Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out - 81. J. Hope Stein: Jokes and Poems

Episode Date: September 19, 2022

Mike welcomes his wife, the poet J. Hope Stein, a.k.a. Jen, a.k.a. Clo, on the release day of her new book of poems "Little Astronaut.” Mo and Clo have a deeply candid chat about poetry, creativity, and what it’s like when two artists are married to each other. The couple offer a sampling of their live “Jokes and Poems” show, discuss why Jen kept her poetry secret for years, and Jen gives tips for dating a comedian. (Spoiler: don’t.) Plus, Jen’s side of Mike’s “Who did?” story, and the truth about Mike’s household chores record.Please consider donating to Everytown

This is a unique episode. I just want to say that I've been following you and I really admire what you do around the house. What about the podcast? Love the podcast. But has anybody told you lately that I appreciate when I leave the refrigerator door open and it starts to beep and you get up and close it?

That is the voice of the great J. Hope Stein. That's my wife. That is, if you follow what I do, you might follow Jen's poetry. It is phenomenal. You can follow her on Instagram at J. Hope Stein. She and I wrote a book together. It's called The New One, Painfully True Stories from a Reluctant Dad with Poems by J. Hope Stein. And she has her own book called Little Astronaut.

It comes out tomorrow at your local bookstore. It is so good. It is such a great book to gift a new parent or anyone who loves poetry. Obviously, I'm biased. I get it. But Janet is my favorite poet. I find her work to be breathtaking. That's going to be coming out tomorrow, and maybe it's already out based on when you're listening to this.

And I have a big announcement tomorrow, too. I will be on The Tonight Show announcing The Old Man in the Pool coming to New York City. What I can say is it's going to be a run of shows in New York City in October and November and maybe beyond. Beyond, you say? Beyond? Who knows? Stay tuned. The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon tomorrow night. In the meantime, before then, I will be in Pittsburgh and Cleveland and Toronto and Detroit and Columbus and Nashville and Cincinnati and Atlanta. A few of those we had to reschedule to a little bit earlier because of the New York run.

I apologize. I'm just trying to sort of balance this all out. Salt Lake City and Mesa, Arizona, we had to take off the schedule for now. Again, apologies. I love those cities. I will return to them once I figure out what's going on. In the meantime, those shows, the Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Toronto, et cetera, those are all on Burbiggs.com.

And it's the material and the stories from The Old Man and the Pool without the big set design and the lighting design and all that stuff. But those shows are almost sold out. So get tickets, if you can, on Burbiggs.com. I have a great conversation today with J-Hope Stein. She has written poems that have been published in Poetry International,

as well as the New York Times and the New Yorker. She has a book called Little Astronaut. She has a book called Occasionally I Remove Your Brain Through Your Nose. She's my favorite poet. Enjoy my conversation with the great J. Hope Stein. Here's the exclusive about this interview. In my shows, I talk about our marriage a lot and me around the house. And I always say that I suck at everything because for comedy, that's just better. And then a lot of times people,

particularly on the internet, are like, hey, you suck around the house. And I'm like, no, no, I'm actually pretty good. I should stand up for you. It's insane. People are like, you suck. And I'm like, no, no, I'm a comedian. They're jokes.

They're jokes. Yeah, you don't suck. Pretty good, right, no, no, I'm a comedian. They're jokes. They're jokes. Yeah. You don't suck. Pretty good, right? Can you vouch for me? I would say, like, you make up for your deficiencies in other ways. That's very funny. And also very sexual. Without meaning to sound sexual, it sounded very sexual to me.

Well, this entire interview is foreplay. Yes, that's right. Just like our therapy sessions. Well, you know, we've never talked about that before, although you wrote a poem about it, but you didn't publish it. Unpublishable. For Little Astronaut, your new book of poetry, which comes out tomorrow,

there actually was a poem about how when we do couples therapy, we often have sex afterwards. And I can actually explain why. Because we have actually like the reverse sort of classic gender role cliche. And the classic gender role cliche is that the woman wants to be in therapy and the man doesn't

because the man is reserved and doesn't want to express his feelings and the woman wants to express her feelings. In our relationship, it's reversed. I'm always the one who's like, we should go to therapy. And you're the one who's like, I do not want to go to therapy. And we have compromised on, we go to therapy every once in a while.

If it's important to you. No, I know. I know your thing. But I mean, it's excruciating. Talking and talking. If it's important to you is also really passive aggressive. If it's important to you is also like really passive aggressive. If it's important to you. I mean to say. Sometimes you go

I'm doing it for you. You'll literally say that about therapy for us. No I've come to the mind that it's for us. I came with a question prepared for you. This isn't how interviews work. It's about pillows, actually. I thought we'd just riff a little bit, like the pillow thing. I've always wondered. Okay. This is crazy. Forget it. You hijacked the interview. No, I'm just kidding.

What inspires you to take a perfectly good pillow in the bed, put it the long way instead of the horizontal way, fold it in half, and then lean on it and grab the whole blanket and bunch it up and put that all behind your back? How does it happen? Why does it happen? If you're going to use my platform to make personal criticisms of my bedroom etiquette, then I will take you down so hard. I'm going to take you down across all of the internet.

That's my only question. No, it's a fair question. That's my only question. No, it's a fair question. No further questions. It's a fair question. I don't know why I do vertical pillows versus horizontal pillows. You and Una make fun of me a lot for my pillow use because I sort of use three, four, sometimes five pillows

to sort of prop myself up. You fold them in half? Like I'm some kind of a CPR doll or something. No, it's weird. No, I mean, I have no explanation. I think I'm ergonomically trying to get it so that my neck isn't creaked at all. But actually, theoretically, that would be no pillows.

Right? I want to get back to the therapy thing. I think the therapy thing is significant. I want to hear people chime in on this. If anyone relates to this, I want them to put this in the comments because I think this is significant. We have a reverse gender trope dynamic, which is often in a relationship,

a woman wants to have a forum to express her feelings and the man is reserved, doesn't want to express feelings. In this relationship, in this marriage, I want to express feelings. You want to write poetry and not talk about feelings. Do you think that's fair? Yes. Why is that well i think it could just come down to that you're very good at expressing your feelings and it comes naturally to you and for me it's like a challenge and so it has to go through some weird poetry process okay yeah so in other words so in other words when we're in therapy like you're thriving and

i'm like i'm just killing it in therapy yeah i'm crushing yeah and i'm just like how much longer do i have to talk right yeah but how come you think you can't how come you've come around to it how now it does work? Because I think couples should talk to each other with a third party sometimes. That can help sort through some things. Because you hit a wall eventually

and she usually takes my side. Yeah. So it helps sort things. I think that's part of her strategy we've never talked about this before but i think it's a little strategy i think it is her strategy to get us coming back because she knows i'm not going to come back yeah for sure it's a ponzi scheme So you have a book called Little Astronaut, and it comes out tomorrow. Here's the conundrum of you being a poet. When we first met, you were a poet, but in secret.

And then over the years, you've come out of this secret, but you're still semi-enshrouded in secret. Describe this. Oh my gosh, remember how hard that was for you? Because we've- For me. Because you love to talk about stuff and you'd be like,

what can I say before we go to this thing? How much can I say? What can I say? If we went to a party or something. Right, or like if we were in If we went to a party or something. Right. Or like if we were in an elevator with someone we knew or anything. Can I say my wife is a poet

because you're a secret poet. And like I remember like on several occasions I'd be like, you weren't supposed to say the thing that whatever. That's right. It was all in my head. It was all quite convoluted. I don't know. I was incubating you know okay you

understand you were incubating so when we first met we first met like almost 20 years ago almost 20 years ago 18 years ago yeah and you had a day job and you worked in media yes but you told me that you were right you were a poet but that and and but you always said it was in secret yeah so that must have made you feel pretty special yeah it was like i'm in on it it's great yeah you only had to live with the secret for what like 10 years so then so then i then I would sometimes tell people if we knew them well enough. And then how did you decide that you're going to go from being secret,

writing under a pseudonym, because I think this is helpful for our listeners. There's a ton of creatives, a ton of poets, a ton of folks who do all kinds of art in private. And what I find fascinating about your journey is like in a lot of ways, it's not you write for yourself and then you share some of it. Like you write an extraordinary amount of poetry and you share some of it. Right. Most of the things I've written are not published.

some of it. Right. Most of the things I've written are not published. I like describe it as I forgot to be secret because I forgot to keep track of my secret. Right. You wrote under a pseudonym for a while and then you sort of forgot to hide your pseudonym. Right. Like when you're keeping a secret, it's so much work. You have to remember like what you said to who and keep up your secret and all this. It's so much energy. And then when I had Una, I was so tired. Our daughter, when I had her, I was just not sleeping and I just literally forgot to keep it secret. I used to hide my poems everywhere. You remember that?

Oh, yeah. They were just hidden all over the house. If anybody came over, they were just like, I had all these hiding spots. And then once I had a baby, I just like forgot to hide the poems. They're just all over the place. And I was sort of exploding and writing a lot. And it was just like everywhere. It's the best way I can describe it. And then it was just, I mean, sometimes I still pretend I'm a, it's like secret.. I don't think about it. I try not to think about it. And so on an occasion like this, when I'm talking about it,

it makes me quite nervous. Even the book coming out is, I feel extremely lucky to have a book that's coming out. And at the same time, I'm really scared and pretending that it's not happening at all. It's being published by Andrews McNeil which is a poetry publishing house

puts out a ton of poetry books and it's going to be at your local bookstore. It's a poor local bookstore. I say it on the show all the time. You sure do. It's called Little Astronaut and it was and so you started writing that you and I had an interesting intersection of our comedy and poetry which is to say that

when we had Una yeah I want to say that you said that you didn't want me to talk about it on stage when I was pregnant I didn't want you to talk about it on stage. When I was pregnant, I didn't want you to talk about it on stage until she was born. Because I was really nervous about the pregnancy. And like before Una, I was like writing really far out stuff. And then once I was pregnant, I found myself writing more autobiographical material. And then once I had the baby, I had compiled a lot of autobiographical material and I hadn't shown it to you. But then once you started writing about being a father, that's when I was like, oh, by the way, I have all this stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. And then I shared it and then we collaborated. But you broke. We were at Nantucket Film Festival. And they asked me if I would tell a story on the storytelling night about jealousy. I go, no thanks, I'm not going to tell a story. And then you go, you're jealous of Una.

And I'm like, all right, I'll talk about that. You were so jealous of her. I was, but not now. I was for those first 13 months when she was born. I was for like those first 13 months when she was born. Right. Yeah, so then you and I kicked around a story about me being jealous of our daughter in Nantucket. And then sort of you helped me write

essentially a 10 or 15 minute story that ended up being, it had like the joke in it where I say I love my wife so much and she loves our daughter so much and I'm there too. And I go, I'm the pudgy, milkless vice president of the family. I wrote that in Kentucky for that night. And then I sort of vetted it by you.

Do you vet your poems by me? I don't write about you so directly. If I was writing writing poems I was like Mike does this You know you'd be like Could you run that by me My stuff is a little more abstract Although Little Astronaut is the closest thing

To writing about you And Duna There's some things in there about a husband character That resembles you a little bit is the closest thing to writing about you and Duna that I have. There's some things in there about a husband character that resembles you a little bit. What people who listen to this podcast might know specifically, the poems that were in the new one. Because what happened was, I started writing this show, and then I would ask you, you know, do you have a memory of Una when, you know, her first steps or, you know, for example,

and then you would say, well, I have a poem and it goes like this. And so like, and so you would read me an Reaches, for example, one of your poems. Yeah. And I literally said, well, I think I could just read, if it's okay with you, I would just read that on stage as yours. My wife wrote this poem. Right, yeah. Do you want to read An Infant Reaches?

Sure. An infant reaches. An infant reaches for something. I don't know what. Pushes it farther away and cries in frustration each time she reaches, not realizing she is crawling for the first time. She is like her father.

That one always gets me. It is. I haven't heard that one in a while. I usually hear you reading it. Right, because I've read it on stage for the show and I would pick up your little notebooks. But it's funny because poetry, when I was a kid I wanted to be a poet

and I didn't end up being a poet. I ended up marrying a poet, which is second prize. Some would argue your shows are quite poetic. which is second prize. Some would argue your shows are quite poetic. Thanks. But a poem like that, it just gets me every time. You've introduced me to a lot of poetry over the years.

For example, you introduced me to Berryman. And I was like, oh, wow. And when I read Berryman, I have the experience like that, where I'm like, oh, wow, it hits you. And I'm curious when you're writing poetry, because I have the feedback of the audience. And so I sort of know when something hits, because the audience tells me that hits. How do you know when that poem hits?

I don't. I'm in like a dark, lonely tunnel most of the time. I mean, literally? That's what it feels like. I'm the dumbest interviewer ever. Wait a minute, what? But I'm your husband. What tunnel?

I mean, I have so many poems nobody's ever seen because I just, I mean, how many poems can you make people read? I don't know. I just, it's like there's moments like when you're saying, do you have any material that's like this? I'm like, oh yeah, I do. And if you said something else, like, oh, if you had any material like this, I'd be like, yeah, I do. But then there's no one else like asking, like, do you have any material? So they're just like sort of sitting there so I don't know I don't know the answer we were just in Los Angeles and we did a book reading celebrating Little Astronaut. And it was at Skylight Books.

And we call this sometimes, we do this, we call it jokes and poems. Yeah, I thought I was going to say, are we going to do jokes and poems too? Yeah, I was actually going to say, why don't we do an example of how we... How it works. Jen will read a poem and I'll pull something from my notebook where I'm like, oh, that reminds me of this joke. Or I'll do a joke from my notebook, and she'll go, that reminds me of a poem I wrote.

And we just call it jokes and poems, and that's what this is. What I like about it is it made you go into your notebook and find things that make you giggle that you haven't really done anywhere. I love it. Okay, hold on. Where is this poem? It's called Morning Mommy, I Can't Get Out of Bed. Morning mommy, I can't get out of bed.

I can help you. Wish magic, get out of bed. Because I could not let her magic not work, I am up. Or because her magic works. So what that made me think of, again, it hits me. Your poems hit me every time. Like, oh, wow.

But it made me think of magic. I have a couple jokes about magic. Okay. Let's hear them. I know them. I love these. I hate magic, but I love jokes because with jokes you think,

I could see how you got there. And with jokes you think, I could see how you got there. And with magic you think, I hate this guy. I hate magic, but I love jokes because with jokes I think, that's clever or that's not for me. With magic you're like, what did you do to the bird? I hate magic, but I love... This is called the I Hate Magic Trilogy. By the way, that's the title of this section.

I hate magic, but I love jokes because with jokes you're like, that's totally like us, or that's totally not like us. With magic you're like, you spend too much time alone with coins. I wrote two more. I was telling the audience at Skylight Books, and by the way, we're going to be doing jokes and poems

at Books Are Magic in Brooklyn in about a week from now. So look on at jhopestein or at perbiggs on Instagram to find out the times for that. Books Are Magic is a great bookstore in Brooklyn that we love. That one's going to be off the hook because we have people joining us. We're also going to be doing their jokes and poems. I have two more.

I hate magic, but I love jokes because with jokes, you're like, this is sort of funny. With magic, you're like, got it, queen of hearts. Can we go home? I hate magic, but I love jokes. Because with jokes, you're like, she'll talk about any topic. And with magic, you're like, 50% chance he murders us. The way I work is I'll write 100 of those.

And then I'll be like, well, what's the funny one with the audience? And then that becomes the joke. Yeah, I could listen to those all day. So next in jokes and poems is a poem that you wrote called My Daughter Brings Me a Rock. Yeah. Do you want to see that one? Yeah. My daughter brings me a rock and says, this is your power.

We run down the cold, empty beach, fall onto a mattress of cool sand. She gets up, can't catch me, and runs. Mom, she calls back, hold on to your power. Her nose runs as she runs. On the beach, it's only us. Do you need a tissue? I call out to her because I don't have one. We follow bird tracks and pretend to be birds. We follow dog tracks and pretend to be dogs. We draw a broad shouldered heart in the sand, jump in and out of its arms. Can't catch me. We collapse on our mattress earth.

Our fingers sift through the particles of rock, crab shell, plastic, bone. With our eyes closed, we can't tell the difference. My daughter hands me a rock and says, Mommy, this is your power. Run with it and you will never lose power. We run, run, nose fall, nose run. Do you need a tissue? I call out to her because I don't have one. Sand of shell, sand of rock,

sand of rubber, sand of plastic, gunpowder and bone. We can't tell the difference. With our eyes closed, we build sandcastles. We change earth. I was just a rock spinning in space. I didn't know anything could grow on me or for how long. That she and I are having this conversation is a miracle. That's great. The thing that I seize on is we change earth and that we're having this conversation is a miracle. Those are my two favorite lines in that. You ever have it where, because in jokes this is the case all the time,

you can't peak early in a joke. You can't have your biggest laugh be in the middle because you can't follow it. You can't follow yourself. Jokes can't be followed by lesser jokes. It has to end. So even when you're in the middle of that poem and you go, we change earth, I'm like, well, how is she going to top this? Right. That in the middle of that poem and you go we change earth

I'm like well how is she going to top this right that is a problem with that poem for me actually like when I am reading and I am thinking to myself should I have ended this like a stanza earlier because it is hard to top certain crescendos in that poem and so

yeah I always wonder if the end is enough of a payoff to land it that is like definitely for me it works but it's a close call yeah it's very similar to comedy because I think you have that too where you have a lot of really good tags for things and then you're like well is there a diminishing return after a while when you have this like

the third to last line is probably is like very strong yeah no it's it's basically i think it's also like where you want to end up emotionally yeah and i think that i felt strongly about ending emotionally there but i can see an argument for ending earlier in the poem. When you go years being writing under pseudonym privately and also not publishing a lot of poems that you care about or, you know, the decision to do it, is it for you or is it for your reader? it? Is it for you or is it for your reader? It's a really good question. I think that when I was writing this material, I wasn't thinking of a reader. And then I actually didn't anticipate any publishing of any of this material because it's so different than what I usually publish. And so it's almost like against my will that the poems came into being

and became what they are. After my daughter brings me a rock and jokes and poems the other night at Skylight, I did this joke. There must have been a missing chapter in the Old Testament called, Oh Actually, It Was a Sandbar. That's one of those jokes. I love it. It's never going to be in any of my shows. It just doesn't fit what I do.

That's going to be in your jazz show. Yeah, my jazz show. Like Mitch Hedberg where you're able to bass. Yeah, yeah, upright bass. Your throwaway lines that you're just going to throw out there. All your throwaway lines from your entire career in one show.

I think this pivots well into one of your poems, which is called Prank Calls from Fish. Well, let me turn some pages. Prank Calls from Fish. The first time your father kissed me, my cell phone fell out of my pocket into the Hudson River. And to this day, I still receive prank calls from fish. My backstory on that poem is when you and I first met, our work schedules didn't match. This is actually a piece of the new one book I'm reading from. You worked 9-6. Jen worked 9-6 in an office building overlooking the Hudson.

I was on the road 70% of the time doing shows to make matters worse when I was in New York City. I was performing at night, so I, stay with me, showed up at Jen's job every day without an invitation for two and a half weeks. Completely accurate, by the way. In current times, this would be called stalking. At the time, it was called stalking.

I wouldn't recommend this tactic unless you're completely willing to go to jail and or get married. So I'd show up at Jen's work every day with flowers, and I'd pop into the conference room or her office, and Jen would be mortified. She'd whisk me out to Pier 60, and we would make out on the promenade. The first time this happened,

Jen's phone dropped out of her pocket mid-kiss. Jen is a poet. She's always published under a pseudonym. It's Allen Ginsberg. No, it's J. Hope Stein, but I've coaxed Jen into revealing her pseudonym for this book, which means she plans to switch to a new, even more secret-y pseudonym upon this book, which means she plans to switch to a new,

even more secret-y pseudonym upon its publication. Good luck tracking that down. Jen is very private. Until now, she has never shared her pseudonym with family and friends, which I find maddening. So I created a pseudonym of my own, which is an online superfan of her pseudonym, who writes love letters to her pseudonym, and his name is Ember Bones. I created a Gmail address for Ember Bones. I write J. and his name is Ember Bones. I created a Gmail address for Ember Bones. I write J. Hope Stein emails from Ember Bones. At one point I sent flowers from Ember Bones to J. Hope Stein and my follow-up email read,

did you get the flowers? I'm laughing at this because it's a real email. Did you get the flowers? Was that okay with your husband? I Googled him. He's a comedian. I've never heard of him. You need to lose that zero and get down with Ember Bones.

That's real. And then you replied. Mr. Bones, yes, I did get your flowers. Beautiful. My cat, Mazzy, especially loves them since they remind her of when she was a street cat. My husband is very secure in our relationship. Sincerely, J. Hope Stein. And then I go, I don't mean to belabor this point, but a pseudonym always seemed absurd to me. If I wrote poems as beautifully as Jen does,

I would buy a billboard in Times Square that said, check out these fucking poems. But she doesn't. Jen's publishing philosophy. You can publish when you're dead, said the tree. One night, Jen came home from a poetry reading and I asked her how it went. And she said there was no microphone. And because my voice is so quiet, no one could hear me. So for our first anniversary, I bought her a microphone and a portable amplifier to bring to her readings. And on the box I placed a card that read

Dear Chloe, her name's Jen. Your voice needs to be heard. Aww. It's still so sweet. Helix Mattress is ground floor sponsor on Working It Out. I love the Helix Mattress. I think our whole staff of Working It Out loves the Helix Mattress. The Helix lineup includes 14 unique mattresses,

including a collection of luxury models, a mattress for big and tall sleepers, and even a mattress made for kids. I have to say, I'm someone who, because of my sleep disorder, I think a lot about sleep. I think about how much sleep I'm getting. I think that having a great mattress is so darn important. Helix is offering up to $200 off all mattress orders and two free pillows. Get me those two free pillows, please, immediately. For our Working Out listeners,

go to helixsleep.com slash burbiggs. With Helix, better sleep starts now. No, now. No, now. helixsleep.com slash Burbix. All right, back to the show. I want to go to slow round questions. Now, this is a fun thing about the slow round. Whenever Jen listens to the show, she always goes, I don't know where these people get their slow round answers from. I just don't understand how people know the answers to all these questions.

It's so funny to me that you say this. You say it every time. You're like, how does Tig Notaro know the answer to this question? Right, because you're always like, what's a smell you remember from your childhood? And everyone's like, oh, I've got one. It's cigarettes. It's Play-Doh.

I mean, everyone has it. I'm like, I still haven't. So what's a smell? What's a smell from your childhood? I've been thinking about it since you started your podcast, and I haven't been able to. You can't think of a smell. I'm not going to identify one smell that represents everything.

It doesn't have to. But that represents my childhood. It doesn't have to represent your childhood. It doesn't have to mean anything. I'll say this about smell. It's free association. I have a great sense of smell. I know you do.

By the way, your sense of smell is so, I actually think this is worth noting. You smell things I do not smell. I'm the nose in the family. On a regular basis, I have to defer to you and these things that you're smelling and go, okay. I can pretty much smell everything that ever happened when I walk into a room.

I'm like a cat or a dog where I can smell every person that ever lived in the room. So your sense of smell is uncanny. Your sense of hearing is uncanny. And your sight is not super good. Great sense of touch. Great sense of touch. Sensual. Some might say sensual.

You're like three for five. Yeah. And arguably four for six, because I think you have a sixth sense that is, you're psychic. Oh, yeah. A little bit. I think you have a psychic quality to you,

which people might not believe in, but I do. I appreciate that. Thank you. That's my secret skill. Well, I would describe it as like, this, I actually think this is a lot about a lot of poets, a lot of artists. Sixth sense? Yeah. Over empathy. You feel things as an artist that it's indescribable what you're feeling. It's, you're over feeling feeling you're over feeling the reverberations of the

universe yeah and then as a result you have no choice but to write it down and try to express it in some other way and then you're like blah and so people are either like you're nuts or they're like you're a genius right that's so when you ask me things like, what's a smell for my childhood? What wants to come out as like, blah, let me tell you, I want a whole thing to come out. But I couldn't just answer it with like, oh, it's Play-Doh. Do you know what I mean? But I do feel like you're four for six on senses, for sure. six on sentences for sure well do you remember when you before we got married you were like i'm a little concerned because i feel like one of the reasons you're attracted to me and want to be with me is because i can read your mind sometimes you said that to me and then i And then I was like, yeah, of course.

Like, why wouldn't, how could you be with someone who couldn't read your mind? Right. I don't know. Well, I think like,

one of the complications, and this is actually very specific to artists who are with artists in relationships, and I guarantee you there's a whole bunch of them who listen to this podcast.

Mm-hmm. I think you have, this is a personal opinion. I might be wrong. I think you have to go into the marriage or the relationship with the understanding that it will be bumpy because fundamentally artists do have a sixth sense and they have two people with a sixth sense

and sometimes the sixth sense is wrong. And when it's wrong, it's wild. With us And when it's wrong, it's wild. With us, when it's wrong, it's very wrong. Yes. Because it's usually such a shorthand. And when the shorthand backfires, it could be ugly. So in the book that we wrote together, the new one, with poems from J. Hope Stein, I have a story where I say.

I'm going to chime in and say sometimes I make mistakes. So a few years ago, we were at a hotel in Chicago, and we had stayed there before. We're coming down the elevator, and I remembered that we had loved the cafe in the lobby. And I go, oh, I just remembered you loved the cafe in the lobby of this hotel. And you said, who did? And who did, the subtext of who did was, A, that wasn't me. B, that must have been someone else

you were dating. And C, I'm not happy about this. We get to the lobby, doors open. You go, oh my God, I love this cafe. And I go, I almost had a heart attack on the elevator. And you just casually remembered that I'm right. And to this day, when one of us remembers something differently and we want to clear the air, one of us says the phrase, who did? And it means we're both probably wrong. That's the end of the bit from the book. I actually remembered it from memory. I didn't ever read it. Well, it was a great cafe. I guarantee you, by the way, people will respond to this and say, my wife or my husband or

my partner and I have something like this. Because I think this is a thing. Yeah. The misremembering leading to suspicion of like, why do you remember it that way? But it's crazy because if you think about it, the stakes are so high. It's like, well, what if it was some other person?

That's kind of wild. It's this whole storyline that didn't happen that's major. It's a turn. It's quite a turn. It's like we come out of the elevator and it could go that way or we could just go to the cafe.

Okay, so here's another... Oh, this is... So I asked the staff of the show for questions for you and they all know you very well, of course. Oh, gosh. Gary asked, what's some advice for people in a relationship with a comedian?

Gary's also a comedian. Gary's a comedian, so listen up, Gary. Advice. Okay. Well, I've been asked this question before, and I've tried not to answer it so many times, but I'm going to answer it so many times, but I'm going to answer it here today.

Do not date a comedian. Do not fall in love with a comedian. Do not get attached in a relationship. Gary, is that helpful? Run. Don't walk, run. But if you do find yourself in a situation you need to just make sure

it's a good person because it's going to be really bumpy but Gary is the comedian you are a good person Gary so what I would say is if you're somebody who likes to talk about your life on stage, you should probably make some ground rules. Yeah.

You got to clear it. You got to clear it. I mean everybody's different. Not everyone is as cool as me. I'll say that. Okay. Here's another slow round question. What do you feel – I feel like I could answer half of these for you.

Would you? What's the biggest assumption people get wrong about you? I have no idea what people think of me, to be honest, but I think that I'm quiet sometimes. So maybe that could be misunderstood as like deliberately deciding not to speak to a person. And my quietness sometimes comes from just sort of like being overwhelmed and like wanting to say so much that I don't know where to start. And so I don't know. I feel like that gets in the way sometimes. What do you think? That was going to be my answer for you. It was? Well, because I have the joke about you being an introvert in my show right now. I say, Jen's an introvert. I'm an extrovert. An

extrovert is someone who gets energy from being around other people and an introvert doesn't like you. Or she might like you, but she's going to need me to explain why we're leaving the party. But then what I point out in the show, in the book, I should say, the new one book, is that I was an introvert until I met you and then I had to become an extrovert of the relationship because otherwise we'd never leave the party.

We'd never go anywhere. We'd never do anything. Someone has to be an extrovert. Someone has to be like, I don't know. I feel like I was an extrovert until I met you, and then I was like, I need to be an introvert. Oh my God, this podcast is over. This is unbelievable.

You remember being an inauthentic version of yourself? Yeah. Well, it's really hard for me. I don't know how people do this, but I think about different times in my life where I made different choices survival-wise. I'm like now I need to be like there was a point where I threw all the poems I ever wrote into a trash can on

23rd street and I was like I'm not writing poetry anymore I can't take it I mean they were probably terrible poems but I was like I'm not writing poetry anymore I'm like going to be a normal person and have a job and make money and support myself and New York City and, you know, go to an office every day and completely forget about poetry and not think about it and not think about that whole part of my brain. Like, so I shut that whole part of my brain off. So I don't know. It's like, I think I had to do that survival wise for a while. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given that you used? I don't know how people do this.

I'm sorry. But I remember you telling me advice that you had gotten that made an impression on me, which was like the wait to be seen advice. And I think that stayed with me. And I think that's part of like my secrecy for a while is that I really wanted to incubate for a while and not have anybody look at what I was working on. That is a good piece of advice. I think way to be seen.

Which I think you got from Gaffigan. I think, yeah, I did. He said, don't move to New York until you're good. Yeah. And I think that that's a really good piece of advice. Just generally, don't move to a place where you're going to be seen by a lot of top-of-their-field professionals until you're good at what your profession is.

And then the other one that I received at one point that you and I talk about sometimes is to make sure you pull the bow back. Oh, yeah, pull the bow back. I love. And the farther you pull the bow back, the farther the arrow goes. It's in relation to the same thing. So that's. You and I have mentioned that a lot over the years. Yeah we talk about that a lot and

talk about different talents that we see who are like super talented but they might not have pulled the bow back enough to be able to sort of maintain what they're trying to do and go deeper into it because they get really famous really fast or something like that. And then that's hard to explore your craft

when you're all of a sudden famous really quickly. But for me, pulling the bow back means just studying poetry and trying to read as much poetry as I can and learn as much as I can. So even now, I'm thinking about my book coming out, what I'm really looking forward to is like going back to learning and being in a space of learning and trying to like, you know, pull the bow back basically. Yeah. So you, yeah, no, it's, that's, that's really nice. Cause yeah, pull the bow back applies on a macro level in terms of like your life, your career, but also on a micro level.

You can do it again and again. You can pull the bow back again once you've shot an arrow. Exactly. The final thing we do on the show is called Working Out for a Cause, and then we contribute. Yeah, I love that you do that. It's you and me contributing because we share funds. We share a bank account.

So it's you writing a check to whoever this is. It's so hard because there's so many places, but I think I want to do every town. Every town, yeah. Some of the work I'm working on after Little Astronaut is in relation to gun control. And yeah, every town does really great work with background checks and things like that.

So Everytown. Okay. We're going to contribute. You and I will contribute again to Everytown. That was Bill Hader's contribution as well. Yeah. His working out for a cause. And we've given to every town before.

We'll give to them again. We'll link to them in the show notes. It's a great organization. And thank you, J. Hope Stein, for being my wife, for being my favorite poet, for writing the book Little Astronaut and releasing it to the world and sharing your secret gifts with the public.

Thanks for having me. I'll see you later. I'll see you in like five minutes. Yeah. What's for dinner? That's going to do it for another episode of Working It Out. J. Hope Stein is my favorite person, my favorite poet. You've got to get Little Astronaut.

It is a perfect, perfect, perfect gift for your local mother or father or poetry lover. It's just a wonderful, wonderful little book. You can follow J. Hope Stein on Instagram at J. Hope Stein. She does these really cool sort of visual audio representations of her poems that I think are beautiful and they're one of a kind. Working It Out is produced by myself along with Peter Salamone and Joseph Birbiglia. Consulting producer Seth Barish. Sound and video recording by Chuck Staten

with help from Gary Simons. Sound mix by Steve Bone. Supervising engineer Kate Balinski. Associate producer Mabel Lewis. Special thanks to Marissa Hurwitz and Josh Upfall. Of course, a special thanks to my consigliere Mike Berkowitz. Thank you to Jack Antonoff and Bleachers for their music. Special thanks, as always, to our daughter Una

who built the original radio fort made of pillows. Very special thanks to my wife, the poet J-Hope Sein, for not only supporting me and being my wife and being so wonderful, but also joining me on my podcast today. This is a really exciting episode for me. Thanks most of all to you who are listening. Tell your friends, tell your enemies. If you're not on speaking terms with your enemies,

here's an idea. Maybe ask a mutual friend to relay a message. Like, hey, do me a favor and tell my enemies. There's this podcast where Mike Birbiglia works out jokes and material with other creatives. I know we're not on speaking terms, but maybe check it out. See you next time, everybody.