Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out - 101. Elyse Myers: Telling Stories Literally Anywhere

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

Elyse Myers has exploded into long form storytelling from a short form platform: TikTok. She tells funny and personal stories to millions of people on TikTok and Instagram and on her podcast “Funny Cuz it’s True” but doesn’t really tell stories on stage. That’s Mike’s focus today. He tries to convince Elyse to make a guest appearance on one of his new material shows and it seems like she *might* take him on it. Plus, discussions about balancing work and family, the time young Elyse used a penny to fake a fever, and why sometimes elevating something from good to great can ruin something good.Please consider donating to the National Birth Equity Collaborative (NBEC)

So this is a really unique episode today because it's Mike Birbiglia working out. Today's guest is Elise Myers, who is a storyteller who I found on TikTok and Instagram. It's a very unusual way for me to find somebody. She doesn't perform live, but she ended up creating a podcast that I love called Funny Because It's True, where she has guests. I was a guest on it. She tells stories. I'll just give you a sense of the types of stories that she sometimes tells. This is one of them.

Literally up until the night we took August home from the hospital, I had no clue what postpartum depression even was. I truly thought that postpartum was like a timestamp, the time in which this kind of depression happens, not the type. I had it all wrong. Unfortunately, I realized this a little too late. I was in it and I was fighting my way out one morning, afternoon, and night at a time. One of those mornings, I woke up around 3.30 AM to feed my son and I just could not fall back

asleep. The last thing I wanted to do was get back in bed and just be awake. That's even more frustrating than just not being able to sleep in the first place. So I went straight to my kitchen, and I made myself a coffee. And then out of nowhere, I just started trying to mentally connect the person I was in college with this person now, who's grabbing a cup out of my cupboard, who's grabbing ice trays out of the freezer, who's grabbing almond milk out of the fridge. These hands I'm looking at are the same hands. They took notes in school. They played viola in orchestra. They zipped up a wedding dress. They held my husband's hand, typed on my keyboard for work. Why don't these hands feel like my hands? As I was looking

down, I noticed my sweatshirt sleeves rolled up twice, the classic Elise double roll. I remembered why I started rolling my sleeves this way in the first place and how cool it made me feel the first time I did it. It was like my current self and my past self shook hands and met in that very moment. so that was elise myers and i i went on her podcast in the fall her podcast called funny because it's true with elise myers and um and then i have her on today and because i am convinced she should be telling stories on stage i mean i'm partial i'm obsessed with people telling stories on stage but i try to convince her of it today on the show. We work out some material. We tell stories. It's a super, super fun episode. Some really exciting news. I'll be in London with The Old

Man and the Pool at the Wyndham's Theatre, September 12th through October 7th. 30 performances. 12th through October 7th, 30 performances. I'm doing one week at the Edinburgh Fringe in Scotland, August 22 through 27. And I think you're going to love this episode. If you want to follow Elise Myers, you can listen to her podcast, Funny Because It's True, in all the platforms. You can follow her on TikTok or Instagram,

at Elise Myers. Enjoy my conversation with the great Elise Myers. You talk about postpartum depression that you experienced and how, and you describe it, and I'm going to do a terrible job of explaining this, but you describe it through the specificity of your hands. Yeah. And you're going through depression. And it was one of those things where I was like, you have this really specific approach, which is attacking a really macro idea with mundane, smaller things. Yeah.

And I was just curious, how'd you arrive at that? Well, honestly, I think that it comes from, like, I can't interpret postpartum depression for anybody else. I can't interpret most common shared experiences through any other lens of my own. And so to me, it's like, if I try and personalize something so big to so small, it's like, this is how I experienced this thing.

In one part of my brain, I'm like, well, then that's not relevant to anybody else because that's just your experience. But in doing that and breaking it into such a molecular level of like my postpartum depression was experienced and started to, I kind of like found my way out of it by looking at my hands and going, these are the same hands you got married with. Like people hear that. And though it feels so personal to me, they're like, no, I have felt that too. But because it's so specific, they feel like you're reading their mind. And that is like an instant connection point. I'm not trying to manipulate anybody. I'm not trying to make this relatable. I want to give people such specific information about my life and my feelings and

the way I experience something so that just on the off chance that they have also experienced that, I don't have to explain to you anything else about postpartum depression. And I know, or you know that I know that we've experienced the same thing. And I think that like, that's my goal is like, I want to talk about big things, big things, but make them feel like you're reading my diary in like a non-traumatic way. Like not like so uncomfortable that you're like, I shouldn't be reading this, but like so personal that you're like, me too, same. And it's interesting because like you're talking about like using the specific to convey a universal

and like that's an idea that people talk about in writing all the time, but you do it so effectively. And because I found like when I was hearing you tell that story, I'm like, oh yeah, I totally know what she means. And yet I did not do that. Yeah. I did not look at my hands.

I did not blah, blah, blah. But for me, it's like kind of like my sleepwalking story where it's like I jumped through a second story window. Very few people have done that. Right. I hope not a lot. Yeah, yeah. But hopefully I tell the story in a way where people go, oh, I have a thing like that where I'm uncomfortable telling that about myself. Well, the way that you do it, and I feel like we're similar in this, is that you're not talking so much about the experience.

You're talking about how you internalized it. Yeah. And that is what makes it relatable as well. Because it's like someone doesn't have to have had to jump out of a second story window, but you can explain how it felt, what you were thinking. And like that whole, that's a whole journey that you can feel about messing up someone else's name when like calling out their coffee order. That doesn't have to be so extreme. Like someone with anxiety can literally feel like messing up someone's name is like jumping out of a second story window. And like those are the same feelings.

And so being able to express that internal dialogue that's happening with you in your life is like special that just came out and how both of them call out that they're telling autobiographical stories, but this is the part I'm choosing to tell you. And they just hang a lantern on it. And that was really interesting. And it's like, I was thinking about with your stuff, like, do you have a code for yourself of I'm not going to talk about these things? I think that some of it is a feeling. Some of it's pre-decided. I think that if it's not my story to tell, that's an immediate no. If I'm crossing a line of sharing information that it's just not mine, that's not a story I tell.

But then there's stuff that is mine to tell, but it directly affects people that I love. And that's if they're not the ones that have decided to be in this position and in the spotlight, like they've not asked for this life. Like, so that's not fair either. So there's, there's some of that. And then some of it's like, I just want my, some of my life to be private and I want my family to feel like we're still a family and it's not the three of us and then the rest of the world as well also in our home all the time. And so a lot of it is like just between me and my husband, like we share stories about us. We don't really talk about our son very much. Yeah, we try and have these like very loose boundaries that are probably going to change and sometimes grow and sometimes get much closer and keep things more close to us. But I know that there are things that we don't share, but it's kind of just a figure it out as we go.

But some things you just have a gut feeling of like, this just isn't my story to tell. Do you have a very clear cut answer? Mine's pretty clear. It's like there's people in my life who I talk about a lot, like my wife Jenny and our daughter Una and my brother Joe and my parents. But yeah, I don't post photos of my daughter. I feel like that's her life. And I think increasingly I'm talking less about her like in the last show yeah she has like five or six lines whereas in the new

one when she was a baby I feel like it's it could be any baby the things yeah yeah yeah you know what I mean I'm curious like for you specifically and I know that's your podcast so you can cut all this up but like what is it like doing all of this while still having a family and like how do you how do you balance that because i'm trying to find that right now um i don't think it's possible okay that's a really honest answer some bad news thank you no i think i mean one thing i'm lucky about is is that my wife j Jenny, is a poet and she reads my stuff and I read her stuff and we interact on, you know, and so if there's stuff that she doesn't like and I didn't say that, I said more like this and blah, blah, blah. We talk it out. And a lot of times over the years, you know, with the new one, she was a writer, accredited writer on the show. And it's like,

I feel like we get through it, but it also doesn't mean it's not challenging. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's definitely like, you know, because in marriage you have two people who are witnessing almost identical events. Yeah. And remembering them two very different ways. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. So like. Oh my gosh, yes.

So like I have a joke. Usually I do this in the material section, but I'll just say a joke that I have that's new at my show, which is like many years ago we were in Chicago. Jenny and I are on an elevator, a hotel elevator coming down. We had stayed in the hotel before. And I said to her, I go, it just occurred to me, oh, we stayed in this hotel before and you loved the cafe in the lobby. And then her response was, she goes, who did? And I was like, oh no, because who did?

She's like, who else did you stay here with? Right. You got that very quickly. Sometimes audiences don't get it as quickly. So the subtext of it is, A, that wasn't me. B, that must have been someone else you were seeing. C, I'm not happy about this. And you get to the lobby, doors open. And she goes, I love this cafe. And I was like, I almost died in the elevator.

And you just casually remembered that I'm right. So anyway, so now Jenny and I, we have a safe word in our marriage and it's hooted. And it's when we remember an event differently. Wow. Yeah. It's involved. That is a very, that's a so many layers because I could see someone interpreting that as like, did I love it or did you love it? Or like, did I love it or did someone else that you saw stayed here with love it? Oh, yeah. Because that's how I would have interpreted the who did first.

But then the second time, no, he thought it was someone else. I don't even know. Like, literally over the years, we've had a lot of who dids. I mean, that's the thing about, I mean, this speaks to storytelling in a general sense, too. It's like, we're all remembering things in different ways. Oh, absolutely. The way we perceive everything. Like, I'm very visual.

Yeah. And Jen has an extraordinary sense of hearing and smell. And my sense of smell is junk. Great. Right? Love that for you. I love that for you. So she'll be like, I smell mildew.

And I'm like, I smell nothing. I haven't smelled anything for years. Yeah. First of all, I am the smell, 100%. Jonas is the auditory. I am the smell. I am the long-term memory. Jonas is the short-term memory.

I cannot remember what happened yesterday, but I could literally word for word, detail for detail, tell you the time that I sucked on a penny to get out of school and ended up accidentally faking an appendicitis. And every single thing the doctors said. Slept on a penny? Sucked on a penny. Sucked on a penny. Okay. Yeah, yeah. I heard a rumor that if you sucked on a penny, it would make your mouth really hot.

And you remember the temperatureometers and that had the blue dots that you like sure yeah and so it like was off the charts and she's like oh my gosh so then did a digital one and then she was like you need to go to the hospital right now like 110 degrees like so hot from this penny wow have you heard that do you hear this story i've heard no no okay well so that yeah so then i so then i'm like faking it and i'm really trying to sell it because my first two friends went in before me and they couldn't sell it and so i was like well it's up to me now you know what i mean i really want to go home so now i'm like i'm very unwell and she's like you need to go to the doctor and i'm like that's not what i just wanted to go

home i don't want to go to the doctor that like ruins the whole point yeah so then i didn't go to the doctor in the doc and i'm like down, I have a side ache, like my side. And my doctor's like, you need to take her across the street to like the pediatrician hospital or child hospital right now. And how old are you at this point? I'm in second grade. Oh, wow. And then now I'm trying to like from the doctors to the hospital trying to tell them like I was lying. But now they think I'm telling the – I'm like lying about but now they think I'm lying about lying

because they think I just don't want to go to the hospital. Right. And they were like, you definitely have an appendicitis. You're in denial. And I was like, I do not. I just wanted a day off. Like, please do not take me to the hospital. I was admitted for three days.

No. Because they could not believe that I was lying because they just thought I was afraid. At that point, you had told them. Everyone. I had told everybody. I tried to fake you out. I tried to just go home.

And they were like, well, now we have to check. Because with a kid, they're very cautious about parent and child dynamic and are you safe at home? All of that. So all of that was happening. And I just felt so bad. And I'm trying to tell my mom I lied. So she's trying to tell them that I lied. And then that makes it look worse. Because if a parent's like, kids are lying, then that's like makes it even.

It was a whole situation. And finally I got out. Yeah. And I shared a room with a girl. Why do they feel like they have to lie? Yes. Why does she need to lie to get out of school? Like all of it.

And I shared a room with a girl that was actually like had an appendicitis. And it was like, I'm about to burst. Like get me out of here. Like my appendix doesn't want to be in my body anymore. And I'm just sitting there like, can I order another thing of mashed potatoes? Cause those were so good. Like, yeah. So I got my day off. You were there for three days. Oh my gosh. I don't remember why I started that story. Oh, the sect on the penny memory. Oh, memory. Yep. Yeah. So there you go. See no short-term memory, but I have a very good one. See?

See? Why were we saying? Yeah. Why were we talking about that? Memory. See? Very strong. That was great. Very strong. And seen. And this is our improv group. It's the Mike and Elise show!

Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. There we go. We'll see you next time. really connect with people if you were in a room with them in a way that what you do on socials is deep, but I think that in a room could be deep in a different way. And you, on your podcast, which I love, you said, I'm just terrified of being in front of people. And then I was like, so then I'm doing a bunch of shows and working on new material. And I was like, so then I'm doing a bunch of shows. I'm working on new material. And I was like, you know, you could just, if you wanted to, you could just pop in, be an unbilled guest. No one would know you. It would just be like, my friend Elise is here. She's going to tell a story for seven minutes and whatever.

And then you wouldn't be afraid of it anymore. And then you were like. That's definitely how it works too. Yeah. You've definitely accurate. Burned. Burned. That's on me.

That's not on you. I love that you're so confident in yourself that you're like, and then it's done. You're cured. And then that's it. Weirdly, I believe that to be true and I stand by it. I believe that you believe that 100%. A burned man standing before you. I double down.

I double down on it. But that is why you're doing what you're doing is because you have such confidence. And I know I can. I'm not. I don't think I can't do it. I know I can do it. Of course you can do it. It's the, it's, you want to know what it is?

Honestly, it's the fear that like, I can't blame it on anyone else but me. I get that. And with online, I don't have to have any immediate reaction from anybody. I tell a story that I find funny. And if you don't like it, then you're just not going to see the video. And that's fine because I don't have to see your reaction. I don't have to go in the comments. I can blame it on the algorithm if it doesn't do well.

There are so many things that can play into a video not getting seen. And so if I am standing in front of an audience and I say something and it is silent, I think I would just start crying. Genuinely, I fake so much confidence that that would be a moment I could feel that a confidence would genuinely crumble. Yes. Now, will that stop me from doing it? No, because like I do not want there to be anything in my life that I was like too afraid to do. Yeah. So I just didn't do it.

So I want to get to that point. Yeah. But now it's the point where it's like the skill of writing a set that is concise and like performable in front of people and not edited. Like that is what I don't have. And so I don't, I wouldn't even know where to start. If you're to be like, here's seven minutes. Well then I'll tell you where to start. Yes.

So take the story you just told about Faking Sick and you just memorize it. You already know it. Yeah. You go on stage in an environment like being a guest set on one of my shows where like people aren't expecting to see you and they go okay what's this you do three minutes you tell that story i'm just gonna tell you one story tonight and it might not be funny and then you tell the story you walk off stage and you go ah there's a couple laughs there's a laugh here's a laugh here's a laugh here's a laugh here, there's a laugh here. How come this didn't get a laugh?

And then you start to take it apart and just go like, oh, okay, if I supplemented a joke here or I dropped in a joke that I tell usually in another story here or add color here. And I think like, because here's my question to you is like, in your mind, what's the worst thing that can happen? Like, if I threw you on stage in a black box theater with 100 people in the audience, and it's like, hey, just walk up and tell a story for three or four minutes, just like we're doing now, but there's 100 people. What's the worst thing that could happen? I think, honestly, the worst thing that could happen is like, well, I'm terrified of fainting in front of a bunch of people. That's like a number one thing.

But second, like, I don't know how you do it with like, if someone has one impression of you, that's the only time they're ever going to might see you on a performance and they're going to walk away. And that is the thing they're going to remember about you. And that's hard to change when somebody has formed an opinion of like, she's not good at this. Like, it's really hard to come back from that versus like someone being really good at something once and then being terrible at it the next time,

being like, oh, but she's actually good. I saw her last time, she's really good. So I don't, that's just a confidence thing too. Like not caring. I'm going to do a double step process for you getting on stage because I'm taking apart all of the- I love this. I'm taking away do a double step process for you getting on stage. Because I'm taking apart all of the... I love this.

I'm taking away all the very... Well, they say this. I mean, this is like an old thing in sales. It's like if someone doesn't want to buy something, go through all their objections. Be like, okay, what about this? What about this? And with yours, it's like, okay. Well, people will be like, oh, she's not good at this.

And with yours, it's like, okay, well, people will be like, oh, she's not good at this. Well, then we do a thing where I do a show somewhere. You're not billed. No one knows you're there. What does that mean, billed? It's not featuring Elise Meyers. Okay, okay. I thought you meant like invoiced. Like I'm going to bill her for that.

I'm just like, I didn't realize that's how that worked. That feels backwards. So I charge you $40,000 to walk on stage with me because, honestly, it's going to pay off in the long term. It's an investment in your future. Like, you're on my stage. This is great for you. It's my weird pyramid scheme in my middle age. And you go and you get 10 comedians, and you can take a cut of that $40,000.

And at the end of the day, you'll be a millionaire. You have a real conspiratorial mind, Elise Meyers. I'm just afraid of everything. Yeah, exactly. You're really throwing punches where there's no foe. I've seen so many documentaries about MLMs. It's amazing. No, so here's the plan.

Here's the plan. So we're in Madison. You're unbilled. In other words, it doesn't say Elise. So here's the plan. Here's the plan. So we're in Madison. You're unbilled. In other words, it doesn't say Elise Myers anywhere on the thing. It's just a Mike Birbiglia show. In the middle of the show,

I go, oh, my friend is here tonight. She's one of my favorite storytellers. I'm going to bring her on stage. Please welcome my buddy, Elise Myers. And you come on stage. We have two microphones.

I go, will you tell the story about this? You tell the story. We're both on stage. And then two microphones. I go, will you tell the story about this? You tell the story. We're both on stage. And then you're like, oh, okay. And then it's like the two-person thing. And then you go, well, what would it be like if it was one person, just me, the next time? Wow.

It's like a stair step. I really like that. I really like that. I think, honestly,, anything is possible. It's not, I really genuinely feel like the fears that you're asking me about, I'm telling you about aren't things that are going to keep me from doing it from this point forward. It's just like, this is the irrational thing that's happening in my brain that gets in the way as I try and write. And so the longer that I've been in this career too, and the more people I've met and the bigger the crowds that I've,

I've spoken to just about like even yesterday, the event, things like that. Oh, so you've done that, which is the same thing, basically. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not it, but the, the pressure to make people laugh. You did an event yesterday where you were kind of on a panel. Right. Yeah. It was me, someone asking just me questions. Yeah. But the, the pressure to be funny, that is the part that is like the scary part for me. Cause I can Because I feel very comfortable talking. It's like, it's just, I don't know. It's like this weird, it's like when I get asked to like act in something, I'm aware that you know I'm acting.

And so I feel like I'm lying. And you're like, she's lying. She's acting. This isn't her. So the weird understanding of like, I'm at a comedy show and this person's going to make me laugh. Is that is, what's interesting,, that pressure isn't in a, in a tick tock because nobody knows the point of a video when it starts, whatever happens in the video happens. And it's like,

so, so at a comedy show, the expectation is like, you need to be funny. You need to make me laugh. And then that's where I feel like if I don't meet that I've totally failed, but it's just that that just comes from an experience. And so I think that learning how to structure a story, and honestly, I was going to ask you, so if I were to tell a story on a stage, because it's like the punchline situation. The punchline situation. I mean, like the actual joke part.

That should be the name of your comedy album. This whole punchline situation. Look, listen. And if I always fail just like go to like jerry's i'm like you like jazz like just go straight there it's like the comedy equivalent of like and then i found five dollars kind of a thing but anyways um i don't follow that like have you ever been telling a whore maybe it's not a well-known thing maybe it's my brothers and me you know like when you're telling a story and someone's like, this is not an interesting story.

And then you're like, and then I found $5. Oh, that's very funny. Yeah. I like that a lot. And then someone's like, oh, my God, no way. And so it makes everything else you just said completely irrelevant. Did you make that up? I don't know.

I thought everyone did that. You thought that that was like a street joke. Yeah, me and my brothers. Like it's common domain. Well, yeah, but then me and my brothers like burn each other because if you're telling a really like boring story you're like did you find five dollars oh my god that's so funny my joke about that is in that universe is that i go like once a week my dad will call me and he'll be like the craziest thing happened i'm like what he'll be like i was at the hardware store and I was talking to someone and they had heard of you.

And I was like, that's not the craziest thing. That's not a story even. That is a fact. That's not even a story. That is a fact about your day. I find that very often people will come up to me and they'll be like, I have a crazy story. And then they tell it and you go, you're kind of waiting for the story to start.

But actually last night I was doing this benefit show where a guy actually told me one that was pretty good. Like when he first met his wife, I think it was his mother-in-law was making chicken and they ran out of chicken. And then she was offering everybody more chicken and someone said yes and ran out of chicken. And then she offered, she was like, she was offering everybody more chicken. And someone said yes, and there wasn't chicken. So she literally did the thing where she covered bones with skin and put it on someone's plate. And then the person was just like, but what, this is not chicken. And it was like one of the rare moments where I was like,

this is a pretty good story. Was this a party or just like what's happening yeah it was like him i think it was him meeting his wife many years ago and it was like is the in-laws did people watch it happen i think so i think it was like pretty outward facing at the party like it was a thing that happened i know and i was like i have so many No, but I don't have the answers. It's not my story. But I did. I said to him, I go, usually people tell me stories and they're not that great.

And that actually is kind of a great tidbit. I would love for someone to tell me that story for 10 minutes with every detail that I possibly get. All right. But back to you performing. So, like, okay, then this is the key. This is the key pivot. This is where it becomes actualized. Yeah.

What's the upside of you telling a story on stage? I conquer one of my greatest fears and it's a huge success and I keep doing it. Three. And I become wildly successful as a standup comedian. Okay. I have a lot of fun doing it. That's five.

I'll give you six. You make people happy. Oh, yeah. I think you would. We can do it. You'd make people happy. Thank you. People would be so happy.

Thank you. I just think there's nothing that compares to the live experience. Although, I have to say, like, what is the thing that when you're making these videos that's most gratifying? So I've talked about it a little bit. I have three, like, values that I – it sounds so serious. But, like, I have three values that I cycle every single piece of content through or filter through is to make people feel, like, known, loved, and like they belong. And which is, like, so sappy. It known, loved, and like they belong. And which is like so sappy. It's like, that's not funny. But with all of that, when I tell stories that people can relate

to, that's like the known. It's like, that's why it's funny is like, that's me in that story. Or like when I encourage people, I want them to feel loved if they don't have that in their life. And like they belong. I want to build that community in my content, which is why I'm always in my comments and why I don't tell jokes that put other people down. And like, that's just because that's my style of comedy. And so those three things are my goal. And so while that might not sound funny, comedy can happen through those and still bring a lot of value to people's life. So at the end of the day, the laugh is great, but that's not the end goal. It's to make people known, loved, or like they belong. This is called the slow round. What's a song that makes you cry?

Oh, gosh. This answer is going to be very unexpected. I'm not like a religious person, but during Christmas time, when I hear Mary, did you know, it really gets me. I don't know it. Can you sing the melody? Mary, did you know when your baby boy gives sight to a blind man? It's a song talking to Mary about her son. Like, did you know your son was going to be jesus like i think this must be like a local omaha thing it's really not clay aiken saying it oh really i know you heard of it oh okay okay oh it's a big song it's a huge song yeah yeah yeah but it's feel it because now especially being a mom i don't that song i'm just like my son's gonna to be great one day. Your son's going to be Jesus. No, no.

But it's a very powerful image of talking to a mom about, did you have any clue what your son would do one day? Oh, that's sweet. It's a little bit like Dear Theodosia is like that, where it's emotional in this kind of a letter to my child kind of way. Now, whether you believe the stories that are being sung about, the theme is like, this man did these great things and you're singing to the mom of this man of like, did you have any clue he would do? And that's a very powerful image. That song always makes me

cry. Yeah, that's a good one. What about you? I Can't Make You Love Me, Bonnie Raitt. Okay. What's a specific place that isn't your home where you feel like home? Man. That isn't my home that I feel like home. This isn't like a place, but it's like a place within any place is on the floor behind like a chair or couch where I'm like hiding. I love that. I feel so dark. No, no, I don't think it's dark.

I really like being in small spaces that feel like my own, that I'm like, I'm good. No one's going to come like bother me here. You're like a cat. Yeah, I'm a cat. My cats do that. Yeah, I'm a cat. You can, you have cats? No, I am a cat.

You are a cat you can't you have cats no i am a cat you are okay yeah but like yeah my cats go places and we're like i guess the cats ran away like i think she died down there i don't really know but we can't find them yeah we're just like i guess they got out yeah that was like always my signal to my roommates that like i would work on the floor i'd have my laptop on the ground and we had a table, we have chairs, like I could have gone anywhere, but we had a couch that was like kind of back to facing like the sliding door to our balcony.

And I would lay on the floor and do all of my homework there. And it was kind of like this unspoken thing of like, if I'm here, kind of just like life is a little bit too much and I just want to be here and do my work and I'll come out and everything will be good and we don't have to talk about it.

So that's a very good, good hard read set for me. I love that. Thanks. I have a deep connection to my parents' childhood carpet. When I was a kid, their bedroom carpet in the summer, because they had the only air conditioning unit in the house. And so when it got super hot in Massachusetts in the summer and it got really hot, I would go in and sleep on the

floor and I remember the smell of the carpet. Would the carpet get cold if you, if like you walked in? I love that. It's nice. Yeah. Very nostalgic for me. You talk about this in one of your stories. Maybe you don't want to tell it. Do you remember the toughest crush from your childhood? Yeah, I do. I do. It was a boy I really, really liked. And we dated. And he was like my best friend. And we actually dated twice.

The first time he asked me out as a prank. And then we dated, but we didn't talk for the whole week we dated. And then I got broken up with by a casual conversation. Like, we're not dating still, right? Right, of course. And the second time we dated and then like I got broken up with by like a casual conversation like we're not dating still right right of course um the second time we um we dated for like a year and we were like best friends and we just never we were never meant to date we were always meant to be best friends but we didn't know that because you think if you like someone and they're the opposite gender and you're in high school then the natural next step is like then we should date but like never like just stay friends yeah and we uh we dated and then one day like, then we should date, but like never like just stay friends. Yeah. And we, uh, we dated and then one day we were like, we should just go back to being best friends.

And, uh, we just did and nothing changed. Like we were just like very, very good friends and we still communicate today. And it's like really, really sweet. What's your takeaway from the experience? I think that like, not everything that you, not everything that's good needs to be elevated to be more than that like sometimes it's okay that like something

that's like good just leave it at good it doesn't have to be like great like yeah because great could ruin good and like just leave it good sometimes This is a section of the show called From the Notebook. Oh, yes.

And it's, I'll start with this one. One morning I'm at a cafe and I dropped Una was three at the time. Musical camp or ballet or some kind of group activity where you can leave your child for three hours. It could have been like a bin that said toddlers and I would be like dropped her in and been like, enjoy bin class. And so I'm with the other bin class parents at the cafe, and I'm exhausted, holding a coffee.

And I look up to sort of take in the nature of the day, and from about 30 feet in the air, a bird shits in my eye. Like directly into my eye. And first of all, great aim, bird. Way to go, bird. You really nailed it. Second of all, if this hasn't happened to you, all you need to know is that anything dropped from 30 feet in the air in your eye hurts physically a lot.

Yes. But when the cumbersome liquid pellet is fecal matter, it hurts spiritually. It's a whole emotional. And I shouted. I go, ah. Or as my daughter, Una, used to use when describing her favorite dinosaur, the hooting hyrgosaur, I squawked. I squawked.

I'm going to need to hear an example of that. It was like, ah. Okay. So the moment I squawked, my friend Rob, who is with me, knows I'm a comedian, looks over to me and he goes, well, it's good material. Yeah. And I was like, Rob, there's

still bird shit in my eye. This is something you say after I've cleaned it up. It's comedy's tragedy plus time. And I still have the bird shit. There's no time yet. We're going to need it. Yeah, we're at zero seconds past.

And I jog back into the coffee shop. I ask for a glass of water, flush my eye with water. On the plus side, the bird shit really woke me up. Which was the point of the cafe in the first place, right? And then the coffee was nice, but the 70 mile an hour bird shit delivery really closed the deal. I feel like they could market that as a bird shit latte. You drink two shots of espresso, a bird shits in your eye, 40 bucks. A shartay. Exactly. In Northern California, they'd call it a bird shit cleanse.

People would say, have you done the bird shit cleanse? Fun. A little expensive, but they do have to pay the pigeon wrangler. My bird shit experience drove home a larger point in my life, which is that comedy is tragedy plus time, or at the very least pain plus a year. So as I arrive at middle age, I've started to zero in on my purpose. And I think it's to share stories that weren't funny at the time, but I'd like to think are funny now.

And of course, I'm just mocking myself, to be clear, in my stories, because in my stories, for the the most part I'm the joke later yeah which just harkens back to a line from another special no hate to the bird I loved the bird I just go really deep

exactly yeah yeah yeah the target of the joke is the bird somehow like let me get this like I want you to get this straight I am not against birds like so driving that home

of like no one literally thought you were anti-birds until you are trying to convince me you're not. No, exactly. Exactly. And also Rob is maybe the villain, although Rob is really just saying something that's true.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, oh, that'll be something. That'll, yeah. And it is. I think that comedy is, you know, tragedy plus time and you're like at least pain plus a year. Yeah. is you know tragedy plus time and you're like at least pain plus a year yeah that is like that's a really good point of the story where you it goes from funny to like heartfelt is like that that's a good little like turn the corner there at that moment thanks yeah it's funny like i

you're obviously your podcast is funny because it's true and like you and I like play in a similar sandbox or play in the same sandbox of telling stories and it's like I always tell people you know write you know write down what you're saddest about or angriest about in a journal sometimes for yourself

like it's helpful to just contextualize your life as a story and when you can see your life as a story. And when you can see your life as a story, you can zoom out and encourage the main character to make better decisions. Yeah. Well, I mean, honestly, I attribute a lot of my memory of back in the day because I've done so much journaling. I remember reading back what I wrote. And that act of writing, reading, and internalizing helps you understand what you're experiencing.

And then it also helps you remember it. And so it's really interesting if you are a creative in any way, whether it is writing or it's art or anything, I always suggest writing things down. Because it allows you to add another layer of emotion where it's like you experience things through somebody else in yourself. Like you see it the way another person would see it in your life. the way another person would see it in your life. That things are funny just sometimes because they're true is like a really, really beautiful thing. Because I think too, as things are going really horribly in your life, like I have learned to laugh about them

because I know they will be funny later because I've made them funny now from 10 years ago. And so honestly, it might be labeled as like a trauma response of just like laughing when something horrible happens. That might not be healthy. But if you can do it in a healthy way, I think it's like a very good way to separate yourself from like horrible things that are happening at the moment. No, I think that's absolutely true.

Yeah. Do you have any stories you're working on or do you want me to just continue and tell you one more story? Tell me one more story. Okay, great. Usually I just do jokes. But since you're a storyteller, I'm like, I'll tell you stories. I love it. All right.

A few years ago, Jenny and I rented a house in the country for the holidays. And it was very special until we turned on the heat. And then there just wasn't heat. Oh, no. Oh, no. And it's Thanksgiving. I called the oil company, and they said they could come that night between 6.30 and 9.30 p.m. with 10 gallons of oil to prime the heating system, make sure it's ready for one of those super tankers of oil that drive around. And before this incident, I didn't even know what those things did.

I just saw them driving around. I thought maybe those guys are just driving around. Maybe they really like driving. Yeah, they just like driving. They're listening to AM talk radio. They're making jokes on the CB radio. Maybe they're just perpetually driving in circles using the oil in the tank. That's just a reserve gas tank.

Exactly. So the window was 630 to 930, and I wait in the doorway. And because it's one of those things where I'm like, I'm not going to miss the window was 6.30 to 9.30 and I wait in the doorway and because it's one of those things where I'm like I'm not going to miss the window and I'm like a goaltender I'm like blocking the front steps for three hours and no one showed up I called the company

the company's called Petro and I said hey it's 9.30 no one showed up and they said our guy said he showed up. No one answered the door. He left a little card on your door. I go, I'm on the door. No card.

I've been here the whole time. And I didn't shout, but I was angry. Yeah. He could sense this. And then he replied, happy Thanksgiving, which felt passive aggressive. Did he hang up? No, he just said, happy Thanksgiving. And it was a good tactical move in hindsight. It forced me to say happy Thanksgiving to you too.

Like angry. Like, happy Thanksgiving to you too. Yeah. Happy Thanksgiving. I said, happy Thanksgiving to you too. Even though he was completely fucking me over in real time and lying to me like the pilgrims. So the Petra guy says, the technician will come over to your house after the house he's currently at. Get a phone call at 1030. It's the technician. And he says, I'm a half hour away. I say, I'll stay up all night. So the man from Petro shows up at 1115 PM. He gets out of the van. He says,

I am Petro. And I'm looking at his truck and says, Petro. And I'm exhausted. I'm out of it. And I'm thinking, there's no way his name is Petro. And he works for a company named Petro. I can't possibly call him Pedro because he might be like, why would you call me the name of my company? And I'd be so embarrassed. So I go, come on in, man. And it got me self-conscious about my use of the word man. I was like, Pedro's got to be 10 years older than me. I'm using the casual man all of a sudden. So then I modified. I go, right his way, sir. And then I thought, what am I? Some kind of weird blue-blooded rich guy who calls everyone

sir? So Pedro and I work on this for a little bit, which means he works on it. I bring him tea. At 1 a.m., Pedro says, I don't know what to tell you, Mike. I cannot fix this thing. I said, okay, sir. He tried to call his company, but his phone was doing an update. So I said, I'll call them. I said, hi, this is Mike Birbiglia. I'm here with, and I could see in Pedro's eyes that he really thought I should know his name by now. I said, the man from your company. I'm going to put him on speaker so he can identify himself and explain the rest. So I put him on speaker and he says, hi, this is Pedro. I was like, got it.

Got it. In an evening full of failures, at least I know his name is Pedro. From that point on, I used the name Pedro a lot. And I committed to memory by a mnemonic device, which is Pedro works for Petro. So Pedro tells me this is way over his head and that he's going to send a technician in the morning. First thing to fix it. Then he tells me to call Petro in the morning and explain that I have, that I have a baby and that this is dangerous. He knows I do not have a baby. He knows my daughter's like five years old. And then we've talked about our

kids. He knows we, I don't have a baby. He knows my daughter's five. We've talked about our kids. He knows we, I don't have a baby. He knows my daughter's five. We've talked about our kids at this point. We've spent a lot of time together, me and Pedro. But apparently, if you want heat, you really have to raise the stakes. You have to say you have a baby. And so in the morning, I wake up, I call, I go, you got to understand we got a baby.

This baby might die. Oh, no. And you're all going to hell. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving, exactly. And so at 1 p.m., this guy Charlie comes over. And Charlie goes, I'm going to get you heat. And there's something about Charlie's confidence that makes me feel, I'm going to get you heat. And there's something about Charlie's confidence

that makes me feel like he's going to get us heat. Yeah. It also made me want to have sex with Charlie, even though I'm a heterosexual man, heavily married. I just thought, Charlie's looking good. You're saving the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're saving my hypothetical baby.

Yeah. This is a line I wrote. I wrote it for today. I wrote, Charlie brought the heat, which made me want to give him the heat. Maybe it's too much. Maybe it's too much.

Yeah. It might be too much. It's something in that universe. Cause, cause I've done this on stage a couple of times and made me, it made me want to have sex with Charlie is actually the biggest line in it right now. Yeah. Because I think there's something relatable about

when someone, anyone, is wildly competent. Yeah. And you've been dealing with complete and total incompetence. Like you're just like, oh, I'm attracted to this person. I think we'll be physically intimate. Yes. I think it's time that we're physically intimate. Yeah. An hour later Charlie fixes the heat and I have a $100 bill in my wallet and nothing else. I never use cash. that we're physically in the bed. An hour later, Charlie fixes the heat,

and I have a $100 bill in my wallet and nothing else. I never use cash. I ran a $100 bill. Charlie fixes the heat. I hand him a $100 bill. He goes, no, no, it's not a tipping thing. You never know. And then I take his hand, and I put a $100 bill in his hand, and I go, happy Thanksgiving.

So anyway, that's a new story. I've been doing that for six weeks or something. The baby situation is getting worse and worse to me is the funniest line. That is the line. That's interesting. That is like this, it makes no sense. It makes no sense. But it, it conveys the entire idea of the whole story is the baby situation is getting worse and worse. There's so much in that sentence. So, oh, what I was going to say, too, was when the part after you learn his name, I wanted you to say his name so many more times. Oh, yes, yes. Pedro, come right in. I want to talk to you about something.

Yeah, but like when you're talking. I want to show you something else, Pedro. But like, yeah, when you're talking to the audience about Pedro. Yeah. And then Pedro told me to, like, told me to say I had a baby. Because Pedro and I have been talking forever. Oh, that's nice. Right. From that point on, Pedro gets said a hundred times. A million times. Yeah, I love that.

Like, you never stop saying Pedro. Yeah. Anyways, that's what I thought. You know, and maybe, and just as we're talking about it out loud of, like, having the, what made me want to have sex with Charlie. I mean, it made me want to have sex with Charlie, which goes to the source of, I think, the reason I'm fixing the heat in the first place

is I want my wife to want to have sex with me the way that I want to have sex with Charlie. I want to be Charlie. I want to be Charlie. I want to be Charlie. That makes sense. Maybe that's what the story's about. You want to fix it.

You want to fix it. I mean, like there's a dual purpose happening in the story and in in real life certainly it's like i'm always trying to impress my wife i'm always trying to be like uh awesome and then uh and then with my daughter i'm just trying i mean the whole thing of being a parent is about making sure they stay alive and warm yeah so you're just like i gotta get them heat him heat. Well, I think, honestly, that story, to cap it, might be funny if you start with the idea of like, because you're on vacation, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If this is crossing a line, tell me. No, please.

There is no crossing a line. Like vacation sex, right? Okay, great. So you're like, I want this to be a nice, fun experience, but you don't have warmth. You are trying to get this fixed. Charlie finally leaves or whatever you go and then after this whole his name is charlie yeah yeah this whole situation is like now i want to have sex with charlie because like he's fixed this problem for me and he leaves and then you're like the door closes and you're like where were we like

kind of like resuming this like this is a way too long of a setup for a very simple premise of like things that just happen in normal life also that could not be funny in any way. And then you found $5. No, no, I think that's interesting. I think that it's worth an experiment actually to do something in the universe of talking about my relationship with my wife and I'm always trying to impress her. One time we were on vacation, blah, blah, blah, and there was no heat and I was like, I'm going to save the day. Yeah, more like that. Like you want to fix fix the situation and then like they leave and you're just like I did it I told you I would do it

and then we had sex and I pretended it was Charlie oh no I don't think I think we're telling different stories no no no it's yes ending and wherever it goes it goes no I think that's

I love that I think that yeah there's a lot well's a lot. Well, then a lot of the stuff I'm talking about on stage lately in the Working It Out shows has been about marriage and domesticity. And I'm trying to figure out, and I wonder if you deal with this with your videos. Because I think you have probably a really young audience, actually. Is like, you probably have a lot of fans who aren't married, don't, maybe aren't in relationship, and relate to what you're doing. It's like, why do you think they relate to you talking about being married? You'd be shocked.

The widest demographic I have is women that are like 35 to 45 married in relationships. And so I find it harder, actually, to create content that people relate to when I am talking about like younger things, which is really like everyone can relate to a funny story from your childhood. So you don't have to be that age to relate to that. But like a lot of the stuff when I, like I don't talk about being a mom a lot, but when I do, it is like all the comments of like, oh my God, me too. And like people are looking for that. for that. And so to me, it's like, that's where I see the most, like, I don't expect that kind of relatability because I just forget that people connect to me that are not my age. It's really interesting. So the final thing we do is called Working It Out for a Cause. And it's any

organization that you think does a good job and we contribute to them and then we link to them in the show notes yes national birth equality collaborative um so the united states is like the only industrialized like country that the um maternal mortality rate is like increasing all of the time we have like not figured it out and especially for like um marginalized communities like black pregnant people like do not get the care that they need. And it's just wild to me. And once I became pregnant, I just realized how scary it is that you just rely on the people around you. And like, you just have to trust people that you know nothing about. And your life is just like in someone else's hands. So this organization just basically like really focuses on care for people in like just marginalized communities that they get the care that they need when they're pregnant, after birth,

like the babies, like before birth and after, like all of it. It's just a complete situation. Well, I'm going to contribute to them. We're going to link to them in show notes, encourage people to contribute as well. Yeah. Elise, this is such a joy. And then our next goal is we've got to get you on stage telling stories to a group of strangers. Yes.

Because it's going to bring joy to the world. We're going to do it. Yeah. I'm going to shake on that. We're going to shake. I promise. Working it out because it's not done. Working it out because there's no hope.

That's going to do it for another episode of Working It Out. I loved that chat with Elyse Myers. I hope that's the first of many. You should check out her podcast. It's called Funny Cause It's True. It is a very original podcast. I really couldn't recommend it more highly. You can follow her on Instagram and TikTok at Elyse Myers,

E-L-Y-S-E-M-Y-E-R-S. You can watch the full video of this interview on our YouTube page at Mike Birbiglia soon. Hopefully, either now or tomorrow or the next day, but very, very, very, very soon. We just posted our first episode on YouTube for our 100th episode, we had Ira Glass. And people wrote all these nice comments to the point where people commented on how it was the nicest comment section they'd ever been on on YouTube, which made me so happy. The Elise video should be up there in a couple days. Check that out. Subscribe because we're going to be posting more and more videos. Check out burbiggies.com to sign up for the mailing list.

Be the first to know all about my upcoming shows. For example, the Philadelphia shows are sold out, and the Providence shows are sold out. However, I'm doing, there's a few more tickets for my shows in Levittown, Long Island, and as well as Sag Harbor, which is in the Hamptons, and it's a gorgeous little town. It's the Bay Street Theater. I do two shows at this Bay Street Theater, which I did last summer.

I did The Old Man and the Pool last summer. This summer, all new material. Completely new show. Just working out new material. More new cities coming soon where I'm working on new material. And, of course, I'll be in London and Scotland in the summer and the fall. Our producers of Working It Out are myself along with Peter Salamone and Joseph Birbiglia

Associate Producer Mabel Lewis Consulting Producer Seth Barish Assistant Producers Gary Simons and Lucy Jones Sound Mix by Shubh Saran Supervising Engineer Kate Balinski. I'd like to thank the great Monique Carboni who has taken awesome photos for us in these new episodes in the new Thank you. Also, you can follow him on Instagram as well, who helped us with a lot of the cinematography in the Ira Glass episode.

Really, a lot of people commented on how cool it looks. And that is all Graham Willoughby. Special thanks to Marissa Hurwitz and Josh Upfall, as well as David Raphael and Nina Quick. Mike Insigliere is Mike Berkowitz. Special thanks to Jack Antonoff and Bleachers for their music. Special thanks to my wife, the poet J. Hope Stein. Little Astronaut is in bookstores now. Special thanks, as always, to my daughter, Una, who built the original radio fort made

of pillows. And thanks, most of all, to you who are listening. If you're enjoying the show, rate and review on Apple Podcasts. Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Maybe in the spirit of how Elise Meyers tells stories, make a video. Post it online. Go, this video goes out to all my enemies. And I want spirit of how Elyse Myers tells stories, make a video, post it online, go, this video goes out to all my enemies and I want to make peace with you. And while I'm doing

that, I want to recommend a podcast called Mike Birbiglia is Working It Out. Make that video, tag your enemies, and then maybe, maybe turn off the comments because who knows? Thanks, everybody. see you next time