Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out - The Very Best Working It Out Moments of 2023

Episode Date: January 1, 2024

We’ve created an episode for all of you making long car trips or taking long jogs or stretching out on your long beloved couch. It’s our best moments of 2023 episode! It includes Ray Romano’s take on marriage, a joke from Ramy Youssef’s funniest uncle, Rachel Feinstein’s pitch perfect impression of her husband, and deep confessional moments about Mike’s friendships with Tom Papa and Gary Gulman. Plus, Ira Glass’s diagnosis to not just work out Mike’s jokes but to work out Mike’s life.

Hey, everybody. It's Mike Birbiglia. Happy New Year. We are now officially in the year 2024. I just wrapped up a bunch of shows in Boston. Those are so much fun. The new material is really coming together. It's an entirely new show from the old man in the pool. Get your tickets as soon as possible at burbigs.com. Sign up for the mailing list to be the first to know. We weren't sure we were going to have an episode today. And then we thought, well, we have so many great episodes from the year. It's January 1st. Why not do a special episode where if you're out on a road trip or you're going for a run and you want to listen to a whole bunch of great clips from Working It Out 2023, we put them all together. These are clips selected by myself along with our Working It Out producers, Peter, Mabel, Gary, and Joe. It's an embarrassment of riches. It's a nice reminder

of who we had on the podcast this year. We're going to kick it off with Ray Romano, legendary comedian Ray Romano. Funny story. When I was doing The Old Man and the Pool this year, Ray Romano came to The Old Man and the Pool, and my parents are huge fans. They've seen every episode of Everyone Loves Raymond. And so I said, Ray, I feel so bad asking you, but can you make a video on my phone saying, hey, to my parents? He made a video. They said, who is that? They're huge fans. They said, who is that? They're huge fans.

They said, who is that? I love Ray. His album, Live from Carnegie Hall, is like one of my favorite comedy albums of all time. He made a movie recently called Somewhere in Queens that he wrote, starred in, and directed. And I couldn't recommend it more highly. It's streaming on Hulu.

This is me and Ray Romano. We're working it. I have a thing I'm working on right now about marriage, which is that my wife, the thing that I love most about my wife is that she's so thoughtful, much more thoughtful than me. I go, the other day she made me a pancake. And then I go, you heard that correctly.

I see that on your card there. Yeah, pancake. Pancake. Yeah, I was working with Bert last week. But I go, pancake. And I go, which, because she understands my health profile. She knows the right amount of pancakes for me to eat is pancake. That's a great joke because you're just taking one letter.

One letter. And it's a joke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you said she's making me pancakes, it's not a joke. And you're just removing one letter. Yeah. Oh, so then the follow-up joke to that is, and I go, so she makes me pancake.

And I go, thank you for pancake. And then I wanted to do something nice for her because my love language is keeping score. And then what I do in the crowd is because usually, literally, someone claps. And I go, if you're clapping. Wait, about keeping score? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I go, if you're clapping, it's because you're keeping score. And if you're not clapping, you're keeping score and you're losing.

That's funny. This is not, we're not doing the same bit. No, no, no, no. But I do a thing about scoring points with my wife. You do the same thing? Not the same thing. Similar, yeah. But I say, I just bring it up like the other day I scored points with my wife.

And ladies, you know, we're always trying to score points. And every guy is trying to score points. I don't know what game we're in with you. Yes. But you have the lead at all times. I say, we are like the Washington Generals. You know, the Hall of Globetrotters play the other team, the Hall of Globetrotters play the team the Hall of Globetrotters play. That's a great take.

Yours is different. Oh, no, of course. One of mine that yours reminds me of is I go, marriage is teamwork, and we've lost a lot of games. Yeah. We're in a slump. I go, marriage is teamwork, and we've lost a lot of games. Yeah. We're in a slump. And sometimes at the end of the game, I'm like,

I was under the hoop for an hour. And she's like, you couldn't score if you had a ladder and no defense. I was open. I was open. That's great, though. Your take is actually more filled out than mine, That's great, though. Your take is actually more filled out than mine, which is this idea that, like, you're basically keeping score because you kind of know the other person's winning.

Because they're always in the lead already. Yes. That's interesting. Yes. We always need points because we're always behind on points. But it's funny because I think the reason people are clapping, why that keeping score thing gets a reaction, is I think sometimes people, there's no outlet for,

and this is the same reason everyone loves Raymond, connects with people. It's like there's no outlet for people to be like, this is, this dynamic of marriage and relationships and living together for your whole life, and it's your lover, and it's the mother of your child, and it's your wife, your roommate. It's so complex that if you can put words to it with an analogy or anything.

There's no outlet for people to share the stuff that's wrong about it, the stuff that's hard the stuff that's wrong about it the stuff that's hard about it for people to bond over yes I go through that same shit you know you can't complain to

you don't want to complain to her about it so you want to see other people talking about it yeah fuck i go through the same thing yeah like i do a bit and this is this happened this is what happened i think you must have heard this we were having dinner uh with my son and his girlfriend just me and my wife at our house and in the middle of it i got a text and it was from my wife. It was right there.

And it was just two words, chewing loud. Chewing loud. And that happened to me. I wrote it down and I took it on stage and I just said it and it got a huge laugh. It was basically your wife commenting on you. Talking to me. Yes. Yeah.

Yes. Chewing loud. Chewing loud. But I'm saying, I thought I was, I need to write a punchline here. No, that's it. Sometimes the setup is the punchline. Yeah. Pancake.

Pancake. Pancake. Another one of my favorites this year was Veer Das. He is just a fascinating comedian with a fascinating life story. He's been touring all over the world. He'll be at Carnegie Hall, January 19th. Check out Veer Das and enjoy my chat with him. How do you think of a comedy show?

Do you think of it as your hour with them or their hour with you it's for them exactly yeah that's how i think about it but i think it's a an easy comedian temptation to think of it as your hour with them you know because i've worked really hard to get my hour with them it's not about them no they got babysitters they saved for weeks, they put a lot on the table to come and see you, you know. And if you think of it in that sense, when that flip happens, I think your entire comedic perspective changes. This is a really important point. And I think you and I have this in common. I had a flip. I think in my 20s, I was more immature, and I thought it was about me.

And then in my 30s, when I started doing these solo shows, Sleepwalk With Me and My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, I started to see that it would affect the audience in this way.

I go, oh, oh God, it's about them. That's who it's about. Did you have a flip? I, it's two college kids

in my front row. Yeah. And this is a true story. I, my front row's expensive. It's, it's about college kids in my front yeah and this is a true story i my front row is expensive it's it's about five thousand rupees wow and my last row is five hundred rupees what's five thousand rupees roughly i'm bad at math a couple hundred bucks by 80 yep so you know but notionally it's a lot more okay you know if you think about what that means 80 bucks 100 bucks yeah it's expensive probably notionally feels like about two, 300 bucks. Okay, oh wow.

And these two kids were there, right, in the front row. And I try and keep my last row 500 bucks, which is like 10 bucks or whatever. So that I get a range of people in a large room. And I was being an asshole. And I was like,

hey, two kids in the front row. I guess dad bought the tickets, right? Or mom bought the tickets. What industrialist is your dad? Or is your dad a VIP, et cetera, et cetera. And they're like, no, we save for this ticket. And I'm like, really, for how long? And then one kid goes, we save for four months.

We're in college. And one kid goes, we skipped lunch. Oh, my gosh. You know and i'm like what the what the hell does that mean and they're like lunch in the canteen of the college is between 80 and 100 rupees we skipped lunch wow to come and see you and i'm like i will never be less than 200% ever again for the audience. I will send them home flying on a goddamn cloud. That is my job. They skip lunch.

It's a privilege to be able to perform in front of a group of people. And they took a lot to be there. I always tell the story about the old man in the pool where someone came up to me in Los Angeles after the show and she said it was watching the show. I felt like I was with my dad who's no longer with us. And it's like, well, if you have the opportunity to connect with people and give people that,

you should really strongly consider doing that as opposed to making it about yourself. Or even letting the noise dilute your performance should really strongly consider doing that as opposed to making about yourself and or even letting the noise dilute your performance by even 10 yeah i do believe that if you and i'll go down a comments rabbit hole i'll go down a you know a hate you know scroll or whatever etc because comedians tend to fixate but then i'll remember that if I'm at 90% and not at 100% for those two kids because of some random person

who's never going to come and see me, I'm unprofessional. Another one of my favorites this year was Rachel Feinstein. She is a riot. She talks extensively in her act about her husband, who is a fireman, and does like a pitch-perfect impression of him and her mother and all these people. She is just a completely sort of transformative comedian.

She's very one of the comedians who makes me laugh harder than anybody if you want to see her she's a great live performer she'll be at the Arlington Draft House in Virginia this is me and Rachel Feinstein the way you talk about your husband is so extreme that I'm like

is that even real? like you have a Costco thing where he bought a thing like he all of it when I tell you I know what you're talking about, and I talk about it on stage too, because I couldn't believe it. I begged him, don't get me something from Costco. That's all I ask for Valentine's Day, for Christmas, not from Costco. He got me pajamas from Costco, which I put up a picture of them at the end of that video, that said, had tickets on them that said, admit one. They were like Kirkland pajamas, okay?

This is the exact thing I told him not to get me. Don't get me something from Costco. He got me Kirkland pajamas. You get those, it sends a strong sign. It's like saying, yeah, like I'm not romantically interested in you. This is what I'd like you to wear to bed. And it's wearing like,

it's like a thick, dense, corduroy curtain between us. Yeah. They were so cheap, they were crunchy. And they had tickets on them that said, admit one. Like, he absolutely gave me pajamas from Costco. I'll text you the picture. Gave me a $50 Amazon gift card. Oh, my God, no.

For Valentine's Day when I was pregnant. And I was like, no. The answer is just no. The answer is no. No. And wrapped it? When I tell you, I'll send you again a text with this wrapping. He wraps presents like some sort of rat or something.

There was a ball of crumpled up paper on top of the present with weird pieces of tape and stuff. I was like, what is this? He's like, yeah, looks like you might have tried to open that one. He tried to blame it on me as if I wouldn't know. I was like, no, I didn't. You wrapped it. You can't use me to lie about this. Like it looked like it had been attacks.

Like there had been some sort of attack or fight around the present. Rips of paper open, clobs of like tape on top. I was like, was this wrapped by like a wolf with rabies? Oh my gosh. But again, I think he probably like wrapped, maybe he wraps things at the firehouse. Something is missing. Yeah. There. You know what I mean? Like something's not there.

Did you have like the talk early in the relationship of like, I'm going to talk about you on stage a lot? Here's the thing. Not only does he not care, Mike, he thinks that that's good because it's getting laughs. So it has made him worse. So when he sees the big guy bit, he's like, what?

He fucking loved it. And I'm like, no, they're laughing at you. It's at you. And he's like, no, come on. I got a nice pop right there. It was solid. Oh, they loved it.

Come on. Doesn't understand like at all. And I'm like, but they're it. Come on. Doesn't understand at all. I'm like, but they're laughing at you. He doesn't care. He just likes that they are laughing. You know what I mean? Doesn't care at all. You were saying on stage that he misses out

when he's not at a fire. Oh, yeah. They're obsessed with the fire. He's like, oh, that was a good one. He's like, oh, gorgeous job. Beautiful fire. He doesn't like with the fires. And he's like, oh, that was a good one. He's like, oh, gorgeous job, beautiful fire. You know, he doesn't like to miss them. And then there's like competition. He'll get mad because this firehouse that was supposed to be our job, you know, come on.

It was a good burn. The place was blazing up. And he gives me quizzes about the fires in history. So we'll just be laying in bed. This is a regular occurrence in my home. He's like, try fire, fire. And I'm like, first of all, I'm not doing this with you. He's like, come on, tri-fi, triangle fire. It's an important fire. And I'm like, why would I need to know the stats of a fire? But he reads about fires.

I mean, they're obsessed. They're obsessed. He doesn't want to go to like, some lady thinks she smells gas. Husband answers the door, embarrassed. Those are the calls he complains about. Right. Some, you know, some lady thinks she smells gas. Right. His husband answers the door. He's embarrassed. We go in their boots. Apparently, it's just some old fish they had in the apartment, you know? He's like, I thought we were going to get to go to a good job today. Nice 1075, you know, like nice burner. He wants like everyone on fire. The whole family on fire. Yeah, yeah. Everyone. Literally the nightmare of all of our lives, which is all of us being, any of us being in a fire. Yeah.

That's what he relishes. Yes. And they're first due. So they see it all like right away because their response time is faster. So he's always like, what do we do? We do the ABC. By the way, he drills me on this. Why would I need to know this?

Like, I'm going to go do an 810 at the cellar. He's always like, what do we do? ABC. By the way, he drills me on this. Why would I need to know this? Like, I'm going to go do an A10 at the cellar. He's always like, what do we do? ABC. Airways. Breathing. Like, I can't remember the last one. I think it's circulation. I don't know.

Somebody correct me in the comments. I don't know. But yeah, he's always like, ABCs. But basically the first three things that happen, they stabilize until, you know. But there's a lot of drills at our home at all the time. He's like, all right, find me the windows. And I'm like, no. Somebody else will find the windows.

He's always like, what was the roof like if I go someplace? I'm like, I don't know. I don't look at roofs. But he thinks about buildings all the time because he's thinking about how would he approach a building if it was on fire. Like if I come down the stairways, he'll be like, open interior stairwell. Go to bed. I'm like, for me, it's fine. You know what I mean?

Like, I don't know. Right. I prefer an elevator. But like, you know. Like, he always is giving me these never-ending fire drills. Oh, my gosh. He's like, fire prep. Come on.

Let's do it. Another one of my favorites is Yorma Takone. He's been a friend of mine for a long time. I was in his movie, Popstar. He's part of the Lonely Island. You know the Lonely Island. They created over 100 digital shorts for SNL. They've made a bunch of movies.

Their company produced the show I Think You Should Leave, which I love. This is a great chat I had with Jorma Ticone. When you were writing Lonely Island sketches, are you thinking, what's the turn? There has to be a turn. No, I think that they occurred naturally. So I think that we're all assuming that there will be, but it's not like a conscious thing of like when that's,

we're not thinking along those lines. It's not like two plus two is comedy kind of thing for us necessarily but who we are and our level of either boredom with our own ideas or not wanting to repeat ourselves

because that was the other advantage slash disadvantage of the show was being like we did something like that last week so i think so it did help that there were three of us and and there's always sort of democracy like if two of us understood the idea and the third guy was like i don't understand why this is funny you guys that guy leaves the room oh the other two work on it and then the other guy comes back in and will say like the abc of like what their problem with the idea is. Usually, so one that would help us

in terms of if one of us had a problem with an idea, then we would work on it until that third guy is satiated. You bring them over. And either the logic is tighter because of that, or the joke is funnier because of that, or we get to the kernel of why it's better now with the three of us thinking through something. But the other advantage is that piggybacking thing that I'm

talking about of just like when one of us is bored with the fucking idea, we're moving on. We always had a, at least I always think about this with editing, of like the dumber the joke, the faster you tell it. For us, at least. Or you don't tell it at all if it's too funny.

What do you explain? It's like we never wanted the audience to get ahead of us. So I think that that led to turns of just being like either we've done it before like last week or something we did like two years previous or whatever it is. And so we just always wanted to challenge ourselves to do something different sort of thing.

And having the three of us or honestly like some of the people who we worked with, like Justin Timberlake, like working with him, he's a funny dude. So it's not like in those later shorts, he would actually spend time with us, and he's actually adding to the mix as well. Who's Justin Timberlake? He's an American recording artist.

Did you discover him, Justin Timberlake? No, but what's funny about Justin is that I think the three of us, me and Andy Cave, were always much more self-deprecating. And Justin is a man who is both handsome, wildly talented. He's not going for him. And clearly always has been. So I think that is not my life. Mickey Mouse Club, like age nine, I think that is not my life so I think so having Mickey Mouse Club like age 9 I think

so I don't think he's had many failures in his life so the fact that we could write something to your point about like how would you know this is good we feel like we know like everyone's gonna love fucking Nick in a Box Justin comes in we're messing around with that the minute we're done he's like is it

is it a hit and we're messing around with that. The minute we're done, he's like, it's a hit. It's a hit. Really? This is a hit. And we're like, what are you talking about? Wow. Guys who are going to get arrested for putting their penises in boxes at the end of this video. This is a hit.

I mean, that's like a perfect example of like on paper, if you pitched in Blazer Cats to me, I would just go like, yeah, maybe. And then I think that what makes LaserCats work, and maybe I'm completely wrong, and you can explain to me the logic of it, is that you really want, your characters really want to convince Lorne that it's good. I think that was one of the things that I actually learned at SNL. Not actually, we learned a lot of things at SNL.

But was that without the context of... Laser Cats is basically like two 12-year-olds making their own film and bringing it to Laura Michaels. So it's like Annie and Bill Hader have made a short film called Laser Cats where there's been a nuclear war and now cats have the ability to shoot lasers out of their mouths. So everyone's using them as weapons. And so

sometimes they're real cats and sometimes they're fake cats. And part of it came from me cocking my own cat as a gun and pretending to shoot my wife with it. With your cat, yeah. Yeah, you're just going...

Amazing that we're still together. But without the context, and it may have been Akiva that pointed this out, but he was like, you need the audience, and this is often the case with any SNL sketch, to look for what the joke is. You didn't even know. And if it was just two 12-year-olds making a short, you'd be like, I don't want to watch this. But having the judgment of them presenting it

to an adult man who's seen everything and is over everything and knows this is fucking horrible. And then we would always like, so they pitch it to Lauren. He says, this sounds like a bad idea. And they say, wait, let's watch it before you judge anything. And then it is bad. And then we would choose the worst, most embarrassing moment in it. And then be like, no, you cut back to Lauren.

Just being like, yeah, I was right. We reached a huge milestone this year with Working Out. It was our 100th episode, and we were honored by the third visit from Ira Glass, legendary Pulitzer winner. Ira Glass, host and producer of This American Life. I've loved this episode so much. He kind of goes in deep on the difference

between me on stage and me in real life. And he's just always a real source of wisdom and humor. I love him. This was actually our first episode that we put on YouTube. This whole episode was on YouTube. It was an experiment. Our friend Graham Willoughby was the cinematographer who kind of lit the office and hung lights in such a way that we think has kind of a cool vibe.

It's on YouTube. And this is Ira Glass. A few minutes ago, Una gave me this. It's a friendship potion. And yeah, check it out. She made that friendship potion. And I said, well, what does it do? And she goes, well, it helps you try to understand your friends by putting you in their shoes to understand how they're seeing things. I just want to describe what this looks like for people who are listening. This is a little vial that you might give somebody a crack in, I would say. It's like an inch and a half long, a little plastic tube. And then it's filled with a pink liquid

and there's glitter and there's a shell and there's a sticker on the outside that says friendship potion and it's really adorable. Do you know the potion, are you supposed to put it on like a perfume? Are you supposed to drink it? like a perfume? Are you supposed to drink it? Or are you supposed to leave it?

I think you're supposed to pretend to. I think you should just have it. I'm going to pretend to drink it then. Are you ready? I just tilted back there. Okay, now that you just took it, put yourself in my shoes. That's not hard. Let's put each other in it.

Let's do the Oona challenge let's do the friendship potion and I'll imagine what it's like to do your job and you can imagine what it's like to do my job okay do you want me to start? okay yeah

okay so I run This American Life and I report on stories of people all over the country, all over the world. And I have to simultaneously report that and then edit those stories and then give notes on like 30 or different stories simultaneously every week. And every week the show has to come together and we put it out into the universe to be heard by millions of people. And it is nonstop.

That's accurate. Okay. If at a superficial level. What am I missing? You have the big strokes, actually. Okay. Okay. And then I think for you, I think like you're just like, I mean, I know you well enough to know you're in between like five things at all times.

And so, you know, you're working up new material at the cellar. You're doing the podcast. You know, like, you know, you're writing a movie. You're like, there are meetings about things for a long time you were just fixing the house at the same time and my own apartment yeah yeah um and then like a lot of people are are depending on you and jen has your back and your brother has your back but somehow even though they have your back and your brother has your back, but somehow, even though they have your back, you have a feeling all the time that it's all on you. That basically, if you stop for a day

or a week, the whole house of cards falls apart. Like if you decided just to just stop working for a month, suddenly like several people would be unemployed. I don't know. I can't even imagine. Wow. Your answer is so much more profound than mine. Mine is just technical. Mine is just what you do in a week. Yours is like an existential crisis. I don't know. I feel like I understand from seeing you in a way that I think is different from who you play on stage,

like the pressure you put yourself under. Okay, so now we're working it out, but with my life. In fact, I think there's a thing that's interesting, which is, I mean, this is the potion speaking, Mike. This isn't me. I just want to be clear. This is the potion speaking. Friendship potion speaking. Do you ever think about the fact that your public persona is someone who's just eminently relaxed?

There's something very relaxed in your presentation on stage. And although on stage, the things you talk about are anxieties and things like that. So it's not just relaxed all the time, but you present as relaxed. But who you are is not relaxed.

And then for me, like on the radio, I'm constantly getting into these like intimate conversations with people who are complete strangers where like they talk and I talk back to them and there's like a real intimacy to it. But like in real life, like I definitely have people who I do that with, but I think it's much harder for me to get to that kind of like closeness. And if anything, like if you think about about what sort of person would feel the need to invent a radio format that's built around such intimacy, it would only be somebody who has struggled with intimacy. Do you think that's true of a comedian who does the same thing? The same thing in which way do you mean?

Someone who has struggled with intimacy and I'm being intimate with a live audience. It's funny, I hadn't thought of it that way, but now that you say that, yeah, I do. Yeah. This next one is Chris Redd, who's been one of my favorite comics and he was on SNL for years.

He is a great, great live comic. He has such a distinct voice, comedic voice. It's all his own. You can see him upcoming. He's on tour in Oklahoma City at the Bricktown Comedy Club the weekend of January 19th. This is me and Chris Redd. Your special's so good.

Some of the specials should not be specials out there. No, man. It should just be, you know what? They should have a category called, I'm just dropping some shit off. It's not a special. It's just like, we just dropping some shit off real quick. These are some thoughts I had.

Yeah. They're not fully flesh. Let's come up with a name for that. It's mid. It's called mid. You heard it here, I'm working it out. It's mid. Drop the mid special. Mid special. That's a mid special.

Yeah, it was a mid special. It was pretty good for a mid special. And then if it's great, it's like, damn, it should have been a real special. Damn, that mid special should have been a real special. I literally, I was rushing here because I special should have been a real special. I literally, I was rushing here because I had, this is a bizarre thing.

I had HR, the harassment, speech meeting thing. And it was on Zoom and it was like, it's weird. It's probably hard, I think,

for people like you and me where our coping mechanism is humor. And so they're saying serious shit to us. and then all you're thinking as a comedian i think we're we train our brains to always think of the joke always so everything they say i'm thinking of as a setup and my brain just goes to punchline punchline punchline but i can't say it right because it's obviously inappropriate and so i was just silent the whole time. I was just going, yes, absolutely. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. I've learned a lot. I'm just waiting for somebody to be in those harassment trainings, and they set up a scenario. They give an answer, and somebody's like, oh. Yes. Although, like, genuinely, like, damn. Y'all right.

I think every now and then in this one one i go yeah george isn't so good at that you know what i mean like i did have a couple of those where i was like because part of it's old school like part of it is like you have some co-workers who get up there in age and like some of the stuff they say in the harassment training you're like all right well we'll see we'll see if that ever gets called my god yeah my God. Yeah. Because that's out there. That honestly is my guilty pleasure. I like seeing the older folks get really like up in arms when they can't hug no more. Well, there's some anger.

Why are you so mad about this hug? There's some anger. There's some anger at the HR institution for sure. And I would say generally, and again, I want to be careful. I don't want to use ageism. No. Because ageism is in the HR handbook. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can't use ageism. People can be any age they want to be until they die. I don't want to be ageist when I say this, but one of the trends I've noticed is that in the HR situation, the older folks generally don't do as well and are more angry. They're just mad the world's changing. You know what? I get it. I understand.

I remember when I started therapy, I went and I told my folks about it. And I have a little bit in the special, but I left. I love that stuff about therapy in your special. And I talked to my folks, and they were really open, surprisingly. And then we got mad close off of that. Yeah. And I was talking to my, me and my dad talked more than we ever talked growing up. And I noticed he had social anxiety.

And I'm like, Dad, you got social anxiety and I'm like dad you got social anxiety bro like you should go get that treated and he's like boy I'm 70 it's over oh shit not life life ain't over just like growth personal growth I'm done boy I am who I am but hey that's cool for you that's tricky I my parents are 82 and I have to sometimes come to grips with the fact that my dad and I disagree about certain political things. But I'm not going to change him. All I can do is express love in a way that supports who he is and that I love him. And I think if we had a little bit more of that in the world, we'd be all right. We have a little bit more love, like we love our parents.

We have a little bit more mid-specials. A little bit more mid-specials. A little bit more mid-specials. Mid-specials are wild. So when you were talking about open micers. Yeah. Because, yeah, sometimes you see the open micers and they try to put out the mid-specials on YouTube and stuff. And you're like, no, hold on to that mid-special. Yeah, hold on.

Hold on. Or the crowd work stuff, which there's some great crowd work stuff. Yeah. But there's a lot of crowd work stuff that's Or the crowd work stuff, which there's some great crowd work stuff. Yeah. But there's a lot of crowd work stuff that's not really crowd work. It's just question and answer. Yeah. And it's like, bro, maybe write a joke or... Well, you bob and weave in your special into crowd work in a way that's completely seamless. I was wondering whether it's a function of your personality.

Yes. Because I feel like you go this topic this topic crowd work you're back so i came out i came out and said for the first time ever um to a crowd of people um uh that have adhd yeah uh depression and anxiety and the special this special this particular body of work is supposed to be in the style of my brain yeah because i'm i'm you know the whole thing is in the style of my brain yeah because i'm i'm you know the whole thing is very selfish and narcissistic kind of because i'm just talking about my inner shit yeah but it's supposed to feel like how i think yeah and when i was doing

a tour i love improv not enough to just be an improv forever and be broke forever and have no job forever and wear nothing but hoodies even though nothing but hoodies, even though I love hoodies. Oh, wait, I don't have a hoodie today. No. Where's your Second City hoodie? Oh, it's at the crib. They're real soft. This next one's Tom Papa, who's a comedian I love. He's written books.

He has podcasts. He has comedy specials. Just a completely hilarious person, completely dynamic artist and writer. We get into our friendship. He was like one of the first comedians who kind of took me under his wing. And we kind of go into our friendship, the ups and downs of that.

Mostly the downs, but now we're in ups. It has a really nice energy to it. Again, this one's on YouTube. A lot of people found this one on YouTube, which is great. This month, Tom's in Charlotte, Nashville, Lexington, Baltimore, as well as Huntington, New York. Great comedian to see live.

This is me and Tom Papa. We were friends. You helped me. I opened for you a handful of times. You helped recommend me to clubs. Then we had a falling out. Then we became friends again. That was our thing.

Yeah. What's your version of that? My version of that. And don't be sparing. You can be mean. No. You can be like, you were a jerk in this way. I don't care.

It wasn't mean, but it was, you know, I hate to criticize any of us when we're scrambling and trying to find our way. Yeah. Because, and there's, we're trying to find our way. You're trying to, I criticized you. At one point you came and you asked for something or did something. I don't even remember, which is, I don't even remember. which is, I don't even remember.

But I remember saying to you, Mike, and maybe it was because you hadn't been around. I don't know what it was. It's kind of vague. But I do remember saying, Mike, every time you talk to me, you're trying to get something. Oh, my gosh. And you were like, what?

I'm just trying to, and you were asking for something. Yeah. And I was like, Mike, literally every time that you come to me, you're trying to get something. And you should know that that is not a, you should know that it's obvious and it's not going to help you. Oh, wow. And it's so hard because I don't have the things. We're all trying to get somewhere.

We all want something from the people ahead of us. But there has to be a truth to it. It has to be kind of, you know, I wanted things from people ahead of me. Yeah. There's a finesse to it. You know, there's a thing. Yeah. And for whatever reason at that time, there wasn't the, it wasn't wrapped in the kindness or the we're still friends.

It was just, it was just that. And I said it purely because we loved you. I said it purely because it wasn't like, fuck off, I never want to see you. It was, you should be aware of this thing that you're doing because it's transparent. And that was where I was coming from. That's almost exactly how I remember it.

The funny detail that's aside from that is that you told it to me at the comedy cellar while I was sitting at a table on a date oh no I don't picture that I picture me sitting and you being up oh that's terrible the other way around

I was seated, you were up it was a low angle from you to me and you were right first of all you were right it Look, I'm hugging myself. It's so, it was, yeah. First of all, you were right. It's a great Achilles heel of my 20s.

It's something I look back on and cringe at and try to learn from. And I'm probably still doing, in some way, share perform still. We always are. But, but, I was on a date. That's terrible. It was before I met Jen, and it was like,

and it wasn't even like I was on many dates, but it was like, you said that. And then I was left to be like with this person. I was left, so yeah, Tom's my friend. What a fucking asshole. But it was very sobering. It was very sobering. I didn't like it. It was helpful. It was very sobering. I didn't like it.

It was helpful. It was tough love. It hurt. It hurt, but I think hurt can be good. It hurt a lot. I didn't like it either. But for me to do that, most people, if you don't care about somebody,

you're just like. Nothing. You just walk. Right, exactly. Yeah. The biggest insult is to say nothing. But I remember being angry about it, which means that I probably had my feelings hurt. Like maybe we weren't hanging out.

Yeah. Who knows? Like maybe I had other people in my life that weren't being nice to me. Who knows? But I definitely was feeling sensitive about it. It was, I mean, part of it, I remember, was trying to tell you, like, hey, be aware of this. But why I was, like, angry about it, I don't know.

And I'm sure I had my own baggage and shit that was going on at the same time, because I give people advice all the time you have to ask for things yeah you do have to ask constantly you have to like say you know hey you'd have this thing and you're in this place i would love if you could yeah you have to but that can't be the you can't be the, you can't be the one, you can't be the dog just constantly begging for a treat. Once in a while, I have to sit on their lap. I think that's right. Right.

I think my frustration at that time was that you were newly opening for Seinfeld, which was a kind of a wild kind of flying to the moon kind of concept. Yeah. kind of flying to the moon kind of concept. Yeah. And so my perception was, because you were like in private jets with Seinfeld around the world and playing in front of these. And in my mind, and this is a classic thing,

you look at someone else, you go like, they have it all. I can ask them, they have it everything. You're raising kids. You have your own things that are challenges. Life never becomes not hard. Yeah. No, 100%. I feel like I regret that it was so biting when we had that talk because it derailed us for years. Yeah, I know. But then we made up when the seller at the table, like literally just like me,

I think it was me being like, hey, I was wrong about that thing. And you were like, I was probably wrong too. And then we just moved on from it. Yeah, no, 100%, you know. Which is, I think, sort of how you repair anything is just conceding that you're probably wrong. And the nuance of it is maybe not precisely what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point.

And you also, the care for the person overrides the... I hate to say it, but I am a Scorpio. Oh, no. Don't do this. I know. Don't become this person, Tom. But I have this trait. But the trait that they always talked about, about being a Scorpio.

My mother was really into astrology. And the thing was like when people turn on you, they're dead to you. Yeah. Forgiveness is a difficult mode. But with our little story, it was like, no, I really care about Mike. And it was like whatever happened in that moment, whatever we were involved in, it was a lesson for both of us. I think as a friend it was the intent to say it,

but it was definitely harsher than I wanted it to be. was the intent to say it, but it was definitely harsher than I wanted it to be. But ultimately in chapter six of it was, we like Mike, we love Mike. And it's like, why should that be? We shouldn't linger and hang on that stuff. And even like today when I said,

I called my wife in the morning and what's your day? And she goes, whose podcast are you doing today? And I said, I'm going to do Mike, Mike Birbiglia's podcast. She went, oh, Mike. You know what I mean? And that says it all. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.

So it was like, yeah, it was a weird spot, but I'm glad we got through it because there's been other people that, you know, you don't come back to. you know, you don't come back to. So one of my faves this year was Hassan Minhaj. He has been a friend for a long time. Like I want to say like almost 10 years.

One of my favorite comics. He's currently on tour in Chicago. He'll be in the Chicago Theater. I'll be there in a few months as well. He'll be in Philadelphia. An amazing live'll be there in a few months as well. He'll be in Philadelphia. An amazing live performer, and we have a phenomenal chat. This is me and Hasan Minhaj. But the thing that you have, the secret special skill you have,

that I feel like you don't sort of brag about is, like, you did that Obama thing, and, like, you made fun of his playlist from the year. It's so funny all right and it's so bold because like but is it though but yes is it yes because yeah because i would be like oh no like what if he just cuts this off oh you know what i mean what if he just what if he goes cold okay don't you have that because you have a thing in your personality which isn't in your offstage personality, which is your shit starter. Your onstage persona, like you start things. Like that could be like, that could have made it bad.

Yes, it could have. You asked like one of the most influential people in the last century. Yes. Like, hey, by the way, there's no way you watch and listen to all this stuff. Yeah. And like that could go badly.

What were you thinking in that moment? What was the calculation? So the calculation in that moment is like, what I try to bring to these interviews, whether it's like President Obama or Prime Minister Trudeau or whatever, there has to be this like, so I have a text thread with all my boys that we grew up in high school together. We played basketball since we were in middle school. We're called Hit Squad.

We played in basketball. Yeah, of course. You know Hit Squad. And you've obviously heard of what we've done at the 24-Hour Fitness Basketball Leagues and the Sacramento, greater Sacramento area since the early 2000s. Lesser known stuff, for sure. Of course, Hit Squad. So Hit Squad, we're on a text thread.

But there's always this thing of like, what would Hit Squad ask of me if they knew- That you got to. I went to go meet Michael Jordan or I met Steven Spielberg. Yeah. They'd be like, how tall is he? Right. They would always ask you that sort of thing. So I always approach it from a very like,

come on bro level with me. Yeah. Thing. And from a place of like, I'm not here to get you. Yes. Like I'm not here on behalf of the wallstreetjournal.com. Right. To be like, Mr. Birbiglia,

comedy's in an existential moment right now. And with the threat of democracy, do you feel like some of the, and you're like, okay, you're trying to corner me into like, giving you a soundbite on cancel culture. Yes. Got it. Like, I'm not interested in this.

Yes. But if there was like, I tried to approach it from like, it's a very like, come on level with me question. Yeah. But it's also innocuous. It is a warmup joke. Oh, that's interesting. Do you really read all those books? Yeah.

Really? Like you read this book by really read all those books? Yeah. Really? Like you read this book by Abdul Razak Gurna? Yeah. Okay. Mr. President, what happened in TAR? What happened? What was your favorite thing about TAR? And you cannot say Cate Blanchett.

So explain TAR to me. That's very funny. And then if you can, then explain American healthcare to me. Like that sort of like i love that just level with me and i think he could sense oh he's like being real right now yeah like i'm just like just fuck the lav mic like you you really read all those 10 books yeah and scribs riley is one of your favorite artists of 2020. Yes. Really? Yeah.

You know what I mean? Did you come away from it believing that he had? The moment where I believed him is where he goes, dude, how much time we got? And I was like, oh, oh, I like tried to check your cred. And you're like, don't, I think the music stuff, he was like, I'll let it slide. Where he's like, you think you're the guys are the only ones that listen to music

and like irreverent stuff. But when I checked him on like, you don't read all that much. I think 44 felt, hey, don't come at like my ability to read a briefing and like be an intellectually curious person. That's interesting. But my place was like

but we're both married guys with children like there's just too much where's the time where's the fucking time yeah you know what what wouldn't you ask him out of respect so there was a thing at the very end of the interview called let's not talk about it oh really let's not talk about yeah but what i wanted to signal to him was like i know yeah this each of these is like an hour and a half conversation but let's not talk about it yeah so i also cashed it in a joke so i had all these cards and so one of the cards was like it was like guantanamo bay Let's not talk about it. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, Edward Snowden. Yeah, yeah. Drone strikes in Pakistan at a wedding.

Let's not talk about it. Oh my God. Let's just not talk about it. Oh my God. And I was like, boxers, briefs, commandos in chief. And then he's like, let's not talk about it. I go, classified, I know. So what I did is like, what I wanted to do was each of these alone.

They're major. Drone strikes is foreign policy. The war on terror, right? This alone is like a two and a half hour conversation. Let's not, but I need to, Snowden, like that alone, privacy and all that whistleblowing. That's a two hour conversation.

Guantanamo, obviously in his campaign campaign was like, my first day in office, I'm going to close it. Did not. I was like, okay, we don't need to talk about it. But what I had to signal to him was like, I know. And to the audience, I know. This next one's a little bit of a cheat because it's technically from 2022, but it gets referenced to me so much that I was like, oh, if people haven't heard this, this episode with Zarna Garg is fantastic, where she talks about her relationship with her daughter

and her getting into comedy kind of later in her life than most people do. And I just loved our chat. If you can see her live, absolutely do yourself a favor and see her live. She'll be in Vancouver, February 22nd. This is me and Zarna Garg. I read your daughter's college essay,

which now she's at Stanford. She's doing great. But at the time, she wrote this college essay that they printed, they published in the New York Times as one of the best college essays in the country. And I just found this so moving. This is your daughter, Zoya Garg. Yeah. My mom finds a baffling delight from drinking from glass hotel-grade water dispensers. Even when three-day-old lemon rinds float in stale water, drinking from the dispenser remains luxurious.

Last year for her birthday, I saved enough to buy a water dispenser for our kitchen counter. However, instead of water, I filled it with handwritten notes encouraging her to chase her dreams of a career. As I grew older, I noticed that my mom yearned to pursue her passions and to make her own money. She spent years as a stay-at-home mom and limited our household chores as much as she

could, taking the burden upon herself so that my brothers and I could take on our education. However, I could tell from her curiosity of and attitudes towards women that she envied their financial freedom and the self-esteem that must come with it. When I asked her about working again, she would tell me to focus on achieving the American dream that I knew she had once dreamed for herself. For years, I watched her effortlessly light up conversations with both strangers and family. Her empathy and ability to understand the needs, wants,

and struggles of a diverse group of people empowered her to reach the hearts of every person at a dinner table, even when the story itself did not apply to them at all. She could make anyone laugh, and I wanted her to be paid for it. Quote, Mom, have you ever thought about being a stand-up comedian? She laughed at the idea, but then started wondering aloud about what she would joke about and how comedy shows were even booked. As she began dreaming of a comedy career, the reality of her current life as a stay-at-home mom sank in. She began to cry and told me it was too late for her.

I could not bear to watch her struggle between ambition and doubt. Her birthday was coming up. Although I already bought her a present, I realized what I actually wanted to give her was the strength to finally put herself first and take a chance. I placed little notes of encouragement inside the water dispenser. I asked my family and closest friends to do the same. These friends told her other friends, and eventually I had grown a network of supporters who emailed me their admiration for my mom. From these emails, I hand-wrote 146 notes

crediting all of these supporters that also believed in my mom. Some provided me with sentences, others with five-paragraph-long essays. Yet each note was an iteration of the same sentiment. You are hilarious, full of life, and ready to take on the stage. On the day of her birthday, my mom unwrapped my oddly shaped present and saw the water dispenser I bought her. She was not surprised that she had hinted at it for many years, but then as she kept unwrapping, she saw that inside the dispenser, there were these little notes that filled the whole thing. As she kept picking out and reading

the notes, I could tell she was starting to believe what they said. She started to weep with her hands full of notes. She could not believe the support was real and that everyone knew she had a special gift and believed in her. Within two months, my mom performed her first set in a New York comedy club. Within a year, my mom booked a monthly headlining show

at the nation's premier comedy club. I'm not sure what happened to the water dispenser, but I've read the notes with my mom countless times. They are framed and line the walls of her new office space that she rented with the profits she made from working as a professional comedian. For many parents, their children's careers are their greatest accomplishment.

But for me, my mom's is mine. Yeah, it's really emotional. To hear it in your voice, to hear this. Okay, this just became a sad podcast. It really speaks to the idea of supporting your friends and family in helping them achieve what they want to be and what they want to do. And it's, you know, for me, it's an inspiration for me and supporting my wife and daughter

and what they want to do. And hopefully people hear this and think of it in relation to their own lives. Absolutely. And, you know, I encourage it. I think my community has come up, come out in big numbers to support me. Without them, I wouldn't have a

comedy career yeah every time i i didn't know what a bringer show was yeah the first time they you know a club told me you need to bring five people or eight people or whatever yeah i was like but what will i do with the remaining 90 yeah because people in my world that so excited. Just to give context, that bringer show is when you have to essentially bring your own audience to the comedy club. Yeah, and usually people are stressed out about having to bring people. Yeah.

And you had an outpouring of people. Because it's never been done. No Indian woman trashed her mother-in-law on stage. Women came out from across state lines everywhere. Another conversation I had this year that I loved was with Gary Goleman. Gary Goleman is one of my favorite comics. He's been one of my faves for probably 20 years. Great comic, great specials.

He has a new special on Max called Born on Third Base. He has a new book that's extraordinarily well-written called Misfit. This is me and Gary Goleman. I feel like when you and I first met, it helped me understand a certain thing about it years later, which is to say you and I met in Los Angeles out at a show. Our sensibilities mesh.

This is probably 15 years ago. And you were like, let's stay in touch. And I was like, great, let's stay in touch. And then I tried to get in touch with you, and you didn't get back to me. And I was just like, oh, I guess like, I mean, in my mind, I literally thought like, I guess Gary's just like a real operator. Like he's on to the next operation. But it's an assumption. And years later, I find out you had these bouts of depression where you couldn't get out of bed. You couldn't leave your apartment. So there's so much going on. And it taught me this wider lesson, which is you cannot know what someone is experiencing. So it's

so unfair to assume what their experience is of that. It was a huge lesson for me. No, it is really a good thing to learn. And I could probably apply it to my criticism of famous comedians. But I think, and one aspect that I don't think we covered, and maybe you hadn't said that you thought our sensibilities matched. I remember thinking, even if I call him back, he was just trying to be nice. call him back. He was just trying to be nice. And, and what have I got that a young burgeoning comedian in this prime will, will feel like I was so insecure about my place in, in comedy. And, and it, and it's possible that you thought I was a really good comedian and, and wanted to be a really good comedian and and wanted to be um friends besides that and here's the other thing would it have been so bad if i was a terrible comedian and you still wanted to be friends like that's the whole thing that i couldn't imagine anybody liking me other than that i was

a really good comedian and if i'm not a really good comedian then they wouldn't want to spend what value would i have anyway i have and it's just And it's just so, it's sad and yet it seemed so reasonable and was going on in my mind with just about everyone. So there were people in addition to you that I was, I wouldn't say I was dodging them. I would just not get back to them and then start to feel so guilty about not getting back to them. And they'll think that I'm a jerk when I do get back to them. And there's also this thing of being afraid that somebody will tell me off. Oh. Yeah.

Why? If I do get back to them. Like, who do you think you are that you can just take your time in getting back to me? And I called you two weeks ago, it's just it's just it's completely unfounded but it's depressive thinking yeah where i don't even want to go down that rabbit hole i was gonna no i'm open to rabbit holes well it's like i've struggled with this thing in the last few years where i've had depressed friends who just drop out yeah i to be helpful. And at a certain point, they're just gone. And so then you just go like, well, where's the line? Where's the line between, no, actually this person might be a bad friend.

Right? Oh, that's interesting. And it's a rabbit hole. I don't know that there is an answer to that. No, that's a great point. I mean, recently I've taken a look at my friendships and done a little Marie Kondo decluttering and found, well, this person hardly ever initiates. I have to set up every meal. I'm going to let them do it. And in some cases they do.

And in some cases they don't. And I just think, and my therapist was really good at this. He says, you can still have them in your life, but you do not have to expect anything more than what you're getting. And know what you're in when you go into it. Know that if you meet up with so-and-so, they're only going to talk about their job and you're not going to get a word in edgewise.

And if you want to do that, that's fine. But know that you're making that choice. And I thought that was really helpful. That's fascinating. I've never asked this question before on the show, but when Tom Papa was on, we had kind of a come to Jesus about our friendship and it was actually really helpful in like a real life way. Where do you,

what is our relationship? Are we friends or are we work friends? Oh, I think my feeling is always This is a really busy guy. And I'll bet you that he wouldn't be able to fit me in. Oh, gosh. Yeah. So I don't, like, because there are a lot of things that I will think, oh, I bet you Mike would think this is funny. And I'm just like, don't be the guy who's sending. Because we all have friends who send us things. And we're just like,

I don't have time for this. Because if you, some friends, if they send you something and you react, then your next hour is in getting text back and forth. And I just, especially while

writing a book, you don't have time for that. Right. Attachments to links, the things you don't have a login for. I feel like sometimes- It's like, you know what? I don't have a Wall Street Journal subscription. I don't think I'm going to have one.

Yeah. I don't know that Kafka meant this when he wrote everything he wrote, but there is something about the Wall Street Journal paywall that I think he would have related to. I think so, too. And I think, so that's a fascinating, let me just say here on the record, this line is open. I always want to hear from you. Okay, good. Oh, that's really nice to hear.

I'm always happy to hear from you. I don't know. It's interesting because you and I have now known each other for so long. Yeah. And I feel like we're in a unique position in our friendship where we could actually theoretically point out things about each other that we could try in our act that maybe we don't even realize about ourself maybe is funny. Oh, that's really interesting. It's funny because very few friends ask each other what level of friendship they are. And that's, I won't lie, it's not a comfortable position to be asked that question. It's very vulnerable to ask that question and also

on the other end, it's almost, I have to give an account of what happens with us when we're not in the same room because we were on that documentary together. Yeah, we did a documentary together. And I was so grateful that you were there because I didn't know anybody as well as I knew you. And it was a great life raft and we had so many great laughs. And then you were gone. And it reminds me of when I graduated from college. I had this close friend all through second semester, senior year.

His roommate had gotten a girlfriend. So he was very lonely, I think. And I had just broken up with a girlfriend. So I was very lonely and we connected and then school stopped. And, and I remember thinking, well, unless he reaches out, I'll probably never see that guy again. And he reached out and we spent the next, it's now coming up on 35 years, talking on a every other day weekly basis. And I could see a scenario where that friendship never took because I was afraid that he would be put off

by me reaching out right away after. And he called me like the first day of summer vacation. It was just, it's an insecurity that I should have put behind me 35 years ago with that piece of evidence, what I would have lost out on, one of my closest friends. I'm going to have to call you tomorrow. Another chat I loved this year was with Rami Youssef. The other night I saw Rami at the movie premiere for Poor Things,

which is just this sensation of a movie that he is so good in. That's in theaters now. His Instagram is at Rami, R-A-Mm-y for all of his live shows he is one of my absolute favorite comics and people this is me and rami who's the first stand-up you ever saw live oh that's a good question um i remember the first stand-up i

obsessed over watching which was carlin that was like my, that was like everything, me and my uncle obsessively way before I should have. You know, that like- Like 10 years old or something. Literally 10 years old. I'm watching Carlin with my uncle. And that was where, and my uncle kind of talks like Carlin. Like he's really, my uncle talks in premises.

He's really funny. Like he hit really, my uncle talks in premises. He's really funny. Like he hit me with this, with this, like, like he'll say stuff that I'm just dying. Like he goes, what's up with Donald Trump's son? Just, has he been 13 the whole time? He's like, it's so funny. Like he literally goes, the kid has never aged. Isn't that the funniest premise? isn't that the funniest premise isn't that the funniest premise he literally goes the kid has never aged and i died and i was like

yeah i don't think i've ever heard a different age on him like i know he's gotten older like it's like you know what i'm saying so it's's like. We're talking about Baron. Right? Dude, yes. Yeah, yeah. That's so funny. His young son, like he's like. He's not. Right, because he's probably in college or something. He's probably 18. But he's like, as far as we know. That's so funny.

No, no. It's got nothing to do with the kid's intelligence. He's frozen in amber. Yeah, yeah. It's nothing against him. It's literally. It's like about. It's not insulting him.

The joke is about like reporting. Yeah. Like he's literally like like the kid's just been 13 the whole the whole term and it just it made me laugh so much are you doing this on stage? no I never have

oh you should do this you should do this I think potentially you should just and I don't even know where you go with it because it's so funny on its own

it's so funny but it is one of those things where like sometimes in life we are out as comedians. We're outdone by people who are non-comedians in our lives. It's just that's so funny. So this is one of my favorites of all time, Jo Firestone. This episode is entirely unique. If you don't know her, she recently wrote a new book called Murder on Sex Island, which is hilarious. She created a card game called Fruits.

She has comedy specials. She had a small part in Don't Think Twice. She just does all kinds of things. She does a lot of stuff with Joe Pera. She's just hilarious. And this is a great chat we have. This is me and Joe Firestone. So I moved up to Upper Manhattan.

Okay. About a year and a half ago. Okay. And I was like, you know, the clubs are so close. Yeah. I should probably do the clubs. Right. I did this set where this couple was making out.

Yeah, I've seen that happen. Really hard. Yeah, I've seen that. And the host was obviously like, okay, we've seen you guys making out. You guys can go home now. Yeah. Go home and make out. Go home and make out.

And so then they were like, the woman of the couple was like, basically, she didn't like being called out for making out. Okay. And she starts screaming, I'm going to kill myself. Okay. It's a little rash. The host is like, just, okay, I didn't mean it. And she goes, I'm going to kill myself. She says it five times.

I'm going to kill myself. The host is like done with dealing with her. Okay. Please welcome Joe Firestone. That's exactly what happened. I'm sorry. I've heard a lot of hell gig stories of bad introductions. That probably takes it.

It's tough. Making out all night. I'm going to kill myself. I'm going to kill myself. I'm going to kill myself. Please walk to Joe Firestone. Really tough. So how'd it go? Bad.

Like how bad? This is basically what my set sounds like to someone that doesn't know me. How do you know that? I know. Who told you? Listen, I've seen what, but basically it's like that was, I was like, I don't know whether to address this. I don't know whether to keep talking to this woman. Wait, how do you sound?

I just don't know how you arrived at that conclusion. You know what it is. You know what I mean? Sort of. But basically, it's like they really just needed some grounding. They needed someone to come in. To be a really straightforward, straight ahead, set up punchline. Release.

Mainstream comedian. Release the tension. Release the tension, yeah. That's been created. That's what they needed from you, and you were not ready to do that. That was my first time. That was my first time at the club. Wow.

So what'd you do as your bit? What'd you open with as a joke? Did you have a joke? I said, I'm not supposed to be here. I'm so sorry. I'm not supposed to be here. I'm so sorry. I'm not supposed to be here. I'm so sorry is a great line. That must have gotten a laugh, right?

No, people were like, mm-mm. Yeah, yeah. They were nodding, affirming. Tough, tough, tough. Affirming that to be true. And then any jokes after that? Did you tell jokes? Yeah, I tried.

I tried some jokes, but I'd say- What's a quintessential Joe Fireson joke, if you're comfortable saying? Like a joke I'm saying right now? Yeah, like what's a joke that Joe Firesone joke, if you're comfortable saying? Like a joke I'm saying right now? Yeah, like what's a joke that works, and even in a club like that, might work pretty well, even in weird circumstances? Okay, this joke doesn't work. Okay. But I'll say this.

I do this joke a lot. I'm actually asking you for a joke that works. I'm not sure I have that right now. But basically I do this joke for a bit that was always, I'd say, consistently alienating. Okay. Where I said that I feel like I'm getting older because my purse is filled with dust. Oh, that's got to do well. People are saying, help her, help her.

Why she got dust in her purse. Her purse is filled with dust. And then it's like, well, the dust, I know what it's called. It's called a woman's sand, and that'll fill up the hourglass of your life and when it gets to the top, you're dead. Our final episode that we're going to play for you is my favorite, one of my favorites of all time. This has got to be top three, top four of all time.

Pete Holmes, it kills me to say it, but he's very funny. He has a new special on Netflix called I'm Not for Everyone. I guarantee you will laugh and enjoy me and Pete Holmes. Sometimes I do a show and I let them in and I go back to the hotel and I feel like they took something from me. They took something. I do these stories about parenting fails, basically.

Yeah. Sometimes it doesn't work and I go, I literally just, I don't stop the show, but I go, I think this is what standup is for. I think this is what the art form is for. I go, I could tell you stories where I'm winning or I get the last laugh. What good is that to you? Project your shame onto me and laugh at it. Oh, I love that. That's what we're doing. We're doing shadow work. On that episode with Gary Simons, you said, tell your secrets. I want to see comedians telling their secrets on stage. And you and I talk about this all the time. You told me that.

Yeah. Something we talk about. If you're not telling secrets, who cares? Who cares? And that's right. That's kind of what I was just saying. Do you have anything in your new hour that you're touring with right now that feels like a secret? Yeah. For sure. It's all stuff about my parents. Oh, interesting. I have a line in my act right now that's hard every single time I say it. Yeah. It's about

it's not that I want to tell my daughter that she has it better than me. I already like it. That's a great example of I like the setup. I'm laughing at the setup. Buddy, you and I are in the setup section of the standup shop. You know what I mean? Like a good, and I just go, but I do sometimes wish that like a Charles Dickens style ghost

would occasionally whisk her to my childhood in the eighties. Oh my God. So I recently apologized to my childhood in the 80s. Oh, my God. So I recently apologized to my daughter because she was choking me. She was right on my back, and then she put her arms around my neck, and she let go, and she was choking me. Yeah. I was like, baby, you got to let go. You got to let go.

And then she got down, and she was sad. Yeah. And I literally and sincerely apologized to her for not letting her choke me. I said, you really wanted to choke, Dan. Yeah, you're having a big, that's a disappointment. You liked choking dad. And I said it and I meant it. And I was like, I'm sorry, baby.

I'm a person you can't choke me, but I meant it. And it's moments like that, that I wish a portal would open and a ghost would come in and go, come child. I'll take you to a moment in Peter's childhood when his father apologized to him and they go in and go, come child. I'll take you to a moment in Peter's childhood when his father apologized to him. And they go in and it's just perfect darkness. And my daughter goes, but spirit, nothing is here. And I go, that's right.

Because it's never fucking happened. That's all safe. That's not really a secret. The tag is, Mikey, I go, every time I've wanted my dad to apologize for hurting my feelings, I end up apologizing to him for having hurt feelings. That's a secret. That's deep.

And then you know what the tag to the tag is? I know that's not funny. I just don't want you to feel alone. Oh, that's beautiful. They laugh at that. It is beautiful. It makes me want to choke up. Because it's fucking hard.

It's hard. And a person in an alpha position under lights and being celebrated and saying, it hurts out there. Yeah. And you know what the best thing is? Listen, listen to how many people laughed at that, how many people clapped at that. Yeah. But then I'm going to go one turn further, not to fluff my own pillow here, but I'm going to go it and I'm going to say, my dad doesn't apologize to me. I'll end up saying,

you're right, sir. I shouldn't have. Oh God, I could cry. Yeah, it's emotional. It's hard. But what do you do? We're all, you know, there was an earthquake in Ojai recently. And then the same day, Val and I went and saw a production of Shrek the musical at the local theater. And every once in a while, there'd be an aftershock and the lights were all under lights. Yeah. And I was like, this is crazy. That's life.

We're all putting on a play during an earthquake. Yeah. And the best thing we can do is hold hands and go, I felt that shock too. I feel it. We're dancing in a burning house. That's going to do it for a very special episode of Working It Out. Check out berbiggs.com for the mailing list. Our producers of Working It Out are myself,

along with Peter Salamone and Joseph Berbiglia, associate producer Mabel Lewis, assistant producer Gary Simons, sound mix by Kate Balinski. Special thanks to Jack Antonoff and Bleachers for their music. They have a whole bunch of music that just came out. You can follow them at at Jack Antonoff or at Bleachers Music. Special thanks to J-Hope Stein, my wife, the poet.

Her book is called Little Astronaut. Special thanks, as always, to our daughter, Una, who built the original radio fort made of pillows. Thanks, most of all, to you who are listening. If you like the show, go on Apple Podcasts, rate us, review us, tell your friends, tell your enemies. Maybe you don't even have enemies anymore. Maybe this

podcast fixed you and you're enemy-less. Thanks everybody for being with us for 2023. We got exciting new guests for 2024. We can't wait. Thanks for being part of the journey. I'll see you next time.