Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out - 109. Gary Gulman Returns: Work Friends or Friend Friends?

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

Mike and Gary Gulman have been friends for a long time, but what kind of friends? Real friends or just work friends? Gary returns to the podcast and he and Mike evaluate the true level of their friendship. Plus they discuss vulnerability in comedy, unhappiness vs. depression, and the advice that Gary got from Larry David.Please consider donating to Give Well

I feel like when you and I first met, it helped me understand a certain thing about depression years later, which is to say you and I met in Los Angeles out at a show. Our sensibilities mesh. This is probably 15 years ago. And you were like, let's stay in touch. And I was like, great, let's stay in touch. And then I tried to get in touch with you and you didn't get back to me. And I was just like, oh, I guess like, I mean, in my mind, I literally thought like, I guess Gary's just like a real operator. Like he's onto the next operation, but it's an assumption. I remember thinking, even if I call him back, he was just trying to be nice. And,

and what have I got that a young burgeoning comedian in his prime will feel like I was so insecure about my place in comedy. And it's just, it's completely unfounded, but it's depressive thinking. That is the voice of the great Gary Goleman. Gary Goleman is back for round two on Working It Out, one of my favorite comics on the planet. He has a new book out called Misfit, which I love. Everyone on the Working It Out staff loved. We talk about it a lot today. You can get it at your local bookstore. Before we dive into it with Gary, our returning champion, I should point out that I have another week and a half in London.

I'm at the Wyndham's Theatre doing The Old Man in the Pool. It is the finale of The Old Man in the Pool. If you know any British people, tell them about The Old Man in the Pool in London. And then I'm announcing in October, I'm announcing several club dates in cities that I have not announced yet. The only way to find out, you'll be the first to know because you sell out fast, is to sign up for the mailing list on burbiggs.com.

If you go to tour dates, at the bottom it says sign up for the mailing list. You will be the first to know about some club dates where I'm working out new material for my tour, which goes to Boston. We just added a seventh and eighth show at the Wilba Theater. We're calling those shows Christmas Parmesan. And then the new show I'm currently calling Please Stop the Ride is going to Vancouver. It's going to Seattle.

It's going to Walla Walla. It's going to Vancouver, it's going to Seattle, it's going to Walla Walla, it's going to Portland, Oregon. All of this, you find out joining the mailing list on burbigs.com. But I love this chat we have with Gary today. It's, we talk about the state of our friendship. It actually reminds me a bit of the Tom Papa episode in that we just get really frank

about how we've known each other for 15, 20 years, the feeling of loneliness. Gary talks very openly in his HBO special, The Great Depression, which I highly recommend, about depression. And it has some really emotional turns in this episode. I should point out that if you want to see Gary live, he's in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Charleston, Asheville, all of it on GaryGullman.com. Also, this entire episode is on YouTube. We've had a ton of fun filming these

and putting the entire episode on YouTube. And thanks so much for visiting there and subscribing to our YouTube channel. But I love this chat with Gary. We work out some jokes. We, it's a very, it gets very real. It's very emotional and it gets very jokey. It's very funny, very funny episode.

Enjoy my conversation with the great Gary Gleman. I auditioned for an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Oh, wow. And Larry David said, you're from Boston. Why don't you have a Boston accent? I said, well, when I got to college, the kids would make fun of me. And he said, why don't you just make fun of them? Oh, my God. I love that.

That's amazing. Yeah, because I'm not. That's such a haven't yeah i couldn't be myself like that at that point yeah you make fun of them yeah i love that exactly immediately and he didn't even have to think about it and i had never even quick i had never even thought about right making fun of them turn it the other way right and had never considered it that's really interesting because I will say that like one of the things that bullies would make fun of me for growing up would be that I was a a nerd sort of a bookworm and in hindsight when I would go back at them and say you're not smart it wouldn't go well somehow more mean-spirited to say you're not smart than to say you're a nerd yeah it feels like an unspoken truth remember that movie broadcast news one of my favorites of all time

Brooks as a kid yeah yeah yeah those kids they'll never earn more than $16,000 a year. And the guy goes, 16,000 sounds pretty good. I mean, that is a brilliant scene. I always look at broadcast news when people ask me to describe my shows. I say, I aspire to make my shows like the movie broadcast news, which is to say, it's funny in a way where you see yourself in it, but ultimately there's a larger story being told. Yes. That mix of heaviness and the gut punch that you do so well and very few others, especially comedians are able to do that because it requires some vulnerability and also confidence to not be making jokes the entire time. Well, it's funny because your book does that and your

special, The Great Depression does that. And it's like, my curiosity is I know why I do what I do. Why do you do it? Why are you willing to give yourself to your audience like that? I mean, part of it is that I experimented with it and it worked really well. Yeah. Yeah. Like anything, right? Yeah. And in that I started to open up about depression and the more open and the more specific I got, the more when I did my meet and greets were people opening up to me and saying really thoughtful, kind things and being grateful for which I was grateful. And so I was rewarded almost immediately. And also, I like talking about this with you,

just the general mindset of comedians. But when we first start out, we're trying to get laughs, absolutely. And once we can do that we want the other comedians to think we're good at this and to not and we talked about this we said it's not

they say it's not show friends it's show business but it's show friends and you're going to get you're going to get more work if people think you're good at oh my gosh I to get more work if people think you're good at... Oh my gosh, I'm laughing so hard. Yeah, if people think you're good at this. So why not do jokes that not just the audience are laughing at,

but your comedian friends are like, you know what? It may be hard to follow somebody who's killing, but it's better to follow somebody who's doing it in a way that seems fair. I remember this comedian, Frank Santorelli, saying he had this whole list of things, little tricks you could do on stage, but if you did them, you couldn't come off the stage and say, oh, I killed. Because you did the big one in the 90s when I first started was a stereotypically gay, lispy voice.

And it would kill the audiences if you did that. But my friend Frank said, you can't say you killed if you did that. It's such a cheap trick. And yeah. If you're doing a trope, it doesn't belong to you. Right. I said to somebody recently, a younger comic,

who was doing like a kid voice from when they were kids. Don't do a kid voice. Don't do a kid voice. Yeah. Do you as a kid. Do you when you were a kid. And then they didn't, and it was a great adjustment. Because it's specific.

It's specific. Yeah. It's funny, though. Like, your persona, and I feel like this is offstage, too, is like you have like a confidence of like you're really good at this you know what i mean and you sometimes tell the audience you're like i'm very good at this oh you know i mean it's insecurity that oh you think so yeah that's the source of of that braggadocio and bravado but you're so and it's very funny the way you do it

well it works really well it's funny because it disrupts the status quo of comedians being self-deprecating. Right. Yeah, so they're not used to that. And also, at the point we are in our careers, it's also true. There's some truth to it. Yeah, we know what the heck

we're doing. And also, everybody is usually a little bit concerned at the beginning of the show with a comedian that they're not that familiar with, that the person is going to be uncomfortable or make them uncomfortable. I certainly feel that whenever I watch a comedy show at all. I'm concerned for the comedian every time. Totally. It is so anxiety provoking. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. And also setting myself at ease. And setting yourself at ease. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. And also setting myself at ease. And setting yourself at ease.

Yeah. Do you think of there being a hierarchy? Do you think I'm the best? Or do you think I'm top 10? I'm top 20. I think after a cup of coffee, I would say there's 100 people as good as me. Yeah.

And I can't name that many who are like better where I would be. There are certain people who I watch and I think, like Sade and I, my wife went to see Maria Bamford a couple of weeks ago at Sony Hall. And most of us, you watch their act and you say, oh, I see how they got there. And that's a really good sentence. And I watch her and i think

this is all inspired and and i don't i don't know how she comes up with this the magical the voice it's magical and it's sublime and and i'm in awe so i i think i'm i think i'm excellent but there are people who are better than me and there are people who are better than me who haven't done it there's so much luck and timing involved and I think we've discussed this but Kurt Vonnegut's idea of he had survivor's guilt after surviving

World War II and then he said as a novelist he had survivor's guilt because he thought a lot of audiences have failed artists painters, writers, actors, and he said comedians, which I thought was very generous. And that's how I feel at this point. We can name a dozen comedians who we'd say, oh my gosh, this guy is so hilarious and should be a household name. I think Eddie Pepitone is very well known, but he should be as well known as fill in

the blank of a person who's selling out arenas. I can cut this out if you don't say it publicly, because I forget whether or not you have, I've seen you do this live, but I don't know if you've done anything, but you'll make jokes at the expense of like well-known people like Chappelle or Seinfeld. Oh, sure. Yeah. Do you do that publicly or do you just do that in clubs? I mean, I mention it in theater shows. I mean, the thing is, is that Chappelle talks about how sensitive audiences are. And I point out that he's actually a very sensitive guy,

just like all comedians. And then the thing with Jerry Seinfeld is that I feel betrayed because I was such a fan and I bought sign language. And I remember reading it and being outraged. I said, this is just his act. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so I felt taken. I get that.

Have you ever talked to Seinfeld though? No, I've never talked to him. I get that. Have you ever talked to San Valdo? No, I've never talked to him. I've never met him. I was at a party where he was across the way and I didn't think it was my place to introduce myself and nobody introduced me, but I do make jokes at his expense. With Chappelle, you do the knee slapping thing.

I don't like it when he slaps his thigh with the microphone. It's funny. I don't know about you. I field a lot of criticisms of Ricky Gervais, Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle, these moguls of comedy who have said things that people don't like over the years. And I always just play Switzerland with it. I just go, you know, there's all kinds of comedy and I like all kinds of comedy, but I never-

See, I don't care for Switzerland. I think of all the times not to maintain neutrality. And don't they say if sometimes not taking a side is taking a side? Who says that? And this is actually a bit I was working on, but Toblerone had a picture of the Swiss Alps on the side of their box, and Switzerland sued them to take the Swiss Alps off their box.

And I remember thinking, yeah, the Holocaust, they're not going to take a side. But the Toblerone using the thing, I could never get it worded right. That's so funny. And I continue to try almost every time I go on stage. Keep it in the act. That's a great line. Just so somebody else doesn't take it. Right.

Yeah. Here's our red line. Chocolate. Oh, my gosh. That's so funny. Thank you. Here's my red line. That my gosh that's so funny thank you thank you here's my red that's perfect chocolate it's cubic chocolate but also i i just it'll turn into something that's also about tobe lerone i i once i write once i have a sentence that works i'm i'm i'm hoarding anything associated with that thing so i'll I'll do something on the shape of

it and the size of the boxes and the duty-free. Yeah, yeah, no, certainly. Like you need more luggage just to take the duty-free size Toblerone or something funnier. Yeah, I think that that's a very funny joke. But yeah, I had a journey with, I was early in my career, I was very critical of a couple of comedians jay leno and robin williams because we feel betrayed because we love them and then they don't come through for us i think that there's some truth to that so like with jay leno i used to do a joke on stage where i said uh i like to tune into jay leno because i i like to hear the jokes that i thought of too oh that's so good.

And it's funny, but at a certain point, a comedian said to me, like, you know, he is one of us. Right. No, that's a great point. And I was like, that's fair. That's a great point. And so I stopped doing it. I used to make a joke about Robin Williams because he's known as a joke thief.

And he stole jokes and he talked about it on Marc Maron years ago. Okay, yeah, yeah. And it was a thing where he explained that the way his brain works is whatever. He had to stop watching comedians at a certain point because everything goes in, and he flies up on stage, and he freewheels, and it comes out. Whatever comes out comes out. I remember hearing that. I just remember doing a show with Robin Williams for the troops, for Wounded Soldiers, Wounded Warrior Project.

And he talked to every soldier. These guys were really broken up, battered folks. And he would be the Robin Williams that they would dream of meeting to every single one of them. And it was such a reckoning for me because I'm like, I'm for that. Yeah. And I don't even care if you steal jokes. No, I know. Like, whatever you're doing, I'm for it.

No, totally. And I became a complete convert on Robin Williams. Yeah. And I actually don't really, truthfully, I don't even really criticize any comic. No, I get that. I have a joke about Larry the Cable Guy years ago, but it's not even really that mean. It's just about having a catchphrase. Yeah.

I think what I feel comfortable talking about Seinfeld with is the difference in his lifestyle and my lifestyle in that he has a building where he houses this Porsche collection and I literally don't have enough room on my kitchen counter to keep the toaster on display at all times. Oh my gosh. We have to stow the toaster. So that's a joke from my

last special. Well, he should be contributing to the Goldman Fund. The Human Fund. So good. I gave to the Goldman Fund earlier this month. I mean, I tried to do a monthly. I was just getting so many phone calls from those guys at a certain point.

Put me down for a quarterly. But I think what I said was that we're in the same business. He's worth a billion dollars and he's better than me. But is he $999,911,000 better than me? Oh my gosh. That was the, yeah. Oh, Gary. That's so funny.

Which I feel is the most vulnerable I've ever been on stage. Announcing your net worth to a group of New Yorkers is I was naked up there Okay, so you say in your book that you wrote this book in grade school called The Lonely Train. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have it. I still have it. I'm going to post some pictures of it. Did anyone flag that in your life as a metaphor for the mental state that you were experiencing?

Nobody flagged it. This was a tree that was being teased by the woodland creatures and cried so much that he grew to be really tall. And I was always the tallest kid in my class. According to your book. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so I brought it.

A tree was being teased. Yeah, I brought it home. And of course, I didn't know that it was a cry for help, but my father loved it so much that he brought it to, and you may remember the name of this company. It was called Addison Wesley. And it was a publishing company that was on Route 128 in Reading. You could see it from the highway. And it turns out they published textbooks. So he brought it to them.

I don't know who he brought it to. Maybe just a secretary or something. And they said, well, we published textbooks, but this is a very, very nice book. They were very kind to my dad, We published textbooks, but this is a very nice book. They were very kind to my dad. Wow. But my dad didn't read anything into it. My mother didn't. It's interesting.

I was working on this joke recently about how my wife Jenny said to me, she goes, sometimes I feel like you're not happy. And I'm like, right. That was really, man, that's some simple truth right there, which is like the greatest formula. Yeah. It's like a simple truth. I don't mean in a disparaging way formula, but simple truth is killer. I mean, that's excellent.

Right. And I go, yeah, I wasn't happy when we met. I thought that's what you were into. And then we got married and I was like, this is amazing. And I'm still not happy. And then we have our daughter and it's transcendent this is amazing and i'm still not happy and then yeah but i'm still happy no i'm saying happiness is a spectrum and i'm on the in the best the um angle of this spectrum right now but but i'm i'm not 100 happy all the time. And we discussed this the last time we were together. The worry, the big worry is that this thing will cease or be curbed somehow. Which thing?

Just where I am in my career. We had this exchange where I said, if I could trade any future improvement in my lifestyle and my career, and all I had to give up was that improvement, and I could have exactly what I have now, which is a nice touring act, and I'm comfortable in terms of paying my bills, I would trade any upside for what I have now. A thousand percent agree. I could not agree with you more. Yes. My only worry is that something would come along where

when the pandemic hit, I thought, oh man, this could really be difficult to tour in the future if they don't find a solution for this. Yes. And so, but I have to play the percentages with that as well and say, well, there'll always be something,

maybe a book or maybe making albums. We'll figure it out. That is one thing that I learned from writing this book is that there were all these horrible things that happened to me throughout my life. Yeah. And I figured it out each time. And I keep forgetting that, that things that seemed daunting or impossible from tying my shoes to dunking a basketball, I've figured it out. And to remind yourself of that, when something new comes up, something you're afraid of is a really helpful strategy. So that's a point that you make in your book.

And I'm curious, is there anything right now in your life that feels daunting? Wow. It's a great question. And my wife and I have been doing the things involved in freezing embryos. And so you know what this is like. Can I be a good dad? Will I live long enough to be a good dad? Because I'm older for having a child.

And it's also around the same age my dad had me. And he was not as involved because my parents were divorced. But I just, because one of the things you can regret not having a great comedy career, not giving it your all as a comedian, but it would be hard for me with my mindset to be able to live with regrets of not doing a good job as a father or husband.

And I think this is a really interesting question for you, which is, I feel, I said this to Sade, I said, we've been playing marriage at the easiest level. And you add a kid and it increases the level of difficulty, the degree of difficulty. And we're doing really well on this. We're killing it. We're very happy people. But what happens when you involve someone that's also going to reduce your amount of sleep and put you in a sleep-deprived mood frequently? That's a different version of us. What was your joke about the version of Mike that it was one drink Mike or- Two drink Mike.

Two drink Mike. That's my first comedy album. Yeah. Yeah. So two drink Mike. Loves dancing and knows the magic trick. Yes. Zero drink Mike enjoys biographies and something and something. Sleep deprived Gary and Sade are not the same person. And you're right. And you're right.

And what I'll say in defense of becoming dad is your aperture really opens in this way, or mine has, I should say, in this way that you just, you know, I say the cliche in my special, the new one, people say, you're gonna see the world through baby's eyes. Oh, right, right, right. And then you do. Yeah. And then you do. Yes. And you go, oh man, the cliche is true.

Yeah, yeah. And there should be another word besides cliche because there's so much negative baggage in terms of cliches, but some of them are really true. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I feel like the Dalai Lama gets away with a lot of cliches. No, but I got served, speaking of depression and unhappiness,

I got served a video on TikTok where it was a clinician who was describing the difference between being unhappy and being depressed. And the way he was putting it, and I'm simplifying this, but it's like, he's describing depression as the experience of almost like sand coming through a funnel, but it's too much sand. And so in other words, there's too many things to handle and there's just a stoppage. And that's why people can't leave their house, can't get out of bed, just because there's a stoppage. And unhappiness, the way he was describing it, in relation to feeling like discontent with things as they are in your life. And when I heard that, I just thought, yeah, both. Both, right? And then I was like, but then also,

aren't we all a little of both? Yeah. And we're not all clinically depressed. Right. I think this reminds me of something. I just read this recently and I must've been reading it recently again because I remember reading this book a long time ago

while David Foster Wallace was alive. It's called The Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. And it's a group of short stories, a collection of short stories. And there's one called The Depressed Person. And it's extraordinary. And one of the things is, I don't know what this is called grammatically, but it doesn't say they in terms of the depressed person. He says the depressed person in every sentence

that the depressed person comes up. So he says the depressed person, and one of the main things the depressed person, and this depressed person had a lot of things going on, but one of the main things, and I was trying to get this across in The Great Depression, and when I read William Sty styron's darkness visible which is a great account of a depression they talk about the limitations styron in particular talks about the limitations of the english language in terms of describing what a depression is and that the word depression is so

small for what this is and it also happens to intersect with the idea of I'm depressed because the Celtics lost in the Eastern Conference finals. So there's that, but also there's this frustration that in the depressed person, the depressed person talks about being so frustrated maddeningly in the British sense of the term maddeningly, like insanity, the frustration involved in not being able to describe to people who are not depressed, who do not have clinical depression, what that feels like. And it's so many things. And that is

a really difficult thing, unless you're a professional or you've experienced it. It is so hard to describe. So you can give symptoms and you can give stories of how little you accomplished or how difficult something was, but it's so hard to describe. And I think that really hit me to the point where I'm feeling great, but I welled up and cried when he was talking about this because I've been there and I've been the depressed person.

And it was just, it really, and also you're reading it years after David Foster Wallace committed suicide. So it's obvious that he understood it like very few have, but also had this ability to describe it in great detail. I feel like when you and i first met it helped me understand a certain thing about it years later which is to say you and i met in los angeles out at a show we we our sensibilities mesh this is probably 15 years ago and you're like let's stay in touch i was like great let's stay in touch and then i tried to get in touch with you

and you didn't get back to me. And I was just like, oh, I guess like, I mean, in my mind, I literally thought like, I guess Gary's just like a real operator. Like he's on to the next operation. No. But it's an assumption. Yeah. And years later, I find out you had these bouts of depression where you couldn't get out of bed. You couldn't leave your apartment.

So there's so much going on. And it taught me this wider lesson, which is you cannot know what someone is experiencing. So it's so unfair to assume what their experience is of that. It was a huge lesson for me. No, it is really a good thing to learn. And I could probably apply it to my criticism of famous comedians, but I think, and one aspect that I don't think we covered, and maybe you hadn't said that you thought our sensibilities matched, I remember thinking, even if I call him back, he was just trying to be nice. And what have I got that a young burgeoning comedian in his prime will feel? Like I was so insecure about my place in comedy and it's possible that you thought I was a really good comedian and wanted to be friends besides that. And here's the other thing. Would it have been so bad if I was a terrible comedian

and you still wanted to be friends? Like that's the whole thing that I couldn't imagine anybody liking me. Other than that, I was a really good comedian. And if I'm not a really good comedian, then they wouldn't want to spend any time. What value would I have anyway? Yeah, what value would I have? And it's just so, it's sad. And yet it seemed so reasonable

and was going on in my mind with just about everyone. So there were people in addition to you that I was, I wouldn't say I was dodging them. I would just not get back to them and then start to feel so guilty about not getting back to them. And they'll think that I'm a jerk when I do get back to them. And, and there's also this thing of being afraid that somebody will tell me off. Oh yeah. When I, if I do, if I do get back to them, like, who do you think you are that you can just take your time and getting back to me? And I called you two weeks ago, and it's just completely unfounded,

but it's depressive thinking. Yeah. When you were in the depths of your depression, what would a good friend, what could a good friend have done? Because I have a lot of friends who have substance abuse issues, depression, and a lot of times I'm at a loss for what I can do to be helpful. I remember one of the nicest thing, and again, this is name dropping, but, and I don't know how she knew how sick I was,

but Amy Schumer called me, said, let's go for a walk. We walked through the central park on our way to an appointment and it was it was long walks with people that would get me out of my head or or in in some cases just watching a movie silently with with a friend going to the movies just getting me out of the house was so helpful and and I'd go home and I would frequently say late at night, if I felt like this, I would have a life. And then in the morning it resets. It's called diurnal variation

where you feel a little bit better at the end of the day, especially if you've gotten out of the house. So I used to go to a mood disorder support group. It was on the campus of Columbia University. And there were a lot of trains to switch and buses. And as arduous as it was, it was really helpful to get me moving. So just, and then I'd be with people who understood what I was talking about. And I remained friends with a few people from there, and one of them was telling me, he said, you would just sit there and listen, and it was heartbreaking.

At the support group. Yeah, and I wanted to say, that was the best part of my day. If I was there, I was really succeeding in fighting back, and it was immensely helpful. Wow. I don't even want to go down that rabbit hole. fighting back and it was immensely helpful wow where I don't even want to go down that rabbit hole I was gonna

no I'm open to rabbit holes well it's like I've struggled with this thing in the last few years where I've had depressed friends who just drop out and I've tried to be helpful and at a certain point they're just gone and so then you just go like, well, where's

the line? Where's the line between, no, actually this person might be a bad friend. Right? Oh, that's interesting. And it's a rabbit hole. I don't know. I don't know that there is an answer to that. No, that's a great point. I mean, recently I've taken a look at my friendships and done a little Marie Kondo decluttering and found, well, this person hardly ever initiates. I have to set up every meal. I'm going to let them do it.

And in some cases they do, and in some cases they don't. And I just think, and my therapist was really good at this he says you can still have them in your life but you do not have to expect anything more than what you're getting and know what you're in when you go into it and know that if you meet up with so and so they're only going to talk about their job

and you're not going to get a word in edgewise and if you want to do that, that's fine. But know that you're making that choice. And I thought that was really helpful. That's fascinating. What do you, well, this is kind of, I've never asked this question before on the show, but when Tom Papa was on,

we had kind of a come to Jesus about our friendship and it was actually really helpful in like a real life way. Where do you, What is our relationship? Are we friends or are we work friends? Oh, I think my feeling is always that this is a really busy guy. And I'll bet you that he wouldn't be able to fit me in. Oh, gosh. Yeah.

So I don't, like, because there are a lot of things that I will think, oh, I bet you Mike would think this is funny. And I'm just like, don't be the guy who's sending, because we all have friends who send us things. And we're just like, I don't have time for this. Because if you, if some friends, if they send you something and you react,

then your next hour is in getting text back and forth. And I just, especially while writing a book, you don't have time for that. Right. Attachments to links, the things you don't have a login for.

I feel like sometimes- You know what? I don't have a Wall Street Journal subscription. I don't think I'm going to have one. Yeah. I don't know that Kafka meant this when he wrote everything he wrote, but there is something about the Wall Street Journal paywall that I think he would have related to. I think so, too.

And I think, so that's a fascinating, let me just say here on the record, this line is open. I always want to hear from you. Okay, good. Oh, that's really nice to hear. I'm always happy to hear from you. I don't know. It's interesting because you and I have now known each other for so long. Yeah.

And I feel like we're in a unique position in our friendship where we could actually theoretically point out things about each other that we could try in our act that maybe we don't even realize about ourself maybe is funny. Oh, that's really interesting. It's funny because very few friends ask each other what level of friendship they are. And that's, I won't lie, it's not a comfortable position to be ask that question and also on the other end it's it's almost i have to give an account of what happens with us when we're not in the same room because we were on that that documentary together and and i was so grateful that you were there because I didn't know anybody as well as I knew you. And it was a great life raft and we had so many great laughs.

And then you were gone. And it reminds me of when I graduated from college. I had this close friend all through second semester senior year. His roommate had gotten a girlfriend. So he was very lonely, I think. And I had just broken up with a girlfriend, so he was very lonely, I think. And I had just broken up with a girlfriend, so I was very lonely. And we connected, and then school stopped. And I remember thinking, well, unless he reaches out, I'll probably never see that guy again.

And he reached out, and we spent the next, it's now coming up on 35 years, talking on a every other day, weekly basis. And I could see a scenario where that friendship never took because I was afraid that he would be put off by me reaching out right away after. And he called me like the first day of summer vacation. It was just, it's an insecurity that I should have put behind me 35 years ago with that piece of evidence, what I would have lost out on,

one of my closest friends. I'm going to have to call you tomorrow. So this is called the slow round, and we did this last time you were on the show. And one of the reasons that we were in a rush to do this again is that the first episode that you were on, and people should go back and listen to it, is one of our most popular episodes of all time. Oh, really? And in it, we had The Slow Round, and you said, oh, you should get Anne Lamott's book, Bird by Bird. Yeah.

Which I do have, and I recommend all the time. I followed her on Instagram. She did not follow me back. Oh, isn't that heartbreaking? Killed me. Anne Lamott, come on. Come on. I talk you up.

I plug your book all the time. Are you just so massive? I know. But anyway, there's a thing that we now mention from Bird by Bird as a writing prompt often. And I'll ask you, which is, do you have a school lunch that you remember from your childhood? Oh, wow. I do remember that one day my mom sent me with a full Italian sub to school from a sub shop. And because I was used to her always

putting- You had me at Italian sub. Yeah. Putting sometimes just a jelly sandwich, sometimes just a jelly and fluff sandwich if we were out of peanut butter. I, without looking into my bag, traded it for a marshmallow fluff, which is peanut butter and fluff, marshmallow fluff, fluffinata from Boston. And I got a fluffinata and I traded this kid unopened my bag, which I thought was just at best a peanut butter and jelly. You had a restaurant quality lunch. And this guy, this. And then I told my mother that night and she was outraged. That's fascinating. And the great thing with my mother, as I point out in the book, is that she can never let anything go.

The statute of limitations with her, she still asks me if I ever use the Nintendo that I begged for when I was in high school, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. What's the best and worst nickname you've ever received in your life? In college, there was a football player and he was really good, man. His name was John Stolberg, but not Jewish, as you'll see in what he nicknamed me. And I almost thought it was sort of like Bethos because he was not a bright guy, but he came up with the perfect nickname for a Jewish person on a college Catholic school football team, which was, he referred to me as gefilte. Oh, gefilte. But what does it have to do with you really? Nothing except that it's a very specific kosher food, gefilte fish.

That feels anti-Semitic if he weren't Jewish. Oh, it was so, yeah. But it still can be anti-Semitic. He wasn't Jewish. Oh, it was? Yeah, he just had a last name that sounded almost Jewish. Oh, it sounded Jewish, okay. But it was anti-Semitic, but it was kind of clever.

It's not clever. This is Stockholm Syndrome. It was off the beaten path? No. No? Okay. Stockholm Syndrome. You've been bullied with anti-Semitism. It's time you come to grips with it, and that's the level of friendship we're at. We've come a long way

in ten minutes. Oh, that's really good. I appreciate that. By the way, that's a good joke premise. The guy calling you Gafilte when you're a kid and you're realizing as a grown-up that it's anti-Semitism. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And all these years you'd covered for him. Yes.

He thought I thought it was clever. Yes. Like, it's not clever. It's not clever. It's anti-Semitic and he's a bully. Oh, he was a bully, though. I think that's probably worth trying on stage because I feel like with your delivery

and the way that you word stories, I think that that has a really good potential to be a joke. Which is, by the way, what these slow down questions are intended for is to yield jokes long term. Is there a song that makes you cry? Oh my gosh. So many.

And most recently, while on stage describing how I had just listened to this song, I started crying while on stage, Bette Midler's The Rose. Holy mackerel. What is it about the song? Just the idea, because I'm big into metaphors and the poetry of winter versus spring, summer, the way that's used so frequently. So I have on my wrist this bracelet which says, in the depth of winter, I finally found that within me lay eternal, an invincible summer. And it's Albert Camus. summer and it's albert camus and there there's something about beneath the the hard frozen snow of winter there was this seed of a rose that that bloomed and it was about love and and it just and it really hit me because that the one thing that you don't know when you're in the middle of a depression is that you may come out of it and And the belief that you'll come out of it can be very helpful.

And that hopefulness of that song really hit me and really resonated with me. That's beautiful. Yeah. Wow. But I cry a lot with Eddie Vedder. That song about the elderly woman at the, she's a cashier and a man from her past comes in and she doesn't say anything to him.

And I think the name of the song is so long intentionally, but it's like the, I think it's called Elderly Woman Behind the Register. It's off of verses, I think it's called Elderly Woman Behind the Register. It's off of verses, I think. Oh, wow. But if you, I didn't, I heard it a million times, but I never knew the lyrics. And when I looked at the lyrics

and also in an interview with Eddie Vedder and he talked about the motivation and the origin of the song that this woman was elderly, obviously, and this person who had been in her life a really long time ago was coming back but didn't remember or didn't know her. And it was songs about loneliness really get me, man. I get you.

Yeah. Yeah, loneliness, I think, is the thing that so much of great art is about. Yeah. I feel like it's people. It's like we're all trying to express what our version of loneliness is. And so if you can connect the way that song is connecting with you, then you're opening people up and it's just a gift. Yeah.

I mean, just the fight against loneliness by people who feel that they're more comfortable alone, a lot of us, we're not more comfortable alone, really. We're social people, but there's all this anxiety and second guessing and insecurity and a lot of times we're too afraid of the connection because then you feel

and that's sort of half premise, half anything that you're working on that you want to throw into the mix? Can I grab the notebook? Yeah, you can grab a notebook, yeah. All right, so you hold that up so people can see it a little bit. Oh, yeah, yeah. Or are you self-conscious? Where's my tree? I grab the notebook? Yeah, you can grab a notebook, yeah. All right, so- Can you hold that up so people can see it a little bit? Oh, yeah, yeah. Or are you self-conscious?

Where's my tree? I need a camera right here, right here. I mean, that's nice. Oh, thank you. I like that I can just see the word ignored in all caps. Yeah, because I think there's a better word for this. So I talk about finding out when I was in third grade, I think, that Jesus was Jewish.

Yes. And so I wanted to write this sentence where I said, what great news that Jesus, the focal point of Christmas, this holiday, but I should say Christmas, the focal point of Christmas was, and the word, I don't think it's the right word, was as ignored by Santa as I was. Yeah, I love that. So you're saying, so the fundamental punchline of the joke is that really, to use the phrasing from Broadcast News,

the movie we were referencing earlier, they're really burying the lead. Yeah, oh my gosh, yeah. Broadcast News, the movie we were referencing earlier, they're really burying the lead. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. In the sense of that Jesus was Jewish. And at that, devout. Yeah. He was a very serious Jewish person.

He was a zealot, according to the book Zealot by Reza Aslan. But I said, Hebrew school never mentioned Jesus. They bring up Jonas Salk, Hank Greenberg, Sandy Koufax, Kirk Douglas, and Houdini, but ignore the greatest magician of them all. Ah, that's a winner. All right. Then I will put a star next to that one. Ignore the greatest magician of them all is so good.

Oh, thank you. Because it acknowledges Christianity as a significant thing, but then it also undercuts it at the end. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wonder, this would be like an Ira Glass note, but it's like, how is that joke about you? Right. And like, are you ignored?

Do you feel ignored? How do you feel about what's happening in the joke? That's really good. That's a good Ira Glass note. Yeah. That's what he always says. It's like plot and then how you feel about it and then plot and then how you feel about it. But man, is that funny.

I think that's funny as hell. Yeah. I mean, part of it is that I have this thing where Jews are so proud of anybody that does something, have this thing where Jews are so proud of anybody that does something, but then they're very particular about their pride in certain areas. They don't take pride in Jesus and they don't take great pride in, at least within the world of Kerber enthusiasm, which I really identify with for some reason, they don't really embrace Larry as successful as he was.

They don't care for Larry. You think Jewish people don't like Larry David? Within the world, the universe of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Okay, okay. People, the Jews in general love Larry David. But the people in his world can't stand him. And here's the thing. I kind of identify with that in that I feel like a lot of my people who come to my shows

are much kinder to me than my family is about my shows. Oh, certainly. Like my family is just so famous. I don't know if you get this from family and even close friends. They just damn with faint praise. Oh, yeah. My family is just so famous. I don't know if you get this from family and even close friends. They just damn with faint praise. Oh, yeah. It's just-

All day. Yeah, and it's- Congratulations. Yep. Let's go over faint praise. Here's what you don't say to people who just performed their goddamn heart out on the stage.

You don't say, congratulations. How did you feel about it? Oh my gosh, the Barry Katz School. Oh. How do you think, congratulations. How did you feel about it? Oh my gosh. The Barry Katz school. How do you think it went? How do you think it went? Any other ones can you think of? You looked great. You looked great. The set is gorgeous. Oh my gosh. Do you get nervous? Do you get nervous before the show? How do you remember it all?

How do you remember all the words? Yeah. Don't say these things. No. Don't say these things to a performer after they've just performed their soul to you. Just don't. Yeah. You know what?

Lie. I don't care about your integrity. You just saw someone perform. Don't, you know, your word is impeccable. Sure, maybe tomorrow it is, but not when you just saw the person perform. You go, I loved it. We loved it.

Here's my favorite part. You pick one sentence. Towards the end of my sets, I usually say, listen, I don't know what your threshold is for a standing ovation. But I know there are some people who have standing ovation integrity and you have to cry at some point,

but I gave you a much longer show than you paid for. That's so funny. And you have to stand up to leave anyhow. But I wanted to run one last thing because it was on the idea of a husband and wife. And I talk about the expression, it was a different time. And I say, during all these so-called different times, there were people doing the right thing. That's right. And during World War II, there were German and Polish people hiding Jews. And, but I, then I wanted to add this thing where I say,

but there are also men not hiding Jews and blaming it on their wives. I'd love to hide you. My wife just, she brought up the dairy restrictions. Oh my God, that's so funny. And I just, and I, is it in poor taste? I don't think it's in poor taste. I would find it in poor taste if it was a non-Jewish person, but also I feel like as a Jewish person, where's the, how, I think. I don't know, what is the point?

It was a different time thing. Is that in the special that you're developing right now? Like your next comedy special? Yeah. It's about how my father was a progressive member of the quote unquote greatest generation. Whereas most of them were not. And people will say, well, he was a very racist man, but he served in World War II and it was a different time. And they always say, this time, was it before the, oh, it must have been before the famous schism between right and wrong. That's funny. When they split over creative differences.

And so that was a very, my father wasn't a, he wasn't a perfect parent, but he was a good person who was progressive in terms of, he never said anything homophobic or racist or sexist, misogynistic. He was very progressive in his politics and his social views. Progressive in terms of he never said anything homophobic or racist or sexist, misogynistic. He was very progressive in his politics and his social views. And I just, it's rare for white men of that era. Not rare, but uncommon. No, I think that'll work. It helped me to see the context of it, the ramp into it. Right. Because I think that the energy of that premise will roll into the, you know, I think the blaming their wives becomes like an, like, if this, what else?

Yeah. You know, like. Right. And then I think it might be beneficial to do an if this, what else for like four other things. Yes. to do an if this, what else, for like four other things. Like who else was blamed? Who else did a thing that was on the line? But ultimately, wait, if they blame their wife, yeah. But ultimately like wasn't helpful.

Like other examples of people who weren't helpful. Yeah, yeah. No, I think that's great though. Thank you. So the final thing we do on the show is working it out for a cause. Is there an organization you contribute to that we will contribute to?

I contribute monthly to the Helen Keller Foundation, but it's part of this thing that I discovered from Peter Singer's book, Doing the Most Good. Have you ever read that? It's sort of 100 pages on effective altruism. Okay. And Sammy Koppelman put me on to it. Oh, that's great.

Yeah. And so there's a website called givewell.org, and it's the most intense and analytically driven idea of what is doing the most good, it seems, in terms of your money saving the most lives. That's how they've figured it out. contribution, you're saving one life by contributing to either this group that puts up malaria nets in Africa and in the case of the Helen Keller Foundation I think they give vitamin A

to kids so that they don't go blind or die so I contribute every month to the Helen Keller Foundation, but we could also do GiveWell.org the general fund where they put month to the Helen Keller Foundation. We could also do GiveWell.org at the general fund where they put it to the best use. Yeah, why don't we do GiveWell.org?

Because it gives people a lot of choices there. People can learn about the Helen Keller Foundation and all the other ones. No, I think it's beautiful. And I think you're beautiful. And I'm glad that we had this talk because I think it's going to augment a stronger friendship. I'm going to text you tomorrow.

Yeah. I'm going to do a follow-up. I think we can take our friendship to the next level. And also even our joke collaborations because I have a lot more jokes here that we didn't even get to and so do you. And I think we could be regularly bouncing jokes off one another.

I would love that. Working it out because it's not done. Working it out, because there's no... That's going to do it for another episode of Working It Out. I love that Gary Gullman. You can get his book, Misfit, at your local bookstore. I could not recommend it more highly.

You can follow Gary on Instagram, at Gary Goleman. You can watch a full video of this on my YouTube channel. Check it out. Subscribe to it. Go to berbiglia.com to sign up for my mailing list to be the first to know about those upcoming shows we're adding literally in days from now. Our producers of Working It Out Are Myself, along with Peter Salamone and Joseph Berbiglia,

associate producer Mabel Lewis. Consulting producer Seth Barish. Assistant producer Gary Simons. Sound mix by Ben Cruz. Supervising engineer Kate Balinski. Special thanks to Marissa Hurwitz, Josh Upfall, David Raphael, and Nina Quick. My consigliere is Mike Berkowitz. Special thanks to Jack Antonoff and Bleachers for their music.

They have a new single out. So good. Special thanks to my wife, and Bleachers for their music. They have a new single out. So good. Special thanks to my wife, the poet, J-Hope Stein. You can follow her on Instagram, at J-Hope Stein. 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 enjoy the show, rate it on Apple Podcasts.

It really helps. Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Tell your bullies. Gary and I talked about bullies a lot today. You know what you should do? Look up your old high school bullies, give them a call, make peace. Hey, I know we haven't talked in 20 years. And last time we spoke, your fist was in my face, but I wanted to let you know about this podcast you might enjoy. Maybe if they'd had the Working It Out podcast back then, I wouldn't have bullied you. Maybe they would have

had a better understanding of themselves and others. Thanks a lot, everybody. We're working it out. We'll see you next time.