Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out - Mike Answers Your Questions About Comedy

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

This week Mike responds to listener questions. How many of your stories are true?  Who is your dream guest? What is your greatest piece of comedy advice? All these and more.

Hey everybody, it's Mike Birbiglia. We are experimenting with a brand new format this week where I just answer questions. They're submitted to me on my Instagram account, at Birbigs, and I'm joined today with two of the producers of Working It Out, Mabel Lewis and Gary Simons.

And we're going to answer some questions about comedy and podcasts and process and all the things that I like to be a nerd about. And it's really fun.

I think you're really going to dig it. And if you do like it, let us know. Email us at workingitoutpod at gmail.com and maybe even with your question for the future and we'll try to include it on a future episode. I'm out on tour right now on the Please

Stop the Ride tour. We just moments ago added a fourth and final show in Toronto, a fourth and final show in Washington, D.C. Get the best seats now. This week, I will be in Jacksonville, Florida, as well as Orlando, Florida. We'll see if Jacksonville goes better than it went last time. Last time I was there was with the Thank God for Jokes show in, I think, 2015, and received a very odd user review on Ticketmaster

that I posted on my Instagram about the profanity of the show, which is not, if you know my comedy, not really a staple of what I do, but this person felt that way. So I'll be in Jacksonville. I'll be in Orlando. I'll be all over Colorado, Aspen, Beaver Creek, Fort Collins, and Denver. Then I'll be in Tulsa, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Denver. Then I'll be in Tulsa, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin. I'll be at the Moon Tower Comedy Festival, which I love. I think I was at the first one ever. And it's gotten so big. And there's so many great comics, including Roy Wood Jr. and Rosebud Baker, like Maddie Weiner, a whole bunch of comics who've been on this podcast recently. Then I just added a third show at the Chicago Theater, one of my favorite comedy venues in the world. That's on April 27th in Chicago. I'll be in Los

Angeles, Troy, New York, Rochester, St. Petersburg, Florida, Miami Beach, Florida, Atlanta, Charlotte, Richmond, DC, like I said, Niagara Falls, at the OLG stage at Fallsview Casino. Then I'll be in Sag Harbor, which is at the Bay Street Theater, this gorgeous little theater in the Hamptons in July for four shows. So all of that's on burbigs.com. The best way to find out about pre-sales and on-sales and added cities because I'm about to announce probably about 25 new cities on the tour for the fall.

I'm having a blast out there. All of it's on verbigs.com. And today, I will answer your questions with my producers, Mabel Lewis and Gary Simons. Ooh. Ooh, working it. This whole podcast,

and you might listen to it every week or not, it's produced by myself. I always say this at the end of the podcast and the credits, by myself, Gary, who's with me, Mabel, Peter Salamone, and Joseph Rubiglia. It's the five of us. But then there's sound mixers. There's a ton of people, but the five of us. But then there's sound mixers.

There's a ton of people, but the five of us are the people who are editing the thing every week, essentially to make sure, correct me if I'm wrong, to make sure this show isn't boring. Yeah. Well, I think that relates to one of our questions, maybe to start it off. We're 123 episodes in as we're recording this.

So GiaMama21 asks, who's your dream guest to have on the podcast? You guys probably know, right? Bo Burnham. Yeah, I'd love to have Bo. He's the most requested guest. Bo Burnham is by far the most requested guest.

And Bo, if you're listening, we'd love to have you. I'm not sure you've responded to any of my emails in the last six or seven years. But I like you very much and I love your comedy. I think David Letterman. Oh, yeah.

And I think Jerry Seinfeld for two different reasons. David Letterman was the person who gave me my big break, which is I performed on The Letterman Show when I was a wee child, 23, 24-year-old kid.

Yeah, 24-year-old kid. And it was a change of my life. Made me a touring headlining comedian. It was crazy. And I want to thank him. And I want to sort of pick his brain about comedy theory because I think he's a really, really rigorous comedy theoretician. Jerry Seinfeld, similar reason. I think Jerry Seinfeld is the most rigorous comedy theoretician.

When I was starting out driving around the country in my mom's station wagon that I put 140,000 miles on in my 20s, I listened to over and over again, an interview of Jerry Seinfeld called On Comedy. On Comedy, Jerry Seinfeld, it was a compact disc that went in my mom's car. And so many things that he says in that interview are things that I repeat to other people as advice. And I should point out, like when I'm answering questions or giving advice, it is all just sort of maybe. Maybe this is true. Trying my best. This is what I've experienced.

It might be totally different for you. I always try to qualify any advice I have with that because nobody knows anything. And it's also like whatever works. No, totally. And I think that connects to one of the advice I hear you give a lot that I love is like, you always say, nothing is anything until later. And so it's like, you actually don't know what's going to work. It might not work in the moment, but it could be the thing.

Yeah, it's interesting. It's Jack Antonoff, who did the original theme music for the show, and I think is going to come on the show to talk about his new album which is so so good but I think you know he and I get sort of caught up in this idea of like we both started on the road at the same time like I was traveling around in this beat up station wagon he was driving around the country

in a van with his buddies in this band called Steel Train that's when we met we met like almost 20 years ago and we always talk about this thing of like, there's no substitute for like driving around the country in a van and like being in a station wagon and playing in front of like bad crowds. Like crowds of people who don't like you that much. Trying to win them over.

Yeah. Figure it out. That was one of the questions we got, which was how often do you perform for a group of people that aren't your fans? Sometimes I'll perform at corporate events. I did a dental convention recently. I always say to people, I won't sell out, but I will lease.

I will rent myself out for a day if no one's filming it. I'll do dental conventions Ed Milken Vengeance or this company or that company and they'll have me come in in like their annual event. And I mean, no one knows me at these things. If anybody, a fifth of the audience maybe.

And they're definitely not there for comedy. A lot of times people speak, they're in from all over the world. People speak 10 different languages and, you know, they're on their lunch break. It's in the middle of the day. Like they don't, they don't really come to see comedy. And like, so then you have to sort of win them over. And I kind of love it. I kind of like relish it. Like there's something about winning over a group of people and, like, kind of, like, the risk of, like, maybe I won't. Yeah. That would be hard.

And it's, I mean, I've opened a few of those corporate gigs where it's, like— Oh, my gosh, yes. Because, Gary, of course, if anyone's seen me in the last year, you've been opening for me for almost exactly a year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, approaching a year. And it's like doing those ones were probably the ones where I've gotten the most, like I've worked out most of that pain of like,

okay, when it doesn't work, you got to keep going and don't ever say, I think you told me after one of the shows, you were like, don't ever say die, which is like, just like don't call out what the experience of it is. And it's like, if it's not going well, you just keep doing the material,

you keep trying, you keep going. You don't say, oh, you guys don't get it, you don't like it. Never say die. What's funny, that was actually a thing that Seth Barish really convinced me of because early in my career, if people listen to Dog Years,

which is out of print now, it's like a self-released album that I did in the early 2000s. And I played this for him and he loved it. And he loved like that. He loved the delivery, whatever the material. But he was like, you call out that you're bombing or that a joke doesn't work so much.

And it makes me think about it too much. It makes me evaluate everything you're saying joke to joke. So it's like, that's a success. That's a failure. That's a success. And before that, I wasn't evaluating it. I was just kind of taking in the experience. So the moment you say like, well, that joke bombed, it's kind of like this thing where people go, oh, we're supposed to judge it like that? Okay, from now on, I'll think about it through that lens. Yeah. Mike Karp asks, what's your favorite joke you've ever written and your favorite joke someone else has written?

Oh my gosh. Favorite joke I've ever written. I'm like looking at the joke cards on the wall which some people think are set decorations. Oh, so many questions about those. Oh, really? They wanted to know if there's like a system like does yellow mean X? Yeah.

Does green mean X? The answer is sometimes and sometimes not. Yeah. So right now, not. But like down the road, it'll be a thing where I go like, well, this group of greens are about love and relationships. And this group of yellows is about family. And this group, you know, this is about, you know, medical issues. That's like, I'm just thinking in relation to like old man in the pool, for example. And then what I do is I'll put it up on the wall and I'll realize

by color coding it, oh man, I'm going to the family stuff a lot. We're in familyville for a long time. And it actually helps me kind of like unpack the whole thing in like a different way. And I start to think like, oh, well, how could we get some more oranges or greens in that space so that the, you know, ideally, like with all these shows, with these solo shows that I write, you never want people to be bored. It's kind of similar to the podcast. The whole point of the shows is to keep people interested and on their toes and not to get ahead of it. So a lot of times like the color coding is to make sure that it doesn't become monochromatic thematic. And that's why I do it.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So favorite joke you've ever written, favorite joke someone else has written. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So favorite joke you've ever written, favorite joke someone else has written. I think my favorite, I think my favorite joke of mine isn't because it's still funny to me, but that it was like a big breakthrough in my artistic process, which was when I was like 22 years old, I wrote this joke where I say, um, my girlfriend is a little bit older than I am. So she's starting to think about having kids, which is sad because we're going to have to break up. I've decided I'm not going to have kids until I'm sure nothing else good can happen in my life. And the reason why that's like a very meaningful joke to me is that I said it offstage to a friend, my friend Chris, and his, I think his wife at the time, or his girlfriend at the time became his wife. And they were laughing

really hard at that. And I was thinking to myself, huh, that's not a joke. It was just a truism about my life. It was just a thing I felt, but they were laughing as though it was a joke. And I was like, oh, maybe jokes are things that are somewhat true and somewhat ridiculous. And so that was why I think that that's really meaningful to me. And then one of my favorite jokes around that time, I was actually opening for Jake Johansson over the course of like seven days, one of my favorite comed around that time, I was actually opening for Jake Johansson over the course of like seven days. One of my favorite comedians of all time. And he had a joke.

It's, I think, one of the most economic jokes I've ever heard. And it was, so I fell in love. Fuck. So, count it. So I fell in love. Fuck. Yeah. Six words.

Yeah. I thought you were going to say the Mitch Hedberg joke about rice. Rice is great if you are really hungry and you want to eat 2,000 and something. I love that. No, I think that's great. I mean, the joke of Mitch is, and of course I loved that. No, I think that's great. I mean, the joke of Mitch is, and of course, I loved Mitch. I'm obsessed with Mitch. I mean, I have to say, like, I have to stop myself from talking about Mitch sometimes

because it becomes weird. You're just like, enough. You're kind of like, enough with the Mitch Hedberg stories and whatever. But my favorite joke of Mitch's is is I was writing a letter to my dad and I was going to write I really enjoy being here but I accidentally wrote rarely instead of really

and I still wanted to use it so I wrote I rarely drive steamboats dad there's a lot of shit you don't know about me quit trying to act like I'm a steamboat operator. And then usually he'll go, all right, all right. I love that joke. The reason, and Jenny and I have a really deep relationship with that joke because sometimes we'll say to each other,

quit trying to act like I'm a steamboat operator. Because it's a joke about being misunderstood. I think a lot of times in relationships, you feel like the person's misunderstanding you and it's someone as close as your dad or your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend or whatever. And you're like, he's driving me crazy. Quit acting like I'm another

thing. No, I love that and I think that brings up this is like almost the most asked thing which was sort of the balance between truth and embellishment. Like the thing you were saying, like it's something that's true, but it's also something that feels ridiculous.

So people were interested, what's the line between truth and embellishment? And does it matter? And if the New Yorker did an investigation of you, what would they expose? So when the Hasan Minhaj piece came out, I got a lot of text messages that said, I really hope you sleepwalked through that window.

I didn't know that was funny. And I did. And there's more to come on that. I was just in Walla Walla, so I'm going to talk about that over the next year a bunch. I uncovered a lot there. The Hassan thing is tricky. It's like I completely support Hassan.

I think he's a great person. I think he's a great comic. I think that the question that that piece should make people wonder is why did you write this? Or what are we doing? Yeah. Where's the journalistic integrity in taking apart something that was an autobiographical art form like stand-up comedy where we all kind of know that it is often a confabulation of stories and jokes and ideas that are not precisely journalistic.

And if they were precisely journalistic, that person might write for The New Yorker or The New York Times. And maybe this person from The New Yorker really wanted to be a comedian. Who knows? I don't know anything about them. But it just felt very unfortunate for the state of journalism for me to see that that was their preoccupation.

And so in relation to my own, where's the line for me I think everyone has their own line you know it's like that line is not my line Austin's line is not my line I think that there's some people who exaggerate or confabulate

or conflate stories and timelines like he did I think some people do it like I do I think some people do it like I do. I think some people do it way more, you know, I'm not going to call out Cat Williams on my podcast, but I don't want to get, I don't want to go down that road. I love Cat Williams. I don't want to be in his next interview. I don't want to be mentioned. But I do think like there are certain comedians

where you just go, oh my God, their stuff's way past what Hassan was doing in relation to what is the truth and what is, you know. And then there's people who are probably precise to the word in terms of you could fact check them to the word. So it's like the spectrum of that is all over the place. You know, with Old Man in the Pool, Sleepwalk With Me, a lot of times it's condensing time. You know, it's saying three months later this happened, two weeks later this happened. Because there's a certain narrative rhythm

that occurs when there is causality within events that occur when you're telling a story. And if you say, six years later, this happened. But then two months after the first thing I said, this happened. And a day after that, this happened. Oh, okay. Six years later, you know, and then you're like, people are like, I'm not following. Because your responsibility as a storyteller is actually to entertain. That's one of the secrets. Yeah.

Is people aren't going to see a comedian because it's precisely journalistically what occurred in their lives. It's the illusion of that. But I don't, like, I'll give you an example of something I wouldn't make up. I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I reversed the type 2 diabetes. For me, and again, everybody has their own mind. I wouldn't make that up because there's something about it that feels weird to me. It's like, well, that's misleading.

If someone has diabetes and they're trying to reverse it, they're like, well, Mike reversed it. And then I would feel terrible if they were using me as the model. Because I could see someone using me as the model for that. I could see someone being like, well, he did it. He figured it out. Then I can do it. And it's the only reason I'm comfortable telling that story

is actually did reverse, that's an old man in the pool. Right. It did reverse my type 2 diabetes. What's the Birbiglia expose? What would it be? I'm trying to think of what it would be. Can you think of anything? Well, it may be like the thing that is a sort of a sincere question

to a joke or sincere question to a joke or sincere answer to a joking question, but it could be the thing Ira Glass called you out for on this podcast, which is that like... Episode 100. And you've said to me in the past, which is like, you're most relaxed on stage and everywhere else in your life, you don't feel that way.

Completely true, yeah. And Ira pointed that out on episode 100. He goes, you know, you don't feel that way. Completely true, yeah. And Ira pointed that out on episode 100. He goes, you know, you're so calm on stage in some ways it's misleading. And I'm like, it's not intentionally misleading. It's how I feel on stage. I feel calm. The conditions are controlled.

The next question is from Linz Paula Voi. I think there might be a comic their question is the critique for my sets is that they always seem to be too over rehearsed slash pre-written do you have any recommendations yeah it's a great question

it's like I mean my whole my whole thing is just like do it in your own words you know what I mean write the joke memorize the joke, and then kind of forget the joke. Don't do the lines. So kind of like say the joke, but don't say the joke.

Say it in your own words. Say the idea. Say the feeling behind the joke. The idea behind it, but don't say the hard, like these are the nine words that are the joke. Deirdre Jean asks, which of your comedian friends is your harshest critic? Oh, man.

I used to have dreams that David Cross was criticizing my jokes in my dreams. And I used to have dreams that David Letterman was criticizing my jokes in my dreams. And then I think Seinfeld. I think those are the three people who used to inhabit my dreams. They really don't anymore. So you're two dream guests and David Cross. Yeah.

And I think I told David when he was on the podcast. But harshest critics. I mean, I think like usually what I find is, you know, one of my collaborators is Joe Birbiglia, who has worked with my brother and worked together for 20 something years. I usually can tell, he's a tough laugh.

I can usually tell if he laughs at something that it's going to work. I agree. Do you find that too? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like a lot of the jokes that he laughs at initially are the ones that end up in the show

because for context, you'll read him jokes to silence all the time. I really do believe you have to have different types of friends, some who are comics, some who are not comics, who are different types of laughers and you kind of know what their deal is on the laugh front. Yeah.

Speaking of guests we've had on the podcast, Alan Gary asks, which podcast guests were you most nervous to talk to? I'm always nervous. Yeah. I think that's a funny detail that people might not expect about you. Yeah, I'm always nervous. You're always so nervous before the podcast,

but you're not before you go on stage. Am I irritable? I don't snap. You're always so nervous before the podcast, but you're not before you go on stage. No, you're not. No, no, no. Is this a toxic environment? This is the expose. Do it right now on camera. No, but I think that's interesting is like, I would say, tell me, tell me if you think this is wrong. You're more nervous before a podcast interview than you are to go on stage for a thousand people. Yeah. Yeah. I think I thank her. Why? There's another person involved and I just don't, again, it's out of my control. I don't know how it's going to go. So you look at like our Please Don't Destroy episode, which I loved. I don't know what they're going to be like. I've never met them in person.

I love their comedy. I don't know what it's going to be like in person. My memory of your most nervous is maybe Malcolm Gladwell. I was super nervous for Malcolm Gladwell. I was super nervous for Malcolm Gladwell. I get more nervous the more the person has created. So in other words, like for Malcolm Gladwell, it's like I'm reading all of his books or I'm rereading them or I'm, you know, I'm always reluctant to have guests

whose body of work is too big because I don't want to be the person in the conversation who, you know, they go, well, when I made the glistening orange, and I'm like, yes, the glistening orange, you know what I mean? But I don't know what the movie is or whatever, you know what I mean? Like, I hate that. Yeah, yeah. It'sM Miriam asks,

what's the most fucking annoying note that makes you want to die every time? Oh yeah, this is from Miriam who wrote a play that I saw and I loved at Edinburgh Festival this summer called Strategic Love Play. But she says, what's the most fucking annoying note you receive?

I think like the hardest note But she says, what's the most fucking annoying note you receive? I think like the hardest note is when people go like, I don't like this character. Because we're not supposed to necessarily like characters. And I think it's like, it feels like a trap that we're in right now. This idea that we're supposed to like characters in movies and plays. Like if you think about any Shakespearean play, you're not thinking about the character's likability, you're thinking about their watchability.

Like, is this interesting to watch? Is it, this character is undergoing challenges and tribulations and like, is that worth watching? Is it watchable? So like, weirdly, like the thing that irks me, has irked me the most over the years is when I'll do like a solo show, like the thing that really sticks in my craw about my my show the new one um was when people would say you know seems like he's a jerk or whatever it's like well yeah I I'm admitting a fault faults and a confession of a thought. And if we're not interested in what people's

deepest confessional thoughts are, then I don't think we're at shows for the same reason. And it's a tricky thing because it's like, maybe that's an aesthetic. Maybe that's just, we have different aesthetics, me and those people who criticize things for that reason. I always tell young comics, like, write about what's wrong with you, not about what's right about you. Secrets only. This is for you. Pete Holmes and I talked about how, tell the audience your secrets.

Tell them the thing you're embarrassed about. Tell the audience your secrets. Tell them the thing you're embarrassed about. Tell them the thing that, you know, when you just lost a family member, the darkest thought that you have at that moment, that you'd be embarrassed to tell people. That's why we go to art, isn't it?

But I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Whenever I see people say that, I go, oh, I guess we're in it for different reasons. You know what I mean? I guess I'm not here to tell you what you should enjoy about art, but that's definitely not what I like. Yeah.

Riley Thomas Bova asks, who would win in a fight, Novak or Edelman? Oh, yeah. Good question. Great question. And so common a question. It's Jacqueline Novak and Alex Edelman, two comedians who've been guests on the podcast and whose I produced the original production of both of the shows.

Be unlikely, the fight. One of the most unlikely. I think it would be a fight of passive aggression. Yeah. If you're going to force them, it would be physical. There's some kind of cage match scenario where Novak and Edelman are in a room together. The two things you should know, Alex is a better athlete than he lets on. Sometimes on Instagram,

he'll have videos of himself shooting basketballs before the show, and it's like, he's pretty good. He's a pretty good shot. So he's a little more athletic than you'd guess. Okay. His brother's an Olympic athlete. Novak's probably scrappier than you'd think.

Well, when she was on the podcast, she talked about walking on stilts and how she could walk on stilts. So it's sort of like... That's a great example. There's sort of hidden... There's hidden talents. No, no, there's hidden talents.

I think both of those people are just scrappy and I would not put money on that fight. Yeah. Because I think it could go any which way. All right. Matt Burke 299 asks, what lessons have you kept from Georgetown Improv? I mean, I have to say like,

and you were Georgetown Improv. Yeah. And you were UChicago Improv. I think one of the things the three of us probably have in common from just being college improvisers is you, at least I should say for myself, I view everything through the lens of like,

yes and. I try never to say no, but. It's genuinely a weird thing about you, which is like you really, like weird as in beautiful, like you really do care what anybody thinks. Like you think, you sort of think that you get to a certain level and it's like, okay, like my close confidants are Ira Glass and Seth Barish and all those people.

And so those are the people you confer. You genuinely love to hear all opinions about the work. It drives people nuts, though. Sometimes my collaborators go nuts. Ooh, name names. Ira. Okay. So when we were making Sleepwalk With Me, the movie, we were arguing over the ending.

There were two alternative endings that we had cut different versions of. And so then it would be like, we'd show it to a group of friends and people would have this take on it. And I'd be like, oh, that's really interesting. And then like, you know, another friend of mine, a film director would come in

and she'd have a different take. And I'm like, oh, that's really interesting. A film director would come in and she'd have a different take. And I'm like, oh, that's really interesting. And Ira was just like, you're infuriating to work with sometimes because you just listen to everybody. And you just like, and Ira, of course, and I'll defend him to the death on this, he lives and dies on this weekly

This American Life schedule. They have to make every decision by Friday at 4 p.m. for that full one-hour documentary show, which is as good as or better than 99% of produced

documentaries that take place over five years. You know what I mean? The level of expertise and proficiency that that show has is so extraordinary that when he sees me kind of like dilly-dallying over, well, this person said this, I think that's a great point. I sometimes am insufferable in terms of how much I will kind of like talk through a point that a lot of times my collaborators think is resolved. But I think you have a good question that you ask people when they come see your shows,

which is you say, where were you bored? Because often it's like the thing they'll cheat what they didn't respond to so much, but it's sort of a safe question to ask. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's a good one. There's always trick questions because your friends will always tell you they like your show. Or not. A lot of times they'll either love it, hate it, whatever.

But I think a lot of times what you want to do in terms of getting feedback from people is trick them into telling you how they really feel about something by just saying like, hey, were you ever confused? Was there any part that was confusing? And they go, and they'll go like,

I didn't understand the swimming thing. And then they'll go, wait, why is the swimming thing in the show? And then you go, oh, okay. Now I know you really feel about the show that five minutes ago you were like, it's great. That,

that's sort of like the, were you confused? Where were you confused? Where were you bored? Are, are two very good like trick questions for getting like real, because what you want

is the people's real feelings about what you're doing. If you, you can all day get people to tell you what you're doing is good. Yeah. Just friends to say it's good. That's actually not super helpful. Yeah.

Like specificity, when were you most in? When were you least in? Is like way, way more helpful. All right. Brian McComedy asks, how do you deal with young comics who are delusional about their experience level?

Oh. Yeah. I mean, I always say that. That's like a line from Sleepwalk with me, the original show, which is to be a comedian starting out, you have to be a little bit delusional because you have to convince yourself it's going well when it's really not going well because otherwise you'd never get on stage

again. You just think, I guess human beings don't like me. You have to tell yourself like, oh, that was pretty good. The delusion is honestly it's how much delusion gets you to do it again because

the repetition of the thing that makes you any good, which goes back to the Jack Antonoff thing. We always obsess over this thing of like, the thing that young comics or musicians or whoever, a lot of times their questions have to do with like, how do I not do the work? Yeah.

How do I just hack this thing? To my knowledge and Jack's knowledge, there's no hacks. Yeah. How do I just hack this thing? To my knowledge and Jack's knowledge, there's no hacks. Yeah. The people we notice who stick around, they just stick around. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to think of a good example of this. When I was in high school one summer, my parents weren't around much,

and they moved to a new town. I didn't have any friends. And I just decided like, I'm going to like just go down the street to this like public tennis court and just hit serves every morning. Because that's what I heard Pete Sampras did. Yeah. Was there ever a more Mike Birbiglia story? Yeah. That I'm going to do this because Pete Sampras did it.

I heard Pete Sampras did it. And so it was like Pete Sampras apparently, and I don't even know if this is true, it might be apocryphal at this point. It was like Pete Sampras, every morning before he even practices, he hits 90 serves. So I was like, well, I'm going to get a bucket of balls and I'm going to go to the public court and hit 90 serves. So I was like, well, I'm going to get a bucket of balls, and I'm going to go to the public court and hit 90 serves.

Next thing you know, I won a tennis tournament. I literally won a tennis tournament. And my parents were away. My parents were gone. I was in high school. And I was at this tournament. All the super helicopter-y parents were all there rooting on their kids. And they were so mad because I won the tournament.

And my parents came home. They're like, how was your weekend? I'm like, I got a trophy. From what? Oh, this story is so my kid. I don't know. I won this tennis tournament. They're like, you did?

I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Wow. But hitting the serves. You got to hit the serves. You got to hit the serves and to connect it back to what you were saying before, like that's the delusion. Like the delusion is I'm going to do this because Sam Price did it.

But it's like – but that is the thing. I've worked with you for five years, and that is the thing that still shocks me, which is you are legitimately delusional. Yeah, yeah, that's true. You'll come into the office and you'll be like – we can cut this out if you don't want to say it, but you'll come into the office and you'll be like, this is can cut this out if you don't want to say it but you'll come into the office and you'll be like this is going to be a talk show and there's going to be makeup artists

and we're going to buy the unit and we're going to turn it into this thing and I'm like your mind is just like running wild and it's like that delusion is real that's the thing that takes you to the ideas and it's called manic depression and it's diagnosed very simply.

You'll be diagnosed within 48 hours if you go in. Yeah, it is something of an illness. But I do think you have to hit the serves. And I think if you hit the serves, you'll be surprised how good your serve is. So this is an experiment. Join the mailing list. Follow me on Instagram at Burbiggs. The next time I post a thing asking for questions, chime in with your questions. Thanks everybody for their questions

and just supporting the podcast. Like more, the thing about this podcast is it started out as a pandemic baby and then it's become this thing that I feel like bonds me with all of you listeners who come out and see the shows and saw the Broadway show and then saw the Netflix special or saw me in England or Iceland or whatever. And it's like, thanks for being a part of it.

Yeah. Thank you guys. Gary and I have to write our expose now. Oh, yeah, yeah. For the New Yorker. Yeah. What do you guys have so far? I have to write our expose now. Oh, yeah, yeah. For the New Yorker. Mm-hmm. Yeah. What do you guys have so far?

I wasn't going to say this on air, but you don't work out five times a day. Well, I was thinking... Five days a week. Five days a week. Five times a day. Five times a day. Five times a day. Working it out, because it's not done we're working it out because there's no

we don't have to start making jokes