Billy West thanks the Stern fans on his message board...

...the reveals he has battled severe depression his entire life.


I never realized there was so much hoopla about my time there.I'm truly honored.I hope you all wet your pants from laughing. Believe it or not,I personally could not enjoy anything back then.I wish I could've but I was being hammered from severe depression day and night. I was finally treated for it a few years ago and for the first time in my entire 55 years I was able to get up out of bed feeling that everything would be alright.So again,I say thanks for your appreciation of things I was fortunate enough to be involved with over the years.I laugh now recalling the old stuff.It feels good to laugh.


Billy West


Thanks so much everyone----

I did a lot of stuff over the years but the absolute high point in my life was when I did 4 or 5 gigs with one of my heroes...Brian Wilson.When I was 15 everything I wanted to know about music was contained in all those beautiful songs.To have played the guitar 14 years ago for the guy that wrote ''God Only Knows'' (which Paul McCartney said was the best song ever written) was the greatest thing I've ever done. If you've never heard ''I just wasn't made for these times'' it is spectrally
beautiful and knocked me on my ass when I first heard it.

Billy


QAPete,
Thanks to you and all who can apprciate the FM radio days.There were many restricitions on what you could say or even infer.There were still subjects that you were not able to discuss.Heavy FCC then.I think what we collaberated on was fantastastic.You know that making people laugh is of great importance in this world,but to this day,there are still some idiots that think all there is to comedy is reading it.If that were the case-then any jamoke could sit down and be funny on the air.But if you don't have wild ass perforimg skills, you CANNOT make anything funny. If it was all about reading--then I wouldn't have been needed for anything.If it was all about reading I wouldn't have been desirable for cartoons and commercials.I have to audition for a serious amount of work.I don't get that work from being able read better than someone else.They want great performances more than anything else.You get hired for the choices you make more than the words you are given to say. I brought everthing I knew about being a comedic performer to the party.I did a lot of improv in those performances and I'm not going defined by
idiots who were 12 when I did them.If I said,''hey now'' it would not be funny.If I was ACTING like some nobody who says,''hey now'' and thinks they're funny,I could make it REAL funny.Every performer knows what it's like when you're dissmissed by morons.Only the morons don't realize that they themselves will be used as some cliche' type of character in an actor's repertoire.To make others laugh.When somebody throws a tomato at you---you throw the thing back at 90 mph. That's what we did.


Have a lot of fun,
Billy

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