Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out - 39. Nish Kumar: The Sidekick Soliloquy

Episode Date: May 3, 2021

This week Mike is joined by British comic Nish Kumar and they discuss Brexit, the craft behind building a one person show, and the time Nish was told by a heckler to “go home” when he was pretty close to his home. Nish divulges his lifelong goal to not be Batman or even Robin, but rather the other guy. The sidekick of the sidekick. Find out why Nish should be everyone’s hero. https://helprefugees.org/choose-love/

Hey, everybody. We are back with an all-new episode of Working It Out, one of my favorite episodes we've ever done. If you haven't heard the news, I am doing outdoor shows. They're safely distanced outdoor shows. If you're in New England, they're in Connecticut and Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and they're safe, they're fun. It's all the new material that you've been listening to me work on on this podcast, but all together, what's going to become The Old Man and the Pool,

and currently is called Working It Outside. So you can find out about that at burbigs.com, as well as my Cape Cod Melody Tent show in August and my fall tour, which is rescheduled from spring 2020. But today on the show, we have a hilarious comic from the UK named Nish Kumar. Nish Kumar is someone I met from just sort of following each other on Twitter over the years. And then he just put out a comedy album, which is called, it's a double album called It's In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves, Part One and Part Two. And I listened to this and I just thought, this guy is hilarious.

It's available on all the audio platforms. I highly recommend it. We have a great, great conversation about the relationship between personal stories and the structure of shows and shows in Britain and shows in America

and I hope you enjoy my chat with the very funny Nish Kumar. I've been listening to your album, It's In Your Nature To Destroy Yourselves, part one and part two. Double, double albums. It's phenomenal. Oh, thanks, man.

I don't think I've laughed that hard at a comedy album in so long. But it's interesting because some of it's recorded in 16. Yeah. And you're talking about current events that are like in our rear view mirror in such a big way, but they're actually still funny

regardless of them being a capsule, a time capsule. Oh, thanks. Yeah, I mean, when we came to release them, I sort of, my girlfriend's brother is a professional sound recordist. And so in 2016, kind of on a whim I just asked him to record the audio of the London gig that I did when I was touring that year and I don't know what I had planned to do with it but I then when I came to do the next tour like in

2019 I got him to record it again and then I sort of had these like two, and they're also like double album length. Like this is, I'm really in my like progressive rock era. Yes, yes. Or it's like, it's the sadder version of it is, it's like when Outkast did the two double albums, but I don't have a friend. So I just had to do two, I just had to do two albums myself. No, it's so funny because I did have a sense after I listened to them, like,

Nish is very prolific. My God, he's got a lot of material. But, you know, part of it is testament to something that most of my listeners are American or Canadian, and I have a few UK listeners in Australia, but not as many. People don't realize, because I do these shows like Sleepwalk With Me, My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, the new one,

and they're these sort of like hour to hour and a half long shows that have an arc of some kind and that kind of thing. And in America, comedy audiences, some comedy audiences don't know what to make of it. They're just like, is he a solo performer? Is it a one-person play? Is it stand-up comedy and in england it's that's what every comic does i i listen i had the experience of watching

my girlfriend's boyfriend at the soho theater with about 20 other british comedians and the first thing everyone said afterwards was like that was like an edinburgh show like that was like that was like watching a british there's a part of you that's like first of all why have we never heard of this british comedian and why why is he doing it with never heard of this british comedian and why is he doing it in an american accent what's his game this what is this guy up to yeah in america i'm constantly asked the question, do you consider yourself a comedian? I'm like, yeah, yeah, this is what,

in the rest of the world, this is what people do. It's a very accepted form of stand-up comedy in the UK and Australia, particularly. Like, it's, you know, the shows that you're doing

would be, I i mean we call them edinburgh shows because like the convention here is that comedians write a show over the year and then they take it to edinburgh for the fringe festival in august and you do them and you lose a load of money and you gain a load of weight and you drastically reduce your life expectancy. And occasionally... Wow, that seems like a bad deal. Listen, you must read the small print. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You must read the small print. Oh my God, I didn't see the part that says lower life expectancy. Why would they put that in two-point font? Yeah. You've got to stick that in bold. But it's that sort of the convention and one of the types of our show that everybody does and everybody does a new hour every year at the Fringe.

And some of the shows are like stand up, like they're called like Vegetable and it's an hour of stand up that has nothing to do with vegetables, but they just had to name it for something for the brochure. And then there are... Nanette is a perfect example. The Hannah Gadsby show has nothing to do with vegetables, but they just had to name it for something for the brochure. And then there are... Nanette is a perfect example. The Hannah Gadsby show has nothing to do with really Nanette.

And yeah, and then she... And what's great about that is she sort of addresses how that came to happen and talks about the process of naming a show and stuff in that show. And like, then there is a lot of shows in Edinburgh that are, you know, called something very specific and it can be a single story, but you hang lots of jokes off the back of it. And so we were all like, obviously fascinated

about this idea that you were doing something that we would really recognize in the UK and Australia as being an hour long one person comedy show. Yeah, I was I was, I have so much fun between the soho theater and leicester square theater whenever i come to london i have a phenomenal experience and i want to i want to branch out i mean what was interesting is when i was listening to your album i couldn't help but think like how are the audiences in london compared to the rest of the UK? Because in America, the cliche that people say to me all the time, but it's actually incorrect, is they go like, I bet, you know, that plays great in New York, but if you go to Cincinnati or whatever, I'm like, no, no, Cincinnati's great. I mean, you know, Dayton, Ohio is great. Boise's great. Like, actually, like, seeing the rest of America is actually quite excellent.

But how does Greater UK play compared to London for audiences? Well, it's the same sort of thing. Like people talk a lot about how there's like really different audiences in different parts of the country. But, you know, especially if you're like doing a touring show, But, you know, especially if you're like doing a touring show, the people that come and see me in Liverpool or Manchester. Right. Are kind of the same people as who comes to see me in London. That's right. Like this.

It's there's a lot. If I go to if I go to Fayetteville, Arkansas, I'm going to get the public radio listeners in Fayetteville, Arkansas. If I play New York, I get the public radio listeners in New York. I mean, it's the same thing. I really think that because people always ask you their first question. The first question is always, how often do you get heckled? That's always the first question. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Which is like, I don't if somebody tells me I'm a surgeon, I'm not like, did you lose anyone on the table today? You know, like it's so weird that the first question is always. Yes. When did you fail? When did you fail?

Tell me all about it. Oh, car salesman, are you? Ah, lean year, was it? Willie Loman? Anything there? That's so funny. It's such a strange impulse that people have. But then the second thing is always like, like oh it must be really hard to play and you know especially with the kind of material that

I've been doing about Brexit and the sort of political material when I went out on tour in 20 particularly in 2019 lots of journalists would say I bet you're not going looking forward to going to you know x town that voted heavily to leave and i was kind of like i don't know what that's going to be like politically and then i spoke to stewart lee the uh the angry grandfather of all british alternative standards who's brilliant he's an amazing comedian and he and i spoke to him beforehand i was like i don't know what it's going to be like. And he had been touring, he was touring before that. And he said, I pretty much guarantee you,

you will have most of your best gigs in cities where the vote was to leave the European Union. Because he said the people that come and see you are by and large the same people that come and see him. And he said they are they're they're starved or they feel embattled and so if they come and hear opinions that they agree with they're likely to give you and he was totally right like he was completely correct yeah it's interesting because like i um you have this on the part one of the of the double album

you have this hilarious story about a heckler it's laughing thinking about the heckler who raises his hand politely and i just love that detail that put the heckler so polite and he raises his hand and he says i find your language to be reductive and problematic. Did you call on him? Yeah, I did. Because it's actually something that's happened to me a couple of times in like tour shows or work in progress shows where he will, you know, like a man and men and women are both just like,

you'll look out into the audience and see a hand raised. Sure. And you're just like, I kind of kind of i if somebody heckles me i'm obviously like fuck you but if someone puts their hand up i'm like you've started a dialogue friend that's how i feel about it i mean i might dismiss it i might say actually i'm i'm gonna i'm presenting something here but maybe we could talk later. It's one of those things where if somebody has their hand up, you know how when you look at somebody, and the longer you do comedy, you immediately get a sense from somebody's body language if they're going to be trouble.

Like you sort of develop, especially when you do like club comedy, you can like feel when somebody's going to be difficult and if somebody engages you in the audience it doesn't matter what they're saying you can tell from the tone of their voice whether they're going to be trouble or not and the person raising their hand by and large is not a problem and you know that it's going to be fun if you pursue the interaction yeah i mean it's i've had so many over the years. I remember one time I was doing this elaborate George Bush, George W. Bush analogy. I call him Wiffleball Tony. It was my first album, Two Drink Mike.

And someone in the audience, this was in Atlantic City, someone in the darkness, as you know, when you perform in theaters, you're often like looking into darkness. The audience is nothing. And they're just theaters, you're often looking into darkness. The audience is nothing. And they're just sounds. And someone goes, you didn't die since 9-11. But I couldn't hear the full sentence.

All I heard was die. So I just hear, die! Die! Die! And I'm like, oh no, I think I might die. Like, what if this person has a gun? Am I about to get shot? Like, I literally thought about walking off the stage.

And then I, you know, I just kept going. And, you know, I go, sorry, sir, can't hear you that well. And then my brother explained to me later, he was like, oh, he said you didn't die since 9-11. What does that mean? Well, it was a big thing that people who were pro-George W. Bush in the early 2000s. I'm so sorry. For one second, I thought you were going to be like, it was a big thing where two planes were flown into the World Trade Center. Yes.

Oh, I don't know if this made news in London, but there are these two planes went straight into the goddamn World Trade Center and we've been talking about it ever since. I explained the full story. It's 25 minutes long. No, it's very... No, it was...

No, it was this weird... Honestly, it was the scariest heckle I've ever received because I was like, A, the topic is volatile. Yeah, sure. And B, what I'm hearing is die. And so I'm thinking this might end badly. But what's interesting is you have a moment on your album where right around the leave

vote if the listeners don't know where the UK voted all the residents of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union and on the heels of that you went on stage at the Comedy Store in London

that night had a very passionate, passionate set. And someone shouted kind of an old school racist trope, which was, I want to say, go home. It was, you can go home. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like old school 1970s British racism. It's like you look into the darkness and expect to see somebody in flares. Like Disco Stu from the simpsons like something like yes it was yeah and it was on the night and it was so it all felt so sort of febrile and like very tense and like the uh you know, the security staff had to like bundle me into this back room because the guy had stayed to have a further conversation. Oh, wow. I didn't know that.

So and James Acaster, who's a great British comedian and a friend of mine, was around the corner doing a gig. And he and I had like arranged to go for a pint between shows. We were both doing like an early set and then a late set. And we were going to go for a drink between shows. And he got to the comedy store. And when he got to the comedy store, he was like, he was,

he was waiting for me. And he went up to the security, security guard and went, have you seen this? And the security guard was like, well, you better come with me. Oh,

they were like holding me they had me like in a back room to stop this guy from beating the shit out of me were you were you genuinely afraid i was kind of you know there's that weird thing where the adrenaline you forget who you are and what you were like at fighting when you're on stage you know like there's the because the adrenaline is like the adrenaline is just coursing through your body and so in your like in my head i am you know standing there and i'm terry cruz like in my head that's what the audience is seeing what the audience is actually seeing is it looks like a witch has put a terrible hex on Jason Manzoukas. That's what the audience is really seeing. And so it was like one of those things where I wasn't afraid. I was like,

I was so angry. And like the blood was just, the blood was pounding in my head. And I was so furious. And it was good that they put me in that back room and just defuse the situation. Because I don't think, I think if I'd seen that guy, I would have started a fight that he would have ended quite quickly, I imagine. Yeah. That's so scary. I mean, I've had a couple of things like that over the years. It's so scary. Do i've had a couple things like that over the years it's so scary do

you you've spent time in america and you you were you know you live and grew up in england yeah what how would you compare the racism in the different places i mean i don't know i mean like i guess like americans have this conversation all the time because we feel I think we feel like our racism is unique to our country, but it's not. It's it's just a different I would say it's a different version of it. It's so interesting. Right. I mean, because there's so there's so much there's so much complicated reckoning with history that the two countries are doing. And one of the problems that we have in this country is the fact that in terms of like starting a conversation about the historic roots of British racism, a lot of the problems we have is that our, the worst sort of crimes of our racism were happened abroad. Like we didn't do a lot of the stuff, the slavery plantations that were run by British people were not in Britain.

India and Africa and all over the world. The British Empire ran India, you know, and committed a string of massacres in Kenya and India. And so we definitely tell ourselves the national story in this country tells us that Britain is not a racist country and we're not like America. us that Britain is not a racist country and we're not like America. And so I don't know who's in a better position because I think we both probably feel that each other is in the better position because I feel like in America, at least there is a more open dialogue about race and racism, even if the dialogue is horrible. Whereas in Britain, the struggle is to start the conversation. We just had something happen in this country where the government basically found, like has written a report

to officially rubber stamp Britain as not being racist. And they got it. Yeah, they got it written by a bunch of people who had already are on record as saying, look, Britain's not a racist country. And they've written a report. Like, it's like me writing a report into the size and shape of my own penis and coming away going, it is absolutely pristine.

Yeah, yeah, it's phenomenal. And it's like it's classic British. I would say that our racism versus your racism is a bit like the differences your racism has a huge budget and a big cast of characters oh my gosh and and our racism is it's all about the little looks that's amazing Stepping away from my conversation with Nish Kumar to send a shout out to Helix Mattresses. Oh man, I love Helix Mattresses. So we have to do ads for the show, but then every once in a while, you know, a product comes along like Helix Mattresses. And you just go like, oh, this is great. I just get to talk about mattresses for a minute,

and then we go back to the show. Unbelievable. It's the most comfortable mattress I've ever used. I mean, it was awarded number one best overall mattress pick in 2020 by GQ and Wired Magazine. This was the shocker. Number one best overall mattress pick in Mike Birbiglia magazine. MB Magazine.

Yeah. You might not even know about that magazine, but it's huge. They have free shipping and a 10-year warranty. You can try it out for 100 nights risk-free. Right now, Helix is offering up to $200 off all mattress orders and two free pillows for our listeners at helixsleep.com slash burbigs. And now, back to the show. You and I have this thing in common in terms of feedback, which is to say that you get heckled

sometimes. In this album, you talk about getting heckled very politely yeah and you reconsidered a joke so like you said a joke that was about white people and then someone said actually i object to that and uh and you said okay i'll change it to rich white men and then that's what the joke is and it's a very funny joke but it actually made me think like like i think that's what the joke is. And it's a very funny joke, but it actually made me think like, I think that's a very level-headed approach to comedy. And I have that too. Like I take in a ton of feedback. I read a lot of comments on Instagram.

I read emails that come to working.pod at Gmail. Like I will consider, I'm curious what your policy is because I will consider any complaint, but it doesn't mean that I'll change it just because there is a complaint. Yeah. And I think it's strange. I think some of the conversations people have had around offense in comedy. I mean, I think like, thank God for jokes was a great special about this exact issue and this exact conversation. But one of the things I've always found interesting about people who are like you know people should comedians should be able to say whatever they want you're like yeah we we do and we can but we also workshop material and we workshop that based

on audience feedback so if somebody you know if a joke is it doesn't get a laugh from people I'm probably going to drop it and if there are some things where it doesn't get a laugh from people, I'm probably going to drop it. And if there are some things where it doesn't get a laugh from an audience, I think, Oh, you know, how can I, I do think there is something funny here. Can we, can I work through it? Can I, you know, and you change the wording and you, so I, to me, if somebody says, Hey, I didn't like that joke because of this reason, I, if to me, it's part of the same process of like improving material. So if somebody says, I don't, I'm offended by this joke for this reason, what I don't see any harm in going, Oh,

that's interesting. And then if I, if I, if, if I come to agree with them, I kind of go, Oh yeah, I will change that joke.

It's all part of the process of working on and improving your material. I would have thought, Oh, this is just a process question. When I was listening to the album, I was like, I was like, Nish is so prolific. What, uh like morning pages? Or like, how do you work from the blank page?

I mean, I can't sit down and like write word for word stand up. Because when I do that, it turns into a subpar undergraduate essay. My style of comedy very quickly devolves into a very poor undergrad essay. So the best thing for me is to have like three ideas of like jokes that I will sort of make like hastily scribbled notes that look like the sort of Zodiac killers like planned for the evening. Yeah. Yeah. I have something like that. And then as quickly as possible, I will go on stage and try it out and even try some version of it. And I will, this, this new material nights in London and I will go on stage with like three ideas and try and bounce between them and see what I can get to. And then I will record that and then listen back to it.

That's what this podcast came out of. Because I'm similar, like I write drafts of things, but like really like the final edits occur with an audience. And so this podcast is an attempt to, okay, well, we can't perform in front of audiences. And so this podcast is an attempt to, okay, well, we can't perform in front of audiences. So I'm just going to call my comedian friends and we'll kick jokes back and forth. But I find that so interesting with your work. Like, so, because to me, something like My Girlfriend's Boyfriend feels like such a whole piece. In my head, as somebody watching that show, it feels like you have had this like grand idea for a story.

And then you have, you know, mapped it out like a three act structure script thing. And then you're trying to fill that with jokes. But do you, is it more piecemeal in the way that you come up with it? So it's both of the things simultaneously. So for example, I'm doing free writes like a few days a week where I write just whatever's in my head. And then I'll sort of underline jokes. And then I'll create note cards of jokes. And then I'll be talking with my director, Seth Barish, about what could this show with these jokes and these stories be about? And then over time, we sculpt those things together.

And it's just funny, I workshop them in comedy clubs and I workshop them in theaters because I want the show to hold up as a series of jokes and I want it also to hold up as a piece of theater. Right, right, right. That's such a hard, like, that must be such a hard balancing act to get both of those things. Because ultimately, my shows, much as I've talked about the grand British model of editing,

my shows ultimately, it's like, you know, that picture of Charlie Day from Always Sunny where he's gone. That's what I end up with. I've got all these fragments of ideas and routines. And then at the very end, I like try and put it together in a way that feels like it makes sense like it has a kind of like flow and order to it and it has a structure to it but i'm not like there's no grand narrative in any of the shows that i've done there's no story that

i'm telling and so i'm always i'm and it's the it's one of the things that people do in comedy that i'm most fascinated about because i feel like i can't do it and I don't feel like I would be able to tell a story like over an hour and I'm always interested in knowing where the like root of all of those ideas comes in well like when I work on my shows with Seth like we always work backwards from a single event so like with Sleep Walk With Me it's like i jumped through a window with my girlfriend's boyfriend it was i was in this car accident with a drunk driver etc and then we build backwards from from like well what would make that final story have the maximum impact so like in the case of like your part one of your album like the guy heckling you and saying like go home yeah which is i can't even like

paraphrase your heckler and not feel weird about it i can't i'm not i don't like this role playing i don't want to be the racist role player in the podcast? I think that that speaks very, very well of you. I think the fact that you have not just slipped comfortably into that role speaks extremely well of you. Where do you think I live? That's amazing. I mean, so the go home moment, like if I were working with Seth, it would be like, okay, so we take that go-home story

and we'd probably include some of the stuff you were saying about how they put you in a room and they made sure no one came back and all that stuff. Like that would end up being the final story of the show. Right, right, right. And then we would sort of calculate how do we build backwards so that everything in the show is ultimately, without the audience realizing it, leading to the moment of your reckoning with this mean, racist heckler?

Right. Sure, sure, sure. Okay. That makes sense to me. So this is a thing we do in the show called the slow round, and it's sort of just based on memories and things. And do you have a memory from childhood that it's not a story per se, but it's just like a thing you think about sometimes, like a memory on a loop? Yeah, I kind of, I really remember that when I started, and this memory has been around,

has been circling around my head a lot recently because I, when i moved house i found this thing that i've had i think it's the object i've had the longest in my life uh and it's the top of a i actually i actually keep it on my desk it's the top of a batman pen uh from when i was a kid like from the tim burton batman pen it's so it's probably like, that's probably 1989. So it's probably a long time to keep an item. Yeah. And my dad bought it for me. Because my mom, my mom was like in hospital for a bit like in for like a fairly normal health thing. She was like in hospital for a bit when I started school and my dad had to take me to school

and I just remember very early saying to my dad like I had somehow misunderstood school like I thought that it was like when you buy a car and you have like a trial period with it and so for like the first couple of days of school I after that i said to my dad like cool i don't think i'll be going back i said i i had like totally misunderstood what i love that i so love that i thought that it was like something my parents were sending me to for a few days and if i liked it i could stay on there and after the first couple of days I was like I don't think I think I'm done I think I'm done I think I'm good with school I think I'm good with school yeah I feel like I got what I needed and I'm good I'm just gonna use this Batman pencil top

and I'll be on my way so the Batman pencil top was one of a string of bribes my father got for me because my mom I guess like my mom would just have been more used to like because my you know my dad was away with work a lot of the time yeah and my mom was the one who was like more used to like getting us to go to school and like getting us sorry getting us to go to like play group and getting us to do things we did well and my dad just like in retrospect clearly just had no idea how to convince this child that he had to go to school. And so just started buying me gifts at the end of the day. Wow.

Did you ever have a teacher in that period of time who gave you confidence? Like, I remember I had a couple teachers who, like, fostered my creativity. And I, like, remember it to this day. day yeah i think about that a lot actually i mean when i was in when i was in high school i've translated it for the american audience we call it second i've translated to high school i just want you all to know that lilly say yeah well no after brexit it's the old learning shop we've done away with all our european terminology michael oh gosh the old learning shop do you want to have a rendezvous no i want a fucking meet up you prick that's really funny it's i

like had a teacher who when when I was in secondary school, just found this like government scheme that meant that like kids could go and see theater shows. And so we would just get like dirt cheap theater shows to go to all these like mad West End theaters that are all like 150 years old. No kidding. Yeah.

And also like- That's a huge seminal moment that happened when you were a teenager yeah it was absolutely massive you start going and seeing these plays you know like i saw like like i saw ian home in the homecoming which is a really fucked up harold pinter play and it's really intense and just all these like 16 year olds going i don't know what's going on i went to see sweeney todd not knowing it was a musical and if you don't know that it's a musical that's a surprise and if you don't know it's a musical you don't know if it's a it's a musical about a barber who murders people by slitting their throats that is a really delightful surprise as well. Like those are really enjoyable surprises. Let me ask you this.

Do you recall growing up when you were ever an inauthentic version of yourself? Like it was someone who you were along the way? Yeah, all the time. Most of, I would say like quite a lot of my teenage years. Yeah. And quite a lot of my like, when I was in my 20s, there was a lot of my like when i was in my 20s there was a lot of me kind of trying on uh there was a lot of me like trying on a few different personalities and like really not quite never really quite making it work like when i watch, when I watched the, one of the newest Spider-Man films and he's got his friend, Ned, whose ambition is to be the guy in the chair, like his tech sidekick.

I was like, that's exactly what I was like at second grade school. Wait, can you describe what that character is like? I don't know the character. His whole ambition. And he keeps using the phrase. He was like,

I just want to be the guy in the chair. Who's like, when he finds, he, cause he finds out that Peterer is spider-man quite early in the film okay and then he says hey can i be your guy in the chair and he's like what does that mean and he's like you know in the action movies the guy there's the main guy but then there's also the guy in the chair and that's what you wanted to be the guy in the chair and that's like you wanted to be the guy in the chair that's ridiculous related to that so hard like that's such an unambitious aspiration for someone who ended up being a well-known stand-up comedian who stands on stage and speaks through a microphone i was always like maybe i could be the funny sidekick of the hero wow and then but then when does the transformation happen when when do you go from the guy

in the chair to the guy i mean i think i think all i realized was like that you can that i think maybe i watched like a lot of action that i think maybe i've watched like a lot of action films where like the site there's like a funny sidekick and then when you start seeing stand-up comedy you're like oh the person who's i mean literally the funny sidekick like chris rock was in lethal weapon three oh right and then literally when you start seeing stand-up comedy you're like he's still it's not like when he's doing this stand-up thing. When he's doing that, he's not like some great kind of alpha hero. He's still a sort of skinny, annoying dude with a shrill voice.

And so I think like doing stand-up comedy recontextualized a lot of the qualities that I thought would have made me a good sidekick. Oh, that's really interesting. So it's like you're the, you still are the sidekick, but you're the sidekick who's given a one hour block of time to say his soliloquy. That's how I feel constantly.

That's a good title for your next album, which is The Sidekick's Soliloquy. Stepping away from my conversation with Nish Kumar to send a shout out to Green Chef, the first USDA certified organic meal kit company with clean ingredients you can trust, seasonally sourced for peak freshness. Perfect timing for me in the pandemic because, you know, early in the pandemic, I was just like, well, I should be very unhealthy and I should let my body fall apart from the inside. And I ate very unhealthy things. And now I'm eating very

healthy things, which is why Green Chef is perfect for me and my family. Green Chef makes it eating well easy and affordable with plans to fit every lifestyle, whether you are keto or paleo or vegan or vegetarian like my wife, Jen, or just looking to eat healthier, there's a range of recipes to suit any diet or preference. Go to greenchef.com slash berbigs and use code 90BERBIGS to get $90 off, including free shipping. Again, that's greenchef.com slash 90BERBIGS. Code 90BERBIGS to get $90 off, including free shipping. And now back to the show. So we work out material on the show, and I have a few jokes.

Do you have any jokes that you want to run by me? I do have some. Yeah, yeah. I've got my... I could start if it's helpful. Yeah, go for it. Let me decipher the weird shit I've written in this book. This is something that I'm trying to, you know, my new show is called Old Man in the Pool, and it's all about hitting middle age and

mortality. And so I was doing a lot of free writes on that. And so I wrote this thing about how I recently saw a seagull at the ocean. It was flying in the air and it had a fish in its mouth that was alive. And I thought, that's a hell of a way to go out for that fish. Talk about an exciting final five minutes. Like your whole life you're swimming through the water which you thought was the world. And then one day you're flying through the air which you didn't know existed at 100 miles an hour.

And then you're eaten alive, which was bound to happen anyway. In other words, I don't want to die, but if I'm going to die, I wouldn't mind doing it the first time I parasail. And then the final thing I wrote down is what's amazing to me is that the fish didn't think the bird was his problem. He was afraid of bigger fish.

He's thinking like, as long as I don't get eaten by that swordfish, I should be good. And then one day he's 500 feet in the air and he's like, never mind. And that's like all of us, right? Like we're all like, I wonder what color we should paint the kitchen. And then one day the building collapses and we're like, never mind. Or like one day Zeus's hand just comes through the ceiling and starts shaking you.

That's right. Or an asteroid or whatever the hell it is. I mean, it's just, it's, it's, it's, that, oh, right. No, that's, you're right. That's a better analogy in some ways. Like, I'm just trying, what's the like human version? Because it's from a different, it's a different dimension. Well, yeah. Or like, I was thinking even like,

it's sort of like parasailing on ecstasy or something. You know what I mean? Because it's not just parasailing, because it's less voluntary and it's more trippy. But the Zeus's hand one is good too. I think that's a good point. Because the idea that it was a world, like the fish genuinely didn't know

that something existed above the waterline. Yes. And you find out, not only is there a whole other world you didn't know existed, there are creatures you didn't know existed. And you find this out five minutes before you're bitten to death by one of them.

Well, what if it's like, what if it's like you're going along and you're thinking, I hope I don't get fired at work. And then you get swapped up by a supernova and thrown into the sun. You're like, oh, that was my problem, actually. So tell me what's in your notebook right now. There's something that I don't even know. This like an analogy that I don't even know exists if this is something that people universally

recognize, but I feel like sometimes I am like, I want to nail something the way Australians nailed brunch. And I just, I am obsessed with this idea that somebody in australia one day was like okay brunch wait did australians come up with brunch i don't think they came up with it it just feels like wherever i go in the world like a lot of the best brunch and coffee places like australian and i just love the idea that a whole country would just like it feels like one day they just woke up and were like you know what we're just going to devote all our energy into brunch yeah i'm just getting it right and i like that's the

kind of like focus that i'm trying to bring to something like i just want to pick one thing and be good at it. Because like, I'm also like, I've just come to this point now where like, I feel like I've got, I'm 35 and I've got a few more years to improve my personality. Otherwise, there's just no point. And like, I've come to like,

I've given up on the idea of like, being in love with myself like loving myself ever and i realized that now i'm in an i'm basically in an unhappy marriage with myself that's funny where we've both just settled for each other and you know we're just we're going along and to be quite frank the sex has dried up i wonder if it's like i wonder if it's like the brunch thing is funny but I wonder if it's like, I wonder if it's like the brunch thing is funny, but I wonder if it's like,

what are your hobbies? Like, what are your, what are your, like, do you have hobbies? No, I mean, all I do is I do comedy. I watch television and I play the guitar. And so it's like, I don't know which one, like, I'm not going to be Jimi Hendrix. Yes.

So your hobbies, you're saying you're like hot sort of hobbyless but i feel like it's almost like one one way the joke might go is like like you know you play guitar figured out how to do like a Bach, you know, solo on like an acoustic guitar? And then when you're at a party, people are like, what do you like to do as a hobby? You're like, well, I play a little guitar. It's like, oh, really? What kind of thing? Actually, I have it right here. You pull out like a travel guitar and you're like, and it's like the one thing you do.

And then people are like, what's Nish like? And it's like, Nish does Bach guitar solos. And everyone's like, enough said. I know what you mean though, because I completely relate. I have no hobbies. I do nothing but comedy. And I would love to have one thing that I did that people go, oh, that's neat. Yeah.

And I think about that with Australia all the time because they have to operate as a country. They have some sports teams that are excellent. And then on the side, they were just like, I guess we're just going to be the brunch people. That's hilarious. We're going to really just hammer this concept of brunch. It's the same thing when you go to an outdoor music festival and you're like, you know, there's the guy with the snake. Like, it's his identity.

You know, he's got this huge python around his neck or whatever. And it's like you and me, we need our snake, but we don't know what it is yet. We need our snake is very funny. I like we need our snake. Maybe that could be part of the bit. I mean, it's an interesting theme, this idea that you can't sort of you can't sort

of self-proclaim like an identity that easily or like a like you can't make up your own nickname like when hannah gadsby was on this show she goes uh she goes you're mic Mickey B the story guy. I was like, that's pretty good. Mickey B the story guy. Mickey B the story guy is really good. But you can't go around saying I'm Mickey B the story guy. You need someone else to say it about you.

And then you go, that's what people are saying. I'm hearing a lot of buzz that Mickey B is the story guy. There's a lot of tattle around the water cooler. Yeah, yeah. That Mickey B might be the story guy. You might not want to bring that one up yourself. But you can bring a snake.

I also have this thing that I want to talk about. Again, I don't know how relatable this is for people but i feel like that in my family there is like a membrane through which information can't pass between generations like there's an accepted thing that like my brothers my cousins and me will all share information that is not to be passed upwards or downwards. Oh, that's interesting. So we don't tell our parents or we don't tell like, you know, people's kids and nieces and nephews and stuff.

Yeah. And it's like this semi-permeable membrane. And in order for something to pass through the membrane, like more than one of, like a few of you have to agree that that's what's going to happen. That's fascinating. And like, it's like, we're so obsessed obsessed with and i don't know whether it's an asian family thing it's something i've talked to a couple of my friends who are asian have exactly the same thing we like control the flow of information upwards on our family tree and like it is it is quite extraordinary and the kind of the only thing that i have that is a sort of joke for at the moment is it's extraordinary the things that i have the secrets that we have kept from

our parents are insane i i literally have a cousin who called me one day and said hey i'm going to argentina tomorrow don't tell our mums and that was it and the the real truth of that is it wasn't my cousin who said that and it wasn't argentina and i've made both of those two things up because my parents don't know the true story wow and i'm still trying to cover for them wow because you respect when you so when you're so when your cousin went to Brazil, what happened? You're not going to Frost Nixon me, Babiglia. I don't. This is not going to be a reverse Frost Nixon situation.

I know America has been very sore because David Frost managed to trip up your president. And I know that that's, and I am Britain's's nixon yeah i just don't like this argentina example it's like that's not real where did he really go where did he go nish that is so funny the but i i love that that family the sort of family tree concept and all that having to do with secrecy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's like that idea that like each band of the family tree is like keeping secrets and you're protecting people below you, but you're also protecting people above you. Well, it's like the Catholic Church. Of course, I can say that because I'm a man of the church. And I'm raised as raised as an altar boy. And I can laugh at it because I kind of look like Jesus. Stepping away from my conversation with Nish Kumar to send a shout out to Sam Adams.

Sam Adams was, I think, our very first sponsor on Working It Out about a year ago. I really, I love this company. It's my hometown beer. And they're doing a lot of great work. So many industries are devastated by COVID-19 closures, but perhaps none as severely as the restaurant industry. I was doing this thing to help out the comedy club industry called Tip Your Weight Staff last year.

Sam Adams teamed up with the nonprofit Greg Hill Foundation. They created the Restaurant Strong Fund to support restaurant workers. And they launched this to support restaurant workers. As of April, they've raised more than $7 million and awarded 7,400 grants to restaurants and employees to donate to the Restaurant Strong Fund in support of these restaurant industry workers who need your help, visit SamuelAdams.com.

And now, back to the show. So this is a joke I wrote that's, I don't enjoy footnotes when I'm reading a book. I was under the impression the font size was already small. Now you're going to force me to read something that's half the size of that on the bottom of the page? And then if I skip it, I always have this lingering thought in the back of my mind

10 pages later like I wonder what it said on page 25 I hope it didn't say the point of the book is this the other the other thing is I get really excited when there's a picture in a book

it's like being handed a free pass to the next page. It's like a bouncer at a club saying, come on in, page 53 is waiting for you in the back. I know exactly what you mean about that. And I also feel the same about things where like, there's like a page between chapters. Oh my gosh, love the page between

chapters can't get enough of the page between chapters i'd like to use my own pen and write in some notes about what i'm enjoying in the book i have a few thoughts it's a weird it's a weird decision because like you don't just like in a movie there isn't just a point where there's like just a black screen for like a minute it's really weird that they've decided to leave that but i enjoy it because it gives me the sense like if if if it's page 53 and i'm reading page 52 and i know that there's a blank page coming up i'm like i'm reading two pages at once like i'm like yes oh my god reader i'm burning through this thing. I'm a genius.

I mean, it's almost like reading for me is what brunch is for Australia. So the way that I'm trying to, just to contextualize the process, this is actually for the listeners too, because they know that I've been working on this show, is so the foot so the joke about footnotes will probably if it makes it into the show yeah we'll end up being in a section about how i was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes a few years ago and then i and then i bought a book book called like reversing diabetes. Right, right, right.

And then I'll probably go to the joke about footnotes, which is sort of wedging in a punchline in the middle of like a narrative structure. So just to get back to sort of when you were asked, when we were talking earlier about like sort of how do the jokes become part of the thing? If that joke works in front of an audience, which I've never put it,

I've never done it in front of an audience, I think that's where it'll go. At the moment, one of the things that that joke works in front of an audience which i've never put i've never done in front of an audience i think that's where it'll go at the moment one of the things that i'm trying to do is in terms of like actually introducing myself because like you don't want to even when you're touring and you're performing to people who know you don't want to go on and be like hey guys it's me again your hero And so I've been trying to like... That's a weird way to go on, I think. It's me again, your hero. Well, you could go on and say, it's me again, the guy who's in the side car.

What's it called? The side seat? The side kick soliloquy. It's the guy in the chair. It's me again, the guy in the chair it's me again the guy in the chair i'm trying to not not batman but the other guy in the chair not even not even robin even robin was yeah alfred alfred yes but like at the moment i like my i i have a sort of like my i i have a sort of in britain i am a quite divisive figure and so i've got these like two quotes where somebody called me one of the most talented comedians one of the most talented young comedians we have and a and then someone else called me a something like a leftist malcontent whose stock in trade is biting the hand

that feeds him and those two men work for the same newspaper like i am so divisive and then what i want to say is my a lot of comedians because of the connection with jazz and leddy bruce and bebop people say that comedy is like jazz which is very insulting but my comedy is actually like jazz in that no a lot of people fucking hate it oh that's funny and even some of the people who like it are only pretending to like it to appear intelligent at dinner parties and like I'm trying to work out a way of like framing that so when you go in so I could kind of go into it and say I will listen a lot of the material is going to be about this slightly contentious 18 months that i've had in the uk it's interesting

because like it is so it's such a divided time right now and it is this thing where you go like the people showing up to my show are generally on board for what i'm gonna talk about and and so then it's just like navigating within that but i actually i enjoy like one of the things i really enjoy about your album is that you go like right before right before that heckler story where you the the heckler says like go home you call out that this is gonna the final three tracks of this the rest of the show is gonna be about the leave vote yeah and and brexit and i think the audience enjoys that you hang a lantern on it i think the audience knows they're in good hands because

otherwise they're going, is he really going to keep going on this for 10, 12 minutes? But if you tell them in advance, they go, okay, this is what he told us we were going to do. It's like a lot of British comedians of my generation. There's a lot of stuff that I've absolutely stolen from Stuart Lee. And one of the things that

Stuart Lee is amazing at doing is basically saying to people, okay, so I'm going to talk about this for about 10 minutes. Then there'll be a bit where I pretend that I've fallen and that I'm angry with you. And then there'll be 20 minutes. That's really good. And then it's one 20 minute story about Jesus until the end. And like,

it's definitely like, it's like, it's fun to flag stuff up. If you, it's like fun to like telegraph surprise. And like, with the Brexit thing particularly, especially with that tour, it was right after the vote. So the vote happened in June and I was basically in Edinburgh in August and then on the road September to December of 2016.

And the recording is from the first week of December. So it was like right in that kind of, you know, not that not the things are less tense. If anything, they're even more tense now than they were. But like there was definitely a sense of like you probably should like flag up to the audience. If you're not on board now, there's a good chance you're not going to be on board by the end of this. Totally. I have one last joke.

I just wrote this today, which is I was at a bakery in Brooklyn last year. And this guy says to the baker, I'll have a loaf of rosemary ciabatta. And his eight-year-old son interrupts him and says, I don't want rosemary ciabatta. I want regular ciabatta. And I wanted to tell this kid, you know,

life is going to hand you all kinds of ciabatta. But you got to hold your ground on non-rosemary ciabatta if that's what you want that's my ciabatta speech it's i mean i guess it's the part of america that you came that you are from but it got quite kennedy it got yeah yeah, yeah. Ask not what you matter, you. Ask not what you matter, can do it for you. But what you can do, what you matter. So we're going to, we do one last thing called Working It Out for a Cause, where I donate to a nonprofit that you think is doing a particularly good job? Well, I am very fond of the people at Choose Love, who do a lot of stuff in London.

And I think they've started doing stuff in New York as well. And they're working around the world to help with the effects of the refugee crisis. And, you know, it's, I guess it's like, it's so hard with everything that's going on at the moment, but it feels so weird that there's also this like enormous humanitarian crisis kind of building its way through the Middle East into Europe. And, you know, when you speak to, and the people that work at the charity are absolutely incredible. And when you speak to them about what's going on and the people that work at the charity are absolutely incredible and when you speak to

them about what's going on the people living in these huge refugee camps that are sort of you know being displaced by various regimes when you speak when you listen to them talk about it you partly part of you thinks god i don't know why i don't know why we're talking about anything else but obviously like with the pandemic understandably people have you know attention shifted away from it but they've been doing incredible work helping refugees helping get life-saving equipment and food to them and also sort of helping them as they try and resettle them um in the uk in the us and they have like a pop-up shop um which they did in london for christmas and they would have done again this year and i think they had one in new york as well but the the cool thing about that shop is that you can just go on to it and buy like supplies for the ref and that's great tents

and sleeping bags and stuff like that so it's like it's a really like brilliant they're doing incredible work and it's a really like tangible effect that you can have for people's lives very quickly. That's awesome. Well, I will contribute to them and I will link to them in the show notes. And thanks Nish for coming on. This is a blast. And I can't wait to visit you in London

when things go back to normal. And I can't wait for you to come to America so we can hang out. I'm excited. Mike, we've got some absolutely delightful theaters and they are just primed to have toys so we can hang out. I'm excited. Mike, we've got some absolutely delightful theatres and they are just primed to have toys dropped in them or whatever. I guess

like, I guess... That's all my shows for the rest of the time have toys dropped in them? Well, I guess thematically, the bodies of middle aged men, maybe for the next show. That's my brunch, Nish. Working it out because it's not done.

Working it out, because there's no hope. So that's going to do it for another episode of Working It Out with Nish Kumar. You can follow him at MR Nish Kumar, Mr. Nish Kumar, because he's a very proper British gentleman. On Instagram as well as Twitter, MR Nish Kumar, because he's a very proper British gentleman on Instagram as well as Twitter. M.R. Nish Kumar. And again, you got to listen to that comedy album. It's on all of the apples and the Spotify's and all the places that one might listen to comedy albums. The producers of Working It Out are myself, along with Peter Salamone and Joseph Birbiglia,

consulting producer Seth Barish, sound mix by Kate Balinski, associate producer Mabel Lewis. Special thanks to my consigliere Mike Berkowitz, as well as Marissa Hurwitz and Josh Upfall. Special thanks to Jack Antonoff and Bleachers for their music. As always, very special thanks to my wife, Jay Hope Stein, the poet. Happy Mother's Day to her. We wrote that book together all about parenting. And her beautiful poetry is in that, the new one. It's in your local bookstore.

And support local bookstores. Support local pizza. Support local coffee. As always, a special thanks to my daughter, Una, who created my radio fort. And thanks most of all to you who listened. Tell your friends, tell your enemies. We're working it out. All right.

I'll see you out there at the outdoor shows. And I'll see you here next time.