BILLY EICHNER Planned Family Trips Around Madonna

East, coast, poshie. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. There's a real buzz. There's a real buzz over here in the Easter time zone. We're very excited about it. I'm gonna see you. I can't wait to see you, but I will not see you as much as our other friends because you're coming out here for something that does not interest me. It's a golf weekend. There's gonna be more than just golf, but it is gonna be golf. I'm sorry, I take it back. Take that back, because the word you threw out to the group of friends is like, this is a golf weekend. Yeah, but at some point, the sun goes down. Sure. And then you stop golfing. But it was every, so, all right. So for those listening, every minute the sun's up, they'll be golfing. Maybe, we'll see. Yeah. I mean, you guys, the group that's going, although not, I mean, there's some surprises amongst our group of friends who are going, but the plan, do you think there'll be days? What's the most holes you think you'll play on a given day? I don't know if we'll get it done with this group, but I have played with these guys before, where they will play 50 holes in a day. Which is not even a number of holes that make sense if you're playing rounds of golf. I have played from the earliest you could possibly tee off until you can't see anymore. Yeah. Yeah, so. I have a question. It's a trivia question about me. Do you think I'd rather play 50 holes of golf or just have one hole in my head? Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. But it's, man, it's a good group. Yeah. It is a good group. It's a good group of homies. Yeah, there's a couple that have some work conflicts that have had to be late cancells, which is a bummer, but I get it. Yeah. We do so many of these trips that, if sometimes your life gets in the way I understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's a good group. I'm very excited. Yeah. I think I'm hopefully gonna see you Friday night. Oh, great. Perfect. Yeah. And just really looking forward to it. I was on the road this past weekend. Oh, that's right. You were in Denver and Albuquerque? Denver and Albuquerque. And I had an interesting revelation that struck me as I drove into New Mexico, which I'd like to speak about. First went to Denver, me and Brooks Whelan, two really fun shows in Denver. If any trippers are listening who are there, thank you so much. Absolutely blast. Brooks and I made the decision, hour and a half flight from Denver to Albuquerque, or we just rent a car, we drive six hours through what we assumed, and we're correct was a beautiful drive. Sure. So that's what we did. And stayed out of the airport, great American roads. And then, my wife from Albuquerque, I go to Albuquerque a lot. And when I go to Albuquerque, it's not my hometown. It's her hometown. And she loves it very much, very proud of it. There's a lot to love about it. There's a lot to be proud about, but it doesn't belong to me until Pashi, she wasn't there. Yeah, then you get to go. Now I'm coming in with Brooks, and I'm like, dude, you're gonna love it. We're gonna go, and so all of a sudden I turned into Alexi. I'm like, we're gonna go to the shed. It's like the best enchiladas you've ever had. Oh, see that mountain over there? That's called the Sandia Mountain. That's, it means watermelon. Yeah, you could take a tram up there. Yeah, and so it was very nice to feel an amount of, I don't know, it felt like home, which was a very sweet feeling. It was nice to, and also, our in-laws, my in-laws met me for lunch, and that was great because Tom, my father-in-law, immediately started telling stories, and Brooks was like, oh man, you're exactly like Seth Desgrave. Yeah, no, of course. Yeah, we did a show, so we did a casino in Albuquerque, and it was lovely. Now, the thing about casinos, they're like big rooms, built a little bit more for music than comedy. Okay. They're perfectly fine rooms for comedy, but I went for a sound check because I very much, I think it's very important to like see a room before you do the room, you know, microphone, check it, bring the monitors down. I take it all very seriously. They appreciate that I'm there early, you know, just helps them put out any fires ahead of time. Everything goes super smooth with the sound check. Then I walk out on stage, and there is a mister on the side of the stage, like shooting out mist behind me, that I guess is a lighting effect, that the light is going through the mist. Yeah, and this must be like class. But it's more smoke than it is like watery mist. It's not to cool you off. Okay, yes. Yeah. But, right, correct. But this is the noise it's making. Baaaaaah. Baaaaaah. Now, Pashi, you know me, and in the same way I feel like you would feel. I am so mad at the sound of this mister. I am so mad. But I bet you masked it pretty well. Well, I have to, right? Because the audience can't see that I'm mad. So I actually genuinely am masking it as well as I can. Well, at the same time, internally, I cannot believe I'm masking it. I'm so mad that even though I'm trying, I'm like, they all know I'm mad. I don't know what I'm gonna do. But also, and I was right, because I asked people afterwards, I'm like, they can't hear the mister. Only I can hear the mister, right? Like the sound of this place is very good. That was true, they couldn't hear it. They couldn't hear the mister. But it was so distracting. And so I'm like, this is, so I'm also, I'm doing comedy. And fortunately, look, part of doing stand-ups, you know the act, but it goes better if you're like actually present in the act. But I feel like for the first 10 minutes, I'm doing like autopilot on my act while I'm having this conversation in my head. I'm like, they can't hear the mister, just get over it, try to work through the mister. And then I'm like, I can't work through the mister. All I'm doing is thinking about the mister. Because literally, I would tell a joke, everybody would laugh. And then I'd, and like, before I'm ready to start doing my next line, I'd hear, So 10 minutes in, and again, I'm like, say it like it's fun, say it like it's fun. So 10 minutes in, I'm like, I'm so sorry, there's something on over here, can we turn that off? And like, it was one of the most amazing things cause they went off like this. It was like, I couldn't believe it. I thought somebody was gonna have to come out, unplug it. And instead it was like, whoever heard it, they're like, oh, I'll just hit the mister button. And it was like, immediately off. Yeah. And it was, and I think everybody was like, oh yeah, no, it was great. We didn't hear it and then it seemed fine. And so, so relieved. Brooks did say, and Brooks by the way, is a giant exaggerator, but he said that when the show was over, a lady rolled the mister by him and said, first guy you ever complained. I would have thought you would have taken your microphone over to the mister and mic'd the mister for a moment to be like, just so you know, this is what I'm hearing. 100% better than the way I did it. Cause I will say when they turned it off, I then explained to the audience that there was a mister and I, cause they could see when it, cause when they turned it off, they watched the mist dissipate. Right. So I think they at least understood, oh, that must have been making noise. And I did say, I was worried that because you guys saw mist, there would be an expectation that I was gonna do some magic. And I don't have any magic. I was a little snarky though, Posh, cause I was like, you know, when you do one of these shows, you come out and you do a sound check because that way you don't surprise anybody with the way your show sounds. But I guess the venue wanted to do a sound surprise. And then did your lights then just go off? Yeah, then they turned off the lights and all the sound. I have one more part of my adventure, which is, and again, this is like Alexi's superpower. And full display. I had it in lay. I got dental work last week. They put in a temporary in lay between my back two teeth. I went back in today, we're recording this on a Tuesday to get the final. Is that like to have like a diamond put in a tooth? Like a diamond? Yeah, it's like a cool little diamond. It's got the family trips logo. Are you sure? I thought we were both getting this. So I'm like doing, and then like you're, you're supposed to, you know, floss with one of those. You're like, you can't do normal flossing when you have temporary laying, but like I'm doing my little, you know, cause like three days after you find out you have a cavity, you're like, I'm going to be a floss guy now. So who's in that window? And I popped the in lay pops out. Oh boy. Now I'm in Denver. I've got a six hour drive to Albuquerque and like it doesn't hurt unless you like breathe in air, in which case you have to take a knee with pain. And so like I'm breathing through my nose or like drinking like gentle side breaths. And I'm like, I can manage this, but like what am I going to do when I have to like do stand up? Like I don't, you know, this is before I even knew about the mister part of how bad my night was going to be. So I call Alexi Saturday morning before I drive to Albuquerque and I'm like, yes, in lay popped out and I called my dentist, my dentist, like, can you put it back in? I'm like, no, I tried. And then he's like, maybe I'll see if I can find you a dentist in New Mexico. So I call Alexi and she's like Avery, remember Avery. So this is her cousin, Alexi's cousin son, married a dentist's daughter. Amazing. Who I've met. I met this wonderful guy, Dr. Sanchez. And I met him at like a, you know, holiday party the year before. And so I get his number and I call him on the drive and explain the situation. He's like, all right, give me your ETA. I'll just unlock my dental office. And so it was the smoothest like dental solution any of you have ever had. Unless you're like married to a dentist. I pulled in, got out of my car, he let me in, he like squirted a little cleaner in it, popped it in and I was on, it was like five minutes. Wow. And it was like on the way to the venue. I couldn't believe it. Yeah. And again, it's Alexi, Alexi always knows someone. Yeah. I would have thought sort of on your own schedule on Albuquerque, you would maybe take that opportunity to go to places that Alexi doesn't go to. Because we have. How interesting. In our hometown, we have the places we go, but other families I'm sure go to other restaurants, they do different things, but you didn't want to expand. I never think that we're not going to. And also because I was showing it off to Brooks. But the shed in Santa Fe. The shed's great. It would be if you had one lunch there. And we kind of knew as well that based on when our show was, it was going to be our one chance to have really good New Mexican food. Yeah. That's fair. We, I then had just a cool dude travel day where I woke up at 4 a.m. in New Mexico. Going back to, yeah. That was not a lot of fun. No, that doesn't sound like it. I'm so excited to see you. So the next time we do one of these intros, we will have seen each other. Yeah. And we'll tell you all about it. Pashi told me, he's like, just, I'll be free for like two minutes between the seventh and eighth hole. If you want to stop, I'll wave and say hi. Billy Eichner. Billy Eichner, Northwestern grad. He's got a book. Go, cats. He's Billy on the street. He's the best. Bros was his movie. Bros, huge. He's a good man. Success, funny movie. Also, my, I had some real tech issues. Oh, you did? I forgot about tech issues. I was here at the beginning of this, but it was a full nightmare on my end that Mackenzie helped get me through. I eventually got up on her computer. You were feeling about yourself the way I was feeling about the mister. Yeah. Yeah. And tried to come on and be cool. And you can be a judge on whether or not I am. Patty LaBelle was playing the casino I played the week after. And Emily Spivey, great writer at SNL, collaborated a lot with my Rudolph. I wrote Spivey and said, all I can think is what will happen if the mister was on for Patty LaBelle and she didn't want it on. And I would like you to write that sketch. And she immediately, like as fast as you could send, as I sent, it was like she was dictating it back. It was like, she literally wrote 86, the mist, mister, mister who does the mist, the mist. Wait, well, the mist must not persist. It was amazing. Subsist the mist. It was like, Jesus, you're the best writer I know. All right, enjoy Billy. I'll see you soon, Soof. Love you, Bashi. Family chips with the mice brothers. Family chips with the mice brothers. Here we go. Hello, Billy. How are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you? Good. Josh is having some technical issues. So hopefully he's going to join us soon. But you know, one Northwestern grad goes out, another one jumps in. Exactly. There's more than enough on this podcast Zoom. You were two years behind Josh? Yeah. I just saw Josh at Robin's Shores wedding. Oh, I heard it was a very good wedding. It was really fun. And Josh was hilarious. He was like the MC. Yeah, Josh gets drafted into a lot of MC work recently. He was lamenting that he hasn't been to like a party, a birthday party or a wedding for a long time without having to do some sort of performance. That is annoying, but he was very funny at it. And it was a very fun wedding. It was very Northwestern heavy. That's good. That, what did you ask me? I was just saying that we're, oh, how far behind Josh were you at school? Oh, yeah. I think two years. I graduated 2000. Yes, so two years. He was with Robin in right in 1998. There you go. And then when were you? I was 96, so we didn't overlap. You and I. Oh no, I started right after you left. You filled a very important gap and you did a wonderful job. Everybody's still talking about that. I did, that's what I hear. I took over all your roles in the musical theater program. How are you? How's life been? Life is good. I'm busy. You wrote a book. You're doing book press. How long did it take you to write your memoir? Years. On and off though, it wasn't like five years every day. We started it like in the early days of COVID, which is kind of why it started to begin with because I was just looking for something to do. And there would be a year when I worked on it a little bit less because I was off doing other things once COVID lifted. And then in the past year, year and a half, I wanted to get it done. So I really focused on it and it did become a full-time job. But it's a very long process. It's, yeah. I'm in the middle of it myself. We've talked about it a little bit. And yeah, it's so, you think it's gonna be harder and then it's so much harder than you thought it was gonna be. Yeah, it's just a lot of work and a memoir and I'm writing about my childhood, and which is actually great. I mean, that's kind of what the book is, that a lot of people write books about their very dark childhood, especially in entertainment, but I didn't have that. Same here. I mean, Josh and I talk about it all the time. We're very lucky. Yeah, lovely, you know, we're so lucky. So it's a lot of really funny stories that, but I don't often look back. I'm not someone who sits around, like even my therapist and I, we don't talk about my childhood. We talk about show business, obviously. Right. And so, you know, my childhood was great. It's this business that will drive you insane. Well, yeah. I'm wondering, you know, so both of your parents have passed away. Like what, how about that part? And you don't have siblings, right? You have a half sibling. I have a half brother, Steve, who actually just recently sent me. I tried to be a child actor in New York, growing up because I grew up in New York City. And I was exactly who I always have been at five years old. Like I knew what track I was on and I was in New York. And so my parents would take me to Broadway shows. And I said, well, once in a while, there'd be a kid in them or there'd be a kid singing on TV or something. And I wanted to be one of those kids. And so my half brother, who was older than me, you know, I was 10 and he was already 22. And he was like a cool young single guy, like living in the East Village. And I was like this fat, gay kid living with his parents and Queens, you know, not the coolest kid, but he was very sweet. And he's a photographer, he was and he still is. And he's been very successful. And I would go to his studio in the East Village, like between the ages of like 10 and 15, I was trying to be a child actor. And, you know, at that age, your look is changing every year. Right, you need new headshots constantly. So I would take my headshots every year. And he just sent me, like because the book is coming out, he knows I talk about this part of my life. He just sent me like eight years worth of my childhood headshots, which are shocking. Are you heartbroken that they're too late to be in the book? Well, there's no book, there's only an audio book. So. Interesting. All right. Yeah. So there are no photos anyway, but they'll probably pop up online. Yeah, that's good. That's a very helpful one. But what were you asking me about? I was just, well, so you're writing about, you mentioned talking about your childhood and like, you don't, you know, it's really just your memory, right? Your parents are around and your brother, your half brother had a very different childhood than yours. And so what was that, what was that process like of kind of having to remember on your own? There were really beautiful parts of that. Like I said, I don't look back a lot. I don't, I know I had a great childhood. I know I had amazing parents, but they've both been, my mom died when I was at Northwestern, when I was 20. My dad, I had an older dad who was much older than my mom, but then strangely ended up living a lot longer than her cause she died young. So my dad died at 80, but that was in 2011. Right. So my dad died a month before we sold Billy on the street as a TV show. Oh my God. And my career took off. So kind of a sad, bitter, sweet bit of timing. Like in that same year, my dad died in the beginning of the year, and then by the end of the year I was on TV and had a career, which I didn't have when the year started. It was crazy. Did he, was he, what was his engagement with like the early Billy on the street videos before that it was a television show when that was just- My dad was the most insanely wildly devoted parent of like a young gay person and also a struggling actor, comedian, writer. He would come to the Billy on the street videos started as one segment in my live show that I did in New York between 2003 and 2008. And with the first Billy on the street video, which we didn't even call it that. We just said, I was developing this persona on stage that would get as the show went on increasingly angry about pop culture. Right. And the audience loved it. It was a very sophisticated New York audience who it was like they were theater goers. So they were smart and they could handle how gay and outside the box I was, which was kind of unusual in the comedy world in 2003. Right. We're going way back. Things have gotten a lot of gay. But they weren't then. But the New York audience was a theater going audience who could handle it. But at the same time, they still were obsessed with culture too and Hollywood and pop culture, even though they might not admit it. And so I was playing this character on stage. I would do these like 12 minute long movie reviews of movies that had just come out or Broadway shows that had just opened. And I would spiral over the course of the review and get just increasingly worked up and agitated about how much I hated whatever I had just seen. Right. And then that was really working for the audience. And so I sit to my friend, Jamie, who also went to Northwestern with me, who was directing the show, because we were theater kids. We didn't have any, we didn't know anything about a camera. This was way before iPhones, YouTube does not exist yet. Yes, of course. But I said, what if we went out on the street and I stopped people, New Yorkers who are so busy and everyone's walking around with blinders on. And I kind of do what I'm doing on stage, but I forced someone to deal with it. Right. And I forced someone to talk to me about, you know, Meryl Streep or some underappreciated actor or some pop culture topic. So we just went out and started shooting it. And we edited the video together on a desktop. You know, again, there's no YouTube. We did this to project onto a small screen in this cabaret space that we were performing in. And the first time we showed what would become a Billy on the street video was September of 2004. Yeah. And so my dad, and I would do this live show monthly. And the first time, from the first time we showed the Billy on the street video, the audience was falling out of their seats. And I thought, oh, shit, I'm gonna have to do this a lot. Yeah. Right. But it was working. And obviously, and I didn't even know at the time how much it would work. This was just, oh, it's working for these 40 people sitting here, you know, it was in the basement of a synagogue on the Upper West Side. This one, we did a one-off show and it happened to be where the first Billy on the street video was ever played. And then we moved to other theaters around New York, but my father would come to every single ship. Every month he would take the subway in from Queens. He was retired at this point. He's in his 70s. And the shows would start late at night and they would be over at like midnight, 1 a.m. He'd come out to drinks with me and my friends after, you know, and I talk about all of this in the book. And it was so sweet and he was so proud. Now on stage, I am ranting and raving like a mad man. And not only about pop culture, I am like, there were like rants about how much I loved anal sex. I mean, I was like, especially for 2004, 2005, like I am really, because my goal was to shock a New York audience, right? Which meant I needed to really push the boundaries a little bit. My 75 year old father from the Bronx, right, is sitting there and he loved it. Just loved it. To the point where before this show where I would like rant about actresses and sex and gay things, he would walk around the audience with my baby picture and he would go up to everyone in the audience and he would say, you see this? That's Billy. I'm the father. I'm the father. He sounded like Alan Ark in my dad. He was this Bronx guy and he was so proud of me. But when you saw what I was doing on stage, I mean, most parents would have run in the other direction. Do you think, I mean, one must, I think any parent would love it if their kid is killing, right? So even if it's not for him, I would imagine he's so proud. He's like, oh my God, look at this, Billy's crushing. If there was nobody there, do you think he would have watched it and been like, God, this is the best? Like, you know what I mean? Oh, that's an interesting question. I think you're right. I think he, my dad was really hip. And although my dad was, my dad was a commercial rent tax auditor for the city of New York. Like he worked for the city. He was a numbers guy. He was an accountant by trade. However, he loved show business. And we would sit and read from the time I was a kid. We would read page six and the gossip columns together in the New York Post, right? And he loved Broadway. And, oh, here's Josh. These tech problems, trust me, I've been real cool about it this morning. I haven't been swearing at the top of my lungs in this house, scaring my dogs and making my wife less impressed with me. God, I got it normally. Well, happy you're here. If you're happy to be here. So sorry, keep going. So my dad was obsessed with show business, you know? He was kind of this old school guy. Remember, he's in his 60s and 70s when I'm growing up. To him, Broadway was pop music. You know, when I was blasting Barbara Streisand's the Broadway album, when I was seven years old in our apartment in 1985 and becoming obsessed with Broadway and show business. My dad, I'm sure there was a part of him. I know for a fact, I'm sure him and my mom. When I finally came out of the closet when I was at Northwestern, I said to them, I was like, guys, you knew, come on. Like you had to know. I said to them, all the Broadway, the Madonna concerts you took me to, Barbara Streisand, Bet Midler, like, come on. And my dad looked at me and said, we discussed the possibility. And I said, I bet you have. But however, it never, my interests, which were the interests of a gay son, not to stereotype, but they were, they didn't scare him off because he was born in a time when Broadway was what they played on the radio. So even if a part of him maybe thought, this is an interesting interest for my young son to have at such a young age, he also had the same interests. Like he loved Barbara Streisand. Like, you know, like for him, that was pop music. And it's weird. You would think having an older dad and being like a young gay kid that that might actually make it worse. But weirdly, it made it easier because I say in the book, from the time I was 10 years old or even younger, I had the cultural tastes of an elderly woman. Yeah. It's like, I love Broadway and magazines and the Tony Awards. And so did my dad, you know, because he was a little older. So it strangely worked to my advantage. And he stayed like the most wildly devoted fan. I do think you're right. I think what he loved was that the audience was laughing so much. Right. You know, I'm sure some things went over his head. He would have been very blunt. You know, if no one was coming to my shows, the show took off pretty quickly, at least kind of in local comedy circles, right? Yeah. So there was always an audience and it was kind of a hot show for a minute. And Rachel Dratch came to be on the show and Anna Gastier and like a lot of SNL people started to come in. Both Tony nominated as of today, which is great. To both of them. Wow. Yes, which is awesome. And so, yes, I think he liked the fact that it was going well, but he was just so proud. And the book really is a tribute to my parents. And I say in the book, I think you can separate people between people who were successful because of their parents and people who were successful in spite of their parents. And I am definitely successful because of my parents. And there are a lot of really hilarious, heartwarming stories in the book about them. It's kind of not even knowing how to support me, but really wanting to. We're very much because of our parents' situation as well. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break and hear from some of our sponsors. Support comes from Yahoo Mail now with Planner. Hey, Bashe. Hey, Sufi. Oh man, I need to get my life organized. 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That's true, yeah. And you know, we were lucky because we did have a house-trained dog in that Frisbee, Frisbee did her business on a pad, which is like a dog's version of a litter box. And I will tell you, when we were had kids, young kids, it was nice to not have to worry about Frisbee. And I'm assuming if you have a cat, you don't want to worry about the state of the litter box. The Whisker Litter Robot automatically cycles after every use, so you're not handling waste or scooping daily, which is especially important during pregnancy, not the cats. Right, yours. Yeah, no. I mean, Mackenzie grew up with cats, and I feel like if we moved to another house, there's probably a cat in our future, and I think the thing that makes me most hesitant about it is that changing the litter box and these Whisker Litter Robots, they handle all that. They take care of all that for you. Also, it's a very, very modern posh. 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Apple Card is designed with your iPhone in mind, making it easy to get started and even easier to use. Apple Card is a no-fee credit card you can apply for right from the wallet app on your iPhone. Apple Card has no annual fee, no late fees, and no foreign transaction fees. No fees, period. Every credit card should be this easy. Get started in the wallet app today. Variable APRs for Apple Card range from 17.49% to 27.74% based on credit worthiness. Rates as of January 1, 2026. Existing customers can view their variable APR in the wallet app or at card.apple.com. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com. Here we go. Did you, the good news, Josh, is you've missed very, we haven't even gotten into trips yet, so that's... Oh, well, I thought that with my note, we wouldn't hear the maybe you hadn't touched on it. So I want to start, because you talked about going to see Broadway. Was that like, when you went to see a Broadway show, like based on where you lived in the city, did that feel like a big trip? Oh my God. Magical. Okay, and how often would you go? So we were middle-class people, we were not rich people, but I was for all intents and purposes, an only child. My half brother, Steve, was already an adult and living by himself, and he had mainly grown up with his mom. And so I was an only child. And so even though my parents didn't have a ton of resources, and they were kind of a typical family, they put everything on credit cards, they had massive credit card debt, and in order for me to go to Northwestern, they had to take out a bunch of loans and all that sort of thing, but they made it work. Like they made it happen. And I got whatever they had, right? Cause I was an only child. And we were in New York in Queens, half hour outside of Midtown Manhattan. So we did have access to things. So in terms of Broadway shows, the first Broadway show I went to, I begged them to take me to see Angeloid Webber's Starlight Express. Yes. This, Starlight has come up on this podcast so many times. Yes, so many times. That's amazing. Yeah. Starlight Express was my first Broadway show. I would, if you grew up in New York City in the 80s and 90s, especially, there would be a ton of commercials for Broadway shows on local TV all the time. They would play on a loop. And I became, that's how I found out about shows. And I was also this culture obsessed kid who was already reading like the arts and leisure section of the Sunday Times and the Village Boys. And I was one of those kids. And so I begged them to take me to see Starlight Express, which they did. And that completely, it's the most on the nose story, but it completely changed my life. The funny thing about Starlight Express is that, and this gives you a little look into my brain as a child, a friend of mine who lived down the block, his parents had surprised him with tickets to a Broadway show. And I got really jealous. And I said, well, I wanna go to a Broadway show. And I wanna be surprised. Like that sounded very exciting to me. However, I wanted to orchestrate every element of the surprise. Right? I tell this whole story in the book. And so I left my parents explicit instructions on how and when to surprise me with tickets to Starlight Express. Cause I always had a vision for how I wanted it to go. You know? And so, and they did, and they quote unquote, surprised me with tickets. And Starlight Express, they were all on roller skates. Yes, we've seen it. Yeah. And so, at the, during, we were up in the mezzanine and I think they had gotten what we would often do, unless it was a special occasion, like a birthday or anniversary, then they would get full price tickets and we would sit in the orchestra. That was like a once or twice a year thing. But then we joined TDF, where you, the theater development fund, where you could get discounted tickets for shows and sit up in the balcony or the mezzanine, or you could go to the TKTS booth in Times Square, get half price tickets. So that's what we did most of the time. And so for Starlight Express, we were up in the mezzanine. They had gotten, I think they had gotten tickets at TKTS. And during the boughs, the ensemble, all on roller skates would, they had built it so that they could roller skate up to the front of the mezzanine during the boughs. And this one dancer, and I don't know who he is, he was in the ensemble, he wasn't a star. And I, but I think about this dancer all the time. And yes, I do sing the title song from Starlight Express in my audio book, just so you're warned. And so he skated right up to me during the boughs. And he must have seen that I was just mesmerized, right? Yeah. And I'm sure I wasn't the only like chubby, gay, Jewish, closeted kid that had been at Starlight Express at that point. So he rollers skated right up to me and he kind of bent over and waved in my face, but not just like a generic wave where he didn't see who he was really waving at. Like he looked in my eyes and that moment, that was it. Yeah. I was sold. This was the greatest thing I had ever seen. And from then on, I just wanted to see more and more Broadway shows, but they're expensive. And so I had to beg and we had to get discount tickets. But luckily, again, my parents loved the theater. Right, it wasn't just that they were fighting the bullet. It was a great experience for them too. This became like a way for us to bond. Yeah. And I talk about in the book sometimes, and we would go to the movies every Saturday night, big mainstream movies, little weird indie movies. They took me to see a lot of queer, gay stuff that was not meant for a child. Everything, kind of everything and anything big and small. Basically, whatever I wanted to see, we saw. And I was just exposed to a lot as a little kid and we bonded that way as a family. And what I was gonna say is that I think sometimes, and this is a theme that I realized looking back on my childhood and teenage years, which were the only years I had with both of my parents, like the act of going to the play, of going to the movie together, what happens when you're on your way there, sitting there with the play bill, during intermission, coming home from it, that's actually more meaningful sometimes than the show itself. Yes. Or then the movie itself. It's like the act of going together. And that was a big part of what we did as a family in a way that they got Sundomi. And it's like memory building. I just took my son to a baseball game and the actual game, he was excited about going to the game and he was excited that he had gone to a game. At the game itself, he got distracted kind of right away. But the whole, the pomp and circumstance of a thing is so cool with kids and they know you've been to one before so they have all these questions for it. I should know my in-laws just took Ash, my 10 year old, to the new cats, the Jellicle Ball. Oh, it's amazing. But it's so funny because they definitely thought it was cats, cats. Oh, that's so funny. And so they came home and they're like, so, and they're super hip, cool people, but they in a very sweet way were like, hey, we maybe took Ash to a drag show. They definitely did. Yeah. But the best is, again, he's a 10 year old who lives in New York City. He's not like, he wasn't clutching his invisible pearls. He's like, yeah, it was fun. It was their cats. Yeah, totally. No, I'm sure he wasn't phased at all. Well, that's also being a New York City kid, which you guys weren't, but your children are going to be. Yeah, it's shocking. That's a very unique thing too. I think it's great. I think to grow up and be on the subway and just see people from all walks of life and just be thrown together, you're so not isolated and so many kids grow up isolated. And I think even with Billy on the street, people always say, how do you do that? Like, aren't you scared? You're going to get punched. That's always the question. But I do think I'm like, well, how do I do? Like, why did I think I could do that? And I think it's because I was just used to being in New York and nothing about New York City scares me. You know, like I have faith in New York. I also feel like you are as manic and I don't know, unhinged as you seem. I also feel having, you know, we did one, you were kind enough to do one when I hosted the Emmys. Oh yeah. Like you are in control. Like you present as someone who is native to these streets. So strangely, I even feel like people, you know, every now and then obviously you surprised them because they're like wearing headphones or stuff. But when they see you, they're like, oh, he's from here. Like, like this is, what is happening here is supposed to happen here, which I think is an incredible magic trick that you've pulled off. I agree. I don't think people are, you know, again, they're New Yorkers and that's sort of the kind of thing you expect to happen in New York. Like, you know, whether or not you want me to shout on your face is another thing, but you're not going to be like horribly put off by it. And you might even think it's fun to engage as a lot of people do. Yeah. Would you guys take the train? If you were going into the city, would you drive? It would depend. My father would prefer to take the subway so that he didn't have to park the car. Yeah, sure. Or drive, but I thought it was much more glamorous to drive over the 59th street bridge. And I wanted to see the skyline and I didn't want to be stuck on the subway. And so that was always a conversation, but I would fight to take the car and usually I would win that battle. Okay. And then did you have a regular dinner spot that you would go to? Was there? Yes. So we would go almost every single time we would go to a sparo for pizza, which used to be in Times Square. Because again, we had to watch the money. It was like the money was for the to go see the play, but that's it. There were my parents, we never, we chose what to spend their resources on. And it was never food. We didn't go to fancy restaurants. It was always about entertainment. It was like concerts and plays and movies and things like that. So we would go to the Broadway show, but we would eat pizza on the way there. And my father refused to pay for parking in any of those expensive parking lots in Midtown. So we would park far away in Hell's Kitchen, which at the time, now it's like a lot of people live there. But at the time was very dangerous and it was all like sex workers. And it was kind of a dangerous part of town, but that's where he would insist on parking because he could park on the street and it was free. Yeah, gotcha. And my last question on this, Starlight Express, did you act surprised when your parents followed through and surprised you with tickets to Starlight Express? How was your performance in that moment? I think it was pretty legit. You know, like I wanted to feel the magic of being surprised. And so I was, you know, and I kind of, I was always orchestrating everything. You know, I talk in the book about how I orchestrated Billy on the Street with like the same intensity that I brought to that behind the scenes. I brought to art directing my Bar Mitzvah in 1991. You know, it's just, I thought I was putting together the Met Gala when I put together that Bar Mitzvah, you know? Like this is just how I was. I don't know. And so, but yeah, and I think part of it was allowing myself to feel surprised, even though I wasn't, if that makes any sense. Yeah. I like that you were not doing, that your performance of surprise was not to make your parents feel good about it. It was that you wanted to feel, it was you perform surprised to give yourself a sensation of being surprised. That's right. Yeah. I think some of it was from my parents. Like, you know, but, but, but I think, I think you're right. It's like, it's like it was a scene out of a play to me. Right. And then when it happened, you know, we had the rehearsal, I thought about it in my mind and then my parents blessed them. They followed through on making that, essentially producing that scene for me, making that come to life. And then I did my job, which was to feel and act surprised that we were going into the city to see Starlight Express. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Done, done. Did you guys, you know, obviously, you know, you were very money conscious. Did you travel? Did you ever get on an airplane and go anywhere? The only, only, okay. So the only trip we would take once a year that involved a plane, every single year except one time, which I'll tell you about, we went to see my grandparents who of course, you know, lived in Miami, North Miami Beach in Florida. That's where my father's parents lived at this point. What's crazy is though, like, and again, I had an older dad. My dad fought in the Korean War, you know, if he was alive now, he'd be in his mid nineties. But even he was born and raised in the Bronx, but even his parents, they were not immigrants. They were born and raised in New York City. Like that's how far back, I mean, we are like real New Yorkers. And so, but at this point, they had retired to Florida, like proper New York City Jews. And so we would go see them over my Christmas break every year and we'd go to Disney a lot. So the only place I ever went as a kid was Disney World. But I went there a lot, but it's the only place that we went. Except one year, at this point, I'm like 14 years old. And I was like, guys, we've never gone anywhere. And of course I was obsessed with Hollywood. And I would only see LA on TV watching entertainment tonight or the red carpet shows or, you know, anything Hollywood oriented. And so I convinced them to take a bigger trip one time, which still had to start with us, even though it makes no sense going to Miami to see my grandparents first. And then going to LA for the first time. And then they added on a few nights in San Francisco and a night in Las Vegas, right? Wow. Yeah, this was our one big trip. What's interesting about that trip is that I don't, LA was kind of underwhelming to me, because of course, if you've been to LA, it's not the Hollywood that you see on TV. And it's much grittier. And the romantic version of LA that I had in my head was not what I was met with when we went out there. So I remember a little bit of that, but what I do remember is when we went up to San Francisco because, and there's a funnier version of this in the book, but I'll tell it to you quickly. I was, this will not come as a shock, completely obsessed with Madonna as a kid. Because my coming of age overlapped with Madonna becoming a superstar. I mean, you know, 1985, like a virgin comes out, I'm seven years old, right? I'm becoming obsessed with MTV. My parents took me to see the Blonde Ambition Tour where she's in the Cobra on the garter belt. And we all sat there together at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island watching her on stage, you know, surrounded by gay men, you know, like. I mean, that is good prep. That is good prep for your dad seeing you do comedy later. Like I'd say it's nice he brought him to that. Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, so they were very aware of my Madonna obsession. We had an almost life-size spray painted portrait of Madonna at my Bar Mitzvah. And so we get to San Francisco and it was the night of the MTV Video Music Awards, which back in the day was like the peak of cool, peak zeitgeist, you know. And they had announced Madonna was opening the show. And it was an interesting moment in Madonna's career. Erotica had come out. It was not a commercial success. It was kind of her first moment where things kind of went off the rails. She was getting a lot of bad press, but I as a devoted fan, I was so dedicated to her, right? And her success. And so I had to see her open the VMAs. I mean, this was not even a question, right? Right. This was a must. This is back in 1992, 1993. There's no DVR, obviously. They're not putting the show or the clips on YouTube as they're happening. You had to watch it. There's no promise even of like, when will they rerun it? That's right. They might rerun it six months later. Right. On Christmas day or something, but that was it. The best you were gonna do is maybe see photos of it or a clip of it on entertainment tonight and so I had to see this. So we get to the hotel and it was like a fine hotel, nothing too fancy. It was called the Aston Pickwick. It was kind of old. My dad probably got some deal on it. And we get to the Aston Pickwick the night of the VMAs and I had just always assumed, well, they'll have cable TV. It's a decent hotel. And we'll watch the VMAs from our hotel room. They did not have MTV. And I fell apart. I had like almost a nervous breakdown as a 13 year old child because how was I gonna watch Madonna? The thought of missing Madonna perform on the VMAs was incomprehensible. It's not something that happened in our house. You know, like it's just not something that could have happened. And my parents didn't know what to do and they could see how upset I was. And most parents would have said, shut the fuck up, you're a spoiled brat. We are on vacation for the first time. You'll see Madonna later, like shut up, get a hold of yourself, right? But that's not what Jay and Debbie Eichner did. They somehow at the last minute searched for a motel room that had MTV. And they found a motel room that was mainly used by sex workers in San Francisco. That was extremely cheap that you could literally rent by the hour. But they had MTV and they rented us this motel room for the night so that I could watch Madonna open the VMAs. And we walk into this motel room, it was tiny. It was all run down. My mother, they didn't wanna say, I knew exactly what this motel was meant for. And my mother yelled at me, she said, sit on the bed but don't touch the sheets. She didn't want me to touch the sheets. There was practically nowhere to sit. There was literally a red light bulb in the lamp. I'm not kidding, right? And my dad was like six foot four. He like folded himself into this one like beaten down, like lazy boy kind of chair they had in the corner. And my mom and I sat on the bed and we watched MTV and we watched Madonna open the show. And then we went back to the Aston Pickwick. And I don't remember anything about the Hollywood part of that trip, which is why I wanted to go on this trip. But I remember that. God love them both. Do you, looking back, be honest, like what percentages, oh my God, we love him, we have to do this for him. And what percentage is like, this is gonna be such a thing if Billy can't see it. Like Billy would be impossible to do. Yeah, I think it was both. I mean, it was a thing, right? But they could feel how much this meant to me. Yeah. Right? I think a little bit of, oh yes, you're right. And you're a parent, so you know. And a little bit of it was about like, we've gotta just get him to shut up. Right. Like, you know, otherwise tonight's gonna be so. I will say as a parent, the part where you have to kind of fix it is if they also had been, you know, under the assumption that this was gonna be fine at the Aston Pickwick, I'm sure like they knew that night was gonna be about watching this. And so they probably felt, as a parent, I would feel like, oh my God, I can't believe if it never occurred to me this wouldn't have MTV, we have to fix it. Yeah, exactly. And by that point, I'm several years into my love for Madonna, right? You're not faking it. They know, like, they know how much this means to me. To them, it was like, you know, Michael Phelps' parents waking up at 4 a.m. to take him to the swim practice. Like that's how it felt to them. They could feel, or at least they could feel that that's the importance it had to me. It wasn't just, oh, I'm fan-girling out over like the pop diva I love. It wasn't that. It was a little deeper than that. And I could already feel like, this is this, I think they could feel, this is this kid's life. Like performance and entertainment. Like, this is his little leak. Like, and we have to support that. And I'm very lucky, because a lot of parents obviously would not in that moment, especially. But that's just not how they were. And their default mode was always to try to make me feel happy and satisfied, you know? So sweet. That's nice. Yeah. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break and hear from some of our sponsors. Support comes from Hems. Hey, Bashi. Hey, Zuby. Oh, your head of hair, Pashi. What we wouldn't give. What men your age wouldn't give. What men 10 years younger than you wouldn't give. And you know what? Some of us have lesser heads of hair, but that doesn't mean we're happy when it starts going away. Hair loss doesn't fix itself. In the earlier you act, the better. 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Well, they must have been, our dad's parents were very old. Like they had him late. And so it is that thing of like having old grandparents makes it a little bit harder to look forward to spending time with them. They were a little crotchety, by that point. I mean, it was nice to see them and my grandmother was lovely to me. Of course, I was a really young kid at that point. So I was looking forward to Disney World, which was the second half of the trip. And of course, I still love Disney. I'm like a totally shameless Disney adult. Not like I have a, you know, season round pass and I go all the time. But when I go, I fucking love it. And I loved it as a kid. My mother, I wasn't a very physically affectionate kid, probably because my mother was so affectionate that of course I kind of rebelled against that. But when I saw Goofy for the first time, I hugged this man's legs, you know, so hard. My mother said, I've never seen him hug anyone the way he hugged Goofy. Why doesn't he hug me the way he hugs Goofy? Did you, like going into the day, were you a kid who were like, I'll tell you who I'm gonna hug is Goofy or was Goofy just kind of the first one you saw? No, my plan was to hug Goofy. Goofy? All right, so you went in as a Goofy guy? Yeah, I went in as a Goofy guy. Yeah, I was Goofy forward. And I was searching for him in the park. You know, Mickey Mouse was like, he was the lead. It was too on the nose to like Mickey Mouse, you know? I wanted to like kind of the quirky, more interesting side character, you know? Yeah, no, it's a deep cut. He's a deep cut, but like also not, like he's also not so weird as if like you're trying too hard. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's not like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. It's like, you know, calm down, you know? You're probably not even gonna see them in the park. Yeah. Did you get the hat with the ears? Like were you that? I sure did. I sure did. I have that Goofy hat with the ears. That is a brilliant piece of marketing. Let me tell you, I'm not even joking. I saw that they still sell that at Disney like 40 years later. Yeah, I mean, you think that the Mickey Mouse ears and Minnie Mouse, you can't beat that, but there's something about the Goofy hat that like makes you, you really makes you look like Goofy. Yeah. Yeah, and there was something about Goofy that seemed gay. I can't articulate it. Interesting, I would never, if you just said, who does Billy think seems gay amongst the pantheon of Disney characters? I don't know if I would say Goofy. Well, in recent years, there might be more obvious choices, but I'm talking about the classics. Back in the 80s, like looking around at the options, I was like, I could see Goofy at a leather bar. You know what I mean? Like you can see Goofy in a harness. He's so tall, but like kind of awkward. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Goofy, I could feel Goofy could be in the drama club. He was like the really tall, effeminate one in the chorus. See, I always think of Goofy as overalls, which is, I mean, you know, maybe I'm not as dialed in. That would kind of eliminate him as an option. No, can you guys like overalls? Yeah, but he could also be like in the chorus in West Side Story or something. He's like, yeah. Something for Oklahoma, you know. Yeah, yeah. Something like that. And that week in Miami before you got to go to Disney, like what would you do with your grandparents? Was it just sort of hanging out? My grandmother was a great cook and she would make like very delicious treats and like rug-a-lug and like all this like Jewish pastry. And then they would find things for me to do. We would go to Parrot Jungle. I don't know if that's still there, but it was like this makeshift jungle space that kids could go to to like see birds and stuff. Parrot Jungle, when you said it, I picture the brochure, the rental car place. That's right. Yeah. Anything that that's exactly right. What anything they had a brochure for for families at the rental car place, that's where we went. We went to, they also had Monkey Jungle, I think. Wow. Minigolf, you know, but I also was a kid who just loved the mall and it was the 80s. So we would go to like Aventura Mall and you know, walk around and Aventura Mall was pretty glamorous. It is amazing to think back to like what, how much of our time growing up was just going to a mall and that that was... Yeah. Do kids still do that? I really don't know. I don't think they do. I don't know. I had to go to a mall recently and it was very strange. I got very stressed out, but they was packed. So people were there. That's good, I'm glad to hear it. Yeah. Which mall did you go to, Paus? And what for? I was in the Glendale Galleria. Wow. Yeah. I really like those outdoor malls in LA. Sure. Yeah. They're lovely. Those are pretty, those are lovely. And at Northwestern, I was obsessed with Old Orchard. Are you kidding? Yeah. The Mangianos out there and the movie theater. Oh, the Mangianos. The Cheesecake Factory, that movie theater. Yeah. Yeah. I loved it. Yeah. It is funny that they, like that was, you needed to have a friend with a car to go to the Old Orchard Mall. Yes. And it really... And Robin had a car. Just like opened up your whole world. Love that Old Orchard. I, you know, talking about hugging Goofy, I just, when I went to the baseball game with my son, Ash, the Red Sox have this mascot, Wally, the green monster. And, you know, he's one of... I'm like, Ash, let's get a picture with Wally. And, you know, so Ash really, I mean, don't think he cared that much, but he's 10. So it's a little bit past the point where he's, but it's really like, I was excited to get this picture. And then when it was over, Wally was like, hey man, I like your show. It is that funny thing of like, even I, as like a 52 year old man, we're like, ah! Great, yeah. There's a person in there. You're so good at doing this magic. Yeah. But it was really, yeah. That's interesting. Like I met Wally, the mammoth from Mammoth Mountain, and he will not talk. I was at a Northwestern football game recently and was hanging out with Wally the Wildcat, will not talk. And yeah, so... I appreciate that devotion. Me too. Yeah. That character work. Yeah, exactly. Deep, deep. It is, congrats on your book, Wally. How did, did you enjoy recording it? The recording process was more intense than I thought it would be. Honestly, you know, you kind of worry about the writing of it, but especially for me, because it's only an audio book. It really came down to that recording and it is a performance in a way. I mean, it's all real and it's my life, but there is a performance element to it, but it's not on camera. So you really have to put it across vocally, you know? But it was fun, ultimately. It was very emotional. I'm talking about my parents and the book really forced me for the first time in a long time. Again, I don't sit around and think about my parents all the time. I mean, I loved them and they were amazing. I'm just not that person. But this forced me to do that and to revisit all these really wonderful, funny, heartwarming stories. And I'm really grateful that I had a reason to. And so it was emotional. I also like, the book is fun because it's audio. We have clips from my career throughout the book. So there's like Billy on the street clips, like the audio of them, like strewn throughout the book, like peppered throughout the book. And I also do impressions of my dad and other people in my life. So that was really fun. I enjoyed that part. But it was pretty taxing the recording of it. Well, I'm very glad that Jay and Debbie are getting their stories told. They sound like special people. But before we let you go, Josh is going to ask you our speed round questions. Let's see. Before we get into these, also Billy, I know we talked about this at Robin and Sam's wedding, but you gave the convocation address for the Northwestern School of Communications a couple of years ago. I'm doing it this year. I just watched yours yesterday. It's so good. I'm sure that those graduating students really appreciated it and you've inspired me. So bravo to that. Hi, Baris. You had a higher bar. I love it. Yeah, you really did. That was cool. Good luck. I'm excited to see yours. Yeah. All right, here we go. You can only pick one of these. Is your ideal vacation relaxing, adventurous, or educational? Adventurous, probably. What is your favorite means of transportation? Oh, my favorite, a boat? Okay. Like for fun, not till I get somewhere. No, no, no. If you could take a vacation with any family, alive or dead, real or fictional, other than your own family, what family would you like to take a vacation with? Fictional family? Oh my God, this is such a good question. They could be real as well. They don't have to be fictional. Can I say the Golden Girls? Yes. That's great. I mean, that would be fun. Great answer. Oh my gosh. They're such good jokes. If you had to be stranded on a desert island with one member of your family, who would it be? Alive or dead. Any. Can be dead. Can bring them back. Well, I guess my parents, be weird not to bring them back to life if given the opportunity. And then they're like a desert island. But you have to pick one. I haven't seen you in 40 years, but you know what, I'm going with cousin Eleanor. What is your dream destination for a family vacation? Well, there are different types of family. Do you mean my chosen family? I'm just kidding. Sure. Well, I'll tell you where I've never been. I'm embarrassed to say, which is number one on my list because I know everyone loves it is Japan. Yeah, that's mine too. Yeah, it's coming up. I've never been dying. Wow, that surprises me. I know. It's a long time ago. I've been, it's great. And Queens, you're from Queens, correct? That's right. If you had to get more families to come visit Queens, how would you pitch that burrow? Queens is underappreciated. It's one of the most diverse places on earth, the borough of Queens. And it was a really perfect place to grow up because I didn't grow up in the thick of it in Manhattan, which maybe would have been fun, but my parents could have never afforded that. But it was really easy for me to get to Manhattan, but I still had a somewhat suburban like childhood in Forest Hills in Queens. I could walk to elementary school. I could walk to my junior high school. It felt like a neighborhood. It was very warm. And we still had movie theaters and bookstores and things. And then in 20 minutes, I could be in the center of the universe. And so it's a perfect place to grow up. And I always think it's weird when people find out I grew up in New York City. I went, I did go to high school in Manhattan. And people say, oh, that's so weird. That must have been crazy. I think it's the greatest thing ever because you're exposed to so much as a kid that other kids don't get exposed to in a good way. Oh, fantastic. And then Steph has our final questions. Billy, have you ever been to the Grand Canyon? No, and I refuse. I love it. I love it, buddy. Thank you. I was so hopeful that that would be your answer. Thank you so much. There's nothing, no showbiz has ever happened at the Grand Canyon and never will. Billy Ector is not interested. And how little you've added to culture. That's right. You know what, do an award show in there and maybe I'll show up, all right? Maybe when YouTube gets the Oscars, they'll take place in the Grand Canyon. Yeah, exactly. The cany's. Thanks, buddy. We love you. Thank you, Billy. Thank you guys. Thank you for having me. Family chips with the Midas Brothers. Family chips with the Midas Brothers. Here we go. I think I saw Baba Baba Baba Baba Baba Baba Baba Baba Baba When you're a boy and you wanna see starlight, but you also wanna surprise, then here's what you gotta do. Just tell your parents that, baby, you would like to see the show, but that they should surprise you. When the tickets are revealed, then you perform for them with all the feels. When he went to San Fran after a so-so trip to LA, nearly recite to see my daughter start things up at the VMAs. But his hotel didn't have MTV, and let's just say he wasn't handling it well. His parents stepped up to the plate and booked a room in a city motel. A sex worker motel. Not an affection in him, but that all changed in Disney World because he was a fanboy. Saw it out and found his dog Goofy, hugged him hard around the knee. Surprise yourself with Broadway tickets, a sex motel for VMAs. And when he went to Disney and thought who's here like me, gay, tall and funny, well hello it's Goofy. Surprise yourself with Broadway tickets. A sex motel. Okay. And when he went to Disney and thought who's here like me, gay, tall and funny, well hello it's Goofy.