Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out - 27. Rachel Bloom: The Inception of the “Please Stop The Ride” Musical

Episode Date: January 11, 2021

The award-winning co-creator and star of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Rachel Bloom joins Mike as the two of them crack into a format never explored in this podcast—the musical! Mike leaves his prepared material behind and pitches a concept for a musical. In turn Rachel pitches Mike her first comedy special—an idea she has never discussed publicly. They also discuss Rachel’s hilarious new book and Rachel delivers some of the best slow round answers of all time. https://feedingamerica.org

All right. Okay. Rachel's back. Bing, bang, boom. Ready, ready. Okay. So I was going to play you this, Rachel, because I just thought this was not a thing that I went out of my way to do,

but I was reading the book last night, and then my daughter Una, who's five, came in, and then I'll play you what she said. So this book that I'm reading, can you read me the name of it? It's called I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are. And the author's by Rachel Blaine. That's right. It's a really good book.

It's the book Dad's reading. Good job. I'm interviewing her for the radio show. Cut that out. Okay, I'll cut that out. Hey, everybody. it's Mike. We are back with a new episode. Our first new episode of 2021.

Working it out. Thanks for joining us. We are joined today in moments by the great Rachel Bloom. The book that my daughter Una and I were referencing is her hilarious book that just came out called I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are. It's a collection of humorous essays and poems, collected childhood remnants and things. It's a riot. If you don't know Rachel, she's the co-creator and star of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,

which is unlike any show I've ever seen. It is a musical comedy TV series originally aired on The CW. Currently, you can binge it on Netflix, which I could not recommend more. It is so silly and smart and outrageous. And yeah, so do that. Pick up this book. This is a great conversation. This is unlike any episode we've had. And we start by talking about a momentous thing that happened for her in 2020,

which is the birth of her daughter. Enjoy my chat with the great Rachel Bloom. That's what you have in store, by the way, because you have a young, you have a young child right now. I'm so excited. Every day, her personality is starting to blossom more and more and more. Especially those first three months are, what a nightmare for everyone involved. What a nightmare for everyone involved. By the way, this is a perfect lead into the last time we saw each other was when I did perform the new one in Los Angeles. And then you and me and Jen and your husband Dan went to breakfast and we talked about precisely this. Yeah, and I'm really glad that, look, nothing prepares you for it.

And I think numerous times when it was happening, he and I both said to each other, like, no one told us it was this hard. But you tried to and other, like, no one told us it was this hard. But you tried to. And other people definitely tried to. And I think what I didn't realize was for that first, especially, like, month, like, they don't want to be here. Yeah. They're like, why have you done this to me? Nobody asked them. Why have you willed me into existence?

Yes. This world is cold and confusing. Yes, yes. And you're like, I know. I'm really, really sorry that I inflicted this upon you. But now it's like, now she's like a baby baby. And she loves life. And she laughs all the time.

And it's like, oh, great. You're welcome. Oh, my gosh. That's wonderful. And then I find, obviously, the show and the And then like I find, I found obviously, you know, the show in the book is like the first for me, the first year was really, really hard. And then every year after that, just it feel like just gets better and better. And then I apparently like, they start to hate you around 10 or 11. And, and then it goes downhill from there. And then uphill

when you when you're super old, if you're lucky enough to be super old. I'm actually really glad that we did as much preparation as we could because it was the least we could do. If you told us, oh, and there's going to be a pandemic and you're going to know people who die, I think definitely Dan would have died. Like his head would have exploded and he would have like collapsed on the spot. We wrote you an email after that breakfast, me and Jen, recapping our advice about parenting because you were pregnant. And it was A, email yourself little pieces of writing about the experience. Oh, God, right.

You know, Jen wrote poetry and she emailed herself just little snippets. And B is make a one sheet of ways that your parents can be helpful. Because so often relatives think they're being helpful, but they're not. It was so great and so lovely. And because I feel like you're also from seeing your show, but then obviously talking to you at that breakfast, like what you feared and were hopeful about with parenting were very similar to how we felt at the time. And so seeing you on the other end of it, like, oh, okay, they're doing great. They love their child.

All seems to be. And, you know, we both have daughters. Like, that was, like, really, really comforting. But it's funny the, you know, tell your family what they can do. And we had also talked about, like, keeping visitors to a minimum in the first couple days. Like, that ended up kind of being moot just because of COVID. I gave birth. Oh, my gosh.

Wow. It just wasn't. So not only were visitors. So I couldn't have even, I had like a doula. The doula couldn't come to the hospital room. No one could come to the hospital. And my daughter was in the NICU. And we left the hospital.

And she was still in the NICU for a couple days. Oh, my gosh. And Gregor, I called Dan Gregor. His couple days and Gregor, I call Dan Gregor, his name's Dan Gregor, I call him Gregor. Gregor couldn't even come back and see her. He was banned from the hospital. Yeah, because of COVID. Yeah, yeah. So he couldn't, he didn't see her for three days. Like period. That is a horror movie. It was, it was really, really hard and really awful. And then we didn't know who had the virus and how it spread. There was no testing. So no one came to see us. And actually, I was supposed to have some.

Was this in April? No, this is late March. Okay. And it was just as New York was getting really bad. So stuff was really, really scary. And then the night I gave birth, I found out that my songwriting partner, Adam, was on a ventilator in New York with COVID. out that my songwriting partner Adam was on a ventilator in New York with COVID. So my daughter was on a ventilator because she was born with too much fluid in her lugs. And then like I find out that night he's also on a ventilator. It was so scary and surreal because I was already terrified

of COVID. But suddenly this thing that I'm already scared of in kind of an existential way is like directly affecting someone I know. The, I did not, I mean, I knew Adam Schlesinger passed and it's, it was so sad, but the idea that that intersected with your daughter's birth and being in NICU is, I mean, I can't even imagine how, how hard that was. It was really hard. It was definitely the most, because then he died a week later, and she had just come home from the NICU. Oh, my gosh.

And then it was, like, randomly my birthday, which is a weird fucking birthday to have. And actually the silver lining was that while she was there getting better, we didn't know how COVID spread. My psychiatrist had said, like, sanitize everything. lining was that while she was there getting better we didn't know how covid spread my psychiatrist had said like sanitize everything so we spent the next day or two literally just sanitizing everything we were we were outside on our hands and knees clorox wiping down everything that had been in the hospital with us because we just had we didn't know we didn't know like where what the virus lived on or

or whatever um yeah and so it was it was like really and then i would go see her in the hospital and then i would come home i would strip down in the front yard and i would run into the shower i and i was doing the same thing at the same time, except I didn't have a newborn child. Right. I want to compliment something about your book, which is like, your book is incredible. And I'm reading the book and I'm having this thing of like, I think I was introduced to you first

when you were a guest on Script Notes podcast years ago. Yeah. And then I was like, oh, I love this person's comedic voice. Then I watched Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I'm like, I love this. And now I'm reading your book and I love all of them in and I'm realizing as I'm reading it, like, I love them in the same way. It's almost like they were written by the same person. And I think it's like, I feel like we must have some kind of artistic DNA in common because when I read your book, I'm like, I just like do check marks down the page of like, I love this. I love this. I love this because it's so raw.

Oh, thank you. Why do you feel comfortable exposing yourself to your readers and viewers all the time about things that most people are just uncomfortable talking about? It's been a slow process, but I think as I do nothing I share publicly that I haven't like processed inwardly and shared with my husband, my friends, my psychiatrist. So that by the time I share it, it doesn't feel like, oh my God, this is the first time I'm sharing this intimate thing ever. I've kind of like, um, I've focus grouped in it. I focus grouped in my own life. And so by the time I share it, maybe like 65 to 80% of the shame or the stigma or the fear of being judged is taken away. And then what I've also found is that vulnerability breeds vulnerability that I've, I haven't seen yet a downside to just being honest that people, people respond to honesty with,

you know, their own, their own honesty and vulnerability. So, but I think that, that there, there are, cause there are stuff I could have talked about in the book that I haven't fully processed. You have a bully thing. There's this thing that you do in the book that I've never seen in a book, which is that you have a musical written on the page, which I was laughing my ass off. And then I look on your website, racheldoesstuff.com, and then you have for free for people to download the music version of it. And I'll just play a clip so people can hear it. Adolescent Rachel Bloom enters.

She wears her entire I'd Rather Be Rehearsing ensemble. Hi, I'm older now. That's still what I want to do. I don't care if it makes me strange. That's what we want to do And shoot us in the head if our ambition should ever change The dumb fuck bully chorus, aka the Gaskins, enter. They mock both Rachels. Fuck you, you stupid freaks, we're back from part one

Fuck you, you freaky Broadway freaks. On the count of three, you'll be shunned. Three. I love when it goes to the count of three, you'll be shunned. Three. Thank you. Yeah, they don't really want to count to three. They just want to say three.

Yeah, they don't really want to count to three. They just want to say three. This is a thing called the slow round that we do on the show. And it's just sort of prompts or memories, things. Do you have a memory from your childhood that sort of is on a loop in your brain? One of my earliest memories is busting out of my stroller in the local, it wasn't, it's now a CVS, but he speaks a Savon. I remember busting out of my stroller in a Savon. And I know it's a real memory because my mom hasn't like brought it up.

There's no video of it. I just, I have this fleeting memory of, I think, unbuckling like a stroller, like, you know, those typical umbrella strollers. It was low to the ground so I could get, it wasn't one of those things where it's like raised now. It was just, and I just remember unbuckling it and running and my mom being like, Rachel, like I remember that.

Wow. And that's of course the great metaphor for your career. Yes. Wow. And that's, of course, the great metaphor for your career. Yes. Rachel. And stealing a bunch of Advil. The theater community tried to stick you in an umbrella stroller. And I said, no! And you were like, I'm out of here.

I'm out of here. And everyone was like, Rachel? I think that's why that's actually so, that sticks in my brain. Because, you know, like early memories, it's because we have like the emotions around them. Especially like this feeling of shame or transgressing. So like I knew I'd done something wrong. But it wasn't like for a long, the longest time I had this urge to rebel. But then also a huge fear of authority.

Yeah. And a fear of doing something wrong. And the two were like completely at odds. Like I would rebel and then be like, oh my God, did I fuck up? I was never one of those just like rebel and be like, fuck the man. Like I would always do something that felt emotionally right. And then like my logical side that was afraid of backlash would come in. And it's only recently that I've learned to marry those two. So the idea of busting out of the stroller, knowing it was wrong, feeling the shame of getting yelled at, but still being like, I got to run around this save on. I got to knock over some brooms. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly. Yeah. I love that. Okay. What's a story that you tell your friends,

and you don't have to name names, but you don't tell in your book or on stage or anything? Oh, my God. Oh, I mean, a go-to story I don't talk about in the book. I've said it in maybe one interview, but I tell this a lot to friends, is my family and I, my parents and my grandparents, we were eating at a restaurant on, I remember it was Mother's Day, and mothers ate there for free. We were eating there on this restaurant for Mother's Day. And I remember it was called the Golden Goose, and I don't know if it's still there, but it's in El Segundo, California. And we were having a good time. And I remember this woman comes up to the table and puts something in my father's hand and goes, this is for you. And I remember she was wearing a really bad hat. She was wearing like an oversized, like bad

Kentucky Derby-ish hat. And had a terrible face. Yeah, yeah. She had like a terrible demon pig face. And the thing she handed my dad was a note written on a napkin saying, sitting next to you and your family was one of the worst dining experiences of my life. Oh my gosh, no.

You are loud. No, no. And annoying. And I sincerely hope you take care of your gas problem no yes sincerely good meal ruined sincerely good meal ruined that's how she signed it and sincerely good meal ruined yeah and so um we're at we're decompressing after and like i read the note i felt such shame um and i remember my my uh grandpa was like i was the one who was farting oh my god but then my dad was like i farted and then i went i was the one fart. So we all really were farting at the time.

That story is amazing. And I just remember, I remember we went to Disneyland afterwards. Because we had a year-long pass to Disneyland at the time. And I remember taking the note. I was like, can I have the note? And I held it in my hand. And I threw it away in a Disneyland garbage can. Stepping away from my conversation with the great Rachel Bloom

to send a shout out to our friends at Helix Mattresses. I love my Helix Mattress. You know who else does? My daughter, Una. She says, Dad, I want to sweep on the Helix. It's, my wife loves it. Our in-laws love it. They ordered one.

You go on the helixsleep.com site. You fill out a quiz to match yourself to the right mattress and you get the most comfortable mattress that Mike Birbiglia has ever slept on. An exciting thing is that they were awarded number one best overall mattress of 2020 by GQ and Wired magazine. They have free shipping, a 10 year warranty. Right now, Helix is offering up to $200 off all mattress orders and two free pillows for our listeners at helixsleep.com slash for bigs. And now back to the show. Okay, so the next question is, what do you think people like and dislike about you? I think people like that I'm honest and try not to pretend to be something that I'm not and that I'm earnest.

and that I'm earnest. And I think the thing that people dislike about me is the same thing that people like, which is like sometimes the earnestness is too much. And sometimes I'm just like a little too like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I relate to that so much. Yeah. Because I asked myself this question.

It was actually, it's in Mary Carr's book, The Art of Memoir, which is an amazing book. If people are interested in reading a book about writing autobiographical stuff. And, and it's a question she asks her writing students. And when I first read it, I thought the thing people like about me is essentially what you're saying, which is like, I'm very, I'm very sort of positive and upbeat and supportive generally of other people. And then, uh, what they don't like about me is, uh, sometimes that's really annoying. Yeah. I think that there's, I think that there is a fine line with like earnestness and being too much. And I think that that line is like, depends on opinion that, that, and I'm, and I'm basing this off of what I surmise, but also like Internet comments.

Yeah, but that's not fair to yourself. You can't count that. But... instance where in your real life, not like the internet, can you think of an instance where your earnestness was too overbearing to people in your life? Oh, yes. Okay. I was working at a restaurant in New York, a fancy restaurant that shall go nameless because in the book, I talk about the secret second kitchen that they had that I had learned to cover up, which is 100% true. And a lot of restaurants, a lot of restaurants have a secret kitchen. So I was working at this restaurant. We got a lot of tourists and, um, there were, there would be tourists who would come in who would not necessarily know it was a fancy restaurant. And I kind of hated the fact that I was working at like a super fancy restaurant. This was a place where like, literally you had to wear a jacket. We had jackets that we would loan to people,

just not, not my type, not my speed at all all but somehow i ended up working there oh my gosh so whenever i've been i've been by the way i've i've been loaned the jackets at the fancy restaurants before because i'm not a fancy dressing person and it is a very demoralizing moment and they're gross they're never washed it's yeah they're in the coat closet along with like everyone else's like shit and their umbrellas and stuff it's it's fucking gross so i was at the front desk and i think some tourists came in who were clearly not super rich and they were from france and i speak a little french and i was speaking french to them and meanwhile i was ignoring like an actual reservation phone call coming in because i wanted to help these tourists like earnestly.

So they leave. And the girl who was with me who was just like really mean in general was like, you know, you have a thing where you really like the underdog. Oh, my God. But you're not actually doing your job. Oh, my God. She goes, you don't work for the United Nations. Okay. You're not a diplomat.

Oh, my God. She goes, you don't work for the United Nations, okay? You're not a diplomat. Oh, my God. Your job is to, like, serve the people who are calling, not, like, random tourists who aren't going to give us money. Wait a minute. Yeah, I mean, look, she was right. Wait, did she outrank you? She was technically training me, although we earned the same amount of money.

That is a, that's a wild character you have to write that character into something someday yeah no i've tried to take the character there are a couple of there are a couple of of people i met working that job um because then she she was also really unhappy she got fired because she got drunk at work so she was she got fired she was drunk work and she. So she was, she got fired and she was drunk at work and she like spilled a drink on a patron. It was like, oh, you're instantly fired. So she was a very, very pent up and unhappy person. The restaurant in general had a very dark, gloomy vibe,

despite the fact it was like beautiful and it had like a beautiful view. I have this memory from waiting tables when i was in college where i was working like a late night shift when the restaurant sort of became a bar and people were drunk and i was like i was like trying it's called the tombs i was like trying to like excuse me pardon me excuse me someone's head flipped back from laughing at a joke really hard and it head butted my forehead and knocked me unconscious oh my god and then i was awoken up by my manager danny and uh and uh and he sort of like sent me home whatever cut cut cut me. And that's one of my memories on a loop I always think about

is like this weird like being knocked unconscious while waiting tables at work. That's really weird. But, you know, in hindsight, because so many of these things, you look back and you go, why do I remember that? Why is that significant? And I think it's weird because they just let me leave and walk home. Like no one walked me home or made sure I was okay and didn't walk into traffic by accident. Like, like it's this weird thing where you start to look back on your life sometimes,

or at least I am, I'm developing this new show, the YMCA pool. And it's like, you start to look back on your life sometimes or at least I am I'm developing this new show the YMCA pool and it's like you sort of look back and go like people are really selfish like like my manager didn't give a shit about me you know like the people around me like were like yeah yeah you got knocked unconscious you should head home kind of thing oh yeah people are fundamentally I think that's what takes the burden off of like everyone's talking about me and everyone's making fun of me for the most part people are really just thinking about themselves yeah and how to get through a day no no one no one's ever thinking about you or even judging you maybe they're passively judging you and it's for a moment but like if you think the entire world is fixated on like fucking you over you

don't realize you don't realize how fundamentally like selfish and biased everyone is i was when i was at that same restaurant there was a another tourist family that was like at the desk asking me for something and i was helping them and then i this. I banged my knee really hard. No, I think I fell. I fell on the ground, and I banged my knee, and I went, ah! Oh, gosh. Oh, God! Oh!

Like, I was like, and I look up, and they're like, so do you have the number? Oh, no. No. No. They just truly didn't fucking care. Do you have the number? Yeah, and I'm making them Italian just because, like, I assume that they were Italian. Sure.

We got a lot of Italian tourists. But, like, it was. Wow. Yeah, people are just. That's why, like, I think I also have empathy towards people because, for the most part, no one's consciously trying to be a villain or fuck someone over. They're just living their lives with their biases and mostly thinking about themselves and their own shit are we tell me this were you a good are were you a good waiter i think i was good i think that for whatever i lacked in skill i made up for in person like being personable

because i did have a thing where like i would go to sleep and then be like, I never got that guy's pepper. I would always remember something right before going, going to sleep like that. But I think I, what I lacked in maybe sometimes being flighty, I made up for in sheer charisma. Yes, I believe that. I was a pretty, I was a pretty good, cause I'm eager to please. And I'm afraid of people being mad at me, which is perfect for customer service in this country when you believe the customer is always right. For me, because of also a lack of self-esteem, it's like the customer is always right. Which kind of means I'm fundamentally wrong. Yes.

At all times. Yes. Which they don't have in other countries. If you get weighted on other countries, they're like, here's your croissant. Fuck you. Like, I'll be back in three hours if you want a glass of water. Shout out to our sponsor, MeUndies Underwear. I called these folks at MeUndies to be a sponsor on this show because I wear MeUndies all the time based on, wait for it, listening to podcast ads like this one. So yeah, it's all connected.

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And now back to the show. I wasn't planning to pitch this to you. Okay. And the pitch might be really half-baked, but I'm just sort of curious how it strikes you. So I had this idea for a musical a few years ago because I did the new one on Broadway, and my takeaway from it was being a fan of musicals

and someone who can write plays and write shows and can perform, I would love to write a musical where I take pieces from my different albums and specials over the year from my girlfriend's boyfriend and thank God for jokes and the new one and sleepwalk with me. And I string them together as musical numbers. And the thing that the missing ingredient from it that I think could be fascinating would be that my wife, Jen, who is an introverted poet and who would never get on stage for something like this in a million years, a lot of her thoughts in writing and as a character, she runs all the way through it.

And I had this thought, which is that there's, it's a three-person musical. And it's me monologuing at the top. vlogging at the top. And then about 10 minutes in, a pianist starts playing under what's happening. And about 10 minutes after that, the Jen character comes in. And that's what I feel like if you'd be entertained the idea of that. And the idea would be that you would sing these numbers that we play all the way through and that I would speak them. And they would be sort of speak, sing, comedic duets. And I think that the payoff of it could be that my character keeps saying like, could be that my character keeps saying, like, I don't sing.

Mm-hmm. And that ultimately, at the end, I would, I mean, I'd really have to get trained and learn how to sing so that we would actually have, the show would end in a bonafide duet. That's literally what I was hoping that you'd say. I think that's a great idea. I think that's really, you were telling me about something you were working on with Jack Antonoff, and I was hoping that you'd say. I think that's a great idea. I think that's really, you were telling me about something you were working on with Jack Antonoff, and I was really excited about it. Yeah. So two summers ago, I was working out material for my next show. And he and I have lunch every week. And he noticed that this poem that Jen had written would make good lyrics for a song and then i told him about this song

that i that i sometimes sing to our daughter because she hates to sleep and i go like she hates to sleep and we don't know why she hates to sleep because she hates goodbyes and he was like that's a really nice chorus and then And then we went back to his apartment, and he started playing it on piano. And then he was using Jen's lyrics as the verse, and then we would go, and then she hates to sleep, and we don't know why. She hates to sleep because she hates goodbyes.

Doom, doom, boom, boom, da-da-da-do-do-do-do. And it was really nice. And then we just went up on stage at Cherry Lane at my Working It Out shows and we just played a piano version of Please Stop the Ride which is from my girlfriend's

boyfriend, it's a story about me throwing up on a scrambler with a girl I had a crush on in 7th grade and it really felt like something and so we're, it's, I mean literally me talking to you right now is with the girl I had a crush on in seventh grade. And it really felt like something. And so we're, it's, I mean, literally me talking to you right now is, that's it. That's all we have.

I think that's really, really cool. And I think that, because it makes sense you, it's almost like you're revisiting your past work and then exploring a different side of it, which is the musical side. And I think that like my thought is like almost as a, I don't know if it's the structure, maybe, maybe a kind of superstructure of it is like, why do you feel that the emotional part of you, which is almost the music is separate from the, like, it seems like there's a separation between head and heart. Oh my gosh. yes, yes, yes, that's right.

And that being a kind of like, that being the structure to hang all the monologues going into songs. Because what you're talking about is, if you didn't have the monologues, actually, you're describing a form called a song cycle. Okay. There's this Jason Robert Brown show, Songs for a New World, that's a song cycle. Okay. There's this Jason Robert Brown show, Songs for a New World, that's a song cycle. There's this song cycle called,

I think it's First Lady Suite. And basically it's when musical, it's when composers just kind of want to do a series of songs about a topic, but like there's no plot through line. Sure, sure. So it's almost like you're doing elements of a song cycle, but there is kind of a through line,

but it's almost like more of like a thematic, like nothing plot-wise happens. It's more of just like a thematic through line. I think that's really cool. I think there may end up being a plot line that emerges, but I think like, just to paraphrase the Scrambler story, but it's basically this story from Girlfriend's Boyfriend where I'm, I have a crush on this girl, uh, Lisa Bazzetti, fake name.

And I invite her to go to Carnival and we go to Carnival and I, and I go on the scrambler with her. And, and, and it's, it's basically, if people aren't familiar, it's, you know, it's like a circle inside of a circle inside of a circle inside of a circle. So I'm going around and I'm like, and we start scrambling and we're scrambling and scrambling. And it occurs to me like, oh no, I'm going to throw up. Like this is going to be very bad. But the premise of a scrambler is that you really only can interact with the scrambler operator like one eighth or one tenth of the time, you know,

as you're going around and then you have like one moment where you're like, please stop the ride and then I'm back scrambling, scrambling, scrambling, scrambling, please stop the ride and then I'm back. But I thought when Jack and I were kicking this around, this idea of like, if the show is called Please Stop the Ride, it becomes this interesting metaphor for life, which is to say that like, so much of my comedy, a majority of it, a majority of yours from the book and even from Crazy Ex is based in things that were painful at the time you experienced them. But then through the lens of comedy and experience, you're able to process them. And that you actually feel joy and laughter in the future of them. And that the end of the show is basically like, you can't stop the ride.

Like that life is the ride. And that all you can do is try to enjoy the ride while you're on the ride. And that's sort of where it lands. That's really beautiful. And I think that the way to intersect that too with music is like, a lot of people say, oh, I can't sing. I'm not that person. I'm not going to burst into song. Because there's almost a shame of the emotion that it takes to burst into song and of the unironic emotion that it takes to earnestly sing a song.

I sidestep this all the time by doing comedy songs. There's sometimes. Meanwhile, you have a gorgeous voice. Oh, my God. What is this? Oh my God, oh my God. What this? No. So I like that idea of the ride is also like the moment

and the earnestness of whatever you're going through in the moment. And just like don't comment on the moment as it's happening. Don't comment on the moment as it's happening. Stepping away from my conversation with Rachel Bloom to send a shout out to a new sponsor. This is Monk Pack. They make keto-friendly granola bars that contain two grams of net carbs and they're only 140 calories.

They're great for people like me who are trying to cut back on sugar and carbs. I am a convert. I was a little skeptical at the outset, but then I ate some. They're delicious. They're healthy. Try yourself, and you'll see. We have a special deal for our listeners. Get 20% off your first purchase of any Monk Pack product by visiting MonkPack.com. That's M-U-N-K-P-A-C-K.com. Select any product, enter the code BERBIGS at checkout to save 20% off your purchase. MonkPack.com. Code BERBIGS. And now back to the show. I think that there's a thing right now where, and I don't know if you're experiencing this,

where things are so bleak and they're so sad that I feel like when I come back with something, I want it to be the be-all end-all of entertaining the fuck out of the crowd you know what I mean so this is really interesting because I have an idea for something that is kind of the opposite like this but but the two have a lot of similarities so before COVID happened I was planning my a special like my first filmed uh it would be stand-up into music special and i would i would say it's like you know 30 like spoken stand-up stories going into like 70 songs and then the world stopped and i had a baby and she was in the NICU and my friend died and it and and i was

facing death and the inevitability of death and my own beliefs about death for the first time in a long time. Because I became an atheist maybe like 12 years ago, and it was this huge revelation that I had. And since then, I hadn't really thought about, I don't know, those big existential questions a lot. Yeah. questions a lot. Yeah. And so what I'm actually like trying to think about in pitch and is a special called Death Let Me Do My Special, where I start doing the special that I was planning to do, like I open it with the song and then I get heckled by death. Oh, I love that. Yeah. And death would either be played by myself like i don't know if it's played by myself or another person but basically it's me trying to do the special but

death being insulted keeps showing that i don't that i don't first of all it's death trying to take the spotlight and then being insulted that i don't acknowledge her more like how dare you pretend wow that i'm not here and do the stupid fucking songs um and then the thing that i'm kind of the the structure that i'm still thinking about is how much do i then like i think what starts to happen is like at first i try to just do the special that i wanted to do and then death keeps cutting in and then at a certain point the content of the stand-up and the songs that i'm doing becomes about death right like as she starts to like infect the special so that's like i it's so funny you pitch this because like i'm working on a almost the opposite

of how do we get back to normal when a lot of us have been faced with this, not only this huge hardship, but like a hardship that represents what history has mostly been and like what the experience of our ancestors has mostly been, which is like fear and plagues. And how do you maintain hope

in the midst of hopelessness? Yeah, it's interesting you should say that because yeah, the two shows that I've been working on for the last couple of years are this Please Stop the Riot idea. And then the other one I mentioned earlier is called YMCA Pool. And literally the YMCA Pool show is all about death. and you know I've had cancer I have a sleepwalking disorder I've you know I've I've so many issues but I think like I I'm excited about your show idea I'm excited about YMCA pool too because I feel like if you can go as a comedian I feel like a lot of your comedy does this if you can go to the darkest places and you can find comedy in the darkest places, I think that there's healing that occurs there. Yes. And there's a quote I read somewhere by, I think it's Christopher Hitchens, who

I have mixed feelings about because he also said that women weren't funny. But that's a whole other thing. But he said something otherwise profound, which is that I'm going to paraphrase it because I don't have the quote in front of me. But like basically comedy is is the way that we for the moment like beat death, laughing, laughing, laughing death in the face is the way like death is always going to win no matter what. Yeah. But comedy is the way that we for a moment like trick ourselves into feeling um yes like we've beaten it and feeling normal and i gotta say after when my daughter's in the NICU even after we took her home and then Adam died the thing that helped me was just like funny movies and funny podcasts like not to because the existential crisis and the thinking about death

and the worrying about the lives of myself and everyone i hold dear that was always going to be there i didn't need to like sit and mull it over or write about it what i needed to do was like balance it out with some fucking escapism and some i don know, like dopamine or whatever the chemical is that comes from laughing. And I just like listen to silly podcasts. Yeah. And it saved me and it brought me back to the state of normalcy, which unfortunately is the ignoring the fact that death is coming for us all. Yeah. Yeah.

It's so funny. I'm calling up the document right now of Please Stop the Ride, which I literally was not planning to talk about because you know how proprietary we all are over ideas and we're like, we don't want to tell people because it takes away the- Oh, yeah. I haven't told anyone about the death, let me do my special thing. But I'm like, I mean, is someone going to steal that from something I said on a podcast? I'll just use this podcast as proof that it was my idea.

Right, exactly. So I wrote this idea that I come out on stage, sort of like simple stage, and I say, so I'm a comedian, which is the perfect job to take my own pain and convert it into comedy because comedy starts as pain. But I'm reaching the age of 42 and I'm starting to come to grips with this idea that if I'm a comedian and I know how to convert pain into comedy, how come I can't stop the pain? And then I go, I'll give you an example.

When I was in seventh grade, people started making out with each other and I was so shocked by this. And there's this girl I have a crush on named Lisa Bo bozzetti and then i go into the please stop the ride thing right yeah and and then uh and then jack and then theoretically jack walks on stage at that point and just starts playing piano and uh and just starts uh i don't know why i wrote this rachel i swear to god you know you write things in a notebook and you go what i don't know why I wrote this, Rachel. I swear to God, you know, you write things in a notebook and you go, I don't know what the fuck this means.

I wrote, Jack enters and plays a riff of the Phil Collins song, Take a Look at Me Now. Great. And then I go, oh, this is my friend Jack. And I go, he's my best friend. And he goes, I'm not your best friend. And I go, okay, he's not my best friend, but I'm at this stage in my life where even if I see someone once a week, I'm going to'm not your best friend. And I go, okay, he's not my best friend, but I'm at this stage in my life

where even if I see someone once a week, I'm going to call them my best friend. And so then he starts playing underneath this. Anyway, I've always envied Jack because he can sing and play piano and musicals make things more emotional. And then Jack sings. I obviously have no voice, but I go,

music makes things more emotional and then and and and and then i go and i can't sing and then he goes like but music makes things more emotional and i go and i wish i could sing and then it's it's sort of that uh-huh it's almost like um in chorus line i could never really sing it's it's that kind of is what you're doing it's so funny you should say that i wrote wrote talk, sing, and parentheses. What I thought, it's funny, I think some, because someplace you could take it

is that if he's kind of you, again, outsourcing the part of yourself that wants to be emotional but is afraid to, at a certain point you could be like, and I really, because this is a musical, I should be singing my intro right now,

so, but Jack take it and just, he's like, and then if Jack was like, my name is Mike, I'm 42 and I'm a comedian. My wife is a poet. I got a daughter. Oh, my God.

That's so good. Oh, I love that. Good. Take it. No, that's so good. So, yeah, that's it in a nutshell. I mean, I think that's a good place to wrap up. I mean, I think this could be the beginning of We Make a Thing.

I mean, it takes years, as you know. It takes years to make musicals. It doesn't have to, though. The whole thing is it's a little bit of, like, there's a little bit of, like, kabuki theater going on where, like, you're going through the motions because it's, like, what you're it's traditional and there are certain

things that you do and there are certain poses because it's a representation of what the thing is. But like, yeah, you could also just make a thing and put it put it up somewhere. I guess the idea is just that we have this three hander musical and we just like go to town. I love it. I'm really down to work on this. All right. Awesome. I'm so excited. So the last thing we do is a thing called working it out for a cause. It's just, I give to a nonprofit that you think is doing a good

job right now. And then we'll link to it in the show notes. And if you have to take a minute and look something up or Google it by all means. Um, Oh God. Um, there were so many, I'm gonna like, Um, oh, God, um, there were so many. I'm gonna like, I'm gonna say Feeding America. Yeah, they're great. In honor, actually, of Adam Schlesinger, because I was, um, I was like, I wanted to donate a place in Adam's name. And his family like was like Feeding America, because people really need food right now. And Adam was all about like feeding people, which he was. He was this amazing cook. And like you'd come over to his house and he would just make like amazing steak for you.

And so I think that they're aces in my book right now. Oh, that's beautiful. So we'll give to them and we'll link to them in the show notes. And that's such a beautiful sentiment for Adam. And thanks, Rachel, for being a part of this. This is a really, this took many unexpected turns. It did.

And I got to say, like, oh, my God, next time I'll have a thing to work out. But this did feel like working something out. The next time I think maybe we'll work on another section of maybe Please Stop the Ride. I'm down with that. Or the death special. Yeah. Either one. Either one.

Okay, great. Working it out, because it's not done. Working it out, because there's no hope. Wow, that's going to do it for another episode of Working It Out. You can pick up Rachel Bloom's book, I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are, at your local bookstores. Support your local bookstore right now,

as well as your local food bank, as Rachel mentioned. You can watch her series, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, on Netflix. You can binge that now. It is very uplifting and fun and silly. And this is a really fun episode today. It felt very momentous. It felt like we were in real time sort of coming up with, huh, maybe we're going to collaborate on this musical.

Who knows? One other thing is if you're enjoying the Working It Out podcast, please do us a favor and put five stars or we like it or a comment or whatever to try to tell the world that you enjoy Working It Out. We are

having a blast with it. Also, you can join us at Working It Out virtually Valentine's weekend. We have three shows that are for sale on Burbiggs.com. Our show is produced by myself, along with Peter Salamone and Joseph Burbiglia, consulting producer Seth Barish,

sound mix by Kate Balinski, assistant editor Mabel Lewis. Special thanks to my consigliere, Mike Berkowitz, as well as Marissa Hurwitz and Josh Upfall. Special thanks always to Jack Antonoff for our music and maybe in the future our musical as always a special thanks

to my wife the great J. Hope Stein our book The New One is also curbside at your local bookstore and special thanks to my daughter Una who helped me create our radio fort which now includes these odd uh foam panels uh thanks to everyone most of all you who listened tell your friends tell your enemies we are

we are working it out for real that's what we're doing. See you next time.