Mike Birbiglia Returns

And I feel ambitious about being Conan O'Brien's friend.

Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, walk in blues, climb the fence, books and pens. I can tell that we are going to be friends.

I can tell that we are going to be friends. Hey there, welcome to Conan. O'Brien needs a friend joined by my compadres compatriots Sona of session.

There you go, took a second and then Matt Gorley, how are you?

It's okay, Eduardo messed up, Eduardo. What happened there? One time? I go drink some water, I drink some water.

What do you mean water?

I was like, Oh, I forgot, her mic was not on. Oh, her mic wasn't on. We are recording, we were recording.

We are recording. You know, this is why you lost your job as an air traffic controller.

Because I don't think he has anything to harp on you about, and now he didn't turn my mic on. I do have something good to talk about. The other night, some friends of my wife and I were having dinner at kind of a fancy restaurant. And it was in Beverly Hills, which we never go into that part of town.

I'm not a guy that goes to restaurants in Beverly Hills, you're not a BH guy, I'm not. And so we go there and we have this really nice meal with our friends and I'm like, Oh, this is great.

This place is terrific. And then we're about to leave. And this gentleman comes up to me, who I think works with the restaurant, and he says, Mr O'Brien, I'm here to walk you past the paparazzi. And I said, What?

Because I'm like, What are you talking about? paparazzi? that's not, you know? and he's like, No, no, I'm here to make sure that you get through the paparazzi.

Okay, and I'll walk you back to your car and I'm like, with my wife, like, What, that's weird, okay?

We walk outside, nobody.

I mean, not just no paparazzi, no people. It was like they were shooting Omega, man, you know, like a post-apocalyptic, and I wasn't, I was, and then.

And then so now that I have the added thing of like, this guy's with me and he's kind of acting like, right this way. Just keep moving, like, what are you talking about? It's me.

I don't have, I'm not someone who's like, why don't they leave me alone? But it was so funny and this guy never acknowledged, never.

Well, he never acknowledged that. Oh, I thought there was, or I just assumed, because you're a known person that there would be, you know, and I was assuming that he knew.

The whole way it was just I thought it was so, it was so perfect. It was so me, like Mr.

BRIAN I'm going to help you through the paparazzi, huh? What? Well, if you say so, doors fly open.

No, no, no, or just fake people. No, because real paparazzi wouldn't come. Yeah, people you pay with like a press thing in their hat.

I did do a thing that was really funny. There was a period in my life when sometimes there would be, you know, people around, and I wanted to normalize that for my kids. So what I would do is when my kids were little, I told them I taught them this bit. But we would walk out and they'd be. It'd be at some restaurant. You know that where there aren't anybody, there's nobody, there's nobody there.

There's no paparazzi. But we would walk out and my kids, who were little, this is like, my daughter was like maybe seven, and my son was five. They would both fan out and say, back up, back up, leave him alone. And there was nobody there and they it was. It was fun.

Cause it, it was a making fun of me about no one gives a shit about our dad. And then, Uh, but I just love to see little kids going. Please, he's a person, give him room.

But I don't know, I don't know where this guy got it in his head. Maybe he just assumed, like, well, we've had other famous people here and it's a mob scene out, you know, we just we just had, you know, whatever, uh, Travis, if.

Yeah, uh, we just had, uh, we just had. Taylor, Swift and Travis were here, and, uh, you know, we. We know how it can be. So we're going to walk you to your car.

What did it? I always, I was in those moments when things are really quiet. I always, I always want a bird to go by, like a mocking bird. Would it have been worse if there was just like one person there? And they cause I've been with you when paparazzi and they cause there's nothing about your life that's exciting. They're like, Hey, what do you think about? You know someone's buying a horse?

Yeah, they always have to try and think of something, and they don't have a question ready to go for me, so they're always, you know, um, stock market.

What did you buy at the CVS? Oh, I got those caps that you put on a toothbrush, that sort of keep other things from brushing up against it.

And then you just know TMZ is like, Conan sucks, bang.

Right this way, Mr. O'Brien, we got your back.

A horse goes by, Hey, it's Conan O'Brien used to be on the television, and then the paparazzi goes, Wow, a talking, a talking horse. They start taking pictures of him.

All right, well, let's get into it. Yeah, my guest today is a hilarious comedian, he truly is, and he's not just a comedian.

He's a writer, he's a director, he's an actor. Uh, he's. I'm a great admirer of this gentleman. His latest One Man show, The Old Man and the Pool, is now available to stream on Netflix.

You have to watch it, you really do. I'm excited he's with us today.

Microbiglia welcome.

But then we were in touch. I just want to read a text chain that we had. Because I'm in addition to being a second time guest on the show, I'm a avid listener. I loved the Steven Wright episode.

I feel like I've seen every interview. So you like, killed him, and then I and I wrote this to you, and you wrote. I'm actually in New York right now, cranking out pods, taking meetings. I'm in Midtown. My daughter shows up today but leaves Monday.

If there's a chance to grab coffee, it'd be nice to catch up. Yeah, so that was like a friendship move we had. we'd never had coffee.

I manufacture instant coffee pods and then so I make a decaf pod that's quite popular.

Yeah, anyway, it's a long story.

And then I wrote, I've been ghosted by much bigger celebrities than you. yep, it bounces off of me, and you wrote, It'll sting, you'll see.

And then God.

Yeah, and it did sting. Whoa, yeah. So today what I want to do is engage, try to get you back on my podcast, and also for pods.

Coffee, coffee.

No, no, no, no, listen, when I hear Can't wait, that's it's that just is too irresistible. When someone says, I can't wait, that makes me think, Oh, you're going to fucking wait, you know what I mean?

For big Leah, right? Yes, oh, this is the real me. you want the real me.

These are classic quips.

And then gone, Do you ever get over to Brooklyn?

Yeah, let's do the days.

Like, like, we got to cut that out, but it's too mean.

There's no, it's, there's like, it's like World War Two footage. We've all seen it. Yes, I go.

It's like World War Two footage. There's no limit, there's no limit.

It's you've completely misunderstood World War Two, really. And footage.

Now I have to go back and look at these again.

Like, you're doing an ad for, like, Conan TV or something. And at the end of it, Sona had made fun of it so much. I was like, Does this even exist?

Sometimes I'm reading these cold and we get this, they slide this piece of paper in front of me, what's this one? And I just start going. And I say, like, you know, if you want to monitor your cats, if you want to monitor your cat's health. This device uses lasers and ultralight sound to measure the quantity, quality, and size of your cat's poops. Basically, and then gives you up to date analysis of what your cat's health could be in the future.

And then I went on a long rant about the fall of Western civilization, fair enough.

It's like, this will really cripple Ford.

I have more questions.

It was with Jimmy Kimmel, Martin Short, we run into Conan, with Phil Rosenthal, Scott Ian from Anthrax.

I'm on, I'm getting on an airplane. I was in Chicago to interview the Nirvana fellas Novoselic and Grohl, and then I'm flying back and I'm getting on the plane. And this gentleman with a fascinating beard gets on, sits opposite me and I'm like, Oh, I know who this is.

And he says to me, Hi, Conan, Yeah, Scott Ian Anthrax, I played on your show, Oh cool. So we chat the entire way about the metal, but also going back to punk ramones, his childhood.

It would have been almost a great podcast. Just chatting with him across the aisle. And then he said, Hey, I'm good friends with Patton, and I'm like, Yeah, I know I'm texting with Patton all the time. I've known Patton Oswalt forever.

The next thing I know, there's one of those text chains where it's like, a dinner is happening and I keep thinking, is this ever going to happen? And then, finally, the day arrives November 1st. We're going to go out to this dinner, so we go out.

We're there, we're having a really good time. And then the next thing I know these figures are looming over us at our table, and it's you, Mr. Kimmel and Mr.

Short, Marty, short. And then we all get up and then we're all standing in the middle of the restaurant, pretty much doing bits, yeah.

And then the moment the person leaves after, we're like, that was great, that was going to be wonderful. Yeah, and then they leave and I go, what do you think? My question is, like, this time or last time that I was on, what's going to be the thing you say when I leave?

What's going to be the real dirt? And I want to know the real thing.

So I think this is a great interview.

And a big admirer of what you've accomplished and what you've been able to carve out for yourself. But I also love that you came in and you're so proactive that you're you're stirring it up, you're asking us questions. That, to me, makes for a better podcast. I love that.

So already ambitious, ambitious came up with an agenda. Yeah, yeah.

No, OK, yeah, because you we recorded over Zoom last time and you pop back in the Zoom, yeah.

While we were doing our download, so I like this, this is good. I wasn't gone and you kept talking.

No.

Great.

I have to say, and it's one of the reasons I really love doing the podcast over the years of doing a late night show. And I'm just going to remind viewers that. Mr. Biglia, when you were a young lad, started out as an intern on our show in the 90s, and he was an intern on the program. And then all these years when we were at Rockefeller Center, the old Show, and then it's kind of cool to contrast.

That was a show where I would talk to multiple people a night and you had so it was a volume business. And there, in the postmortem, we really would sometimes get into it.

So I know you guys, I see you every day, so I have no fear.

And they and their answers were I did standup, I did improv, went back to college, did standup and improv, and I did standup. All right, this is going pretty well.

What are you doing? standup, what are you doing? And they'd be like, Oh, no, I'm not doing any of that, I just want to do.

Give it to me. Yeah, I would like that when you're, when you're done with it, and but but I would say the podcast it is. I mean, I'm hard pressed to think of a podcast where I haven't enjoyed talking to the people. Because we don't make nearly as many of them.

And if there's someone I don't want to talk to, I just don't talk to them.

I mean, I'm hard pressed to think of a time when someone's left you and I've thought, Boy, I really disliked talking to that person. I usually feel like I learned something.

If you like it, holler, yeah, and if you don't, you holler Boo.

I can do it now on the podcast and it feels like it's in place. There was one night on the on the late night show. When I'm out there and I'm really just at this point. I've done like thirty five thousand hours of television, but I'm in. I'm doing the monologue in the late night show for NBC. And I said something in the audience, Mock went, and then I said, Of course, so and so's in the news.

The audience went Boo, and I went, Yabu, Yabu. It's lots of fun to do. If you like it, holler, yeah, and if you don't, you holler, Boo.

And I remembered my producer, my everyone was like, What the fuck was that?

Yeah, meaning they assume that you'll you become a different person, yes.

Build two pits for people endlessly, and like an airport, or like a taco bell. People will be like, Why is he doing this? why are you this like serious, quiet man in your regular life?

I was like, How many comedians you know you're texting Ronnie Chang?

I have so much respect for standup, but what you do, it feels like you've carved out really something quite unique for yourself. And I think that's that's my highest compliment to musicians and comedians is when I say no, this person found something. They worked they, they worked hard in the dark alone.

They figured it out and they came out with something that's truly them. And I think you've done that. Like people, you have this huge following, which is people want to want to hear Mike Birbiglia tell stories that are very personal to him.

And it, yeah, it seems like people still want to see the next show, you know it? It's weird every time. I always talk about this with my friend Jack Antonoff, who's from Bleachers, a great musician, and we've been friends for like, 20 years. We're both touring acts and like, when you put a tour on sale, you find out if anyone still cares, yeah.

You know what I mean, yes, and it's like, and so it's exciting that I've made these. Yeah, like you said, like, I made these things that, and it's kind of by accident that I made it specific.

It's really just because I'm like, I'm really interested in plays, and I'm really interested in movies and drama, and then also I'm really interested in stand up. And along the way, I started working with a theater director, Seth Barish, and I just I started working with theater producers. And at a certain point, it just became a thing like.

It wasn't an overnight thing, it just, and at a certain point, like my probably my biggest break, was like. In 2008, Nathan Lane agreed to be present my show off Broadway Sleepwalk with me, which is the first one of these. And that was helpful because it like, sort of put me, made people show up and and think it's a piece of theater. As opposed to just writing it off as stand to have every little to have.

He's a gold standard. And so for Nathan Lane to say, you all need to pay attention to Mike Biglia. I mean, to give yourself credit, you've also had, you've had a very interesting life, you've had a lot of health issues, and you've been really honest about them. And they're quite dramatic, and these stories you tell are riveting.

I mean, they're really like the highest compliment I can pay to someone. This sounds terrible, but Los Angeles is a very specific place, and theater in L..A. To get to theater in L...A. you need to. It's not like New York where you say, I want to go check out that show, I'm going to walk 15 blocks this way and go see the show.

I heard that you were doing your show and Greg Daniels and I were talking about it. And we decided, let's go down and see Mike Biglia do his do his show. So we we drove to downtown Los Angeles to see your show, and I remember thinking, as I'm driving into downtown L..A. This is commitment.

Because it's like a 40 minute far odyssey, and you feel like it's like Lord of the Rings, like there's different tests along the way. And we lost the ring for a while, but we got it back and we crossed the river. And we, you know? And then finally, we ended up at this wonderful theater and we saw you, and you were worth it, definitely worth it.

Yeah, late night, yeah, because, like, I remember when that happened in the 90s when they were like, and the new host is a writer who you do not know who's replacing.

He's the biggest icon in comedy and Carson's retired. And so it's like, it's Letterman in my world and then.

Imagine them saying in in baseball, you know? Joe Dimaggio is now retiring today. Ladies and gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen. he is leaving the field. forever, forever, forever, forever. goodbye Joe Dimaggio, greatest legend in Yankee history, history, history, history. But don't worry, ladies and gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen. Here comes his replacement, 19 year old Chip Whitley.

And like a bat, a bat boy comes running. I was like, Hi everybody, I'm going to disappoint you for a while, while, while.

Yeah, it's fun to do if you like it. Holly, Yeah, and if you don't, but yeah, yeah.

But it was, it was absolute madness. But it's so funny that you remember that. But like, people that are into our stuff now are like, the podcast, whatever, and people in their 20s, they have no idea.

Yeah, they just think, Oh, you were, you're like Mickey mouse. You were just always around, like, No, no, no, there was a.

There was a time when it was really rough.

It's called the old man in the pool.

And then some people are going to be, if they're going through, you know, sorrow or dealing with deaths of people close to them. Are going to have a bad. It's going to have a bad effect. And it was the opposite, like literally the people who would come up to me, like when I was doing it in L..A. Like, I remember, like, this woman came up to me over the show and she was like. I recently lost some people in my life and I lost my dad and a bunch of people. And and tonight, when I was in the audience, I felt like I was laughing with my dad. And it was like, and genuinely like, I feel like that's the thing about being in my 40s that I did not expect.

First of all, I didn't expect to be doing comedy in my 40s, or somehow, like in my 20s and 30s, even didn't anticipate that it would continue somehow. But I feel like the thing that I've, I've started to realize is like, Oh, it really is about them, it's about the audience, it's about their experience. And it's like, if you can get people to that point. That's why I'm excited that it's on Netflix now. Because it's like, oh, well, maybe it'll have that effect with, you know, hundreds and millions of people who who are able to get to Netflix.

Yeah, because, like my parents, she comes from this Irish storytelling tradition. And I just knew that. I grew up in a similar kind of situation where telling stories and and being able to make something that happened to you funny was sort of just a way of life. It's how you, it's, it's how you grew up. It wasn't even thought of as a as a possible profession, right?

They're like, why would anyone live there? In the middle? Yeah, it's in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, which I love, and I just went back there easily. I love it. But it's also like no one in the town thought show business wasn't a job that anyone even had.

Right, I mean, it was outrageous thought. But yeah, I feel like even when I go home now, it's like, and my mom's a great storyteller. And my my siblings, my two sisters, Gina and Patty, my brother Joe. There were a riot. And, like, the most fun is my wife always comments on. This is is that when I'm home, it's not the dinner, Christmas dinner. That's funny, it's like the eleven twelve at night 1 a..m.

Sitting around the kitchen aisle, kitchen.

Right?

It's so funny, Mulaney. I was last time I was talking to him and I mentioned that my dad is 94 and he said, I think it's. I forget how he said it because his diction is so perfect, his word choice. But he just said, I think it's like something unseemly or silly that a man your age still has his father.

But I go back and see my folks in the same house I grew up in in Brookline. And there's that, there's that round table that's still there, and I'm sitting at that same table. And all that stuff comes back. Which is, oh, this is where I really cut my teeth, this is where I. Everything else has been a refinement of that.

You're just refining and adjusting and and but, but the basic concept of how it all works, yeah, happens around your kitchen table.

That's when it happens, where it happens around that island, and you're right, it happens at 11 o'clock at night, when people are letting their guard down a little bit and telling stories. And you've been able to translate that. I mean, I don't want to give anything away from your show, but you and you can tell me if this is cool to talk about or not.

But you start your show, this one, with a very personal story about something that happened to you, like six years ago.

It tells you how many birthday cakes you have left.

And so I, basically, I did it, and then the doctor's just like, looking at the screen attached, she goes, Go ahead and do it. You know. I was like, I did it, you know? And then basically like, they were like, you have to do cardio five days a week.

I was like, nobody does cardio five days a week, They're like, a lot of people do. I'm like, I don't think professional athletes do cardio five days a week. They're like, professional athletes definitely do cardio five days a week. We talk about this for about 45 minutes.

We agree to disagree. And but it was, you know, it really did. It led me down this rabbit hole of of of different doctor's appointments. And it's a little bit whack-a-mole, where, like you, you fix one thing and then you're drinking too much juice and your blood sugar goes up. I got diagnosed with type two diabetes.

And it's like, kind of a yeah, it's a rollercoaster of things, and it's like, yeah, so the yeah. The show really deals with, like mortality and this idea of like, there's a certain point where you're like, oh, I'm like, I always heard that, that phrase growing up. Like over the hill, that would always be at the Spencer gifts, like, you know, giving people greeting cards.

You were over the hill, I didn't even know what it meant, right? So I get out till I got on the hill. And I'm like, Oh, oh, there's natural causes.

They're not close, but they're coming.

But you start to think, Oh, there's a finite amount of this and we spend so much of our lives, and you can probably relate to this too. Which is, I had I had like a such a big part of my career, where I just felt like I was the new guy. Yes, and then it turned so quickly into my gosh into.

You did a great job, old man. Yeah. And people on the street are like, you know, they're super nice to me, but they act like I've been around as long as they've been alive. Doing foolishness. And so it felt like it flipped very quickly into good job, old man. And I'm thinking, Wait a minute. The part where I was, the young guy trying to prove myself, seemed to go on forever.

Yes, and then it turns very quickly, and I know you've talked about a similar thing.

She goes, I used to watch you in middle school.

How? how are you allowed to be out away from home? How can you be allowed to leave your house?

This child has wandered, you know, are we employing you illegally?

Let me get this straight, you were born while Clinton was president. Yeah, and you're allowed to walk around and in workplaces, but I mean, it's, it's, it is this, it's, it's so wrong.

But yes, and by the way, just shout out to Tamara Tomlinson, who I adore. she is hilarious and fearless.

She walked out and it's a big venue and everything. And she just had, absolutely, she had that thousand yard stare of, Yep, I'm going to go do this now and kill. I was like, Good Lord, yeah.

Remind me to buy stock in Taylor Thompson.

There's no confusion, but we don't say I love you, we say take care.

And we've probably mentioned this before, but you say you come from Worcester, Shrewsbury. That's where my entire family comes from. Yeah, and then my parents when I was just before I was born. Like Mike, they migrate to the Boston area from central Massachusetts.

But really, all my DNA and my whole history is Worcester, Massachusetts, and that's where all my relatives live. That's where I went when I was a kid. We went there on Christmas and Thanksgiving. So you and I are made up of exactly the same stuff.

That's right, only ten dollars a pop.

We had a place in Brookline, which which we all called the Tank, and it was a giant, it was, it was a bunch of swimming pools. And man, there's a distinctive body odor mixed with a powerful chlorine. That's probably no longer legal.

Yeah, that removes your skin after three swims, and I remember that quite well.

But she was. We were at this place called Urban Air, which is like one one of these places where there's like a hundred trampolines in, like a warehouse. Yeah, and then you walk in and they make you sign a release form. That's about, you know, you know, we have 40 pages long.

And it's just like, and your daughter will break her foot and you're like, Mike Birbiglia, you know, and there will be many injuries sustained. Mike Birbiglia, You know, you may not make it out alive, Mike Birbiglia, You know? And and then we go in, and then, sure enough, you know, breaks your foot and it's, it's, and I'm not.

And of course, now she broke it, she did the thing that you. It seems obvious someone's going to get hurt. This is crazy, right?

But now I can't sue, but I can talk about it comedically on podcasts.

I don't, I. Of course, they should be a business. That's the, you know, it's urban. Air is dangerous for all participants, which is a joke I'm working on, of course, of course, it should be safe for all participants.

I'm sure it is.

He owns us all, Adam Sachs.

But it was, but it was all Michael Cera and No. George Steinbrenner Second day in a row. You've called him Michael Cera. So yeah, I don't know what I've done, you know my haircut, you know what it is, I'm rewatching with my son.

We rewatch and rewatch, and rewatch Arrested Development because I want my. I always wanted my son to watch the very best comedic stuff and we he started watching Arrested Development. And we always watch it over and over and over again. And we do it, and we've been doing it a lot lately. And I've been looking at Michael Cera in that show and thinking, Oh my god, it's Adam Sachs.

How's it going? It's going great. OK, this is like, this is exactly what the podcast should be. Yeah, this is not always is, but it should be.

This is what the podcast should be, and often is, but not always.

But not that we have to.

So first of all, you need some stuff to happen to you, right? Do you need me to, like, shoot you in the shoulder, which we get? you need me to shoot you in the shoulder?

Oh, come on, you're going to kill him, what? oh, 50, 50 chance he gets killed, but you get a ton of material.

OK, so I come on at the end of the show and we hug. That's a big show, by the way.

If you do that, I want to pop into some of those shows. I would love to have you do that, I would love it.

And you have to deal with this all the time. This is the bane of your existence. There's a generation of U.S. comedians who view you as the Buddha of comedy.

You're the you know, you're. Thank you very much.

And it's nice. What a little, what a fucking is, how much joy is how much I idolize.

I'm just I can't, I can't be that person.

That's so cruel that my wife Jenny loves, which is the whole impression he goes.

But it was my car.

That's the whole impression. It's not that I say, it's nothing I've said in any joke, but it was my car. Bill is just beyond. He's on another planet, yeah.

Funny.

You're, you're around these people who have a superpower, that that they'll notice something. The slightest, yeah, the slight. I misspoke slightly, or I had this little tick and they're like, Ah, delicious.

Yeah, you're like that. Yeah, you are like that. not at all. Oh, moving on.

Not at all, not at all. And I love you.

And they said, there isn't, but there's an improv group, I don't know what that is, and I auditioned, I got in.

And when I got in, I was like, Oh, these are ten people who are like that, who are just like. We're going to make fun of everything, we're going to do impressions of everything, we're going to be very annoying, but also kind of amazing. And those are like some of my closest friends to this day.

I don't know.

What do you mean, you don't know?

All right.

That was good.

So do I? You always have to go to the bathroom? That's what we would first say, OK, but then let's say it's after that, and we're just sitting here, OK.

Get a quick snack Yes, you guys get snacks. I'm trying to get us past that, the part where we talk about Mike Birbiglia.

OK, oh wow, what'd you guys think? Well, I really liked him because he had a team snow in a mug and he had questions for us. Just that's why I really liked it, because he had me at the beginning.

That felt like, and now I'm supposed to text him again and trust him when I'm in Brooklyn. No, how am I? How am I supposed to trust him now that he doesn't? Then go on Stern or some other daily beast.

Hey, you fucking killed it.

Have it play twice in one podcast? Yeah, so no killer, killer. Thanks so much, but you're going for sure now, right?

Do you mind if I walk you out and then lock the door?

Hey guys, I left my glasses. you weren't even wearing glasses, I know, I just I thought I should start. That's a thirty five thousand dollar door.

I'm going to make this for real, can you for real?

Let me give you this you get back in here, one bean, one bag of dust.

Are you putting the door back on or are you taking it off? I came through the ceiling.

Take it away, Jimmy.

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