How Gary Gulman Turned Depression Into Comedy Gold | Better in Person

Key Takeaway

When a project makes you feel in over your head, treat that discomfort as evidence that you are stretching rather than failing. Break the work into timed Pomodoro sessions, use written cues or mnemonics for difficult material, and keep going long enough to collect proof that you can finish. Pair this with basic relapse prevention: daily movement, sleep, medication or treatment as prescribed, meaningful projects, and contact with other people.

Episode Overview

Gary Gulman discusses recovering from severe, recurrent depression and transforming that experience into his HBO special, The Great Depresh. With Stephen Dubner, he explores the routines that support his mental health, the creative value of specificity, his process for writing and memorizing material, and rediscovering basketball for enjoyment rather than achievement.

Full Transcript

Transcript of How Gary Gulman Turned Depression Into Comedy Gold | Better in Person from Freakonomics Radio. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

This episode of Better in Person is presented by ChatGPT. Put ChatGpt to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Download the new ChatGpt desktop app today. What you have to understand about show business is the hyperbole is at such a high level that if they love you, it means they don't want to work with you, but but they think you're pretty good. If they're obsessed with you, they they'd like to work with you, but if this fails, it's all over. You'll never hear from them again.

And then I don't know what the next level will be. I want to chop you up in a quez an art and drink you like a smoothie. And that will mean that that they would like to make your project. If you had to choose one word to describe the comedian Gary Gleman, it might be kind, which is not a word you associate with comedians. very often. He's also tall, 6'6, which helps make him good at basketball. Nice. He's also smart. He enunciates beautifully. He's got an amazing vocabulary.

And he wrote a really nice memoir called Misfit: Growing Up Awkward in the8s. And yes, he is wickedly funny. Consider his first HBO special, The Great Depression. I still see a therapist. I I believe I broke him on Monday. Yeah, I was leaving his office and I was shutting the door and I heard him go. A show about one man's depression should not be funny, but this one is. And it's also deeply human. Gleman's honesty makes his fans love him even more. And now I also love Gary Gman.

I mean it. That's not hyperbole. So, I make this um podcast free economics radio which is very research intensive and my producers for this show have been telling me that um I need to back off that I get overprepared and I get a little paralyzed. So, for you I've done zero. I I know your first name is Gary. That's all I got. You're an accountant. I understand. I I was I was an accountant. That was what I studied in in college. So, my profession is accountant, but then but then I've I've taken this this side gig starting in 1993 where I I tell jokes and and I I wrote a book and and yeah, and I act occasionally, but it's just something if the accounting doesn't doesn't pay off.

Did you ever do any accounting? Yes. Yes. I worked for for two and a half years for what is now Price Waterhouse Coopers. And I was fired for saying, "What are they going to do? Fire me?" You did that. I really said that. And it's the It's the It's the only time that somebody has read back to me a quote and I it didn't make me happy. Usually when somebody you said this, oh that's really great. But this was like and and I will say this, I just said yes, I I absolutely said that and and and that was that they they said okay well I'm glad I mean I'm glad years later the woman from HR and her husband came to my show.

So all was all was forgiven but it was was all forgiven. Are you a are you a grievance holder or a grievance uh flusher? I've been grinding certain axes with people over the years and and it's really something. I'm reading I'm reading the autobiography of Nelson Mandela right now. One reason because I admire him, but also this has to be one of the most such a great comic. Funny man, but he was he's got to be like the most forgiving man in in history. And you're thinking, what am I doing with my Yeah.

What am I doing with my stupid things of Do you punish yourself? Um, period. Do I punish myself? No. But I have a lot of guilt over, for instance, my wife would love a bigger apartment than we have. But I see how certain people are living and I think, well, it's not right that I should have so much more than than the average person. So, I think we do need a bigger place because now I have three storage units, which is way too way too many.

It's it's insane. Like, just filled with One of them is just a library, right? It's just all these books that I don't have room for. And and also my childhood baseball card collection. I I want to get a bigger place, but it it has to fall within this this range of not too ostentatious where I would feel guilty because I I read this book by Peter Singer, the most good you can do where if you if you live within certain means and give away a certain amount, you can save lives and so there's a lot of arithmetic involved in life.

That was the Sam Bankman free model. You remember him the Yeah. But wasn't he disgraced and Yes, he was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Such a good because it's a great philosophy. It's a great philosophy. Effective altruism altruism. Yes. Your wife's name is Shade. Yes. How did you meet? But she's not the Shade. I wouldn't I wouldn't have as small an apartment if I was the heir to the Smooth Operator royalty stream. We met at the back table at the comedy seller. She was visiting her friend who was a hostess there or a host and the comedy cell at the back table has the tables are made out of slate so people draw on chalk and my wife Shade was drawing out the formula for the golden mean on on this table and also she's this beautiful woman who knew a lot about physics and math and so I said I said wait are you an intellectual?

And she said, "Uh, maybe." And and then she would come in every other Friday and I would make it so that I would work every other Friday. And then we became friends and then and then we lovers we and then Yeah. And then we became lovers. I took her on as a lover and and that was in we got married in 2020 during the during the pandemic, but we'd been together since 2014, I think. Right. Because when you were sick, she was Yeah. I was sick.

We had been dating for about 6 months and then I went [ __ ] crazy. Yeah. And and sometimes I would beg her. I would be like, "You really got to get out of this. It's not it's not going well." I heard you say that in your act that you begged her to leave you because you didn't want that for her cuz you were that sick. Yeah. Cuz I didn't think I would ever get out of it. But she believed and she did. She would do research and then at one point she grew psilocybin mushrooms.

She tried to get me into a into a study and I wasn't able to get into the study and then she just sent away from mushrooms and made them in our apartment risking it like a felony. Wow. To try and because she had the statute of limitations I'm assuming is I hope so. But the issue is that it's I don't think it's legal now but they are still in tests of psilocybin mushrooms. Michael Pollen wrote that book How to Change Your Mind and it was Yeah, it's very influential.

So, I I would love to talk about if you feel like it, you're being sick. I mean, it's a lot more fun to talk about now that you're But because you seem awesome. I I feel awesome. You look great. You seem great. And thank you. I'm I'm so grateful and everything is just so much easier from the other side. And I I always I always used to say this. I would say if I could stop getting depressed every 6 to9 months and losing 3 to 6 months of productivity, I could really be good at this thing that I've put all my time into.

But that's but that's exactly what happened then, right? And then finally for the past seven years I've had an uninterrupted mental health and I've written I think three specials a oneperson show and a and a book a memoir and yeah so I so your engine your creative and comedy engine it seems was running as hot then before you were sick like you'd always been hardworking disciplined productive but it's just like when he would get sick then everything is back to zero or minus. Is that the way it would work?

Yeah, because I would I would lose momentum. I couldn't for instance if somebody had come to me in 1998 and said we want you to make a oneperson show. I would say, well, that's going to take about a year and at some point within the next six to nine months, I will fall apart and I will be out of communication and I won't be working and and then I'll spend time trying to get back on on track through medication and exercise and everything else. So, that I I wasn't dependable and I couldn't trust myself to make to make such long-term plans.

I mean, we worked together. Yeah. In I think it was 2017 and looking back now, I think you were not well then. No, no, but I would accept offers all the time because I didn't I didn't want to give in. And so I could put it together, but if you knew me, you knew I was not myself. I just remember thinking like he's really not very fun. Like you didn't seem like you were having fun at all. Yeah, that makes sense. I was probably incredibly anxious.

I thought that was just who you were. But then I would watch your comedy and it seemed like a different human. Yeah. So, did I just catch you on a night where you were feeling like how many nights were there like that that you were just not I mean, it was every night from the spring of 2015 through the fall of of 2017. So, it was two and a half years, but also when I was working off a script of jokes, I could be much more compelling than I was in in an interview.

And it's very hard to think when you're depressed. My my psychiatrist said that a lot of people have called it faux dementia where depressives are having a hard time making memories and keeping memories and also accessing words and and so your brain is is telling you while you're in it that you'll never get out of it. And then when you're out of it that you'll never go back in it. But then you learn and you realize that or in this case this final case that I need to stay so vigilant and prevent the relapse because the relapse is actually part of this this entire conundrum.

What does vigilant mean? exercising every day, eating right, getting enough sleep, taking on projects that keep me busy, and and accepting invitations. So, getting out of the house and talking with people. So, that all sounds sensible, but um and then taking my medication every day. Okay. Yeah. All good. But I'm wondering, weren't you trying to do all that stuff before when you were cyclically getting sick? I was not as disciplined about the exercise component and I I'm lucky to have a a really good therapist. I didn't always have a therapist because I in some cases I couldn't afford it or I didn't have the insurance for the medication.

So, it happened to this last one happened to come at a time when I had insurance and enough money saved up that I could take a few months off to go into the hospital and and get my head straight. So the the special that you made, right? We call it special. Is that what it is? The great depress it's a great title, by the way. It's a great No, I'm sorry. I meant to say it's a great show, but the title is also the title was a great title.

Yeah. And what's so interesting about it to me is that it is the only hybrid I know. Like you you said at some point that you are excellent at monetizing mental illness and um I think you're the world champion. like I can't think of anybody like P if he had had the movie made or something, but he didn't really get that far. But um but it's an amazing piece to me because it's very funny. It's very moving. It's a great biography. It's like a documentary. It's not just a stand up, but it's also a public service announcement about how to treat mental illness.

Yeah. I never started telling anybody about my mood difficulties back then. And I didn't start telling people close to me until this past year when I started talking about it on stage. I mean, it really is. You go through science and some segments of it are not at all entertaining or funny. Right. So, it hit me hard. I I just thought it was a great piece of work and I want to know how you made it really. H Okay. So, I was recovering from my hospitalization in Massachusetts.

I was living in Massachusetts, living at home at with my mom in your childhood house in the childhood bedroom. I would go to this club in in Cambridge in Harvard Square called the Comedy Studio. And it it served two big things which was to get me out of the house and around people and then to eventually and it wasn't right away but a few months after I got out of the hospital I would go there and I would do jokes and it became clear to me that everybody who was familiar with me would know that something was off and also that if you didn't know me you might think that that I looked disheveled and and I didn't look well.

Yeah. And so I felt that I had to address it and it was most comfortable for me to address things by being funny with it. And so I would I one of the things I started saying was how I had been recognized in the psych ward and I would say has that ever happened to anybody? which is kind of a an old formula of comedy work, but you were recognized with a in a particularly interesting way, right? Didn't the guy say, "Are you a Gary Gman or am I crazy?" Yeah.

in a court. That that actually that actually it was so Yeah, it was so great because it's the lowest you can get really in my lifespan, which is to be in pajamas at 6:00 p.m. and and with socks with treads on the bottom. And yet part of my relentless ego was like, "Oh, look at me getting recognized." Like, it gave me a shot. It gave me a shot of dopamine. And also it was just funny that he said it, "Am I crazy?" And and now when I was in the hospital, I remember But wait, then you would watch with this guy.

The office Oh, yeah. The office would come on. The office is always on and the office would come on and I I would I don't know why I said this, but again, my ego, you know, I auditioned for that that part, Jim. I auditioned for the role of Jim and the man said, and he had to have been joking, but it was a perfect joke. He said, "Did you get it?" And of, of course, the response to that always in show business is, "I haven't heard back yet.

They never tell you that you didn't get it. You just see the you see the show in syndication." The the interesting thing is that in the moment I had to I recognized if I ever get back to doing standup, if I'm ever able to talk about this, these are things that I will say and God willing people will laugh. And so I had to realize and it was a quote that I put on my bedroom wall at my mom's house from Beckett that said, "Ever tried, ever failed, no matter.

Try again, fail again, fail better." So fail better became my mantra. I've heard it's been that expression has been co-opted by tech bros and and shame on them because because it was it was so helpful that even when I was bombing on stage I could feel no I'm making progress because I'm talking about this thing in depression and treatment that isn't easy to get laughs off of. So my manager who kept in touch with me what's the manager's name? Brian Stern. And at and at no point did he say, "When are you going to get back on stage?" But when I did start to get back on stage, he said, "What if we did a hybrid of a documentary and a and a special?" Had you done a special before?

Yeah, I had done three specials. And it was actually the previous special that I had done that I felt was um what's it a trigger? It was a trigger for for this episode of depression. I don't think it was everything, but the fact that I had made a special in like 2014 or 15 that I felt was the best work I was I could do. What was that special? It was called It's About Time. And it had a joke that that's since gone viral about about abbreviating the states.

How are they going to make a 98minute documentary about a task that couldn't have taken more than 6 minutes to complete? started off they thought it was going to be easy because Alabama led them into a false sense of security. They said Alabama al holy crap this is easy. We're going to finish before they stopped serving breakfast in the hotel restaurant. And they got back to abbreviating. They said what's next? They said Alaska. Everybody cool with al. And it had a joke that I that also was very popular about me role playinging with my wife and I'm a professor but I take it way too seriously and and she's a student who's failing my class.

So I'm a professor at a prestigious New England university and my girlfriend is a senior in my intro to Western Civ. I I know why why is she a senior in the intro? Um and the they couldn't sell it. They a production company paid for the special. Nobody wanted it. And I said, "But this was the best the best I get and I can't even sell it." And it's it was much easier to sell specials back then. And and it just devastated me and and was sort of a part of a number of different things that that happened to me.

I lost my dad. And so all these things sort of came together to keep me from from getting out of the house and getting out of bed. had a lot of days. So my my manager Brian said, "What if we did a hybrid of a special with a documentary?" I just worked with a documentarian, his name is Mike Bonfiglio, and Mike just worked with Jud Appatile on the Avet Brothers movie and and a couple of 30 for30s and then the Gary Shanling, the Gary Shanling documentary, and he later did the the George Carlin.

And you liked Gary Shandling, I'm guessing. Yes. Yeah. Right. Yeah. He was he was one of my heroes. him and Richard Lewis I think were two and David Brener also but only Jewish comics it's okay it's it's interesting cuz I also loved Richard Prior and George Carlin but the two that I saw myself in were Gary Steven I loved Steven Wright yeah but I didn't I didn't think I could pull off that style it was too smart and and too hard and so Did you like Lenny Bruce a lot?

No, I didn't I didn't understand the context. I think Lenny Bruce is all about the context and how brave he was. There were certain Lenny Bruce jokes that I liked, but for the most part, I I just think of him as somebody who other comedians were standing on his shoulders prior and Carlin and and Richard Lewis types. Yeah. All right. Sorry, I interrupted. So, you're uh you're um this is how a conversation works. This is how a conversation works. Yeah, I agree. I agree. But I must have at some point read somebody saying that you should write the book you want to read and I extrapolated that to being the comedian I would want to see.

So Emerson in self-reliance said that the specific is universal which seems impossible but I have found that the more specific an art is the more it resonates with me. What's your um mental state before a show? Are you excited? Are you anxious? I'm really excited. Excited. I'm anxious in the same way that I used to get excited before a basketball practice or or a game. I can't I can't wait to go out there and and play. Although the there were times in basketball where my confidence was so lacking that I was nervous, anxious, afraid.

And that's happened in in comedy, but that's very rare. Is the is the anxiety or the loss of confidence in sport, you think, greater than or less than performing? Almost identical. It's so it's so interesting. It's almost paralyzing. Yeah. And and in sports, it it affects your your fine motor skills. So, it can really affect your your shooting. And in comedy, the audience can sense that the comedian is is nervous. And you're you're a good basketball player, we assume. Yes. For somebody who doesn't play basketball, I'm But you were good when you were Awesome.

If you don't play basketball, you'll think I'm It's like magic. Like a magician can tell whether a magician is good, but a lay person can't tell. So you would you would say like sometimes I'll play with people and I'll make so many shots, they'll be they'll be laughing because they think it's it's absurd. But if I play with a real basketball player, they're like slow and can't jump and and and uh if I if I get too close to him, he'll miss. So, since I don't really I haven't played basketball since I was probably 16.

So, Oh, we should definitely play. Yeah, we'll he doesn't miss. We have to do this. Yes. Good to see you. I love how you penny down to hug your shirt, man. My basketball skills peaked in high school, but I don't care. This is basketball with Gary Gleman. and then when you you make three in a row, you take a step back in a row. Yeah. Wow. Well done. That was really good shooting. Thank you. Really good shooting. No, I'm serious. Okay, now it's my turn. I have a pretty good feeling about this.

were so reliant to duck a ball straight on your head like Okay. Wow. I'm really off, huh? It's the wind. Okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We're getting there. You going to guard me? Yes. Oh, boy. This ball's not very bouncy, is it? It's actually very inflated. All right. Where am I going to get to with you? It was a good play. Oh, I'm so sorry. That was the old step on the foot move. That always works. Well played. Really good. Thank you. That's how it's done. So for all you Knicks and Celtics and Warriors scouts out there, Gary Gman, G M.

Gary insists that stepping on my foot was an accident. He is such a kind man that I am left with no choice but to believe him. In the living room, I had asked how he tries to maintain confidence in himself, whether in basketball or his comedy work or anything. Whenever I'm working on a project, I think of another project where I was ready to throw in the towel and I stuck with it and and and I was able to to finish it. And so and and that goes with this other thing that I've learned that any project it's a pretty good sign if at some point you feel over your head because it means you're you're you're stretching your comfort zone and you're you're what do you what are you doing now that's stretching for you?

The oneperson show was was something that I wrote I probably finished writing a year ago and now I'm touring it and I did it I did off Broadway. I did Grandiloquin off Broadway I think 36 shows and about 3 weeks into rehearsal I said to my wife I've bitten off more than I can chew and this this um opening night is going to be a disaster. I can't memorize all these things that I that I wrote. And but then I thought, oh well, failing is is a part of the whole thing.

And there's really no artist who's never failed at anything. And I was able to figure it out and memorize it. It requires staying up way way past what I am comfortable with. And how do you do that? Just yourself or do you have Shade run lines with you? Just by myself? I used the a lot of the Pomodoro method and and also setting the timer for whatever. Yeah. And writing it out and and a lot of pneummonics. So that there was a story on stage and then there was this weird story in my head that connected all these things.

And there's there's one line where I say my my mother would use Yiddish in the house to heckle me. And so it felt like I was being heckled by my ancestors. And then that went into the next joke which was about babysitting. So I pictured an ancestor which is this when I when I tell you my mother's mother was one of the most unattractive people I've ever seen in my life. She looked like Madam from from solid gold like the Whan Flowers puppet with that long chin and the and she had a bun in her hair.

And so I picture her babysitting which me which if you grew up in my house you knew this woman would never be allowed to babysit. She had babysit my brother Max once when he was two or three and he had swallowed an entire bowl of grapes whole and they had to like take him they had to rush him to the ER so she was never allowed to babysit. I have Yeah. I have this so I have this image of my grandmother and that relates to the high cost of of of babysitting in the 1970s my mother bringing me everywhere and then that so yeah it was it was interesting to to memorize it so that next time and there will be a next time when I'm over my head I will say yeah you said the same thing about grand eloquent this episode of better in person is presented by chat GPT chat GPT work moves beyond answers into getting real work done it's a new experience experience in chat GPT for bigger multi-step projects across web, mobile, and desktop.

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Put chat GPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Download the new Chat GPT desktop app today. You smile so much. Is it strategic? Yes, because it's part of a it's part of certain punchlines, right? And it and it relieves some some tension. They say it's also good for you. Yes. But also, I can't tell you Jeff Garland asked Bruce Springsteen, "What does it feel like when you know Badlands is next in the concert? How does that feel?" And I thought that was such a great question.

And with most of my jokes, I feel the way Spring Scene must feel when when Bad Lands is next. I'm like, "Oh, you like that one? Where do you hear it? This one." Um because I really worked this one. That's a great feeling. I would imagine. It's such a great feeling. And so that's where the smile comes from. It's also a great feeling that you get for two seconds that reflects 30 hours of working on your own earlier. Right. 30 hours is no. I I mean the the abbreviating the states joke started when I was 6 years old and found a book in which they listed the abbreviations for the states and because there was no internet.

I just memorized it like cuz it was something Can you still do that joke? Do you still do it? I don't do it any any more because comedy fortunately and unfortunately isn't like music where you want to hear Yeah. Yeah. the but um how long would it take you to get it back if you had to? I could I could listen to it on a subway ride and and be able to remember it. Yeah. Yeah. Do you do you feel your memory is freakish? Yeah. It's unusual to remember so much from a childhood because I was reading something today where somebody was saying that they couldn't remember their their elementary school teachers and I'm like I remember the custodians and the the nurse and and the teachers aids.

Yeah. But because of my depression, I lost a lot of memories. Yeah. Do you want to just quickly describe your family that you grew up in? I mean, some of the most unimpressive people and yet so critical. It It astonishes me that people this average could be so critical about every aspect of every judgmental. my mother. I brought a girlfriend home one time and within a minute she the the woman made the mistake of being far enough away from my mother where my she couldn't hear what my mother said.

My mother said, "Oh, so homely." Oh. And it just was your mother pretty? No. There were pictures of every old lady where they were young and they their wedding pictures. She was a beautiful bride and but she was she had no right to be to be denigrating anybody's appearance and it's just such a tacky gross thing to be as somebody who comments about about people's physicalities and there were there anytime somebody came on TV with bad teeth which is half the people who want to be interviewed for the nightly news my mother would gh your teeth fixed and or sometimes she would go like that when somebody would come on like she like the most critical and then my brother's big thing was to criticize me everything about me under the opaces of well we don't want you to get a a big head but it it was just it was it was diminishing and belittling and it and it just it it got to the point where and I could never put it into words until this sentence that that came to me one day and it's so simple.

I don't like how I feel about myself when I'm around these people. So, did you cut your family off? How'd you how'd you deal with it? I cut them off from time to time or or my mother didn't speak to me after the book came out. She didn't speak to me for 6 months. Yeah. She doesn't come off so well. Well, the thing is she didn't mind that that anything really in the book except that I had told these stories of her stealing Hallmark cards in the in the 1970s from a from the greeting card store she worked in, and she was just devastated by that.

I didn't do it for any kind of revenge. I just thought it was really funny that we had a lot of things in our house between my mother and her twin brother who was a a a burglar that we had we had we were poor people. We were on food stamps and free lunch and welfare and public assistance. And yet one time we had a pinball machine in our our house. had a gumball machine from a grocery store in my bedroom and nothing we had in our house that cost more than $100 had a receipt.

You're well now. Yeah. And that's awesome. And I'm just wondering if when you're working now, if you think about being not well one day and if anything you're doing in your work may kind of lead you to that by the specificity because you're just bearing to me it feels like you're really bearing your soul, but because you're funny it's it's delicious. It's not painful, but it's very very specific. So, I feel like uh I feel like you've x-rayed yourself from every direction and put it out there.

And I just wonder how you feel about living with those specificities down the road perhaps. Uh it's an interesting question. I one thing and I I think this maybe is just a correlary to this is that part of the reason I am so vigilant about staying well is that I am concerned that I will let certain people down who there there are so many people who will tell me how the great depress resonated how I mean one of the best things that I can hear is that they were able to watch it with a family member and the family member was able to understand better what it's like because that was always the the most frustrating part of life in general, but specifically depression was being able to describe what was going on inside you.

And the fact that this special was able to allow people to share how they were feeling, that was a great compliment to me. So I feel there is something above just feeling well for myself tied up in me being vigilant about feeling well that I don't want to that I don't want people to feel like oh what hope was there for me Gary was my was I mean do you feel like you've become a standard bearer not just for comedians talking about their own mental health but like for all humans who No but amongst but for comedians I I I guess I I just It was always a fantasy of mine that my my suffering I would be able to to make people feel a little bit better in the way that I had been.

But isn't that a little weird to use your suffering to make other people feel better? Well, I guess what I'm saying is that when for instance quarterback Terry Bradshaw and Bruce Springsteen, these men's men came out and said, "We are we are suffering. we've been depressed. Somebody said to Terry Bradshaw, "But you're Terry Bradshaw." And I'm sure I probably would have said, "But wait, you're Bruce Springsteen." And so I figured out that I was in a way a similar voice to certain people that they would say, "Well, I thought I would be happy because I was a comedian and I was successful, but it wasn't it wasn't like that." And and I thought, "Oh, I just haven't gotten successful enough." And then you hear Bruce Springsteen and Michael Phelps, for instance, and you realize, oh, it has nothing to do with achievement.

This is chemical. And it lets you off the hook, which I I think is is such a great a great service that comedians can provide, but it works the other way, too, I always think, because they let you off the hook also for being racist and sexist and and homophobic. So, so you got to be careful. I think you have some showand tell. It looks like you brought what you bring. But before I go to show and tell for the for the people watching who are obsessivecompulsive, I want to fill in the last piece of how the how the special got made, which was in the meeting where I met Mike Bonfiglio.

And he said, "Do you mind if I ask my friend Jud if he would like to work on this?" And it was Jud Appatile, of course. And I said, "Yes, yes. Yes, you you may." It's a hard decision, right? And then I did an audition where I did the whole show and a couple days later. But I will say one interesting thing was that I had to be very careful because I knew a a rejection could could throw me off track. And I remember my wife in the interim between me auditioning and them saying yes, my wife said, "This is really unfair because I am going to have to live with their decision." But I had said I will be disappointed.

I will keep touring the show and if it doesn't wind up on HBO, I'm I'm fine with that. And and that and of course then it happened. So I never had to to really live with it. But but that's the that's how it it came to be. And then we shot it in June. It aired in October. And where' you shoot it? Changed everything at in Brooklyn at a place called Roulette. Yeah. Um, and it changed everything. Meaning what? Meaning I I I've had I was able to write a book based on people who watch that.

And then I've had great success in touring my act since then. So the the three hours that I've written since then, I've been able to tour every year or two. Does any part of you think that, oh, if only I'd been well the whole time that I could have elevated myself or advanced in a even different way? Sometimes, but only because I sometimes tell myself, man, it's a good thing you went crazy cuz you would have run out of material otherwise. Well, I mean, it's good material.

It's really good material. And also just doing really good observational jokes didn't really bring me the the following that I have now. So you're saying you became known? I became better known as depressed the depressed comic and but now grown beyond it. Yeah. To some degree. Yeah. Although many people I'm sure still know you for that. Yeah. But there were people before that who just knew me as a as an observational I knew you as the the twolet state post office. abbreviation. Yeah, that was my born to run.

It was your born to run. I'm so glad you're back. Me, too. I'm so glad you're back. Nice. All right. I want to ask Do you mind if I ask you questions while you shoot? No. All right. Here's what I want before every shot. Yeah. I simply want you to tell me one thing that you love about basketball. Okay. Uh Larry Bird, the Boston Celtics. Nice. What about for you? What does it do for you? Oh, uh, basketball is good for the heart. Basketball is an anti-anxiety, but not a performance enhancer.

Gary Goldman, so you were very good at basketball when you were a kid. Yeah. But you ended up playing not college basketball, but college football. What happened with you and basketball in there? Well, I would say part of it was I didn't believe in myself and I didn't value the enjoyment of it. I wanted to get a scholarship and I didn't I didn't value how much fun I had and how much I looked forward to it. And and at the time they were giving literally 10 times the number of football scholarships than basketball scholarships, bigger teams, cuz they had 100 players at the time.

I had the intersection of a a bad coach. In my book, I refer to him as Ron Bidder. He was a he was a very short man who didn't teach us anything about basketball. He was just he took everything he had learned about Bob Knight except the skills and technique, chair throwing, cruel, the cruelty, the chair throwing, the the swearing. And I was I was discouraged. And when some football coaches showed me the type of enthusiasm that I I deserved in basketball, I I immediately um was hooked on on that type of feeling.

and and ultimately they were able to get me a four-year scholarship to college. So, it it worked out in some ways, but I think I would have been to Boston College. I think I would have been happier had I had I reached my potential in basketball. But I will tell you that what I've decided to do is um apply that type of love to my comedy and my writing and and and that's been very satisfying. I'm happy for you that basketball is again a fun part of your life.

Yes. But I also think it's a good lesson for anybody watching like the thing that you love, you got to remember to keep the love in it or it turns into a different thing. No, I know. I know. It's just uh and I I feel so so grateful that I I was able to to uh rediscover it actually uh after I started to feel better from my depression. Yeah. Yeah. Was it a big part of your getting better? Yes, absolutely. because I I always used to uh take for granted that there were so many aspects of basketball that were anti-depressants.

I think the thing that people get put off by is is when they're not immediately good at it or if they're not as good as they used to be when they were younger. That was that was part of it. I I had to come to terms with the fact that I would never dunk again and and that I would I would be shown up by much younger people frequently. So, but but if you can, but that's also a great lesson, which is to curb your ego.

You just need to uh a little more oomph. There you go. Love it. Way to go, Stephen. The reverse layoff is is not easy. It's a it's it's a gorgeous move, but it's not that easy. I want to know whatever you can tell me or show me about how you work. So I love hearing from anyone, scientists, creatives about So what do you have a notebook? All right. So this is my most recent notebook. And the first thing is I make a collage. Yes, you do.

Of stickers and photographs. This is my favorite actor, comedian, Chris Elliott. Oh yeah. The back is a lot of set list and transcription. Can I see a set list? Yeah. Yeah. So here's a set list. Just walk us through that. August 27th. Gen X wave traffic. The Gen X is the last generation that will wave to you for letting them into traffic. Um, uh, microwave popcorn button was a diversion from the microwave company's inability to get it to make toast. Um, and the same thing happened to aliens where they were able to make the UFO, but they couldn't figure out how to manage the last 10 feet.

So they they put out a ramp and that's and and so that that's the interesting thing that I love about comedy is a lot of it is just trying to make connections between things that aren't that aren't connected and and so that's the toast failing seems large to me now. Shouldn't it have been like, "Yeah, of course it can make toast and it cannot. It can make a turkey in 11 minutes and it and it can't make toast." And then but then it also has a diversion, not a diversion, a digression.

Yeah. Where the toast people are frantic over the microwave ovens prospects for toast making and pushing them out of business. But then the man who runs the toast, and the problem with this joke is it feels too much like the abbreviating the states. But the man who runs the toast consortium says we'll always have bathtub suicides. Like that's and to me that's the the um that's the bottom line of capitalism that that that's the way they think. I I don't know. We'll always We'll always have bathtub suicides.

Yeah. Yeah. We're Do you remember writing that line? I remember thinking of it on on stage. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So then I wrote it down afterwards because it got such a reaction. It got such a reaction like it was similar to what happened in here WHERE PEOPLE LIKE AH BECAUSE IT'S really especially for a depressive to talk about bathtub suicide. Also I could imagine you trying to have toast in the bath somehow. Right. But then I also followed up with cuz this is this is where the real writing comes in.

So you have that line where he says he says we'll always have bathtub suicides. But then I thought of something that he says after that. You want to you want to frighten me? Tell me they've outlawed dead end jobs and loveless marriages. Then then I'll start panicking cuz as long as there's despair, we will we will sell toasters. The the man was a psychopath. Really? I'm so glad you came by. It's great to see you and I'm so glad that you're doing well and see each other and spend this time together.

Thank you. And I think that you're uh I really think you're an inspiration to a lot of people. So well well done, man. Oh, that's so nice to hear. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Gary Gleman. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Thank you. I know. It's like Yeah, but it's so um uh decadent to have somebody have somebody um lit roll you. Oh my gosh, what a life. Thanks again to ChatGpt for sponsoring today's episode of Better in Person. Chat GPT can help teams move from goals to real outcomes.

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