Preach It, Bill Burr

By Petr Navovy | Videos | August 9, 2023 |

By Petr Navovy | Videos | August 9, 2023 |

I was on the fence about Bill Burr for the longest time. I’d heard snippets of his material throughout the 2010s, and I could never fully get the measure of the guy. His stand-up skills were undeniably evident—the rhythm and jokes were all there—but I often couldn’t tell where he was trying to position himself: with the class of ‘anti-woke’ complainers that so many of his contemporaries ended up in, or with the more reflective and curious cohort who dared to engage with the world and try to evolve with it.

In retrospect, I don’t think Burr was aiming to do either; he was instead just trying to be himself—whatever that would entail—and, as luck would have it, that ended up aligning more closely with the latter. Which is great! Burr is clearly a smart guy, and his caustic persona and exasperated delivery lend themselves very well to describing many of the absurd aspects of modern life. To wit: This clip, a few years old now, in which Burr demolishes the aura of ‘genius’ that the late-capitalist grifter-marketer Steve Jobs managed to build up around himself—a facade that millions bought into, and one that can also be applied to other so-called geniuses haphazardly stumbling their way around the world right now with aberrant influence. I absolutely love this: