The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Gary Gulman

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

Comedian Gary Gulman joins Andy Richter to discuss his college football experience, living with depression, the genius of Chris Elliott, and his new book, “Misfit: Growing Up Awkward in the '80s.”

Hello there, this is Andy Richter, and you have tuned back in to The Three Questions. Today I'm talking to Gary Goldman. Gary is a stand-up comedian, really, really funny guy, actor and author. He's been performing comedy for over 25 years, and in his most recent special on HBO, The Great Depression, Gary spoke very frankly about his experience with depression and hospitalization, and it was an amazing special. It was a combination of stand-up and documentary footage. Gary's first book, Misfit, Growing Up Awkward in the 80s, is available in stores now. Go out and get it. Gary joined us live in the studio, and here is my conversation with the great Gary Goleman. Oh, I come alive when I hear myself through cans.

What are you in town for? I'm promoting a book. Oh, that's right. Yeah. A book called Misfit. It's called Misfit Growing Up Awkward in the 80s. Yeah. It's nice. Very smooth.

Now, the publishing people, were they very specific about the 80s part? Yeah. Yeah. That's like, you know. Yeah. I mean, I didn't mind. We worked together on the title and then they said you'll also need a a subtitle uh something to go after a colon because it seems classier that way

there's so much to be said about this yeah yeah yeah yeah and and then also i think to distinguish from other books that invariably have the same title as your book when you only use one word right i don't i don't know that there's another book called misfit but there's a huge band called the misfits yes there is yeah so the subtitle distinguishes it from from the i don't know what genre they are they death metal they seem they're punk okay they seem they seem okay their t-shirts are incredible i want to become a fan just to wear their t-shirts. It's the Slipknot, the Slipknot thing.

I'm like, or the Slipknot's, as a parent would call them. The Misfits are a band, like, I know the t-shirt way more than I know the band. Yes. But I also think, but they were punks, and I think they also, like, would wear, like, big pomp, like, weird greased pompadour kind of mohawk things so yeah i wonder if they're reminiscent of the of the cramps where there was there was a punk but they have a little kind of a rock they have a little bit of that look which i always feel like if you're so supposedly punk you shouldn't take longer to get ready than i do you know what i mean i know if you're punk and

you don't give a fuck and fuck the world, but you have six cans of Aquanet. Yes, that's what I loved about The Clash. They were wash and go. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. Or even, but you know, like most of the, you know, suicidal tendencies or whatever,

like the, you know, the most punk bands or even Dead Kennedys, you know, like Jello Biafra didn't have a,

it's a t-shirt, you know, that probably came off, but you know. I've had opera didn't have a it's a t-shirt you know that probably came off but you know i've had great luck in following t-shirts two great bands yeah and that i remember thinking this smash and pumpkins t-shirt was really cool and the name was great i was like let me let me check this out because this would be good and they were awesome yeah yeah yeah yeah they were like a band in chicago that was playing around in chicago when i was in chicago yeah and i mean i saw i saw them but like nothing i i didn't you know like i didn't like go see them all the time

but i definitely had friends oh that's cool super into them and would see them all the time and so it was just weird when they got to be huge yeah it's just it's weird you know it's it's an urge overkill was another band right it was around was around Chicago at that time. Okay. And they acted, you know, you'd see them at like Marie's Riptide, which is a 4 a.m. bar, you know. Okay. Owned by two old wonderful lesbians. And just seeing, like, you'd see Urge Overkill there. And they were totally acting like huge rock stars.

Wow. Which I found just hilarious that they were still living that life i love that i really admire that and then lived in themselves and then billy corgan i haven't seen him in years but i apparently i first met him at an snl party because my ex-wife and i in those days we didn't have kids and we'd go to a lot of snl parties because yeah they're legendary yeah well and and also like we could watch the show or go out to dinner or maybe even take, like, a disco nap and then get up and then go. And, like, all the security knew me.

So it's like, hey, Andy. Like, I didn't need to check in or anything. You just walk in. It was so, like, you know, I was such, like, a regular at that. So we would go to these parties. And apparently, the first time I met him, I sat next to him for 45 minutes. But I don't remember it.

I may have been fucked up. You know, like. Sure. I may have been drunk or high or whatever, you know. I mean, by high,

I just mean weed. Right. But I didn't remember. And then the next time I saw him, I introduced myself and he's like, dude,

you just sat next, you you like you sat like i didn't oh and it's impressive that he remembers so sensitive and then every time you can hear that in disarm every time after that he would be he would just he like didn't even want to talk to me because he was still so upset that i didn't recognize him. And I just, I just heard him on Stern a little while ago and it was a great interview. And that poor guy, what a fucking life that guy has had. But there was one part where he said like why he lives in Chicago. And it kind of seemed like it boiled down to that.

He would get annoyed to go to a restaurant here and they'd be like oh they knew it was billy corgan from the smashing pumpkins but then like an actor who's on a show would come in and get blown up their ass more wow and so he's like i want to come back here where i'm treated oh my word rock star that i he didn't say those words. Right. No, no, I get it. It was implied and I was like, and then it was like, oh, that he still like really needs to be like, wowee. The insecurity. The insecurity. It never ends. It's crazy.

It's every level. It's crazy. At every level. Yeah. Yeah. It never ends. Yeah. It's heartbreaking.

Yeah. Yeah. Does it ever wane for you at all? yeah yeah does it ever wane for you at all at the very least i know what my my braggadocio and bravado is where it's sourced yeah that if i start to brag on myself i'm like oh you're feeling um invisible right now so you want to tell me they're important right right i mean it's always with my my family everybody else treats me as a human being. My family, my wife's family is so much more impressed with my accomplishments, whereas my original family,

they just, when I told my wife, my mother-in-law, Miss Jeannie, I said, I finished the book. It's being published September 19th, and she she said she's a black woman from the south she said oh we are blessed gary we are blessed and my mother said i'm not making this up she said who's the publisher who's the and she's not a member of the literati right i mean yeah yeah the last book she read was vc and. Andrews' Flowers in the Attic. And she wants to know. And here's the thing.

I know she only knows two or three publishers. So she would just be unimpressed. Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's not random. Right. Yeah.

It's an imprint of Macmillan. Now, what's an imprint, macmillan which is now what's an imprint honey is that still a book is that called self-publishing when it's an imprint i think your mother i mean just from material you've done about her and then seeing her in in i haven't seen your latest special is she is she in that one too or just the depression? No, the depression is the documentary footage of my mother being completely oblivious to my clear. Because I wrote this book when I was a kid called The Lonely Tree. And it was just this blatant allegory. And it was about a little tree who was lonely and the woodland creatures were picking on him and bullying him.

and the woodland creatures were picking on him and bullying him. And my mother said, I just thought it was a capturing tale. Well, but also, too, he then grows beautiful and becomes the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Yes, from tears. Yes. He grew from his own tears. And the fact that she's like, how was I to know? What are you talking about and I also love

the title was The Lonely Tree cry for help I love too that the book because you know it's a little kids book and you can see

on the cover there was like some water damage so as you're paging through it it's been laminated yes like she thought enough of the book to go and get it like this is worth saving but not worth computing no not worth you know like taking in and actually kind of and there were books on child rearing and they just And they just, she was, it wasn't by Danielle Steele. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it was of no interest to her. See, that's an interesting thing too about, you know, like, you know, now that you're, you know, you've talked so much about depression and stuff and been so forthcoming, which is really, really fantastic. It's really, you know. Well, it helped me when I found out that other people were feeling that well, especially people who I imagined. Because I always thought, and maybe you grew up with this idea too, that the reason I felt depressed was I hadn't done anything worth feeling good about. So that if I did something great, I would feel good about myself. And then you hear about these people, including yourself. I remember listening to Hilarious World of depression where you talked about your um moods

and and then terry bradshaw who had won four superbowls and i never was a really big fan but then he opened up about being depressed and i thought oh but but you're terry bradshaw i know i know put on a superbowl ring and feel better about yourself i think it would i think it might have been dan rather too like didn't dan talk about how he was incapacitated? Mike Wallace. Was it Mike Wallace? I think it was Mike Wallace. And then William Styron talked about it and wrote a really good short book. Perfect for a depressed person.

It was about 110 pages called Darkness Visible. And it was like, oh, this guy gets it. Yeah. No, but I think because doing that podcast, The Hilarious World of Depression, which is worth checking out. It's a good podcast. Yeah, with John Moe. Yeah, John Moe. And now he has one called Depresh Mode.

He does. Yeah. Yes. So good. Doing that was like, and I mean, I had never really been cagey about my depression. Right. I mean, it's not like I wore a T-shirt or something, but doing that, and I'm certainly not one to think. Well, as a very famous person, I think it's important for me to make.

No, I know. I felt the same way. I was like, who cares? My problems. Fuck you. But here's the other thing that I thought people would say. Yeah, of course you're depressed. You're a failure.

Well, they do. They do, you know. It's like with me. I mean, it's not so much anymore, but like, you know, like people would say, like, you know, there's, cause like I was the, I was the lead on three different networks sitcoms. No, I know. And people will, you know, and that's like, I was the lead on three and that people would be like, you were the lead on three sitcoms.

What are you doing now? Crawling back to Conan. And I just feel like, wow, people are evil. You work at fucking the auto zone. Take it easy. But that's, that's that also that sports fan mentality where this guy goes this is a few shots and they're like your mother should deny yep yep yep oh yeah no it's it's it's incredible but well but i was what i was bringing up is that

i do feel like your mother still is so much in denial. Sure. And my mother wasn't in denial about my depression, just about her hand in it. Yeah. No, of course. But my mother was from a very early age, and this is where I was just much luckier than you. She was into therapy. Oh, wow. much luckier than you, she was into therapy. Like when I was young, I mean, like I was 12, 13, and we started to go to what she called family counseling,

was what we called it. And then the guy after a while was like, I think I should talk to you alone, you know? So, I mean, I was kind of in the therapeutic situation. Yeah, but that's unusual in the Midwest at that time. That's really impressive yeah and i mean and i and i'm an outlier really really thank her for that because i never i never felt you know i went to when i went away to college and came undone like a fucking cartoon

cuckoo clock right um in you know the yeah colorado avenue dorms of University of Illinois. There's like, oh, there's a counseling center. I'll go in and talk to a grad student. A grad student, like the first guy I had was a grad student with all kinds of religious books. And I was like, okay, I'll give you a couple sessions. Because I don't think Jesus is what I need right now. No, that's interesting. Because I went to a counseling service

at Jesuit University. It's a Boston College. It's Jesuit, and my Judaism rarely came up, and he didn't really push any kind of religious techniques for dealing with your depression. It was all very modern psychology, and it was really helpful. He was an Irish guy, which is an outlier amongst psychologists, usually middle-aged Jewish men at that time. But his name was Dr. Tom McGinnis, and the football team sent me to him because I had finished the summer training camp and I was like, okay, I quit now.

And so they sent me to the therapist. And he got me through the season. So you did play? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. But I remember him telling the coach, he says, if I treat him, he may not need to play football anymore

because I think football is kind of a pathology. At least in my case, I was trying to prove my manhood from the equivalent of the high dive board when not knowing how to swim. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So you did play for one year. Yeah, I made it through the spring game,

and then I came to a decision and stopped playing. But I finished college and got my degree. Did it jeopardize your scholarship? No, because they were, again, outliers in that they recognized clinical depression at the level I had as a medical condition. And so they honored my scholarship, which was incredibly generous and something I'm eternally grateful for. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but that was ahead of- And also a good scam if you're not really depressed.

It was ahead of the curve in terms of, because I'm sure now it's, well, I know sometimes you'll take a medical leave from school and they won't expel you. But back then, I don't think every college was honoring scholarships for people who were, I think the term within that community was a crybaby. Yeah. I, you know, like when you talk about football too, because I played in high school, I started playing in high school and it was the same thing. You're large. Yeah.

Get over here. Yes. You know? Yes. Yeah. And, and join our little fucking lord of the flies summer camp oh my god yeah where you see your friends turn into monsters it's so interesting because i would tell people i'm kind of being bullied on this football team and they're like no no football players are the bullies how can you i was like no they need

when the class is not in session they need somebody to pick on they can't turn that off you don't turn that shit off yeah so there were there were i mean there were strata even among the the football team and it was just oh my gosh they oh there's never ended in monty python's the meaning of life there's that transition from and it's such a hilarious thing about students versus the versus faculty rugby game oh my gosh and the kids are just getting brutalized yeah yeah and then there's a smash cut to the battlefront of world war one yeah and i was like i saw that as a kid and i was like oh my god i know exactly what you're talking about. Oh, that's it. Because two-a-day football practice to me, it was just. Yeah.

The Meaning of Life and Life of Brian, those are my two favorites. I mean, I love the Holy Grail, but the Life of Brian, my word. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I can watch that over and over again. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

It is so fun. And it's, well, I'm just, you know. Yeah. Just because it's so, you know, the life of Jesus is like so sort of totemic to Western civilization. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, football was, and I remember when I first saw the Great Depression, getting your bell rung.

Oh, yeah, yeah. That happened to me five times. Oh, me too. Five your bell rung. Oh, yeah, yeah. That happened to me five times. Oh, me too. Five times. Me too. I think I talked about it once on here where I could actually feel the mass of my brain go back and forth. Totally.

Like a sloshing gel inside my skull. Yes. And just feeling like, I don't think that's good no it's it's bad and it was a it was the the badge of courage yeah and the and the kids would celebrate it and the coaches would celebrate it and it was just insane oh insane in practice in practice my sophomore year sophomore scrimmaging the freshman and one of the sophomores just took a freshman's knees out and the kid's kneecap was on the side of his leg and he comes back and other guy and these are like kids i grew up with they high five him

for fucking up a 14 year old kid's leg you know lord of the five that kid was out the rest of the year and i don't even know if he came back but yeah yeah and they were just lining up with boulders to drop on piggy my uh my the end of my uh football career happened where at the end of one of the school years we we had a new coach coming in and our team, it was a small school, but we were good at football. We're state champs at wrestling. Wow. When Dennis Hastert was our head coach.

Holy crap. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dennis Hastert was the head coach of the wrestling team. And then speaker of the house, right? And then speaker of the house. Oh my word. I don't know if convicted, but, you know, like all kinds of horrible sexual abuse charges. Yeah.

Because they're sadists. Yes. And what was so, when I read coverage of it, there was, like some of his victims talked about how the fact that he used to watch them in the showers. I was in that locker room. Yeah. And I remember there, I remember because you had to kind of walk around. There was sort of like a little ante room and you took a right turn to go into the showers. And there was this big green Naugahyde chair in that little ante room that I saw there yeah all the time and you know never thought about

it but it was always there and then i hear this i'm like holy shit wow that's the pedophile chair you know oh my god it's so i mean this is eerie because when i played eighth and ninth grade basketball at our at our junior high school there was a there was a a glass booth in the center of the shower area that had you could look right into the boys showers and there was this rumor about this coach he was my basketball coach yeah that he he loved to watch the kids shower and i was like you just don't like gym teachers yeah yeah and and now i think two summers ago about 60 kids came forward about about sexual alleged sexual abuse from this from that guy from that exact man and it's just and i i just am so grateful to heaven i mean maybe

he knew i was a snitch i don't know what was was going on but i i'm just so grateful because he he ruined so many lives it's it's just heartbreaking yeah it's so twisted and sick and and oh my gosh yeah no it's and i mean and that is at least something too that you know you've you've talked about how the there is a change in attitudes bullying is a more difficult thing yes it's it's really harder to be a bully now you know yes and um and it's it's another yet another thing it's like that kind of abuse it is It's a lot harder to get away with. I mean, there are still people that want to protect coach. Right.

Yes. Like coach says. We got to do what coach says. Right. I know. And it's just. I know. Yeah.

This blind devotion was never healthy. It's a good system for coach. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. It works well for coach. Yes, yes, yes. I was lucky I had two good coaches in high school of sports, and then I had a basketball coach who was also verbally abusive

and would just demean without ever building you up. It was just the tearing down. There was never any building up, and it was just, oh, my God. Yeah, you're missing a part. Yeah, yeah. I don't have time for that part. Yeah, and it just ruined this sport that brought me so much joy. Yeah.

And we played well despite this guy who was an enemy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was telling you, when I quit, there was a coach that came in at the end. He got hired, and he said, next year, he had a meeting at the end of the year. He said, next year, we're going to win state, and we're going to really work hard. And he said, you know, the IHSA, which was the High School Athletic Association, they won't allow us to start two-a-day practices until, you know, sometime in August.

There was like a hard date where you couldn't practice before that. There were some rules. So he said like, so throughout the summer, we're going to have voluntary weight training and conditioning five days a week for two hours plus here at the school, you know, five o'clock, you know, dinner time after dinner and he said uh and i think you all know what voluntary means and all these kids go like like we understand and i was like i was like this motherfucker just took your summer like are you kidding me wow and i decided

like i'm not good for you i'm not playing yeah and i went home and again god bless my mother and my stepfather i think it was my stepfather that said it i told him what he'd said and my stepfather went you're gonna quit aren't you that's amazing yes oh good for him so i got a job at the grocery store oh wow and and worked at the grocery that's a much better way to spend a summer. And was ostracized. Oh, yeah. It felt very much on the outside. That's what happens with cults.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You leave the cult and the cult members, they look down on you. I mean, it wasn't like I was completely shunned, but I certainly was like, it was a palpable difference in terms of like. When I quit football, I remember that, I mean, these were pretty sharp kids and they might not have all been great students but they were all

they were all pretty funny and sharp and things and and i remember one guy saying and he was kind of half kidding and he said uh so you're not playing football i said no i'm not playing you can just stop laughing yeah yeah you can well it is like as a kid you don't think you can you know and especially when you grow up in like such a sports culture yes and I mean my my siblings and their kids

their kids are in it too it's a much more sort of seems like a much more joyful thing for them like the kids really do enjoy it but it's so consuming yeah and now and it's like there isn't just little league there's like you know talk to my sister and she's like we're driving to nashville for a softball tournament yes for your kids 14 and and bringing in the personal trainer yeah or what yeah to work out in the hotel room it's crazy the the one saving grace in all these things whether it's a bad job or a lousy sport was that i i would i would find other people who didn't really yeah fit in or

overwhelmed and and i just there was one kid who was the only honor student on a team of 90 kids he was an honor student which was a really competitive program but he was also six foot six and 310 pounds yeah and he used to during training camp post top 10 lists like letterman every morning and they were so inside and so funny about things coaches have said and and or people within the dorms that we're staying in. And it was just like, oh my gosh, this guy,

like you would put it on a piece of paper on a bulletin board. Yeah. It was like the, the equivalent of, of the, um, uh, Martin Luther's,

uh, declaration. Yeah. That, that, that they give hope to, to misfit Catholics. Yeah.

So he, he would put these up there and and it just it was something i looked forward to every day his name is is uh kevin mclaughlin and his his uh his wit and charm were just incredible so i stayed friends with a couple of guys like that over the years and there and there was one senior who used to take me every friday after practice to get comic books downtown and and which when you're 19 i think it was 18 when you're with a 23 year old he's pretty much your father at that point like he just knew the whole scene and that there was a a quarterback who was really nice to me he was like the a big man on campus yeah but just had that that ability like certain kids of a certain age should just be kind to everyone and within football it's it's

just uh it's so meaningful yeah really stood out to me yeah yeah yeah no it's a it's amazing like what you talk about you know just about being a sensitive kid. And I mentioned that a big part of your book. Yes. It is. It is true. And I kind of like I still feel like if I go to a party at someone's house and like all the men are sitting around in one group and all the women are. I'm like, I got to go talk to the gals. Yeah.

I mean, these guys are going to I'm just going to sit there and be like, oh, I'm like, I gotta go talk to the gals because these guys are gonna, I'm just gonna sit there and be like, ugh. I know, yeah. Ugh. Yeah, yeah. My best friends were all these daughters of my mother's friends growing up. And they'd be a little bit older

and they'd take me under their wing and we'd do crafts. But they also had great senses of humor. So they had like Steve Martin albums. Also Barbara Streisand and Funny Girl. under their wing and we'd do crafts and and and but they also had great senses of humor so they they had like steve martin albums also the barbara streisand and funny girl funny girl they'd play that but also sctv was really big in in when i was growing up in addition to saturday night life so i was very fortunate to have a a lot of buffers in in my life because there was just so much toxic masculinity back then and yeah and and to be sensitive back then people just didn't didn't understand it didn't yeah it's so weird i mean i wish i could have told myself you you can get to a point where you don't have to do

that stuff yeah like you can you can engineer your life where like, you'll be around like a lot, a lot of like women and artsy men and gays, you know? Oh yeah. And you don't have to do this anymore. And it relieves so much tension and anxiety. And I was, I was thinking about this as you were talking about that. It's just that the way we look is so it's great for tv in its efficiency but then they make up their minds about the us the second they see us and and

and so they see a really tall big guy and they're like oh athlete man's man yeah yeah it's like no i I rug hook. Like Michaels. You're at Michaels. You're at Michaels, not at the hot wing sports bar. Yes, I have a glue gun, and I collect seashells to make collages out of. Yeah, my exterior belies a very soft interior. Can't you tell my love's a girl? You know, in research and just, I don't know much about your dad. Oh, interesting. How your dad, I mean, and I'm not aware of you really even ever met.

I mean, I hear about your mom and you talk about your mom. And I know you were raised. Sure. By a single mom single mom yeah my dad left when i was one and a half so i would see him on on sunday and it was very interesting because i talked in the in the special about the the in the new one uh the last the great depression that we were talking about earlier where i said that the sound of the 60 minutes would make me panic because I was so depressed about going to school and anxious about school. But it also was the time in the day on Sunday when my dad would leave for the week. And so I would miss him. But also there was this chaos in that it was time for him to write out a check for the alimony and child support for my for my mother so there were there were frequently at

around 703 there were arguments or or complaints about money so that there was just a it was it was fraught but my my dad was he was he a bad parent certainly but but he was a good person like he was a kind ethical man and and he was greatest generation he's no longer with us but he he he never had to rely on the a lot of the the because they defeated hitler we give them a pass on a lot of their on a lot of their racism, sexism, misogyny, and homophobia. But they defeated Hitler while sharing a lot of the similar ideas. Yes, exactly. But, Andy, they were able to put their sames aside and defeat Hitler and then come back and lean into Jim Crow.

And the differences. Get back to where they started yeah yeah but they they said well it gives us a chance to express our nationalism and our love of rifles so sure we'll go over there and we'll we'll kill we'll kill germans and then we'll apply a lot of the same italians to japanese they'll be easier to kill you know they're much more easily othered. Yes, it's easier to dehumanize them. Anyhow, my father, I never heard him say anything derogatory about any race, creed, women. He was a very polite and just a kind, thoughtful man.

And so I admire that. He was a great role model in those terms. And so I admire that he was a great role model in those terms. But in those days, most dads did not know their kids that well, even if they lived in the same house with them. And so I was only seeing him for four or five hours and occasionally he'd take me to a ball game once a summer in the middle of the week or something like that. But I felt very safe around him and i felt comfortable around him but i didn't feel he really knew me and most of the time we would be together he would tell me stories

of his childhood which nine out of ten stories were about him either beating somebody up or getting beaten up and it was just it was cleager up in the bronx in the, in the twenties and there were fights every day. And like a street Jew. He was a, he was a street Jew, which people don't understand now that they existed. But within my family, because they were so much older, we had, we ran the spectrum of Jews. My mother's twin brother had this job where he was able to get us electronics so we were poor but we had a good tv and sometimes we had a stereo because he was a burglar yeah he he would and and then later a fence like so he would receive stolen merchandise the heat would would be on so he'd distort at my mom's and so one one winter we had a pinball machine in our in our kitchen that was it was it was from the

kitchen yeah it was from an arcade we didn't have room anywhere else for it and he said just hold on to this for a few months until i find a until i find a buyer most of the time it's a gun hold on no this is hold on to this pinball this was a pinball machine and then i had a gumball machine that was clearly stolen from the front of her grocery store. It was not a... Remember the thanks for the gumball Popeye? Yeah, yeah. Those plastic ones? Right, sure.

No, this was a grocery store gumball machine. And it was very exciting, but at the same time, we lived a very modest means, except we had a pinball machine. From your mafia uncle. Yeah, yeah. we we lived a very modest means except we had a real uncle yeah yeah yeah he i mean he wasn't mafia he was just he was just a low-level gangster who grew up in a neighborhood where where people needed cheap things and they didn't need a receipt or a box or or a warranty so it's like i can't remember what it's in a movie i don't know if it's a jazz singer or rag time or something but there's like it's a it's a somebody explaining like the the jewish

immigrant in america you know you you you take a nickel and you buy you know yeah i don't know you buy an apple or you know apples and you sell the apples and probably and eventually you buy a bolt of cloth and then you make a shirt you know yes and like yeah yeah it's like yeah the explanation your uncle was just like except he didn't buy anything he just stole stuff yes it was the bugsy siegel method yeah industry is like i gotta get started somewhere oh i'll steal something yeah another another great story was it was that he he got a job at the at the post office as a custodian, which it was a government job, so it was a great job to have. Sure. And he said it was a job back in those days in Boston.

You would pay for a position in the government. Sure. People still do that. Okay. I didn't realize that, but he said you would grease the selectmen or whatever it was. Everybody needs a taste. Yeah, yeah. He needs to wet his beak.

Yeah, yeah. Like Don Finucci. And so he got this job as a custodian, and then he said, one day I was shoveling snow in the parking lot and a Sears truck, Sears, a Sears and Roebuck truck. Roebuck had not,

the famous schism between Sears and roebuck hadn't hadn't happened yet they hadn't fallen out over creative differences so he says a sears and roebuck truck was backing up and and it hit me in the hip and i thought my day has arrived. And so he took the law. He went down. He took the lawsuit. And he bought a duplex with the money. And he had a tenant. And so he had. Income?

He had income. He had beachfront property in Scituate, Massachusetts. Then a blizzard knocked that out. He took the insurance money and upgraded i i mean he just was uh my mother called it we he was he's a wheeler dealer that's what she that's what she would say but i was like no he's a criminal he's a criminal he's a scumbag mom that's that's what you call it that's a scumbag yeah but so i mean did your dad i mean do you feel like your dad was in any way sensitive to what you were going through yes yeah yes but his initial uh intent or plan was to make me

tough yeah and so he would say if anybody fights you you go out there and if you don't fight them back they're gonna pick on you the rest of your life and you'll die a coward and then when i i remember when i was 11 years old a boy beat me up and and i in fifth grade in the in the book it's it's the chapters are each grades of of school so in the fifth grade i was beaten up and and but an adult broke up the the fight but i had already lost i was crying and everything and the adult was my mom she had come she never picked me up but this day she picked me she came to pick me up from school and she broke up the fight and then and then i so i had a black eye and i went to my father's uh condominium or apartment on on sunday and and i i i was like he's gonna ask me about the

eye there's no way i mean this is what happened to the eye and i was like, he's going to ask me about the eye. There's no way I'm going to say this is what happened to the eye. And I was like, maybe I could lie and say I was hit by a baseball or I did that. And I said, well, I lost a fight. And he said, and he didn't say, you have to avenge us and seek revenge and beat the kid up. He says, oh, son, I'm sorry that happened to you. And it was the kindest thing. I remember that he understood he i felt like he knew oh this my boy is not a right boy is not a fighter and and and i i'll change tack yeah tack is that the tact yeah yeah yeah yeah i think no tack

tack yeah yeah yeah i'll change tack of course i should have just said course and then we wouldn't have to right right yeah but it is interesting because tack like tactic yeah is it tactic yeah i don't know welcome to wordplay well i mean did do you think i mean did you have like a seeking a father figure kind of thing? Everywhere. Yeah. Everywhere. So I mean, from coaches and other friends, parents. So there were so many dads in the neighborhood. And some of the dads only had girls.

Or one of the dads didn't have a boy my age. So he embraced me. I mean, he kind of used me a little bit and that i would he would ask me to skim his pool he had a above ground pool he would ask me to skim his pool and and and and he would talk to me and give me advice and things like that but i would be skimming at the same time and the money was never exchanged but he gave me some wisdom and he gave me some yeah some insight and and uh a lot of it was just about certain things like giving somebody at a restaurant that you can't get a table at a sawbuck, which I don't even know what denomination that is.

Is it a fiber? I don't know. He used the term sawbuck. And I was like, all right, I'm going to have to ask another middle-aged man what that means. He says you can't get a table. But here's the thing. I've never used that information or thought about that. I think it's a shitty thing to do.

And it's so tacky. And I'm trying to think of some other useless advice that was given. And just the door test, of course, which they did in the Bronx tale where you, where you unlock the door for the, for the woman, and then you go around and if she doesn't open up your side, then she's selfish and you should break up with her. And, and, and, and it's like, uh, well, my father's car that I would use, it had, it had automatic, so I'm opening up the thing. These things were useless and also maybe she's maybe she's nervous or maybe she wasn't given the same wait i don't know i don't know i'm not familiar with this test the door test if you if you

so you take a girl out on a uh or a member of your own sex i i go on a date you go on a date. You go on a date. Well, but I mean, this door test is cishet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you open up their, you unlock their door and you open up the door for them and then they get in and then your door presumably is still locked on the other side. Oh.

And if they don't unlock it for you by the time you come around, then they're selfish in it. But there could be a number of explanations. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. you by the time you come around then they're selfish and it but there could be a number of explanations right exactly yeah and and it just seems like you're weeding out a lot of uh potential part right right right well i always found like the uh the sort of chivalry of a woman sitting in a car and waiting for you to get out and go all the way around the car and then open the door for her what the fuck is wrong with her like she but also it's condescending oh it's yeah it's like you're so helpless and weak such a tiny little bird creature i could never open this buick century door

i know you know and they and eventually the door became manageable. Yeah. Right, right, right. And there were power locks. Yeah. And around 1985 or 1986, you didn't need a friend to open up a two-door car. Yeah, lean across the big bench seat and pop the lock. Yeah. Oh, my word. Yeah, this is in Jay Leno's garage. Raj.

Can't you tell my love's a killer? I mean, you talk about it, but I mean, it is, you know, to still be as much of a sports fan. I mean, this might just be me being a little too unsubtle. But I mean, you're a huge sports fan yeah but you know sports culture is pretty you know i fuck you yeah yeah i've withdrawn a lot of my allegiance from football after after uh the coach of the new england patriots and the owner that the when make america great again hats yeah and all this i can't support this this is this is yeah antithetical to everything i believe in so i stopped watching football and and of course it was right about the time the patriots stopped winning superbowls every time it was convenient

it was very convenient that they fell apart and then the baseball was a similar thing where they were not very supportive of their latin american players players in terms of them not wanting to go to the White House during that time. So politics got in the way of my sports. So I really, I always love basketball because I don't feel it's a blood sport in the way that hockey and football and in some cases baseball is. I feel like that's the sport I settled on that I would follow. And I don't know much about soccer. baseball is so i i feel like that that's the the sport i settled on that i would follow and i i i don't know much about soccer it seems like a beautiful game but it's also seems to have in in some cases this fascist component oh absolutely absolutely no you can't have that many you know

that many men yeah do anything without like some kind, some kind of barbarity rearing its head or some kind of us versus them or, you know, are you a Cubs fan? Yeah. I like the Cubs, but I become more of a Dodgers fan. Cause I, I love it.

Well, there's such a fun team to watch and baseball actually is the only, cause I really, I mean, I didn't even care that much about sports and as a kid like you know my stepfather had cubs tickets and and we would go and they were good seats but i mean it's like after the hot dog after the cracker jack yeah after you know it's like by the fourth inning it's like for a for an eight-year-old

yeah like and especially and i mean you know my stepfather and i he was he was a perfectly nice man but we never really you know he and my mom got married when i was nine okay and uh and i but we never really connected did you call him dad uh no i called him stan oh i love i called him stan and uh and his and it wasn't ever like he tried to you know and and and then he and my mom had uh twins my brother and sister okay and i mean they called him dad and we just yeah so but i mean it was just weird because it was like he was stan to me and he was dad to my brother and sister that's interesting because i i called my dad dad and because my brothers were were trying to overthrow the regime yeah yeah they

called him phil oh wow and i i remember thinking oh my gosh this is this is really irreverent but also i couldn't imagine i i thought wow the balls on these guys yeah to call their dad phil yeah and i just knew he wouldn't have tolerated it from from me and and all but i even when i got old enough to some older people call their parents by their first name i was like no he's dead no i could yeah i couldn't do that yeah and if my own all my kids wanted to call me andy i don't think i mean i would i would just suffer in silence yes of course but they get with me my kids i don't have any kids but we're working on that but i i wonder if if i i would have to be in a in a level of dementia where i would tolerate that they would have to know that because I would express my deep pain and hurt from being undermined.

Right. Yeah. Well, I think it's really undermining. I think that was the either subconscious or conscious move. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, there's all kinds of – I mean, I recently got remarried and I married a single mom. So I now have a three-year-old. I have a 22-year-old, an 18-year-old, and a three-year-old.

And she is the only kid. My wife has an older brother and sister and grandma and grandpa. They all live local. My wife is a local and she runs those people the three-year-old runs those people wow and and i mean and i'm not like a particularly harsh task master as a dad yeah in fact like my son who's 22 and kind of you know like when you're 22 you don't know what the fuck you're doing you know like you're just lost and then and he had covid thrown into the middle of college

which just is even more brutal yeah it's just such an extra wrinkle on yeah an already torturous development period in everybody's life yes um but uh he recently was kind of like i wish you'd been a little harder on me oh gosh i'm like well honey you need a different dad then because that's so good i'm just sorry you know that's you know i just you just yeah i can't do that i can't have the energy of of like you know i expect something of you i'm what i expect what do you want to do you know no his his mind will will change on that because his mind changed after we talked about it for 12 seconds yeah totally because i also was kind of like really think about it yeah you wish that i had been an asshole who like tried to force you to do things that you didn't want to do.

You know, and I mean, and I quite frankly, I'm as a father, I've always been a little bit lost at when do you really push them beyond where they're like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. And it's like, well, it's good for you. I mean, obviously eating healthy food, taking vitamin, you know, like healthy sure yes yes um but like my kids like when my son was really little we went to see and i mean i'm talking five six years old he went to see one of his friends soccer game and i said and it was all kind of designed to be like do you want to you know like let's go see right oscar play soccer and then we'll you know and i and i said to him like i was like would you want to play soccer and then we'll you know and i and i said to him like i was

like would you want to play soccer yeah and we'd been watching it for a while and he went like i don't want to do anything where there's other parents yelling that's so good i was like that is so good i agree wow yeah i truly agree wow yeah i never had a choice with with little league no i just i just went because your brothers went yeah me too and you know but i liked i mean i like playing i really you know i did enjoy it but i got incredibly anxious yeah i i love that movie parenthood with steve martin it was the it came out in the 9 uh 88 or 89 and he had a son who didn't he didn't excel at little league and he was so patient with him and so understanding and he and he just there were no parents who did the type of thinking you did where you think well should i or how far that that that makes you a better parent already

because you're at the very least ambivalent and probably frequently multivalent about how you're going to bring up these kids. And my mother just, there was a blueprint given by their parents, and they made a little bit improvement over that, in that they didn't beat them and didn't beat us. Provided dental care. Yes, yes. Didn't beat us. Exactly. Provided dental care. Yes. Yes. Didn't lock them in things to prevent them from misbehaving. So there was that upgrade.

But in terms of understanding or empathy with your kids, my parents did not have that gear. I had a huge realization when I had kids. I mean, realization upon realization. The minute the first one came out and was dry, it was like, holy shit, the stuff that my dad did. Things that never occurred to me. And one of the things that I realized is just the lack of respect that was shown towards children. Yes. Like to where, oh, you don't want that?

Too bad. Yeah. You know, just it was like a world of fuck you, do it. Yes. Because I say so. It was a world of because I say so. And I didn't, I just felt like, I don't think that's right. I mean, because I have, I mean, I'm certainly not like some big rebel throwing Molotovs in the street.

But I fucking can't stand authority. People telling me what to do or just. Same. Oh, my God. It makes me fucking berserk inside, you know. Yes, completely. Who the fuck are you to tell me? I know.

I know. It's interesting because my brother always complains about my dad in a similar way to what your son said. My brother Rick will always say, Dad, he believed that everything we did was the greatest and he was so complimentary. And then we get in the real world and we have a rude awakening and he didn't prepare us and i thought no he was giving us an oasis in a world that was going to remind us all the time that and and also the the subtext that my brother was missing is that dad loved us yeah and saw saw greatness in us yeah and and it was us who said no we're useless and yeah and it just went and also my dad was an outlier in that he was super affectionate physically and told us he loved us all the time yeah all the time and and sometimes i think my older brother

viewed that as as softness so that he was a mark or something like that. Yeah, it was really interesting. Wow. Yeah. Did your dad remarry just out of curiosity? He did remarry. And he had this wonderful wife who, out of respect to my mom, I always called Jan rather than mom or stepmom or anything like that because it would have killed my... My mother was so jealous and competitive. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But she was a lovely woman who, much the way Jesus seemed to have mellowed Old Testament God, I believe Jan mellowed my dad in that it was no coincidence that he was much more empathetic about me being getting my ass kicked after he had married her than before that he was he was much more street yeah yeah well she might have been you know kind yeah like kindness can really shift your attitude totally yes you know totally and gentle and yeah yeah and and i my, it was my, I think it was my father's first serious relationship was

with my mother and he, and neither of them were prepared for what was involved. And they were probably young. They were, he was 30, she was 20, I think. And so she just, I mean, it's so interesting. My mother's idea of what a husband is just pretty much somebody who provides and and doesn't cheat and leave yeah and and leaves you alone yeah you know leaves you alone other than that and so but but now i mean thank god my wife expects much more than paying the rent that i'm a full partner and yeah and yeah yeah and listen so that that's a yeah that's a great

lesson and i and i think my dad learned that from his second wife. Yeah. You mentioned that you and your wife are working on having kids. I did hear that, right? Yeah, in that we want to freeze eggs. She's a little bit younger, and she wants to have children within the next two years. So she wants to freeze embryos. How old are you?

I'm 53. And she's? 36. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So she doesn't want to have kids next year.

Right. No. Yeah. Well, my wife was 43 when she had it. Oh, that's great to hear. And she had her on her own. Amazing. Wow.

When she had it. Oh, that's great to hear. And she had her on her own. Amazing. Which is like, it's funny because just in the, you know, while I was divorced and dating like women, you know, grown professional women who were going through that kind of thing. Yeah. And feeling like it can't be done. And then now kind of running into them and being and saying yeah i married a woman that uh had a child at 43 and and they're just i can just see him being like part of them going like

oh it is possible hooray and then part of them being like oh you know like just like yeah like oh somebody actually went and did it now i have to you know it's like when you something that you always think you should do and then you see somebody like for, you know, like, like for me, like writing a book, like hearing you and like you wrote a book, like there's part of me that's like, wow, great going, Gary. Oh, I understand. I understand that. But I, I had a friend, do you know the comedian, the actress, uh, Jacqueline Novak?

Yes. Yes. Okay. So she wrote a book called weeping in public yeah and she said to me she did that she did that show get on your knees yeah yeah yeah i saw that extraordinary oh my god so funny she's so talented and smart like a genius with words amazing amazing and the story so she she dragged me to write a a what do they call it a book proposal yeah she said this is how you do it this was mine and please do this and and it was just so generous so so i i'm sure you have

better options than me but i would be i would be glad to be the person to hold your hand through this because it is so it's really edifying and it was very helpful in coming to terms with a lot of the the trauma but also recapturing some of the joy and also i think where you have children i think that will be very meaningful for them to yeah read it and and it's a great outlet and it's a great it's a great source of understanding of this idea of – I kept a secret for a long time about how sick I was depression-wise. Yeah. And then I found that when I told everybody, I felt much better. Yeah. I felt much better and there's a lot of that in in here too that I tell these stories that

humiliated me in some cases or that I was very proud of and to get them out there and and also along the way you'll have somebody read it for you and an editor and things like that and for them to corroborate oh this is a worthwhile yeah yeah yeah it feels it feels really good and it's a great exercise in terms of creativity and i yeah i can't recommend it enough even if you don't publish it even if you just keep it for your family or things because i wouldn't i would yeah i'm not gonna wait i'll put it on the internet yes i'm not gonna go to the trouble of writing all that shit and then just sitting on it you know yeah a distant cousin did kind of a biography of this great grandfather

of mine who came over from russia and it and it it's it's not a journalist who did it's just i think he was a dentist or something like that but it's it's well written for for the for the person who's not a professional writer and it was fascinating and there was a one piece that i just couldn't get over. And I don't know how this came down the pipe in terms of people just don't talk about this back then. But I think he died in about 1967. And within this biography of him, which is probably about 30 pages or something, and he made love to our great grandmother on his last day at 77 he was still slinging it and and i just and i don't she's sitting shiva he gave it to me so good right

yeah another seven days to get over that last which which must've been a, must've been a doozy. My word. That is just, yeah. Yeah. Frankly, it's hard for me to stand. Yeah.

These old hips are pulverized. I'm sure there's a prayer for that too. There's a prayer for everything in Judaism. If you make the first three throw, there's a blessing to say if you miss it, to ask God for forgiveness for whatever you did to make it. Right, right. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I mean, do you worry about infecting a child with all of your brain problems oh yes

yeah yes but what you know i did too but what are you gonna do you know yeah the other thing is is that there are things that we that we would know to ameliorate a lot of the things because i think there is a universe in which i had a more nurturing understanding family in which my my depression was was clinical but more manageable and and treated and and i didn't have to wait until i was 18 to see my first therapist right right yeah like i would i would wreck if my if my child were to write a a book called a cry for help yeah well that's another that's another i mean well i well first of all before i go to the next that because i have you and your wife talked about that i mean oh yes and and what and what are you what have you come to just like

cross your fingers and hope kind of because no i i'm i mean it's basically what i just said yeah we'll be more prepared to raise a child who is affected by that and there's also a chance that it won't be yes you know exactly and and which in you know like in in my case uh you know like it there is there's differences between your kids and where there is like things about yourself that you like that you see your kids like one kid having maybe a little bit more than the other and then there's things you don't like that one kid has more than the other it's all you know right yeah it's all just like this weird yeah each human is a weird soup right from two different ingredients you know yeah because my father's mother my father was born in the danver state mental hospital wow his mother had

had an episode that she was bipolar and and she was very sick and hospitalized and he was born in a psych ward uh or in a hospital that had us yeah that was a psych right right and and it had one area that had drains in the floor yeah yeah and he never and he never had any episode of depression or mania or anything like that yeah i mean he was out of his mind right right not in the way we are. And my brothers don't have this problem. I think one of my brothers might be ADHD, but he just went into working with his hands, and so he had this outlet for all his energy. You learn. You learn coping.

Yeah, you learn coping. And so he couldn't. I remember going to a basketball game, and Larry Bird was playing for the Celtics, which was the most compelling player of that era in boston and he we were sitting there and he just and i'm 10 years old i'm watching every moment of the game the entire game he's poking me he's he's 11 years older than me yeah and he and he and he can't sit still yeah he's ordering things walking around what more than larry bird do you want and he's just keep you yeah he's ordering things walking around yeah what more than larry bird do you want and

he's just keep it yeah he's looking at his watch oh my gosh i was 10 and i had he had the the as as chris elliott once said on get a life he's got the uh the attention span of a circus monkey were you into that show uh yes yes yes yes he made me so happy in fact my first big job was in cabin boy oh that's right was working with chris elliott which was like i bring that up yes like i want a contest adam yeah and adam resnick yeah oh my gosh they yeah to me their work is like the rosetta stone of modern comedy yeah i just i love everything about and they're delightful people well it was wonderfully formative for me too in that you were wonderful in that movie i mean what a great job you did in that thank you yeah but it was wonderful for me in the sense that i my first big thing because i did i i was in like i had a bit part in another like in a what we used to call cable

movies okay um and which was a good movie through this or is this irritating because i would love to know how you auditioned and and i would love the story of how you because that was a good role especially for a big role yeah yeah and it was uh i mean at at that time they were recognized as just the geniuses of comedy. It was an auspicious thing. And it had Tim Burton behind it. Tim Burton and Denise Denovi was his producer and she was there on set.

Tim Burton would pop in every now and then. But I had been in LA, and I talked about this on the show, I did a live show called The Real Life Brady Bunch that started in Chicago, went to New York, was in L.A. And that was winding down. And because of the popularity of that show, I had gotten an agent in New York based on being fucking Mike Brady.

They had an affiliation with an agency out here, a little agency. They called it a boutique agency, a little agency. Actually, just down the street from here, literally two blocks down the street yeah boutique meant that you paid for all postage post delivery right right yeah the clients covered well i found out what the thing the real clue that bonded them all together was alcoholism oh my god yeah yeah you mean like america like but um when i start when i first came to la and i had these i you know i came here with an agent which was already so lucky and they sent me out on everything and i was aware like i'm auditioning for all different

kinds of things and and i got a job i got like a little bit part and again it was like a really it was a movie called the uh incredibly the allegedly true adventures of the texas cheerleading murdering mom okay remember how there was like a there was a cheerleader there was another version of that there were two of those yes this was the satirical one directed by michael ritchie who did the movie smile who's kind of in the Altman kind of band, who is fantastic. And I went in and read for him. And I was part, I was a sheriff's deputy in a montage of Bowbridges going to the sheriff and saying, my ex-sister-in-law wants me to murder someone. And they just kind of brushed him off so there was this montage of people taking

a statement and i came in and he went oh one of the deputies is younger yeah i like this and then i read for him and he was like he's like all right great you got the part amazing and i again i was like what the fuck and even i knew and i had read for other things you know like I remember reading for Golden Palace which was the Golden Girls after I think Bea Arthur said enough and left okay the other Golden Girls after mash ran yeah like ran a restaurant or something it was like for a part of an ethnic chef you know like I read you know you know you look at me and you think that guy is from somewhere warm right that's what ethnic men yeah yeah yeah but um so i got and i got the part in that in that movie and then the next thing was cabin boy and and you know playing the damaged man-child was right up my alley.

And I read for it once. And who did you read for? Just a casting director? Casting director, yeah, for the first time. And he put me on tape. And then I think I came back. That's what they always say, great, thank you. That was great.

And then they had me read again while uh while i was still here and then it was at the end of my brady bunch tenure okay and i went back to chicago i drove my toyota pickup truck back to chicago was at my mother's house like living on my mother's house it's a couple of days yeah i mean you know however long you want to make it, but, um, but, uh, they want, they said, we, we want you to come back and audition again. And I was broke. My, my mom was broke. Luckily my uncle had backed his delivery truck into my mother's car.

No way. She took the insurance money from that, bought me the cheapest Southwest ticket that we could get, which had like four stops on the way to LA. Yeah. Came back to LA, stayed with a friend in Venice, slept on her couch, borrowed Jane Lynch's car because Jane Lynch was back in Chicago and left her car there. Wow. So I borrowed her car, got a bunch of traffic tickets, which I, you know, took me, I, you know, she got a call about and she still fucking gives me, you know, it's now joking, but she was pissed.

Yeah. Of course, because back then $600 could undo you. Yeah. It wasn't that much, but it was like, but I mean, I didn't have money. Right. And I just, and you know, and it's like, I wasn't, I don't, you know, I don't get parking tickets now. Hardly ever.

I don't know what the fuck the problem was. Hardly ever. Back then you had to be so careful. Yeah. Because if you got a parking ticket, all your profit was gone. Yeah, yeah. So I came back and I read again, once again. So that was the third time.

And this was for Adam. Wow. And then they had me read yet again i stay they're like stick around we know what's gonna happen you know so i was like at my friend's house and i i had gone and bought uh the stuff i i bought a foil tray and made a big tray of lasagna and then i ate lasagna for every meal that's awesome uh and and then after that because and i mean because the money was running out i bought i bought bologna bread and cheese and then it was bologna sandwiches because i was there for like a week yeah and i wouldn't buy a giant tub of peanut butter from a costco or or the i forget what the name of the other place in la used to

be where you could get huge things of peanut butter. Yeah, yeah. Smart and Final, maybe? Smart and Final. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Neither Smart but Final. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.

But, yeah, that's what I would do. But, okay, so you get the weekend. You're driving everybody who lives in LA crazy because here's this guy who comes out and is getting it. And I have nothing to do. I can't afford to do anything. Yes, yes. So I went back right at the beginning of it. And then they had me come back one more time, like after four days of sitting around just waiting for just that.

At the casting agency, before I went in, I asked to use the restroom and the key fob, you know, the don't walk away with our key key fob was a big, long back scratcher, a plastic back scratcher, like with a hand. Yeah. And written down the shaft of the back scratcher was, I'm itching to read for you. And then an actor's name, their phone number, and their agent. Oh, my word. So somebody had gone out and made swag thinking that these back scratchers are pretty clever and that will get me an acting job. My word.

And I just remember setting it on top of the urinal and just noticing it as I'm peeing and just feeling like my guts dropping out like just and again like the desperation the depression you know and you know how like oh yeah yeah yeah when you when you're already like sad most of the time and then you see something sad and it's just and that would to me that was the the feeling was always like i felt like the insides of my abdomen just melted and pooled down at the bottom, like down on my pelvis. And I'm just like, oh, fuck.

What am I doing with all of this? What an image. I went in and read again. Yeah. And then later that day, they called and they said, stick around. And I actually was like, I was like, I can't. I said, I got gotta go home i got i said i've read for you four times and i said i read four times i think you know yeah and uh

and then i went home and then i got the job and uh how you found out drove back drove back in my pickup truck uh back just a call just a phone call from my agent. Were they excited when they called you? Oh my god, they were thrilled. And were you excited? My agent said to me when he called me, he was like, I cried. When they told me, I cried. And then I was in his

office about a month later and he was making a call to someone telling him they got a job and he went, I cried. When I got the news, I cried cried that's how much it means and i was like these phonies yeah they're so phony oh my word and we buy every word of it and and what was even better was this agent that like i said had sent me out on all kinds of things yeah now i was just idiots that's all i ever saw was like barely like iq of seven oh dumb dumb idiots and that's all they ever sent me out on from that point wow yeah wow so but but you it made you emotional when you when you thought it was i you know what was also great is my guys that you love yeah and my

sister my sister who's nine years younger than me uh was a huge chris elliott so it was like you know it was like i got a job with taylor swift you know for a modern you know reference so she was so thrilled and i was thrilled and i you know i came back to la and i had like a shitty little yeah kind of quasi furnished apartment in westwood uh-huh and i was driving up to santa clarita you know and because we shot in santa clarita next door to the melrose set how are the melrose place set which was shot in santa clarita and we would go in there because they had actually built a pool in in the studio and there was a you know like a full pool built in the middle of the studio and we would just would go over there and we didn't go swimming or anything but just kind of

hang out on melrose place yeah um oh that's so cool and it was just it was it was great and working with working with chris and adam was they're so fun and funny so fun and crazy and crazy and just like a constant team yeah and also and love each other love each other and love you but also kind of an insult kind of insult comics totally and totally yeah yeah yeah there was a guy i love to push buttons there was a guy that worked on the crew who like i went in i had lunch in chris's trailer one day because we hit it you know we hit it off yeah and i had lunch with him in his trailer one day and he's like i have to go apologize to you know let's say his name was tony yeah i gotta go apologize to tony and i mean and they picked on tony he's like tony said he was leaving he even like he didn't

show up to work i had to like call him at his hotel and apologize and i was like i was like i said uh yeah i says that's something that you've had to do before he goes like oh my god my entire life i've been apologizing to people for not being able to stop you know just like right harassing them and haranguing yeah they had so many great stories yeah the letterman office yeah there was one guy who actually punched chris in the face yeah because you just can't stop but i i will say that some people say that don't meet your heroes meet every single one of you if you can because worst case you have a funny story best case this is my meeting Chris Elliott.

Me, him, Adam, and my friend Mike Bonfiglio, who directed my special as a documentarian. And the four of us broke down the old expression, milk, milk, lemonade, around the corner. Fudge is made. But really going deep. And they said, why are there two milk stores? Like, is it one is an artisan milk? There's a higher demand.

And then there's this fudge shop. But they're saying the fudge is made. Is there also a retail outlet? Is there a counter where I could buy the fudge? And can I bypass the lemonade? Yes. old men and i've we were laughing so hard that i was i was literally on my knees on the floor saying you know this laughter this yeah i hear this used to happen with you and conan a lot kylie always tells me he says you you would be begging them to stop because it was painful. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Absolutely. You know, somebody once like asked me, like, what's the funniest thing? Like, what's the funniest thing you've ever heard Conan say?

And I'm like, A, it's just, there's a tonnage issue here. There's too much. And I said, and any of the truly funnest stuff, I could never tell you.

I could never, ever tell you because it's the worst possible things you can imagine. Yes. And not just like once, not just like pop out, but like you said, like really diving deep into like this horrible thing about, you know, I don't know, like child murder or whatever, you know, just the worst, darkest shit. Yeah. And then Chris invited Mike and I up to his house in Maine. We stayed over. He grilled for us.

He made us breakfast, and we stayed up all night doing the same type of deconstruction with the scene in The Godfather where Tessio knows what type of toilet the restaurant has where he can hide a gun from Michael Corleone. And they're like, is this why they had him on the crew? Because he was so knowledgeable about the different toilets. Look at that face. That guy knows toilets.

That is a man that needs a catalog of every toilet in town. Yeah, there was never a crap he took that wasn't an endeavor. Stork Club, nice John's in there. Y'all are some of the best cans in town. Did you just say Stork Club? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, bravo, Andrew. Thank you.

Bravo. Thank you, thank you. And now the Copacabana. You're not going to want to drop a deuce in the cabana. No, you shouldn't. You go to the Cotton Club. You go all the way uptown to the Cotton Club if you want to drop a deuce there. They don't mind. No, you shouldn't. You go to the cotton club. You go all the way up down to the cotton club if you want to drop

a deuce there. They don't mind. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The cup of cabana. Nunzio will have you dragged out by your toes if you take a dump in the cabana.

Smith and Walensky, they got black fixtures. They show every drop of urine. Forget it. And this is what it was like hanging with with them it was so much fun oh my word and hey it was a dream come true because i was obsessed it was so much fun and chris um like i remember chris one time telling me and it was kind of within the same thing where he's like

he's like i just had to get get used to the fact that people, because I think I was talking to him. I said, you know, your comedy does like, when you see his comedy, it's like if you get it, you feel like you're inside something that the squares don't get. And he was like, well, yeah. He said, people either they like what I do and they really enjoy it, or they are made angry by me. Those are the two speeds I get.

Like, there's just people who are like, what the fuck are you talking about? Yes. You know. But that's the mark of greatness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes.

But it's a curse, too, because it's good. I know. Oh, I know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's also, I mean, he's done so many amazing things, but he's also like had to really, like when he was on SNL one season when we were. I remember.

And we were, you know, we were doing the late night show in the building. And so again, SNL parties, I'd go see him. And I remember there was one because Jenny Garofalo was on the show and we were very good friends with her at the same time it was it was i work with her a lot in it in brooklyn she'll do shows she's so funny i haven't seen her in a while but yeah she's such a great stand yeah just adore her but um and wherever the you know the party was and i walk in and i can't and chris was sitting and eating and he was sitting like with one other guy i don't know who he was sitting and eating and i walk in and i can't and chris was sitting and eating and he was sitting like with one other guy i don't know who he was sitting and eating and i came up and i said hey i said uh i

saw the show i said you were very funny tonight and he just looked at me with his mouth full look like turn around looked at me and went like i fucking hate myself oh yeah yeah and i went all right well you know i'm gonna leave you to your dinner, and I'll talk to you later. He'll say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He says, I'm ready to die. Oh, boy. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's that Letterman thing. And also, Letterman was his worst critic of his own work. And it's heartbreaking because they've brought me so much joy. Absolutely, absolutely. And yet they can't, oh, they don't understand. Yeah. Yeah, it's just, yeah, I've been truly blessed

that I've been able to spend time with so many of these people who I admired so much. It's the best, I mean, it's like, it's the funniest people and i mean not just like oh the funniest people in town like the world yeah like literally you come across some of like yeah you know it's like if it was if it was like soccer you and i would be on first name basis with messy you know like right yeah you know what i mean like we wouldn't know messy you know and and and and if that's not like what you're taking away as the thing yeah then you're missing

the fucking point you know yes no totally i have gotten to have so much fun and i'm a miserable wreck you know yeah you know what i mean but i still yes i still have gotten to have so much fun and so much laughter to the point where I had to learn how to manage it and spend all day at a comedy show with a bunch of hilarious people and then come home and be like, sorry, babe, I'm out. I'm wrung out like a dish rag. I can't be funny. No, you know, like I'm wrung out like a dishrag. I can't be funny. No, I know. Or on the other hand, being out with regular Joes. Oh, isn't it? Yeah.

Yeah. Yes. I try not to call them civilians. I know, I know. But I've been able to collect a lot of people. The one thing about being such a lonely kid was once I found friends, I was very loyal. Yeah. And so I really,

and so I've, I've been able to hold onto them my entire life. And so that's, that's a special kind of comedy where you have like these 40 year setups to these, to these one line. You'll just see somebody on the street and you'll say, Oh,

I didn't know Mr. Hennessy lived in our neighborhood. The guy's been dead for 45 years yeah yeah yeah it's it's so much fun so i'm grateful for that but i yeah i i think from an early age we were probably both drawn to the people who made us feel a little bit better and and and put us in a state of mirth with dopamine and serotonin and so we we've created on our own so we should give ourselves credit yeah for finding what would allowed us to cope with this uh absurd case right right well and also too knowing a lot of people that are in this business who are miserable fucking

just miserable people like like what are you doing here? Like, you could go be miserable as an actuary. Yes. And you'd have a lot less. Yes, at Price Waterhouse. Yeah. They're always looking for misery. Oh, that's right. You were kind of an accountant for a minute.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. I can't even. The fact that you made it through that without killing yourself is amazing. Oh, there were some days. Yeah. I can imagine.

Yeah. But I will say that, again, I was able to find the people who didn't fit in there. Yeah. So I made friends with this one guy who was my manager, but in that business, it was like, oh, he's a year and a half older than you, and he's your boss. Yeah. And so he was an accountant and a CPA, and then one day he said, I'm joining the Peace Corps. was an accountant and a CPA. And then one day he said, I'm joining the Peace Corps. I'm going to help them set up businesses in these new countries that used to be the Soviet Union.

I'm going to help them set up their economy for the Peace Corps because I know accounting. And then he did that and he worked in Europe and he was just to be of service was his thing, he realized. And then he came back here and he joined the FBI and now he solves bank robberies. Wow. Yeah. Wow, that's awesome. Yeah, and it was a similar vibe. He says, I wanted to give back.

I've been given so much by this country. I feel like I needed to give. And he's not an immigrant. Yeah. And so it became an effort. And the interesting thing about bank robberies is he says, there's not a lot of these exciting film type where they wear masks associated with presidents of the United States.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He said it's all very depressing. It's sad. Yes, yes. And it's heartbreaking. Desperate people. And my best feature is my empathy rather than any kind of gun skills. Or righteousness or something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. He's trying to treat these very disturbed people in a humane manner. See, he sounds like one of those people. He's a superhero in my head. Yeah. He's a superhero because he does not care about any kind of status. Yeah.

Or he just is well put put enough to you know enough well put together that he's like well i'm gonna go do things for other people because yes and and it sounds like a non-pathological way because totally when i you know totally in thinking about this interview you know i thought i was thinking just about therapy and just, you know, when you talk about what, what a life changer it was for you. And I'm just, I'm always amazed like why anyone isn't in therapy. And I have, I have met people that I could say like, all right, I can see you not needing it. They're very few and far between, but because there are, there's like other people are, I don't need that. And it's like, I've been around you a little bit. I think you can probably help with chatting with somebody about why you are like that.

Totally. I was talking to our friend Tom Papa yesterday, and he was saying, I've never been in therapy, and I know it's useful. He says, what am I? I think I've had the same conversation with him, actually. Yeah, he said, what am i missing i said it gives you especially when your brain is damaged like mine and it's telling you how worthless you are to have an objective viewpoint giving you the other side of it playing devil's advocate in favor of your worth is very helpful now at some points i've found that i it was chemical i needed more medicine rather than more talk but it's always been it's

always been a combination for me that's been helpful is talking these things out and then perhaps adjusting medication when that wasn't working. But it's been invaluable to making my existence sustainable. Yeah, yeah. I tell people, like, I don't understand religion. I just, you know, it's like I don't get it. And it doesn't speak to me. And the notion of there being a God and stuff, I just am kind of like, I don't buy that. I don't buy that.

And I also kind of feel like, and even if it's true, like, A, I don't think he's keeping a list of like my good stuff and bad stuff who you know what a fucking petty little fuck he is up there in the sky right like following my you know by most accounts he is a petty little fuck yeah yeah like a vindictive motherfucker yeah uh if you don't believe in me i'll send you to like the worst possible forever existence you can deal with and then it's like well oh okay and and why should i believe in you well because otherwise you'll go to the worst possible existence ever you know it's like what do i get out of it like just like he he has a list of 10 commandments and some of them are fantastic that thou shalt not kill i've been a fan since since

that's a good one it's a great one but there's also thou shalt not kill. I've been a fan since the beginning. That's a good one. It's a great one. But there's also, thou shalt have no God before me, which is just like, how insecure are you? Listen, in capitalism, the best one went out. You should just believe in yourself the way you want me to believe in you. Right, right, right. And take the same day off as me. I took Sunday off because I and take the same day off as me right i took sunday

off because i i rested on the i rested on the seventh day and by saying by saying by working on the seventh day you're saying that i didn't create the world in six days is that what you're because a lot i did some some paperwork on the seventh day but it was just something i was gonna do it on monday just give me a head start on monday every construction job has paperwork you gotta you know but uh for me therapy is religion therapy gives me yes a sense of placement it gives me a sense of progress like real pro like there's i'm working towards something i'm working at getting better yes and it it unravels the mysteries of my universe you know totally and it and it and it is like it also if you do it right and you are you know if you go in there looking for bad guys and you don't include yourself on the list of possible suspects oh i know again you're doing it wrong i know it's like you got i know one of the best point one of the best things to do with

therapy is like figure out where you are contributing to the problem yes and i just yes especially if you're in a relationship yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i just i i know husbands usually it's a husband yeah who will not go into couples therapy and they and they need it yeah they need it and they there's some sort of pride or or i i i don't know what a stubbornness or whatever it is and it's just i've heard i've heard every couple i know that got divorced started by going into therapy, which is like, well, yeah, every fucker that dies goes into the hospital. But a lot of people walk out fine. They get medicine.

They come back out. It's completely spurious. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I just happen to know this. I've been wearing this wristwatch, never attacked by a tiger. I'm not taking it off

no way yeah uh we've been talking for so long uh it's been really wonderful it was the equivalent of hanging around with resnick and elliot yeah yeah yeah yeah oh my gosh deep funny yeah yeah but i i do i do have to wrap it up just okay yeah Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, of course. But I want it because there is then like, what are you working towards now? I mean, you got the book coming out. Right. Misfit, Tales of Somebody Something Something. Oh, growing up awkward in the 80s. Yeah, whatever.

Yeah. But I mean, and you're going to have kids. Yeah. Hopefully. Yeah. Kid. I think I'll have a kid. Just kid.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. and haven't put two in you might get twins oh that's interesting yeah yeah they do they actually do that a lot i hadn't when they implant an embryo they often will implant two just in case yeah i mean my wife and i completely get this is very anxious because i mean she's well aware of the disparity in pregnancy outcomes. She's a black woman, so there's a difference that is not explained by, I mean, Serena Williams had trouble. It's just this thing for whatever reason.

She's very anxious, so I think I'm going to try for the one rather than the twins. Again, I don't want to take her to the, she knows how to swim, but if I was teaching her how to swim, I wouldn't take her to the high dive on the first one. So that's something I'm working on. And then I feel like comedy is this thing that you can keep getting better. So I'll try to get better at that. And then I definitely hope the book sells well enough that they'll say, Hey, do you want to write another book? Cause I really enjoyed the book sells well enough that they'll say hey do you want to write another book because I really enjoyed the process and I think you would too Andy and then the other thing

let me just put an intrusive thought that I have to get answered here what are you going to do about your mom with the book oh great question because I gave it to her oh you did because that's like a real hurdle

totally I'm glad you asked that gave it to her oh you did yeah because that's yeah that's like a real hurdle totally you know what i mean no i get that you know i'm glad you asked that because i i gave it to her and she immediately started scanning for her name yeah she's yeah oh absolutely and then my mother told me i don't listen to your podcast oh my word because when you talk about the family i just don't like the way you talk about the family yeah my just don't like the way you talk about the family. Yeah. My mother wouldn't even know how to understand how a podcast works. She calls everything email from Netflix to Instagram. It's all email. Oh, the first time I was on a podcast, I thought, oh, I can be freewheeling here because there's

no way my mom and dad will find out. And then somebody fucking emails him a link. Jeez, Luis. That is such a bummer. It's like Al-Qaeda level kind of terrorism. My wife put it so well. She said to my mother, she said, Barbara, this is not a takedown. You'll notice it's not titled Surviving Barbara Goleman.

These are just very, very lovely. That's great. These are very lovely, quirky stories. And the fact that you would pocket Hallmark greeting cards when you worked at the Hallmark store seems whimsical and nobody is going to judge you. My wife handles it beautifully. But I go to the other thing and say,

finally I do something that makes me happy and you're going to i go to the other thing is i finally i do something that makes me happy and you're gonna find a problem with it but my my wife is so reasonable yeah yeah yeah so i'm really really lucky yeah yeah but anyway i interrupted you if you remember what you're what oh that i mean the other thing is is that i i i have a small part on amy schumer's show and um as as a uh uh orthodox jewish man named shlomo so i have to pretend my favorite my favorite hebrew name it is a great oh my god it's a really strong hebrew name yeah yeah so so i so i i wouldn't say i caught the acting bug because i've been studying acting for a long time and i just i really enjoy it and finally i'm i'm getting to

the point where i don't uh get really anxious yeah and and so i feel comfortable so i'd like to do more of that once the once i said my our strike ends yeah and and and then i i i just love doing doing stand-up regularly so i'm so grateful. I was telling our friend Tig Notaro recently, and she agreed with this. She said if I could. She and I are bitter enemies. But whatever, go on. We said, because she has children now and a lovely wife,

and we said if we could just keep this going the way it is now until the end, very grateful. Yeah, yeah. We'd trade any any of the highs we would miss out on and just staying yeah staying where we are and i'm very grateful and content and and we all know very much the yeah the person in their 50s kind of like you know yeah and we i'm still here it's still you know relatively yeah productive just let's just wrap this out yes because there's this thing in this

in this business we all know people who i would consider so much more talented and and gifted than me and they and they've struggled and haven't had the opportunities and the luck and the timing and and i'm just so so grateful for having what i have that i i wouldn't chance it by by uh getting too greedy yeah yeah yeah yeah um what what's the what's the most important thing you've learned geez like a life thing yeah you know i mean like it often is like when people ask you for advice or whatever you know i think i think the the big one about what is the meaning of life, I use this expression that Kurt Vonnegut attributed to his son, Mark, who was a pediatrician, but also he was schizophrenic and hospitalized and came out of that and has thrived. And he said, we are here on earth to help each other through this, whatever it is. And I think, all right, that's, yeah. And then I love, and while he was a Jewish man, he started his own sect.

Jesus had this thing where he said, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Which is, I don't know if he improvised it. It's an excellent system. or it's just really strong. And so that was really good advice. And then my mother gave me really good advice. She would say when I didn't want to go out to a party or to play in a game, she would say, just go for an hour. And if you're not having fun, you can come home. And I think small bites like that is the best way to get through things like sometimes i like when i was writing the the book

i would say i don't want to write at all and i would say write for 15 minutes if you want to keep going keep going and then and that was really that was really helpful and then that's it that's a that's a clinical strategy for add adhd yes yes and, yes. And the other thing, and I say it in the book, is that all through my life, there were things that overwhelmed me initially, and I wanted to either quit or run away or commit suicide. And I figured all of them out. And I figured all of them out. By definition, the fact that I'm still alive, I figured everything out from tying my shoes to multiplication to my first girlfriend and my first breakup. I figured it out.

And I think that's really good advice to give somebody that mantra. Whatever it is that they think will undo them, you'll figure it out. And a lot of things you give up way too soon some things you should give up but there are some things you give up because you want them but they're too hard yeah and you don't think you're you're capable but we are there's uh i mean i have a attention deficit my son has attention deficit like you know or like they can't do homework sure thing yeah and i i just have always told him i was like you know i you're you're basically you know i don't i don't want to be like you're me but it's kind of like yeah i understand entirely what you're going

through yeah i was you yeah basically and i said and all i can tell you is you got to do it yeah there's no you don't there's no sort of magic you know like i said there's a little strategies you know just do a little bit at a time and then take a walk away from it um but i have just over the years no like no secrets yeah Yeah. It's like weight loss. Oh, diet and exercise? Yep. Diet and exercise. Yeah.

And when I told him the first few times that we talked about it in that way, he was like, oh, that sucks. I'm like, sure does. But I said, do I seem relatively okay? He said, yeah. I'm like sure it does yeah but i said do i seem relatively okay and he's like yeah i'm like there you go you know like not i don't want you to be me but i'm like saying i you know i understand yeah and and i understand what a what truly and you know i mean everybody has their thing to deal with but a bit you know but when you're sitting in your own thing it's like why me why don't i get this fucking thing i know i know but you know you can do it right you can do it but it also has made you much more empathetic than people we would have been around growing up who would say just just pay attention concentrate

yeah sit up front right right yeah and so he your son is so lucky that he has somebody who understands and and and can share that with them. So we're, yeah. I'm going to have you call him and tell him how lucky he is. No, but that's good parenting. Very lucky. That's good parenting. Very lucky.

That's good parenting, Andy. Thank you. Yeah. Well, Gary, this has been wonderful. Just delightful. Really, really fun. Pure joy. I'm so glad you came in.

I mean, I've been looking forward to this since we were able to book it. So thank you for including me on this. Me too. Sure. Yeah. And go out and buy the on this. Me too, sure. And go out and buy the book, Misfit, Growing Up Awkward in the 80s. If you grew up in the 70s, you probably won't get anything out of it. If you grew up in the 90s, you'll be like, what is this?

But if you grew up in the 80s, man, it'll be a bullseye. Chapter after chapter of bullseye. Yes. All right. That's what we call it. Thanks, Andyseye. Chapter after chapter of bullseye. Yes. All right. That's what we call it. Thanks, Andy. Sure. Thank you, Gary.

Gary Goldman. And thank all of you for listening. And I will be back next time. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Coco production. It is produced by Sean Dougherty and engineered by Rich Garcia. Additional engineering support by Eduardo Perez and Joanna Samuel. Executive produced by Nick Liao, Adam Sachs, and Jeff Ross. Don't forget to rate and review and subscribe to The Three Questions with Andy Richter wherever you get your podcasts. And do you have a favorite question you always like to ask people? Let us know in the review section.

Can't you tell my love's a-growing? Can't you feel it ain't a-showing? Oh, you must be a-knowing. I've got a big, big love. This has been a Team Coco production. Team Coco.