KARACHI:
As unfair as it may seem to write about Bill Burr and not include any f-bombs, we can’t. But let’s push through, shall we? Burr released his latest standup comedy special Drop Dead Years on Hulu recently. In his signature hour-long rant, Burr meditates (possibly the loudest, public mediation loaded with expletives) on his mortality, mental health, marriage and politics.
Watching Drop Dead Years, you realise that Burr has changed. He has used his craft to deal with generational trauma and the subsequent anger and has now relatively calmed down a bit. And as he admits early into the show, he has realised that he’s been suffering from depression. Drop Dead Years is the 56-year-old comedian’s exploration of his own depression in his, well, drop dead years.
Old and still grumpy
A less angry Burr is still extremely entertaining to watch. He is still grumpy about the world and his rants still hit the mark. In the first few minutes of the performance, he’s already poked the audience by bringing up Gaza. Although you can tell he is holding back in his criticism of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, he still sneaks in a comparison that probably flew over people’s heads.
Burr says he can’t call out a “fat f***” fat for stealing his last slice of pizza, even when he’s denying it with pepperoni on his breath, and that someone would go, “Alright, well, he took your pizza but that’s no reason to body shame”. He adds, “I know what you did, own up to it.”
A smooth segue into Israel shooting missiles at children shows how informed Burr is, despite him claiming otherwise. The placement and transition is deliberate to draw comparisons. Essentially, Burr means: “Israel is the fat man denying stealing Palestinian pizza and pretending to be the victim.”
“How is war still legal in 2024?” Burr sums it up.
But his realisation of his own depression has slightly changed the pace of his routine. He pauses and reflects more on his words as he goes. And overall, he feels more vulnerable as if his angry mask is slowly coming off. It’s fascinating to see Burr’s evolution not just as an artist but as a man coming to terms with his life and the world and his own messed up self as he grows old.
The F is for Family creator addresses the title of the special too. He’s aware of the fact that he’s in his ‘drop dead years’ – years in which men suddenly drop dead. And he insists that “dropping dead is a uniquely male experience”. It’s different from dying of natural causes.
He points at men not being able to cry as the main reason for dropping dead, be it while putting on pants one morning or in a golf cart. Men aren’t allowed to be sad. We are allowed to be mad or fine,” he says. But that we do feel other emotions and bag them inside for years leads us to dropping dead like flies.
Broken man, broken world
Burr also continues his tradition of picking on the right and the left, pointing out their hypocrisies, especially the idiocy of political correctness. His criticism of focusing more on the language rather than the attitudes and beliefs are always spot on. In Drop Dead Years, he uses the KKK, slurs, influencers, cancel culture, and gun laws to call out everyone. He maintains that the KKK would not exist if they attacked white people. It’d be over in five weeks.
Burr’s appeal is also in his self-awareness and how he boils down broad ideas and history into little zingers. Summing up the history of the United States, he says, “We came here, there were other people here, and then there weren’t. And then there was work to be done. We didn’t want to do it. We brought other people in and s*** happened.”
Basically, Burr is that kid in a classroom who slingshots chewed gums or stink-bombs at everyone, without any discrimination. He hates everyone equally and we love him for it.
If you’ve ever seen Burr, you’d know that he mixes in all these ideas into a rage-filled routine where you witness a man breaking down in a stream of consciousness mode and in essence, talking to himself. That’s the genius of Burr. He can structure his performance like it’s an internal monologue – the kind we have during showers or while driving as we cuss out the slow drivers in the fast lane and ponder over the broken state of the city roads.
Burr also transforms into the characters – from an annoying Karen, a mindless influencer (although he uses another word for them), a pseudo-spiritual yogi teaching her friends to go on a “journey” to a short, rich man wearing a big gold watch and riding a jeep, or that cool unmarried uncle who’s actually depressed and cries on his motorcycle, or even Burr’s own son.
As political as Burr might be, he also gets personal in his struggles including his relationship with his father as well as alcohol addiction. He gets the audience roaring when he recalls how back in the day, the only thing that was talked about as being on the spectrum was autism. Now it’s everything, including addiction.
He ends the special with a bit about his son. And you’re left not with a giggling fit that Burr usually leaves you with, but a smile. Drop Dead Years is Burr balancing his outrageous explosions on the ridiculousness of the world with his personal journey. Great art almost always makes you feel like you know the artist personally, as if he’s speaking directly to you.
And Burr accomplishes that easily with every line he says, every gesture he makes, every character he turns into on stage.
Drop Dead Years opens with Burr saying he thought he did standup because he liked comedy. But it was because it was the easiest way to walk into a room full of strangers and “make everybody like me”. And while Burr’s way of making people like him is by antagonising and telling everyone the truth, his style and honesty has surely helped him find that universal sense of belonging (that we all seek) way before he reached his drop-dead years.
#mortality #mercy
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