Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out - Introducing : Funny Cuz It’s True

Episode Date: July 6, 2023

Each week on Funny Cuz It’s True, Elyse Meyers sits down with her favorite creators, friends and comedians to find the stories that have stuck with them and changed their lives in small ways.Mike Birbiglia’s stories about his life are the epitome of “funny ‘cuz they’re true.” He joins Elyse to talk about his new Broadway show “The Old Man and The Pool,” and how he makes a show about death and mortality funny. Mike gets into his creative process around joke writing, like how he got underneath the meaning behind a joke about his car accident and a drunk driver, and also tells Elyse why he thinks performing comedy is like stripping.To hear more of Funny Cuz It’s True, head to https://link.chtbl.com/funnycuzitstruewithelysemyers

Hey everybody, it's Mike Birbiglia. I am so excited to be sharing with you today an episode of Elise Myers' podcast, which is called Funny Cause It's True with Elise Myers. Elise's episode of Working It Out was a fan favorite. People have loved it. It's on YouTube now. She is a great storyteller.

She's someone who I actually discovered originally from TikTok and Instagram. And then I became a fan of her podcast. And then I was on her podcast. And this is it today. I want to share it with you because it's such an original show. Her style on TikTok and Instagram is very original. It's very meta. She tells stories, but then she talks about,

she steps outside of the stories to say what she's thinking in the moment of when the story is happening and how she feels about it now and how she felt about it then. And she does that in the interview as well, in her podcast, which I just love. It's a podcast where she talks to creators, friends, comedians, similar to Working It Out, but, of course, with Elise's original spin.

In the episode you're about to hear, she asked me how I got into comedy, how I've used storytelling to process darker moments in my life and turn them into comedy, and why I have a card behind me in my studio with the words Rosemary Chivada. It's a great conversation. If you listen to the Working It Out episode with Elise, in some ways it's the part two of this part one, which is I'm really trying to convince her to get on stage and tell stories on stage

because I love what she does online and on her podcast. And I think that she would have an amazing, amazing time performing for audiences. And I think audiences would love it. For more episodes of Funny Because It's True, search for the show wherever you get your podcasts or click the link in the episode notes. Enjoy. Why do I love telling stories? Great question. I would love to tell you. I've always been a storyteller by nature. It's because I'm not very comfortable with the back and forth of conversation,

especially if it's one-on-one. I just never know when the right time is to insert my thoughts, like what's considered being an active participant in the ping and pong of conversation, and what's just considered interrupting. How do you keep a healthy amount of eye contact? How much is too much? How much is not enough? Too much? It's intimidating. Too little? You look like you're not paying attention. And if you have a beverage in your hand, how are you supposed to sip that? Usually I just want to chug it right when I get it so that it's like one less thing I have to figure out how to like naturally incorporate into the conversation. But then, you know, someone asks if you want a refill

and usually that means they take your cup. And honestly, holding this cup is giving me something to do with my hands. So I'd rather just hold the empty cup than get a refill. But with stories, stories are a monologue. I talk and you listen. I don't have to feel the pressure of maintaining eye contact while I'm telling a story because it's pretty common for people to look off into the distance while they try and remember things in a story. I can teleport and time travel into the memory I'm sharing. And then all of a sudden, I'm not sitting at a table in a cafe with a stranger that I'm trialing out as a friend. I'm in seventh grade. I'm flying through the air, tripping over my shoes, landing with my skirt over my head on the way to the cafeteria on pizza day.

The person I'm sharing the story with is an audience member to the memory I'm recalling. They feel like they're getting to know me. And by watching their reaction to my story and oftentimes like following up with a story of their own, I feel like I get to know them. And it's a lot easier than pinging and ponging small talk at each other. But how does that translate to telling stories on the internet? That's another great question. You're asking really good questions today. I began sharing true stories about my life on the internet when my son was like six months old-ish.

sharing true stories about my life on the internet when my son was like six months old-ish. At the time, there was this gigantic valley that lived between the person I was before having my son August and the person I am after August. I was experiencing postpartum depression, and literally up until the night we took August home from the hospital, I had no clue what postpartum depression even was. I truly thought that postpartum was like a timestamp, the time in which this kind of depression happens, not the type. I had it all wrong. Unfortunately, I realized this a little too late. I was in it and I was fighting my way out one morning, afternoon, and night at a time. One of those mornings, I woke up around 3.30 a.m. to feed my son and I just could not fall

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

As I was looking down, I noticed my sweatshirt sleeves rolled up twice, the classic Elise double roll. I remembered why I started rolling my sleeves this way in the first place and how cool it made me feel the first time I did it. It was like my current self and my past self shook hands and met in that very moment. I got my phone out and I recorded my first ever story about my life online. So I will be wearing sweatshirts rolled up twice at the sleeve like this for the rest of my life and I'm going to tell you why. I was 18. I lived in Australia and I saw this sweatshirt in the back hung up that said, you're weird. I like it. Put it on and the sleeves were rolled up twice like this and I was like, this is the pinnacle of fashion. I have been doing it wrong my entire life. I loved it so much that I took the tax off of it. I paid for it. I walked out

of the store and I haven't changed anything about my fashion sense since I was 18 years old. Thank you very much. It was silly and it was short, but it meant so much to me that my brain was recognizing me in that memory. Telling stories went from being an escape from conversation to a bridge over that gigantic valley of who I was and who I now am. And as luck would have it, those stories were also a bridge straight to you, listening to this story right now. Thank you. Okay, actually, can you just pretend that you're listening to a fully complete theme song here? I got really in my head and I tried to make it perfect and I couldn't. So this is going to be the theme

song right here. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Funny Cause It's True. I'm Elyse Myers. Today, I'm joined by Mike Brabiglia. He is an incredible comedian, director, actor, and author. So everything, basically. Mike has written and performed several award-winning solo plays, including Sleepwalk With Me, My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, and Thank God for Jokes. Mike's latest show is called The Old Man in the Pool, which he's performing on Broadway until January 15th, 2023. If you can, please check it out. So two things that are funny because they're true. Number one, I have always connected to Mike Biriglia's style of comedy. I love that he makes most of his jokes about like his real life, but he has this really funny way of giving like a narrative arc in his stories. And

I just think that that's great. Number two, we start using the term flesh suits, which is super gross, but also pretty fitting. We're just some stressed out brains in some flesh suits. Okay, let's get into it. Can I ask you what the colored cards are behind you? Because I've been watching you set up and I'm so curious. Oh, yeah. So like these are all jokes. Oh.

So like this is like pulmonary tests and this is like iPhone funeral. And this is a sign that says peeing in pool and this one says an arrow literally and they're just like joke um titles and usually what i do and this is for my podcast working it out is like i'll put but it predated the podcast is that i put joke titles up on the wall and then i configure set lists from the joke titles. Oh my gosh. That's so smart. Are you visual with like learning? I'm very visual. Yeah. Same. I have never thought to do that. It's genius. What is, and you might not be able to tell me, but one of them says Rosemary Ciabatta.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that joke is from one day, I was behind this little kid and his dad at a coffee shop, and this little kid goes, Dad, I don't want rosemary ciabatta, all kinds of ciabatta. But if you really want to stick up for yourself, you should demand the regular ciabatta. And also, you should probably learn how to say your R's as well. Well, that's one of the jokes on my show right now, which is all toddlers have a Boston accent. They're like, I'm tired. And Boston toddlers are like, I'm wicked tired. I'm wicked tired. I'm wicked tired. Is that idea of putting the cards and stuff, is that something you learned from someone else?

Or is that something you kind of did by yourself? I think it was intuitive. Because I started doing stand-up when I was like, I don't know, like 19 years old. And I think that I had a really hard time remembering my set list. That's like one of my biggest fears is just not remembering. Totally. Because it's like, I talked about this on Colbert recently, but like, you know, actor's nightmare is the idea of like,

you forget everything. You forget all your lines and you're just there. And I had it. I'm in a Tom Hanks movie called The Man Named Otto that comes out around Christmas and it was such an amazing experience, but I had Actor's Nightmare with Tom Hanks where they shot this whole,

I drove a car around a bend and I drive up and there's a crane shot with the cameras coming in on the crane and then Tom Hanks walks up to the window and I open the window and he says a thing and I say a thing and I drove up and I opened the window and he said the thing and I didn't know anything. And then I just go, uh, and then I'm just not, I said nothing. It's Tom Hanks, my childhood idol. And it's like, I had an Apollo 13 poster on my wall growing up.

And, and I'm like, oh no. And then he's so nice and generous as a scene partner that he starts trying to feed me my line that he knew. Like, he was like, how do you feel about me? Do you think I should leave the neighborhood? You know what I mean? Like, I think I would quit on the spot right there. It's kind of a, I play sort of his nemesis in the film in the sense that like I'm this character who like, who works in on the corporate side of like real estate and housing developments. And so it would be advantageous for my character for him to move. And so I'm kind of nudging his character to move. And I come into the film like I think maybe three times. Did you start, because you said you started stand-up when you were 19. I started in high school.

I was like, I started doing performing sketches. And I was in plays. And then when I was in college, I joined. I didn't join. I auditioned for the improv troupe at Georgetown. And then I got in. And it was like, I feel like there's so few epiphanies in life. Like there's so few moments where you're like, this is the moment where everything changed.

But actually getting cast in the improv group actually was that. What did that feel like? Like did, so you auditioned and then what was. I feel like it was like a paradigm shift in my life. Like it happened over the course of maybe the first month of being an improv troupe where I, I was like, you know, my whole life I thought I was funny and sometimes other people did and sometimes other people didn't. Okay. And, and I think that's because we all have different senses of humor. And I always thought my sense of humor was much funnier

than other people's. You're like, you guys just don't get it. Yeah, they don't get it. And so when I was cast in the improv troupe, I was like, oh my gosh, all of these people are so funny. I can't believe how lucky I am to have found these people. Wow. Was it different from your other experiences in high school doing like scripted plays? Were you surprised? Like, you were like, I like this so much more? Completely different. I mean, improv is so expressive, because when you improvise, like you're the director and the actor and the writer and the this and it was like, kind of like, it was expansive. Yeah. Was it intimidating at all? Or did you feel pretty comfortable right away?

I felt pretty comfortable. I mean, I thought, I think the rest of my life was intimidating. Really? I guess that's a good marker of like, this is what I'm supposed to be doing, right? Yeah. If you're like, this is the one thing I feel like this is really natural. I did improv and it was so terrifying. So I have so much respect for people that do it and love it and feel comfortable with it.

No, it's funny because it's different. When I watch your stuff, I'm always like, oh, that takes a different type of confidence because you don't have an audience typically when the stuff I watch. And so I'm like, oh, you had to have the confidence to say, no, this is a good story. And it's a funny story. And it's going to interest people all the way through. And then it works. And for me, I need an audience to tell me if it's working. Interesting. It doesn't make you nervous performing in front of people? No. My gosh, I'm so jealous of that.

It's like a reverse. But how are you confident enough to know that your story is going to work me yeah i think it's funny that's really all i care about i think that like i think that there's a difference between storytelling and comedy and then like on on a stage and then making content about it because you have to be reading a moment that is only happening one time. My moment happens whenever it resonates with somebody and an algorithm puts it on their For You page and that's what they're watching. Right now, if I make a joke or a video

that like doesn't land and someone doesn't think it's funny, I don't have to like stare into the whites of their eyeballs at their face when they don't think it's funny. I just, I don't, I just carry on with my day. I could not actually imagine that. Oh my God, that makes me just want to spiral. Right. I love that you feel confident in it. Do you have anybody that you had as a hero or somebody that you kind of pulled from when you started doing it?

When I was in high school, I saw Stephen Wright live, who was a legendary comedian. He still is. My brother Joe took me to see him. And I had never seen live stand-up comedy. And it was kind of mind-boggling because it was like 90 minutes of just obliterating punchlines, just these really perfectlyed kind of uh comedic haiku that he does i was stunned i mean my face hurt from laughing which is a cliche but it actually was true i mean i mean my face hurt from laughing and so that was a huge thing because i was like you know i think a lot of comedy is this is a little bit of a sleight of hand where you're watching someone tell a story or a series of jokes,

and you're lured into a false sense of, that's the thing that I think. But actually, you couldn't maybe articulate it as well as the person on stage is? Yeah. You think you could, you know? And so you're like, oh, that's just like me. And so I had that with Stephen Wright.

That's so interesting. Do you find that it's on purpose that jokes are written that way? Do you approach writing a joke where you're like, I want someone to feel like I'm reading their mind? Or is it just like, I hope someone connects with this? Well, the show that I'm doing right now is called The Old Man in the Pool. It's all about life and death and mortality. And a lot of it is kind of my own obsessions with death. And I had bladder cancer when I was 20. I had type 2 diabetes a few years ago. I reversed. I've dealt with sleepwalking disorder. I've talked about a lot. I made a movie about it. But like,

I think about dying. I think about people close to me dying, people who I've lost in the past. And when I started to put it on stage, it was really a sense of like, okay, here's what's interesting to me or funny to me. Here's what I'm obsessed with. And then typically what an audience gives you is they tell you which of those things they find interesting or funny. And then there's a Venn diagram that forms between those two things. And the sweet spot of that Venn diagram is usually somewhere approximately where the show ends up landing. So hopefully when people see the old man in the pool, they come and they go, oh, that's me.

That's just like me. When I tell a story online, I genuinely have to imagine that that Venn diagram that Mike is talking about is just a circle, one singular circle. Like what I find funny perfectly overlaps with what you find funny. That's just the blind confidence you have to have

when posting content online instead of like a live audience. I'm like a proud mom, like sending her kid off to school, like no matter what anyone says about you, just know you're great. I think you're great. That's how it feels. You know, and actually it's me. But that's good. It's good that people think that. You want that. Yeah. Do you do a lot of testing for your stuff? So much.

So much. Like, how do you do that? Just in front of audiences. Like, I'll go on tour. And like, I just finished essentially like a year of touring. I went to probably 40 cities. and and then i i sat the show for a month in berkeley at the repertory theater i sat at steppenwolf in chicago for a month in may and then i sat at the mark taper forum in los angeles for a month in august and then in intermittently i went to cincinnati and i went to you know uh detroit and all these places for like one night shows and it's helpful for me to know what's connecting and where, you know what I mean? Like, even like I went to like London, Iceland and Paris, and that's really instructive.

Cause I'm like, oh, Paris, you know, either they speak English really well or not that well or not at all. And so let's see how that goes. Yeah. What's the difference, though, between a test and a performance? Where is that line? Is it all just a test?

For me, there's no line. Okay. It's the same as my podcast title, but it's like when it's not done, I call the shows Working It Out. Oh, wow. When it's done, I give it a title. So the last bunch of shows were Sleepwalk With Me, My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, Thank God for Jokes, the new one, and this one's called The Old Man in the Pool. And so when I name them, they're like, people know, like, that's, that's the show name. It's like a series that's like an ongoing series working it out.

Turns out it is. I did not intend it that way. I think that's really smart, honestly. And it also sets expectation of the audience coming into it, knowing like, this might not all connect with me, or it might be amazing. You know what I mean? Like, I just think that that's really smart, too, for people to know. Do you think people know that you're doing that? Or not really? No, I think they're pretty hip to it. Like, it's so funny, like, early on in my comedy career, like I was working the door at the Washington DC Improv. Like, that's how I got my start in college. Oh, wow. And for me, I'm like, oh, that means I get to see the comedians for free. So I watched like Mitch Hedberg and Margaret Cho and Jim Gaffigan and all these people.

But for free. You know, I couldn't afford to see any comedy live. So that was like massive for me. And when was this? What year was this? I was in college. I was like a sophomore in college. Oh, my gosh.

So you watch these people like start. Oh, man. If I could go back and watch anyone at a comedy club before they got like famous, famous, I would watch Mitch Hedberg. Like final answer. Yeah. And I would ask them a lot of annoying questions. Like I would just ask them tons of advice questions and stuff.

Were they all pretty generous with their advice or not really pretty much everyone was generous and what you find is like when you ask a lot of people for advice generally you get something different from everyone like like i had a joke uh early on where i was opening for George Lopez. He had just seen my set. And I had had a joke at the expense of Oprah Winfrey in my set, who was massive at the time. You know, that show was... And my girlfriend at the time would watch it every day. And so I made a joke about it.

And he said, he goes, you know, you open with a joke about Oprah and the audience loves Oprah and they do not know who you are. Yeah. You're like shitting on their like best friend. Yeah. And so I was like, wow, that is a powerful.

He's like, you got to put yourself down before you put down someone else because then they know that you're not a jerk. That's really good advice. Isn't that great? What advice would you give to someone who's the door person now? What I would say is that as much as possible, if you want to be a comedian, get on stage however much anyone will let you in any context. So if someone wants to let you host their walkathon

for cancer, host their walkathon for cancer. If someone wants you to perform in a cafeteria, do it because all the failure is the building blocks for making something that is worth watching. If you could see my face right now, you would know how much I dislike this piece of advice and wish it was literally any other piece of advice. We have to take a quick break, but when we get back, Mike talks about how he gets his audiences to laugh at even the most heavy stories. I wanted to go back just a little bit because you were talking about that show that has like a lot of like heavy topics and with stories that I tell like um some of them are a little bit heavier as well but I try and like lift it. And I just was really curious to know how you do that. Like, how do you have that skill of doing both at the same time and not depressing people

while talking about heavy things? It's certainly a delicate balance. And it's something I work out on stage over time and it's trial and error. And there's a lot of error. There's a lot more error than success. I think when you're performing stuff that's dramatic and comedic, one of the things I try to remember is that people want you to be honest with them.

I feel like with your stories, I feel like one of the deepest strengths of your stories is that there's an authenticity to the story. I think people, when you're telling a story, it doesn't really matter if it's funny or dramatic or whatever because they lock into the authenticity of you. And so I think like the key thing I think would be, you know, what's in the story, like what's true to you? Like over the years, I've been lucky enough to work with Ira Glass on This American Life. All right. I know we're about to hear this together. So this might seem totally unnecessary, but I am going to pull a best friend card and let you know the story that Mike is about to tell right now is my favorite part of the entire interview. And I have gone back to this interview to listen to

just this story like five times. He's taught me a lot about stories. And a lot of times what he'll do is he'll take a story that I'll tell him. And he'll go like, well, what was underneath that? You know, like, why did you want to do that why did you get obsessed with that you know like for example like many years ago i had a story on his show uh where i talked about getting hit by a drunk driver and being made to pay for the driver's car and and it was awful and i was pitching him the story and and he goes yeah i mean that's a good story but like it's not good enough for you know the stage i don't think because it's like a lot of people have been hit by a car a lot of people have been wronged by this or that you know and so we were talking about he goes what was that what

else was going on in your life at that moment in time and And I was like, Jenny and I, my wife now, we're talking about getting married or not getting married and deciding what are we going to do with our lives? You know, we were about 30. And we were in kind of, it's like, I didn't believe in the idea of marriage. And I was really kind of like, bullheaded about it and stubborn. And he drew this connection thematically between how I couldn't let go of this thing of getting wronged by this drunk driver. And I couldn't get over the fact that marriage feels so antiquated as an institution. It's patriarchal, and it's madness, and it doesn't make any sense, and it's based on exchanging land and all these things. And so we sort of talked through the idea of like, well, what if those two things came together in the story? And so that's how that merged.

And so the end of that story and the end of My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, the show, if people want to see it on Netflix, is like, spoiler, it came out 10 years ago. But it's basically like I paid for this drunk driver's car and I let go of it and Jenny and I got married and I still don't believe in the idea of marriage, but I believe in her and I've given up on the idea of being right. So thematically, the show and that story for This American Life became about the theme of being right, which is like a meaningful thing to me. And to go back to the authenticity thing, like,

like, I think the audience can sense when I'm like ranting on this stuff, like, that's who I am. And that's a flaw, or however you describe it. And so, and so if it's if the audience believes it's true to me, I think that they're potentially along for the ride. And so then it makes it universal. That's what I kind of got from that, which is very, very interesting because I feel like that would make it easier when you're talking about heavy topics because you could relate it to something that's very light as well at the same time. Absolutely. And I think the audience is willing to go between light and dark. Yeah.

I mean, certainly in The Old Man and the Pool, it's really light and really dark. I mean, I have, like, jokes that are as goofy as, like, all toddlers have a Boston accent. And then I tell a story about having bladder cancer when I was 20. You know, it's like, so, and it's a pin drop silence. Like, it's, and I think the audience knows that, I mean, look, we're all in this completely absurd life existence. We all live in these absurd bodies. It doesn't make sense half the time. I like to call it a flesh suit when I'm feeling overwhelmed. If I really feel overwhelmed by life, I'm like, look at me stressing in this flush suit.

It just really puts everything into perspective. It's madness. It's madness. It's just all so silly. And I think sometimes comedians serve the purpose of just being like, here's how I think it's silly. And the audience is like, oh my gosh, that's how I think it's silly too. Is that kind of what you want your audience to feel? Like, is there anything that you're like, I want my audience to walk away with this thing

when they leave my show? What is that? Oh, man. I got to serve this TikTok video of an old Jerry Seinfeld interview, who I think is, in addition to being a great comedian, just has a ton of wisdom on comedy. And he says this thing, he goes, I'm paraphrasing,

but it's like, after performing for a big audience, like, and there's been a lot of laughs, I'm not thinking, how did that go for me? I'm thinking, how did it go for them? He goes, because it's not about me. It's about them and about me giving something to them. And he goes, the people I've seen kind of fall apart in show business are people who think it's about them.

That's really interesting. I thought it was really profound. And like, what I'm trying to do is be vulnerable to the audience and admit things about myself that I'm nervous about, or I'm sad about, or I'm angry about, and do that in a way that makes them laugh. And if I can do that, like I feel like if you can go to the darkest topic, you go to the saddest thing, and you can find a laugh within that,

it gives the audience sort of a treasure map of their own to figure out how to do that for their own stuff. That's an interesting visual. I like that. I was a web developer before I got into all this. And when I was talking to somebody kind of telling me how to start this like business of freelancing and stuff, they said, the best freelancers are generous freelancers. And I always found that to be true. And then when I started comedy, I was like, I want to bring that into comedy. I want to believe that the best comedians are like generous comedians. I think that that's a really interesting like visual, the treasure map thing of like you're giving these people tools to understand their life, understand their feelings, and also maybe just laugh for a second so that they can escape the flesh suit stress.

Totally. If this episode isn't called the flesh suit stress, then I don't know what it's going to be called. We're going to take one more break. Stick around to hear why Mike doesn't like performing in front of people he knows. Same. So in a lot of your performances, you're in like a theater you're not just in a comedy club how did you make that choice well a lot of it is like so in the early 2000s i was lucky enough to open for uh mitch hedberg and lewis black and davidell on what was the first Comedy Central live tour. Oh, my gosh.

I know. And I was so lucky. You know what's funny? It's kind of a funny story. I was going to Washington, D.C., and that show was happening. And I was such a big fan of those three comedians. And I knew the person who was booking the show because he was a club booker in San Francisco this guy Jeff and I called Jeff and I go could I get tickets for that show and he goes I'll do you one better you could open up and I go okay and so I flew myself in

I put myself up and all this stuff and like essentially made no money to do it. And then I said, can I do more of them? And so then I did like Philadelphia, New York, and a bunch of other ones. But what I found in these theaters, and this is what sort of one of the things that really changed the way I look at everything, is that in a theater versus a comedy club, I just find that the level of listening is higher because there's nothing else going on. There's not like a server coming over bringing chicken wings.

There's not, you know what I mean? There's not people repeatedly getting up, go to the bathroom. People shout less. And so I was like, oh, my jokes are actually doing better in a theater than they were in a club because people are listening. Okay, hold on. So wait, literally up until this point of the interview, I genuinely thought every time I said like theater on any of the prep I'd been given or like anytime he said that he likes performing in theaters, I thought he was talking about like musical theater. Okay, the space of a theater, not the genre of musical theater.

Okay, okay, I'm tracking. I'm on it. I was just so confused because I've seen like everything that Mike Birbiglia has like ever put out. And I have never once seen him like singing and dancing in a show and I'm just like okay he's branching out he's trying something new I'm so glad I didn't ask him about musical theater I'm so glad it did not come to that because if I didn't get that answer I would have probably pushed later on oh my god oh my god okay okay it's like you go to the club and then the person doing comedy is I didn't get that answer. I would have probably pushed later on. Oh my God. Oh my God. Okay. Okay.

It's like you go to the club and then the person doing comedy is doing that as well at the same time. You're both living two separate timelines in the same room. Yes. But a theater genuinely is like, I am here to listen to you. And so I feel like you would, it would be received better. Yeah. It's funny.

Like the, when I did Colbert the other night, he, his producer was telling me that this thing that he says to people sometimes on his staff, he goes, we have to remember that when we're putting on the show, we for performing with the audience is higher than in a comedy club. Because, you know, they're eating, they're drinking, they're doing all this stuff. And it's like, well, actually, you're not doing that. So you're actually, you're not all doing the same thing. Right. And how long did you do that tour with them? I did like five or six cities. And I did like five or six cities.

And then in the New York one, there was some executives at Comedy Central who saw me and they said, hey, would you want to do like your own tour of colleges? Because I was like a kid. I was like 25, 26 years old. Yeah. So I was like, yeah, that would be great. So I did the first ever Comedy Central live college tour. It was called the Medium Man on Campus tour, actually. The Medium Man on Campus.

And John Mulaney was my opener, actually. Oh, my gosh. I don't know what he's up to, but he's, no, I'm just kidding. He's the biggest comedy star in the world. He came on that tour, and we went on like a tour bus, and it was a very kind of formative life experience, I think for both of us. And we're still very close. He came to the old man in the pool the other night,

which was really sweet. Does that make you nervous when your friends come and watch like performances? Yeah, I don't like performing for friends that much. I mean, I like performing for strangers. I think of like performing comedy as like stripping or something where it's like- I can do it for other people yeah i could strip i mean true truly you know if you sent me to peoria illinois and said you're

you're gonna strip and there's gonna be no cameras and it's gonna be all strangers i would go yeah i'll do that yeah for the record the way that Mike feels about stripping in front of his family is the way I would feel about performing live comedy for literally anyone. Family, strangers, my producers listening to me talk right now. It's terrifying. Coincidentally, that's also how I would feel if I had to strip. So that's interesting. You know what I mean?

But then your grandma shows up to support you. And you're like, never. Elise, this is where it gets really tricky. And that's why I'm not a stripper. That is the perfect way to describe what it's like, especially to write content about your own life, because you do so much content about you. I've had to start like sending my dad texts.

Yeah, sure. Hey dad, I'm going to post a story this morning and I just need you to not watch it. He'll be like, great. And it's like, it gets exhausting because you're like, I don't even want to write this stuff that I have to then tell people I love to not listen to it. It's not that it's like, it's not that it's so inappropriate that I'm embarrassed for anyone to hear. It's like, I just don't want people that have known me as a child to hear it. It's like, that's it. But yeah, no, usually I'll change the names. Um, especially if I don't have any relationship with that person now. And like, I don't care to reach out and be like, how do you

feel about me talking about you? Well, do you find it's hard that like, where, where do you draw the line between what information is yours to share and not it's definitely a fine line i mean i use a ton of fake names like i yeah i pretty much have other than my wife my daughter my parents my brother like the people uh you know those folks uh who whose names you can't fake, I'd say everyone's name is changed. And yeah, and then like with those people, you know, my wife Jenny is a poet. And so she's contributed a lot of like lines and things over the years to help color and paint, you know, her character.

And that's been a really special part of my process. And also, my brother Joe has been, he writes with me, and so he's written a lot of lines for himself. I actually think it's much better if the people in your life who are these characters can remind you of their version of the story. I say that in my special Thank God for Jokes of their version of the story. Yes. I say that in my special Thank God for Jokes about, you know,

I tell a story and I go, but that's just my side of the story. Maybe this person's version was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. A lot of times I'll say to my wife, like, hey, Jen, like, here's how I remember this thing. And she goes like,

that's not really what happened at all. Like, actually, you know, we- You're like, how do I meld these two yeah and so usually honestly it does end up being an amalgam of some kind and and the same with my brother my parents i don't really run stuff by them they don't even really want me to be a comedian you know what i mean like they don't watch my comedy i don't trust your side of the story anyways yeah yeah yeah the story's a whole other thing but also there are certain things that just because it's not the way it happened doesn't mean it's not the way you experienced it or internalized it.

So there are different sides. And you can just try and be like, you know what? No, this is how I remembered it. This is what my brain is experiencing as it happened. So David Sedaris is like one of my favorite humorists of all time. And one time I saw someone ask him like, are these stories true? And he goes, true enough for you. That's interesting.

It's kind of like a snappy take on the whole thing. Because it's true. It's like, it actually doesn't matter for you whether my story that I'm telling you is true. Sure. Unless there's something at stake, like a major multinational corporation. Right. Like, you know, you don't go and like outwardly lie and hurt somebody. That's like not, that's not the goal. Absolutely not. Yeah. I think that I am just very literal. And so I really struggle. I just don't think I'll ever be the person that is like, I'm just going to make something up because I don't have anything.

And I really had to become okay with the idea of like, there are just going to be things I misremember. And I have to be okay with that, you know? Well, it goes back to our flesh, our flesh. Yeah, flesh suits. It goes back to our flesh suits, which is that we are also a bunch of mushy brains. Yes. Did you know, side note, very not important,

but did you know that if you were to hold your brain in your hands, it would be so fragile that it would collapse in itself? It can't support itself. It's all supported by the fluid around it. No. I also could be wrong right now as I'm saying it. Right, right. No, I'm not, I don't think you're a

scientist. So I had my team fact check this for me because I just immediately questioned the words coming out of my mouth as soon as they left my mouth. And I can confirm this is correct. If you tried to hold your brain in your hands, it would collapse under its own weight. So it's protected by all of the like fluid around it. So wear a helmet. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. So I'm not going to run with this. I heard this as a, somebody was explaining this as to why you need to wear helmets. Holy cow.

So that has nothing to do with anything. And with that, yay, we did it. We did it. Well, thank you so much, Mike. I really appreciated talking to you. And thanks for just sharing so much. Thanks for having me. This is great.

Yeah. We are going to skip right over the fact that the last thing I said to Mike Rabiglia was that our brains would smush themselves if we held them in our hands. That's not how I want to remember that conversation ending. So I'm just going to block it out. Perfect. But with that being said, the ability to connect with Mike about storytelling and like how he crafts a story and what he adds in and what he leaves out and how he highlights humor and truth all at the same time. And it's funny and meaningful. Like the way he tells stories is so inspiring. And I want to tell stories like Mike does.

I just can't get over the hurdle that he loves performing live. I could not relate to that any less. I want to, though. I really do want to be able to perform live one day. It's just a mental hurdle that I don't understand how to move past. But maybe with practice. He talks about failing and how it's all a part of success. And I do want to take that to heart. But for now, I don't think I have the emotional capacity to fail in public. So shout

out to live performers everywhere because you guys are brave. All right, that's all for today. Thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Mike Birbiglia. If you like our show, please rate and review us. It just helps other people find the show. Okay, see you next time. Bye. Nancy Rosenbaum, and Linnea Toney. Our associate producer is Tiffany Bui. Rachel Neal is our senior director of new content, and our VP of weekly production is Steve Nelson. Executive producers are Stephanie Whittleswax, Jessica Cordova-Kramer, Paul Feig, Laura Fisher, Kessla Childers,

and me, Elise Myers. This show is mixed by Johnny Vince Evans, additional help from Noah Smith and Ivan Kraev. Our theme song music was written by me and scored by Xander Singh. Follow Funny Cause It's True wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad-free on Amazon Music

with your Prime membership.