say I auditioned in like February, and then I got a call two weeks later from casting. They said, Hey, we want to test you in front of the network to play Mike. And And I said, I didn't answer them right away. And because I had a small deal with Nickelodeon that was a development deal that was starting to form where I could have taken what money they were gonna give me. It was a terrible project, but I was looking at like an escape hatch, like that money will move me back to Pittsburgh with my family. I can't go somewhere on a maybe. So I I didn't answer that call. And I I I wish I could say it was because I'm this cool guy that was just waiting. No, I was fucking terrified. And I didn't know what to do, so I just didn't answer.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: And then I got a call from the head of casting and I didn't answer that. And then I got a I know, moron, right? And then
GenX Adulting Podcast: my gosh
Billy Gardell: I and then I got a call from Chuck Laurie himself. Yeah, and to his credit,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow.
Billy Gardell: actually I gotta give two people credit here, my wife and Chuck, because my wife and I were in a terrible place. And when Chuck talked to me, he said, Look, why did you even come in and audition? I go, well, honestly, I go, I got this little deal right here with Nickelodeon who was going to get me back to Pittsburgh. I auditioned for this show hoping to get a guest starring role or something. And and I go, I'm gonna just be straight with you, man. I I you know my marriage is is in the gutter right now. I'm trying to repair that. I got a five-year-old. I I just I didn't know if I could come in on a maybe and give up what I have because then if I lose both, I'm done. And Chuck was so great. He was like, I'm pretty good at this. And he goes, and I'm pretty
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: good at getting what I want. And I think you're the guy for this. And I'm going to surround you with a great cast. It's not all going to be on you. And and we're going to carry the water up the hill together. Again, collaboration. We're going to surround
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
Billy Gardell: you by Melissa McCarthy and Reno Williams and Rondi Reid and Lou Mastillo. And so He says this and I said, listen, man, I go at any other point in my career, I would literally be over your house waxing your car. I go,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: but I need to talk with my wife about this. And Chuck was so great with me. He was like, he he gave me his personal cell number, and it was this was a Friday. I was in Houston working a gig. And he said, he said, he goes, call me Monday after you talk to your wife and let me know what's up. And now me and my wife were in that place where I mean, how long are you guys married now? Okay, so you know, you know, it can get it. Yeah. You guys know, you guys know, you know, and and you're it what a gift you're together. It this is not this is not easy. It's earned that that's where we are, but you gotta go through it, right?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Thirty-two years. We know. Thirty-two wonderful years. Can't relate to anything you just said. Listen, listen, listen. I we know. We know. I I tell people that Yes. We've we're in that spot. We're in the sweet spot. But I tell people there's you have to go through it. I say there's bad days, bad weeks, bad months, there's bad years. And when I say there's bad years,
Billy Gardell: Bad months, yeah. Yes. So true.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Like younger people be like, Well, what do you mean? I'm like, There's bad years. Like,
Billy Gardell: my god, it's brutal.
GenX Adulting Podcast: we have a decade, I think, that we were like, that was bad. Really happy you guys are there. Congratulations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you.
Billy Gardell: Yeah. I always say, I always I thank you and you guys too. I I always say I go if we were a football team we'd be we'd be seventeen and eight. That's that's our record. So this was during that eight year run, and and and we were barely talking. And
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: it was it and and but I called my wife and I said, Hey, I gotta tell you what's going on here, and I told her the whole layout, and to her credit, to her credit. She goes, listen to me. She goes, it doesn't matter where we're at right now. She said, This is the phone call you've been waiting for your entire life. She goes, I am not going to be the reason you don't take that call. Call him back and tell him that you're on board. I'd have to give her all the credit. And she did
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: that when she fucking couldn't stand me. That's a pretty special girl. That's a pretty special girl right there.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%.
Billy Gardell: That's a kind of strength that I don't know that I would have had, you know? Truthfully. Truthfully. Truthfully. One hundred. One hundred.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. That's well, that's love and that's that's friendship too. That's friend. I tell people like sometimes your marriage is going to be taken down to the studs, and the the foundation you see is friends friendship. Friendship. That's
Billy Gardell: Yeah. Great way to say that. That's a great way to say that, down to the studs. I love that.
GenX Adulting Podcast: your foundation. If you don't have that friendship,
Billy Gardell: You're doomed.
GenX Adulting Podcast: You're doomed. And because you can't just do it on love and lust. It's not gonna last. You have to have the friendship.
Billy Gardell: Doomed. Doomed. Doomed. No. No. I always do I do this. I do this joke in my act now where I go, they lie to you, because I I'm talking to younger people. I go, they lie to you about what love is on this phone. Love is not, you know, here we are at the hotel and here we are on a sailboat. I go, that's not love. I
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yes. Yep.
Billy Gardell: go, l I go, that's the fruit of the labor. I go, love is looking at your spouse and going, I have a rash on my ass and I need you to look at it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: Go get the gloves and a mining light. I'm in trouble here.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: I go. Then you get to go to the hotel. I go, you gotta have that kind of salt to be in a long marriage. You know what I mean? To bro, brother, to just walk through it all with each other is it's it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable.
GenX Adulting Podcast: And put lotion on it while we're at the hotel. Listen, listen, all of it. Yeah. No. Listen, we just went to a dermatologist's annual appointment together in the same room. Yes. Together. And
Billy Gardell: Yeah, the spot check. We do that too.
GenX Adulting Podcast: you don't you don't even want to know what I had to help her with. I but she was Yeah. And she was
Billy Gardell: Freeze it, freeze it all off.
GenX Adulting Podcast: like, Can you help me with this part? And I'm like, Yes, I can. I told
Billy Gardell: Ha ha ha
GenX Adulting Podcast: him I feel bad for you guys. Yeah, and I'm not even I won't come back for another year. I'm sorry. He's just like Okay. The poor girl. She was young too.
Billy Gardell: It's so good and it's the truth.
GenX Adulting Podcast: No, but yeah, so you so but but also you what
Billy Gardell: That's so good.
GenX Adulting Podcast: you're describing, what your wife did is love. Like that's that's when you it's sus it suspends above everything else. And like and that's when you
Billy Gardell: Yeah. Yeah. Selfless sacrifice. One hundred. Yeah. It does.
GenX Adulting Podcast: you probably knew too at that point, deep down inside the two you know we're gonna make it. Because that yeah.
Billy Gardell: 100. I I I you know what I had hope. I I always held
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: out hope. And and and we found our way back to each other. And now
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: it's like, man, I dig her more than anybody. Like when I see her when I get home,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, it's awesome.
Billy Gardell: it's not like in the, you know, at the early like, I can't wait to hear from you. It's
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: it's more like when I see her, my eyes, my shoulders drop, and I'm like, Fuck, I'm home where it's where I'm supposed to be. I'm home with the person I'm supposed to be with, the person that gets all my fucking weirdness, that gets all my quirks and still chooses to hold my hand. Fuck, man. What that's all there is. And that's what I've been pre that's what I've been preaching to kids on stage. I could go be in love. The world's fucking ending. Lean into it. Gen X that
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. That's it. That's it. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: shit. It's yeah, it's ending. Okay.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: Go be in love. That's the still the best game in town. It's still the best game in town.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It's so true and you and you just summed it up. The the person who understands your weirdness. That that's like you can do all your weird ass shit
Billy Gardell: Dis.
GenX Adulting Podcast: and they still wanna have sex with you.
Billy Gardell: Right? Is there is there anything better than being together somewhere and leaving and going, God, let's get the fuck out of here. Like
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's so true. And you know, to your point, the world
Billy Gardell: that's our f like the escape is our favorite thing. It's like, we're gone, we're gone. Like we love it. It's the best, man. Yeah. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: is ending, but some of the best movies have the best romantic storylines while the world is literally ending in the movie. So so embrace that. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: Literally. And that's you know what? That's a great point. That's probably why I think that way. Do you know what's funny, man? And we my wife and I have nothing in common. We have core beliefs in common. But like
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: we do everything differently. I don't give a shit if it's making coffee. I go, you can always
GenX Adulting Podcast: It's
Billy Gardell: you you can you can tell our marriage is opposite by the we park in the driveway, she parks this way, I park that way. That's just how that goes. But the common ground when we're together. is the eighties on eight on Sirius XM because she's
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: she listens to you know a lot of stuff Tori Amos and and and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: stuff like that and I'm you know Tom Petty and I'm a and we you know we can't get together
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: on the radio eighties on eight Sweden. We're in the same bubble again together. So so we love that. There's our music,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yep. Yeah. And there's that music. There's that mus I mean I will say we're deadheads.
Billy Gardell: right.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, and we're we're deadheads and
Billy Gardell: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: when life is when the world is ending, we'll go even
Billy Gardell: Bus.
GenX Adulting Podcast: see a either Billy Strings or we'll go see a dead cover band, or we'll just
Billy Gardell: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: put on one of his tapes and listen and realign and like it just brings you right back of okay, it's us against
Billy Gardell: it's everything.
GenX Adulting Podcast: the world and it's a realignment and music like another. Yeah, it's a great one. That's a good one, yeah. That's a good one.
Billy Gardell: Uncle John's band was always my deadhead go-to. That was my go-to. I wasn't, I can't consider myself a full deadhead, but I did go to seven dead concerts. I was at I was at seven. I've had a miracle happen. I've eaten a grilled cheese on acid. And did I've never I always I always said the deadheads were kind
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's a decent amount. Yeah. Yeah. That there you go. Nice.
Billy Gardell: of like I don't know, man. I I I there was just a vibe there that You know, you just you don't see or experience, and when you can be open to that energy of we're all
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
Billy Gardell: we're all here and we're not gonna harm anybody, nobody's gonna harm anybody, and we are
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: in mass, that's a powerful, that's a truly powerful thing to be swept up in, and to even have it as a reference point, like you said. Like
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: I I can that's another thing that we all can do is we can play a song and there's a memory that's connected to it. That's
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah. You put yourself right back there. Yes. And and your whole nervous system is right back there. It's it's it's it regulates one hundred percent.
Billy Gardell: It's so cool. So cool. Yeah. It regulates, right? Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay, so describe did I did you have huge imposter syndrome walking into this role as Mike? Well hold on, we'll go back. Okay. You called Chuck on Monday. So yeah, yeah. Or did you call him Saturday? We're like Chuck, I'm in.
Billy Gardell: Yeah. Yeah. yeah. I I call no, I c I called him on Monday and I said, Okay, man, I'm all yours. I go, I go, whatever you whatever you want me to do. And I said, but I gotta be straight up with you. This was one of the coolest. This is when I knew I was playing at a different level, or he was playing at a different level. There used to be a thing when you went to audition for CBS, you would go over into the Hollywood CBS Center and you would go into the lobby, no one would talk to you. And a and they would walk you to an elevator. You would take an elevator down into the basement. You would come out of the elevator and you would go into this room that had like, you know, those soundproof cones like when they're recording music so that vocals just evaporate into the wall? They had a room with that stuff around it. Then they had a small group of theater seats, which is where the executives would all sit, and then the the lights would dim. And there would be one spotlight on you sitting in a wooden chair with your size. Well,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Shees.
Billy Gardell: I think it was built to go if he cracks under this pressure, there's no way they can hold a show, right? But
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: for whatever reason, I got in there at least once a year. That was like that was the if you pass that test, you were gonna get the pilot because that was the network approval. But they made it very, very hard. None of them just none of them laughed and it was just like this death. One year I got in there twice and I was still really heavy, and I thought, well, I'm gonna Crack a joke this time to kind of break the ice. I go, hey, you guys, if I don't get this one, can you put me on Survivor so I can drop a few pounds? Nothing. It hit the back of the wall. They didn't lie, I just started sweating. It was awful. So I said to Chuck, I said, I gotta be honest with you, man. I go, there is more of my audition blood on the floor over at CBS than anywhere else in Hollywood. I go, I'm and nine over there. and nine over the last 10 years. And then he went, hmm. He goes, okay, I'll have him come over to my office at Warner Brothers. I was like, okay, we're in a different that's like this is like the Yan this is like the Yankees.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: This is like the Yankees. And he got them to come over there and I read, I did great. And then we did these things called chemistry tests where you there was three Melissa's, three Mike's, or three Mike's, three Mollies. And but when me and Melissa McCarthy read together,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: it was Even th they the the executives who are trained to be dead inside and not show you anything because they might have to pay you something.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
Billy Gardell: When me and her read, they all went they
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: like you could it would you could it was physical. You could feel it in the room and we knew we had something special. Yeah, it was really awesome. Really awesome.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's cool. Yeah, that's cool. That's amazing. And and did she feel that way too? Did you both know? Yeah. wow.
Billy Gardell: one hundred percent. And she was pregnant at the time, man. So she she was like really she's such a trooper. And and we just knew and the guy that got to play, re Officer Carl, who was my best friend in the show, Reno Wilson, me and him, we became friends ten years before that show. And we got we
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow.
Billy Gardell: we were on a short lived show called The Heist, and it was on opposite American Idol when they premiered and we just
GenX Adulting Podcast: geez.
Billy Gardell: You could hear the death drums beating. I'm like, steal whatever we can. We're getting fired. We made we made it six episodes, but we stayed friends
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: and our kids grew up together and we stayed dear friends. So when we auditioned for the chemistry test at Mike and Molly, halfway through the audition, Chuck didn't even let us finish. She's like, Okay, I get it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: You guys get out of here. And me and him were cast right away too. So that all aligned in the most spectacular way. The most spectacular way.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. No kidding. Jeez. did you have any imposter syndrome going into this, or had you had so much experience with all these auditions that you were like, Okay, I've been waiting for this, let's go. As far as Mike and Molly.
Billy Gardell: I th I think I've had imposter syndrome I anyway growing up. You never quite
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: know who you are or if what you're doing is authentic until you start to trust yourself. By the time I got to Mike and Molly, I had I was nervous because I wanted to do a good job, but I had no imposter syndrome. I felt like I've been working for this my whole life.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
Billy Gardell: And one one gift that I've always had, and I've I tried to give this to my kid too, when you have a big opportunity, and I don't know where I got this, maybe my dad, I don't know, but I've always had it. When
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: you have a big, big opportunity, whether it's a job interview, an audition, a tryout, whatever,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: and it maybe comes from sports too. I always understood that if I'm going into this opportunity, nothing can be taken from me. They can't take anything. If I come in here with eight bucks, I'm leaving with eight bucks. But there's a chance to leave with much more. So I am going to let go of that worry and play at my absolute loosest and best and fucking let it hang out. And I think that's our generation, too. That's that's the skateboard
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: version of our generation. Like
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah,
Billy Gardell: fuck it. I'm what
GenX Adulting Podcast: yeah.
Billy Gardell: are you can't take anything from me. And I think if you get wrapped up in, well, what if I don't look good? And what if I don't, you're done for. So if you keep
GenX Adulting Podcast: Just noise.
Billy Gardell: if you yeah, it's it's that outside shit. So I always knew like, hey man, if there's something to be got, let's get it. And so what you you can't you I I'm not gonna go backwards, I'm gonna stay lateral. So I'm gonna let it all hang out. And and when that first pilot of Mike and Molly came along, I I was so excited to be in it. Like I just felt like I'm I'm finally quarterback in a football team. Holy hell, I'm gonna
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: do this to the best of my ability. I'm not what Reno always says, one of the greatest things that got played, Carl, he always says, the thing that was so special about that show was we knew it was special when it was happening. And everybody was 40 years old. So everybody'd been kicked around enough. Everybody'd been through the bullshit enough that there was a gratitude and a and let's let's you know he always jokes we were the 97 Bulls because there wasn't a weak link on that television show. And then Melissa
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: became this comedic meteorite. And so,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
Billy Gardell: but she still was one of us, you know. She's
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: a Chicago girl at heart, she's a Gen Xer. So there was just this thing that we were like, there was nobody was running around going, you know, like, I need a velvet hat with green eminent. Like we were like like we
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: had our mentality from our like we get we got coffee, we got good parking, we got insurance. Nobody fucked this up. So so that was the attitude in that.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So how many years did you do Mike and Molly?
Billy Gardell: We did six years on Mike and Molly, hundred and twenty eight episodes, and then I followed that with a short lived series called Sun Records, where I got to play Colonel Parker, and that was only eight episodes because it was on
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: CMT and they got that price tag and said we should probably go back to shows where people catch catch fish with their arms because this is too expensive.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: And then I slid into young Sheldon for a little while, and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: then I ended up on this other show, Bob Hart Sabishola, which went five more years, which was amazing.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So how would you describe the sitcom experience to people that have no idea about anything with that? Like like summing
Billy Gardell: in what way? Like getting it or or what it is?
GenX Adulting Podcast: it up as far as you've done stand-up, but now you
Billy Gardell: Mm-hmm.
GenX Adulting Podcast: have this sitcom experience.
Billy Gardell: I would say the best way it's like doing a live play. But you get another chance if you if you fuck up. That's the difference. So you're still
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. Okay.
Billy Gardell: in front of a live audience, which very much spoke to the stand up in me. But
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
Billy Gardell: the difference in a play is if you're on stage in a play and you fuck up, you better start digging and spinning plates because there's no going back. Whereas in
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
Billy Gardell: television, if you have a you know, they cut, all right, let's everybody will regroup. We're gonna start the lights again.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
Billy Gardell: We're gonna try this one more time. So you have more of a of a playing field in that way. But it was like doing a live play every week. And now what I want to do at this age, you know, people tell me out here they're like, you lost all that weight, you're wrinkled, your hair's gray, you need to get a facelift and you need to get your hair dick. Fuck off.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: I earned every wrinkle and gray on my face. And so now I'm going because of this body shape. And again, Gen X thing, man. Fuck it. Start again. We were in a great band. The band broke up. All right, I'm gonna go do some shit over here. Never stop. And so now
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: I'm starting to get auditions for the older lawyer, the crotchety FBI chief. And and so now I'm gonna
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: try to go do that. And I don't know what's gonna happen, man. I just know sitting around thinking about it ain't gonna get nothing. So let's go.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. How did that how did that that evolving? That's that mindset of embracing the change and vi evolving. How did that come
Billy Gardell: Mm. You have to. You got let's go.
GenX Adulting Podcast: about though to lose that much weight? Like was there Well, so th when you're yeah, where did we go
Billy Gardell: You know w yeah, w what a God.
GenX Adulting Podcast: from the end of the sitcom era to where you are now? Like what happened in that time?
Billy Gardell: The third season of Bob Hart Sabahsola is when COVID hit the first wave. And when it kit hit, I was probably 330,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
Billy Gardell: 340 my weight. And when they when the first benchmarks came up for who this that was most vulnerable,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: it was overweight, type 2 diabetes, or type 1 diabetes, sleep apnea, smoker, over 65. I had all of those except over 65. And that's what
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: I was trying to get to. So I knew I had to do something drastic to try to get myself healthy because I want to be here for my family. I should have been
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: thinking about that anyway, but I was also like my doctor always says at 50 the warranties run out. You could you could like if you played some sports, like like there's two types of fat guys. There's a big fat guy that's kind of solid because he played sports and kind of carry it. And I got away with that for a long time. Then there's like the doughy fat guy who has medical problems quicker, but it comes from obesity. There's no you can't outrun that.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yep.
Billy Gardell: And so when that hit, I sh I should have been thinking about that, but I didn't have the usual fat guy woes. I have a pretty wife, I have a beautiful son, I had a great career. I was like, the fuck's wrong? Give me a cigarette. So, but eventually that delusion is cracked. And actually, when the COVID warnings came out and we started to see some people not come back from that, I was
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: like, I gotta do something. drastic here. So I went and got bariatric surgery. I lost my weight and now I'm I'm a new guy, man. I'm an unknown. I'm I'm a new guy. I mean, some people know me that are our age, but those people were older when they were watching T V now. Yeah, I mean you gotta keep reaching to connect with people, you know, they're not going out as much as they used to. So so
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: look, man, you know, it's but it's a blessing in a way. It gives me something to do. It gives me it makes me feel relevant. I I still feel like I can play. And that's that's the gift. That's the whole gift.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: Man is purpose. Gift is purpose, you know?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Absolutely. So during that time when you had the surgery and you were losing the weight, you did you take a complete step back from entertainment in general? Okay. Okay. Right.
Billy Gardell: Yeah, I had to because I couldn't tour anymore because of COVID. They weren't even doing shows because it was indoor theaters and all that stuff. And so you know, some guys were doing stuff outside, but I was at such risk that my doctor was like, Listen, you can't fuck around with this. You're you're way too
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: heavy. You got diabetes, you got sleep apnea, you're still fucking smoking. What are you doing? And so even when we were filming at the studio, they shut down the live audience and we were just in there with the camera crew and the sound guys, and we had to hope we were hitting the lines because we didn't have the audience to tell us anymore. So,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: I mean, we had to wear masks and we had to get tested before we went to work because if one person got sick, they could catch the test and keep them off the set. We were
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
Billy Gardell: the only show on the lot at that time that completed their entire season. Cause
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow.
Billy Gardell: two of the other shows, but they had younger people. You know, and they had there was I think it was everybody's all American got shut down for like three, they lost three episodes. And
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: it was because they're young kids and they're like, Yeah, okay. Then they went out and they got sick and they had to shut them down for the week. But at
GenX Adulting Podcast: yeah yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Billy Gardell: that time, you weren't getting those episodes back because all that was going on in COVID, because nobody was spending advertising dollars. We were all locked in.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: And my thought was again, the working mentality was
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: like, I got 150 people on this set, sound. you know, makeup, electrical, janitor, fuck craft service, actors. So we had to come together as a collective again and go, we just gotta I because we had people that didn't agree with the testing, didn't want to wear a mask. And so I just said we had a big company meeting and I said, guys, I'll be the dick. I don't care if you like this or not. And if you agree with it, Dave, you don't, I don't care. That has nothing to do with it. I'm trying to get us all 22 paychecks. So
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: if we can put it in that box and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: keep our bitching at a minimum, let's just go through this together and get this fucking payday and get through this together. And and to the company's collective, everybody kind of put their shit aside and went, let's just march forward. And we were able to
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: complete the seasons. But in that time I would go out on the summer and do stand up like normally when the show would end, but I couldn't tour because I couldn't take a chance on planes and in l large crowds. So I kind of I and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
Billy Gardell: then I thought I was done with stand up. I thought, well, maybe that's it. I've been three years out, that's it. I've had two sitcoms, that's it. And then I went down to see a buddy of mine. after that show ended at the Irvine Improv with my wife and he was having one of those nights where he was just slicing man. There's good nights in comedy and then there's nights where you're so connected with that audience you could just raise an eyebrow and they'll laugh. And he
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: was having that night and I swear to God, man, like an old gunslinger. I just felt my shoulder
GenX Adulting Podcast: Or twitch.
Billy Gardell: And I looked at my wife and I go, I go, I think I got to go back. And she goes, Really? And I go, yeah. I go, I got more to say. And so I started going to open mic nights around Burbank at this little club called Flappers. Tuesday nights, 15 people, just like when I started before. I got my Gen X flannels out so I'd feel safe. And I got up on stage
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: and I just started doing. And then then all of a sudden it started to come clear what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to defend this generation. I wanted to be a voice that's older they could trust. I wanted to talk about twenty five years of marriage, what that takes and how sweet it is if you can get there. And then I wanted to I wanted to honor my father. So that's what's going on in my act right now. Those are
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, cool.
Billy Gardell: the pictures that I'm painting because he was my biggest influence. And when that came clear, then it was off to the races.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Hmm. That's great. And are you pretty much booked? 'Cause I know you're so busy, like just to even like to land you. Yeah, you're grinding. Are you are you
Billy Gardell: Yeah, I'm grinding, man. Yeah, I'm gr I'm grinding right now.
GenX Adulting Podcast: you're in you so how many how long have you been grinding like that ever since you made the decision to go back?
Billy Gardell: it's been two and a half years back now. And
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow.
Billy Gardell: I'm just starting to pick up steam again, which is really cool. And
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's awesome. That's really cool.
Billy Gardell: you know, and I've had such great friends over the years, like when I wasn't doing it, that really, that really said, What are you doing? Get back up on stage. We need you like Jay Leno called me and Alonzo Bowden called me, Christopher Titus, Steve Byrne. These are all Ian Bagg, these are all my buddies who are like, dude, what the fuck? Get out of here. And I'm like, nah, I think I'm done. And they were right. It it w once a stand-up, always a stand-up. And so I just I started to do it. And then you know, the blessings of being a decent person come back to you later in life. Twenty-five years ago, we were talking about Leanne, right? Leanne Morgan.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: Twenty-five years ago, she opened for me. It was one of her first gigs. She had
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow.
Billy Gardell: her baby was maybe two years old. She was opening for me. And here, 25 years later, she gets a show. She invites me on to be a guest star. And then at the table reads, she says, Billy Gardell, I opened for him 25 years ago, and he was so kind to me and such a gentleman. It's so nice to do this now with him. And then after we had a great week on the show, she was kind enough to invite me. She's doing 10,000, 15,000 seat theaters. She's had me come
GenX Adulting Podcast: Amazing.
Billy Gardell: out as her special guest a couple times. I got a couple dates with her at the end of the month to And this is a selfless person, like to do that to to remind people, hey, Billy's out here too. So she's let me do twenty minutes in front of these arenas of people. They're like, that guy, I remember that guy. And
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: and her grace of inviting me to be a part of that has helped elevate me back up in front of a lot of people that might go, yeah, I remember that. I'm gonna go see him when he's when he's in our club in town. So just, you know, what you put out comes
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. That's awesome.
Billy Gardell: back. What you put out comes back, what you put out comes back, you know.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. And there's that Gen X collaboration. Yeah. what advice would you give to young comics today that are just starting out where you were?
Billy Gardell: work on your act more than anything else you work on. I d unfortunately social media is gonna be important. Just don't jump on social media too soon. Find out who you are first. Find out no know what music you're playing before you present it to everybody. So you don't have to worry about changing or figuring out midstream. Find out Kind of what you believe in and then start the journey. Find find your voice first and read. Read. Read. Everything is reading. Read, read, read. To understand good writing, you have to witness good writing. You're not just going to get that on your own. So that read and then perform. Find out what your voice is and then start this social media journey. That would be my
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's
Billy Gardell: advice.
GenX Adulting Podcast: that's great advice. And then my last question I always ask every guest is where do you see yourself in five years?
Billy Gardell: In five years, I'm hoping that I'm just finishing my third act, having played a dramatic part, maybe the crotchety old police chief or FBI guy, and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: and then just rooting my kid on as his career begins and annoying my wife for at least another twenty years. That's what I hope for.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I love that. That's that's awesome. Well, I mean, Billy, we can't thank you enough for spending so much time with us.
Billy Gardell: no, I'm so glad I found you guys. I remain a fan, and that's why I chased you down. I love what you're doing. And by the way, my wife has been through a lot of the pelvic stuff that you went through.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
Billy Gardell: And thank you for being so honest and sharing about that stuff. That's real shit in our world, in our lives, and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
Billy Gardell: our marriages. I love the way you two are. And I I'm grateful I got to do this today. I'm I it only took us a year and a half, but I'm very grateful. I'm very grateful I got to do it. I'm and and I continue to be a fan,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah. We are really appreciative. We are so appreciative.
Billy Gardell: man. And like I said, reach out anytime and I'd love to see you guys in Boca when I come down there to perform. That that that would just be awesome.
GenX Adulting Podcast: We would love that. We would love that. And tell your wife if she ever wants to reach out, if she has anything she wants to run by me with her experience, I'm open. I tell everyone that. So yeah. Yeah.
Billy Gardell: Right on. I will. Thank you. No, I saw I I loved how open you were about all of that stuff, man. That's wonderful. It's wonderful. Yeah. Back at you.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Thank you. And thank you again for all your kind words and for coming on. You know, and for any listeners, if you haven't discovered Billy yet, which is hard to imagine, but everywhere you'll be able to find him is in the show notes. And you'll want to check out
Billy Gardell: Thank you.
GenX Adulting Podcast: where he's touring, especially, but his social media will every all the information will be in the show notes. So please check him out. He's awesome, he's hilarious. And again, thank you so much. We've loved every minute of this and
Billy Gardell: No, thank you guys. Keep doing what you're doing, man.
GenX Adulting Podcast: We will, we will. We we love it. And listeners, thank you. Please, we always love to hear from you with any questions or comments. And if you have any questions for or comments for Billy, he'll see them. So please leave them. And we will see you next time. Bye.
Billy Gardell: Take it light.