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My name is Lee Hawkins.
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I ve been a journalist for over 25 years.
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On my new podcast, What Happened in Alabama, I get answers to some of the hardest questions about how things came to be for many black Americans and the truth that must come before any reconciliation can happen.
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I investigate my family history, my upbringing in Minnesota, and my father s painful nightmares about growing up in Alabama.
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What Happened in Alabama is a new series confronting the cycles of trauma for myself, my family, and for many Black Americans.
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Listen now.
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Hi listeners, I got this note from Tammy that I d like to share.
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Tammy writes, hi Tig, I m a high school Spanish teacher and I m always telling students to make mistakes with confidence so they can learn to their fullest.
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Today I was listening to your podcast with Ira Glass and loved what you said about mistakes so much that I made it into a poster to put in my classroom.
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Thanks for helping me to inspire my students.
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So apparently I said, even if you don t know anything, your passion to learn is not going to be mistaken for stupidity.
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Well, Tammy, I m glad that stuck out to you because
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I have no recollection of saying that, but I m thrilled to hear that it s now a poster.
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I have to agree with you.
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It s a pretty good quote.
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Good ear.
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I ll share this on social media and everybody can enjoy Tammy s poster.
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Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday.
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And speaking of holidays, if you re in search of a gift, treat yourself or your loved ones to tickets to my show.
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I m going on tour, a national tour.
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I ll be in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Columbus, Boston, DC, Philadelphia,
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Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, New Orleans, Chicago, Madison, New York City, and Ithaca, among many other cities.
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Go to TigNotaro.com, and I will see you out on the road.
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And now, on with the show.
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The thing I can t get over in your latest special is how many times your life was in danger and you were on stage.
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And you think it ended there at the end of that special?
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I know.
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I m embarrassed to tell more stories.
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I figured.
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This is Don t Ask Tig.
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I m Tig Notaro, forever leery of your queries.
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Joining me today is a very funny stand-up comedian who s been telling jokes on stage for over 20 years.
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He s a regular on Late Night.
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He even had a cameo in the movie Joker as a stand-up comedian.
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His most recent standup special is The Great Depress, and you can find it on HBO.
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Gary Gullman, it is a pleasure to have you on the show.
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Yes, it s a pleasure to be on and also to see you.
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I think the last time we saw each other was in a Just for Laughs performance.
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Yeah, like backstage.
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In Toronto, yes.
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When was that, like 10 years ago?
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Between seven and 10 years ago, I bet.
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Yeah.
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So let s say eight and a half.
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Yes.
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So your latest special, The Great Depression, focused on depression and how it affected your life.
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And what is the relationship between comedy and depression?
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That s interesting because I love to discuss that with other thoughtful comedians.
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So I guess I will
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I hate to do this, answer a question with a question.
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Do you think that we are more likely to have mental illness or anxiety or depression, or do you think that we are just more likely to be open and talk about it?
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Yes.
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Everybody loves to make it like comedians are miserable, they re depressed, they re
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crazy, they re dark, they re all of these things.
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And then they ll take it to, it s artists.
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Artists are tortured people and musicians.
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They re this.
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And it s like, no, they re the ones expressing themselves publicly.
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Yes, thank you.
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And I think it s so unfair for people to put that on comedians or comedians to put that on themselves.
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And I always say, knock on your neighbor s door and tell me if they re not dealing with depression, they re not dealing with anxiety, your mail carrier, depressed, anxiety, all of the medications being prescribed.
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It s not all to comedians.
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It s insane.
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There s billions of people on medication.
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Yes.
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And there s not billions of comedians.
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Yes, and I think it s harmful because a lot of comedians I know think, well, the reason I m funny, the reason I have stories is because I m depressed.
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I don t want to mess with it.
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I don t want to change it.
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It s so foolish.
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I can t stand it.
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There s so much mythology around the tortured artist and the suffering.
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I like to tell people, if you re suffering, put aside your art.
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Let your art suffer for you instead of the other way around.
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It s like people thinking that rock stars die in plane crashes.
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That s a great analogy.
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If you logged every dentist that died in a plane crash, you would start to be like, oh my God, dentists always die in plane crashes.
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Yes, yes.
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And it s just not true.
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It s the romanticized, like, I don t know why it s romanticized that rock stars die in plane crashes, but other people do too.
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So many comedians talk about being depressed.
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It s the cause of being a comedian.
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And it s just not true.
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And I wish that people who were depressed could get that kind of antidepressant of expressing yourself and getting laughs and being on stage.
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Because I think that s the other thing that we re drawn early on in life to that antidepressant, which is getting a laugh or laughing with people.
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And we just take it and make it a profession.
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Oh, for sure.
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Yeah.
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So what about through COVID and the pandemic?
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Because obviously that s affected a lot of people and their state of mind.
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And how have you been doing?
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And do you have advice for people that are struggling?
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Yes, I recognized, thank goodness, right away, that this was a huge potential pitfall for me.
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And so I went back to my list of things that I did to get out of my depression, which involved
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exercise, initially moderate and then more intense, like there were long walks and just walking my dogs and that was very helpful, but also just reaching out to friends, even talking to them on the phone, and then making sure that my medicine had refills and
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I spoke with my doctor about potentially, if necessary, increasing dosages because I had done that once when I lost one of my dogs and that was very helpful.
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And then I started doing phone therapy on a weekly basis.
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And I had a purpose during the pandemic, which was I have a book deal, so I ve been writing a memoir.
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So at least I had something every day where I had to put in some work.
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And sometimes it was just work and trying to find everything else to do besides write.
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The procrastination can really drive me bonkers.
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But I will say the trick to that was to set my timer for 18 minutes.
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And I said, just write for 18 minutes.
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And if you don t feel like writing anymore, you can stop.
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And invariably, I would continue and just keep repeating
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Why 18 minutes?
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I m superstitious.
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I found that 2018 was a really lucky year for me.
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And so I keep using the number 18.
0
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But it s also it s connected to Jewish numbers and mysticism.
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And I don t know how many bar mitzvahs or bat mitzvahs you ve been to over the years, but people will a lot of times give monetary gifts in
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factors of 18.
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So, it would take us the rest of the podcast to explain this Meshugganah habit, but it s based on the superstitiousness of Jews, really.
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Okay.
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Well, I think that this is worth going extra long to hear all about.
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I assure you it won t be.
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Yes.
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Settle in, everyone.
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Let s hear about the number 18.
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Now, you ve been a college scholarship football player.
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Right.
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I got a scholarship to play football at Boston College.
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But the issue was that I was only athletic.
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I didn t really have that mindset of a dominating killer instinct laden
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teenager, so I was just overmatched from the get-go.
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And I did not fit in with those guys.
0
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And it was something that I kept to myself until the This American Life people called me and asked me if I had a story.
0
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And I said, well, I played college football and it was a disaster.
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And they liked this story because I only played one year of high school football.
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And
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The thing I learned from that, and it overlaps with the Great Depression, was that this thing that I had kept to myself because I was so embarrassed by my failure, people were so interested in and thought it was a very compelling story.
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This thing I was so ashamed of turned out to be something that people embraced.
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It was such a great lesson that unfortunately, I didn t learn until I was like 48 years old.
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Isn t that insane how that happens?
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Yeah.
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And then what about your days as an accountant?
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Oh, I mean, you re all over the place.
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Yeah, that was basically I went to college and the football thing didn t work.
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And I knew that there were some kids in my school who were getting jobs right out of college and they were accounting majors.
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So I became an accounting major because I thought I ll at least I ll have a
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job.
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And for the next three years, I tried to reconcile how it was meaningful to be an accountant.
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And then as I finished my senior year of college, I was like, this is just a you re just counting things.
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And you don t really love math.
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You love to write and you love to read and you love comedy.
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So I started to do that.
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But the response from my family, of course, was
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You ll never make a living at it.
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And when I first wanted to do comedy, my mother said, well, start by making us laugh.
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You don t make us laugh.
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And I wanted to go back in time and say, I have evidence of making you laugh.
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I remember things that I said over the years that you laughed at.
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So you re just being gratuitously cruel and trying to suppress this.
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And there are still moments where I want to, in front of everybody, tell that story and call her out.
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And why don t you?
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Because I heard Bruce Springsteen saying that his mother and father wanted him to be either a lawyer or a writer.
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And he said it at a concert and they were there.
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And I thought that could make my mother really uncomfortable.
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And it might backfire because the thing about my mother is that as as mean as she can be, she s incredibly charismatic and charming.
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So people will always take her side.
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My stepfather was interviewed for this documentary that they did about me on Netflix.
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And actually, I don t know if this ended up in the documentary or if it s just a moment I remember, but it s the funniest thing in the world.
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They re interviewing him and asking him about me as a child and being funny as a kid.
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And he was like, I don t remember her being funny.
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And meanwhile, I was the class clown.
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I was like mischievous.
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I was like making everybody laugh.
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Like that s how disconnected we were.
0
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And to be fair, there are plenty of people that see me now and still don t recognize anything I m doing as being funny.
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So I don t take any offense to that.
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But yeah, it s funny when you have to go back and try and prove or like, remember, I would do this and make funny faces.
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Yeah, it makes me admire the comedians you see who you know that their parents could never have really understood their comedy because it was too avant garde like like Andy Kaufman.
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type of comedians where it would be understandable that most of the audience is not getting them and the family just doesn t understand what they re doing and they still persevere.
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You know what would be the most incredible documentary to see is all of the avant-garde comedians that didn t make it, that nobody ever understood.
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I mean, fibbly.
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Yeah.
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So your mother s voice, you ve said, is always in your head.
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And it sounds like she can be, you know, kind of difficult in ways or you called her mean.
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I m not going to cut that.
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You know, it s like you can call your mother anything you want.
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Right.
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Right.
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Right.
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You don t call someone else s mother anything.
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But does she ever give good advice?
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She always told me to go to things for an hour, and if you re not having a good time, you can come home.
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And I really think it doesn t have to be an hour, but that s the arbitrary time she chose, but go for an hour.
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And I look back on so many things in my life where I say, it was really a good idea to go for an hour because I wound up having a good time and I wasn t going to go at all.
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And there are some times I only stay for the hour and I m proud of myself for getting out.
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But I really felt that without that sort of advice, I think I would have isolated even more, especially when I was depressed.
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I always tell people that s a really important thing when you re depressed, you re tending towards staying inside.
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And it s really helpful just for 10 minutes or five minutes to get out.
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And even if you see people you don t know, I find those little interactions at the coffee shop, they lighten me.
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I really believe that.
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Well, yeah, it kind of goes back to what you re saying about writing.
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You just write for 18 minutes, just go out for an hour.
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You have to show up for things.
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Totally.
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And more times than not, you end up getting something out of it.
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Yeah.
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So listen, Gary.
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We haven t even started to give advice.
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Are you good at giving advice?
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I think I m pretty good.
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I m practiced at giving advice because I don t know if this happened with you after you re opening up about yourself and getting through things that a lot of people reach out to me.
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I m pretty thoughtful about the advice and a lot of times the advice can just be that you should stop doing that.
0
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or ask somebody else.
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First up, we have a listener who followed in your footsteps and is currently a college athlete.
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Elliot writes, I m a successful college athlete at a small university in Oregon, but my grades are horrible.
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There are so many variables pulling me in all directions.
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I can t decide on the best option for me.
0
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COVID canceled my senior season, so I could either stay a fifth year and pray to the gods I can get enough good grades to play and graduate a year from now,
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Or I just finish school this spring and leave my team behind and pray to the gods that I graduate.
0
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Or I quit all this crazy online COVID volleyball charade and drop out for a while until my mind is right enough to finish later, although no one around me thinks I would actually come back to finish.
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All options seem equally hard and annoying to me, all for their own reasons.
0
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Gary, fix Elliot.
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Wow.
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I went through the same thing.
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It was my freshman year of college, and I didn t have the grade issue, but I might as well have because I was concerned about dropping out because I didn t want to play football anymore.
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And I never thought to myself, what do I want to do?
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I only thought, what should I do?
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So I would
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I think Elliot should ask himself that.
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What would make him happiest?
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The idea that you ll never go back went through my head a lot.
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I thought if I drop out now, I will never go back.
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But I had the same thought when I stopped doing comedy for a few months to address my depression and my suicidal ideation.
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And I fixed my brain and went back and thrived.
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And I wonder if Elliot can get his head together outside of school better.
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But the good thing about going to school is that a lot of times they have a good therapy department and you can work through things through that.
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So I think that might be helpful to have a professional s opinion on this, but to
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Dismiss the idea of stopping for a while because you re afraid you ll never come back, I think is sort of betting against yourself and not believing in yourself.
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And I also want to say that I understand how difficult it is to get even average grades while playing a sport in college.
0
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The time commitment is enormous and there are kids who only have to worry about school
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and they re having a hard time getting good grades.
0
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So it s doubly, triply hard to do that while playing a sport.
0
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It s like having a full-time job that also makes you exhausted.
0
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And a lot of times, there s also the confidence issue with sports, where you feel down after a game or a practice, and maybe you re not thriving in that area.
0
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I know the two work against each other.
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So I don t know whether that answers Elliot s question, or what do you think?
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I mean, I think you re essentially just saying like, it s okay to take time off, right?
1
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And I also think that there s something to, if you really think about it or you sit with yourself, you know the answer.
1
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And trusting that is kind of key.
1
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And I feel like Elliot knows he maybe should step away or it s okay.
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I didn t have extremely wise parents.
1
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I had kind parents, but I don t think they have that professional training to really guide a teenager or however old Elliot is.
1
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I think if he hasn t already, it might be helpful to consult a therapist on campus or a wise professor or an advisor.
1
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I know that I originally got sent to therapy when I was in college by the man
1
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who basically his job was to help the athletes stay eligible.
1
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But he did so much more than that.
1
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I mean, he arranged tutors and provided extra time for certain people.
1
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So it was very helpful.
1
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So maybe there s somebody involved with the athletic program like that who could
1
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help Elliot.
1
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There are older people who find Elliot in the world.
1
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Elliot is a thoughtful athlete and want to help them.
1
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I mean, I don t know him, but just the fact that he s a fan of yours means that he s not a meathead athlete.
1
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He s a thoughtful person with some empathy and kindness in him.
1
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So that is my advice.
1
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The intersection of meatheads and Tig Notaro fans is very narrow.
1
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There s a few that would surprise you.
1
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Really?
1
That pop up out there.
1
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There s a few.
1
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There s a few.
1
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We can talk about that another time.
1
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Elliot, Gary and I are rooting for you.
1
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Yeah.
1
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Whether you re playing volleyball or not.
1
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Yeah.
1
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We re behind you.
1
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Yeah.
1
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And just to clarify, the majority of my fan base is tremendous.
1
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I m sure you love yours as well.
1
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I really do.
1
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I m so grateful for them.
1
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Gary, don t go anywhere.
1
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We ll be right back with more questions after the break.
1
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And we re back.
1
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Gary Gullman.
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This next one is from a concerned parent.
1
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Eliza writes, My 11-year-old daughter, who s a huge fan of yours, Tig, has been making people belly laugh since before she could speak.
1
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She also struggles with ADHD, OCD, and she hates school and experiences a lot of anxiety around learning.
1
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My questions for you are, what was school and learning like for you?
1
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Do you know other comedians who struggled in school, maybe never, quote unquote, made it in comedy, but still managed to find fulfilling lives?
1
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School was a living hell for me.
1
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I truly failed three grades and then dropped out of high school.
1
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And I have a seventh grade education.
1
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That is the last year that I graduated
1
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And I still found my way.
1
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So I have hope for people.
1
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And I also see so many comedians that do find happiness and success, whether they become writers or actors.
1
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I had a friend that was like, actually doing pretty well in comedy.
1
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And he was like, I want to be married with kids and live in the suburbs and just have a job.
1
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And so it s like so hard to predict what people are going to want, where they re going to go.
1
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You know what I mean?
1
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Yes.
1
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I just think that being supportive and encouraging, of course, always is the best answer and to be present and available.
1
SPEAKER_01
But do you have any particular thoughts or feelings about that, Gary?
1
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Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I would use to predict the daughter s success is that she clearly has a mother who cares about her and knows who her favorite comedian is and knows what she s dealing with in school.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s interesting because I m writing this memoir that s called K Through 12, and it s all about my experience in grade school and high school, and it was...
1
SPEAKER_00
torture it really I had so much anxiety going to school and I didn t have ADHD so that makes it even even worse but I was very anxious and depressed but I didn t have a mother who was aware or understood what was going on and I had a father my father didn t live with us so it was very challenging but I will say that the daughter s humor and also again
1
SPEAKER_00
These questions are sort of self-selecting because these are people who get signataro.
1
SPEAKER_00
Your daughter is obviously a pretty intelligent 11-year-old to understand because these are adult comedy shows that are predicated on knowing some things about life and the world and having some wisdom.
1
SPEAKER_00
I would predict that your daughter will be fine.
1
SPEAKER_00
And there s never been a better time to have ADHD and there are treatments and strategies.
1
SPEAKER_00
And our friend Todd Glass had dyslexia.
1
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And he is very successful as a comedian and very happy as a human.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so I don t know that she necessarily has to become a comedian, but there are so many other areas in terms of expressing yourself and making people laugh that are open to us as they never have been before.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, it s like what you re saying.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
With writing a book.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
I feel like 11 is the prime age to write a joke book.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yes, yes, or just keep a journal.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, yeah, I don t know.
1
SPEAKER_01
My son is five.
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And he s writing.
1
SPEAKER_01
He s writing jokes.
1
SPEAKER_01
He loves jokes.
1
SPEAKER_01
Is he the oldest?
1
SPEAKER_01
They re twins.
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s okay.
1
SPEAKER_00
So that s the last time I saw you.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we re infants.
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh, okay.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, there you go.
1
SPEAKER_01
We found out how long it s been.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s not at all when we thought it was.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but he loves he loves jokes.
1
SPEAKER_01
He loves jokes.
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SPEAKER_01
And you tell me what you think about this joke.
1
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_01
Where does an ant sleep?
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SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, I immediately said, in an ant bed.
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SPEAKER_01
And he said, what s an ant bed?
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SPEAKER_01
And so did my wife.
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SPEAKER_01
She said, what s an ant bed?
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I was like, it s the little hill that the ants live in.
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SPEAKER_01
That s the answer.
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No, my son was like, no, it s on a napkin.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, oh, I like that.
1
SPEAKER_00
He s five.
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SPEAKER_00
I like that.
1
SPEAKER_01
He s five, but right.
1
SPEAKER_01
But the answer should be in an ant bed.
1
SPEAKER_00
No, it should be, and I m picturing an ant bed, and it s adorable.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but you know what an ant bed is, right?
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SPEAKER_01
Yes.
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SPEAKER_01
The little hill?
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, the ant hill, yeah, yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
It s called an ant bed.
1
SPEAKER_00
Right, but maybe he knows it as an ant hill, so that s what confused him.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s probably what it was.
1
SPEAKER_01
Eliza, you clearly care deeply about your daughter, and she s lucky to have you as a parent.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
1
SPEAKER_01
We re gonna take a quick break to answer a question that came in our therapy etiquette inbox.
1
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This segment is where we answer those awkward questions we all have as people getting the professional help we need and deserve and is sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy.
1
SPEAKER_01
From Anonymous, hi Tig, my partner of about nine months is super rad, but we don t have the greatest communication.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mentioned a few weeks back that I wanted to meet his family, he has met mine, and he said he understood, but he hadn t seen them, so it wasn t as if he was keeping me from them.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, yesterday he saw them and I wasn t invited.
1
SPEAKER_01
When I try to break up with him, citing our poor communication, he insists he wants to work it out and he wants to be with me and he can do better.
1
SPEAKER_01
But it s not getting better.
1
SPEAKER_01
I love this guy so much, but sometimes he makes me facepalm straight down into my overpriced tacos.
1
SPEAKER_01
I suggested we go talk to a counselor to help build better communication skills, and he said he d think about it, but that it didn t sound like something he d enjoy very much.
1
SPEAKER_01
And he hasn t brought it back up to me.
1
SPEAKER_01
Everything is further complicated because I m a single mom to a young kid, and I m not getting any younger, and I just feel like time s a-wastin .
1
SPEAKER_01
At my last gyno appointment, the nurse alluded to my age and menopause, and I found it all quite morbid and chilling.
1
SPEAKER_01
For context, I m 34.
1
SPEAKER_01
For goodness sake, what should I do?
1
SPEAKER_01
Thanks, Tig.
1
SPEAKER_01
Love you.
1
SPEAKER_01
Dear Anonymous, it sounds like you re running into a wall with this guy and that you ve been pretty clear about all the things that really matter to you without any sort of real changes in behavior.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it seems like you want to break up but can t.
1
SPEAKER_01
Am I right?
1
SPEAKER_01
Here s an honest question.
1
SPEAKER_01
Is this about getting everyone to counseling with consent or figuring out if it s time to split up?
1
SPEAKER_01
If this is about getting to counseling, maybe ask, hey, it s important that we find a counselor and that you really are on board and want to go too.
1
SPEAKER_01
Can you find a couple of names of people you d be interested in meeting as we find someone?
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, make it a concrete plan, one that s actionable.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it also doubles as a litmus test.
1
SPEAKER_01
Are you going to take the time to work on us or have you decided that you won t?
1
SPEAKER_01
I just wanted to paraphrase something you said yourself.
1
SPEAKER_01
None of us are getting any younger.
1
SPEAKER_01
One way I interpret that for you is that you deserve to be in a relationship where you feel heard and that you re making progress on your challenges.
1
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes that can happen through mutual work, and sometimes that happens after we ve decided to move on.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s sad, I know.
1
SPEAKER_01
Or it could be happy.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
1
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I hope it s been helpful to hear what I m saying, or at least somewhat reassuring.
1
SPEAKER_01
Thanks to our sponsor, BetterHelp.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now let s get back to our conversation with the incredible Gary Gullman.
1
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Gary, we have one last listener question.
1
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Okay.
1
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Laura writes, I ve been lifelong friends with Wendy and she and her husband are constantly asking if their four-year-old can have a play date with my three-year-old.
1
SPEAKER_01
This issue is that their kid is a nightmare.
1
SPEAKER_01
My kid says she s a bully and she is.
1
SPEAKER_01
She s always putting my kid down, saying mean and inappropriate things to her, just being an unpleasant person.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to be around her and I don t want my kid to be around her.
1
SPEAKER_01
I can only feign busy for so long, especially in COVID times when no one s doing anything.
1
SPEAKER_01
Should I talk to my friends about it?
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to offend them.
1
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I feel like I need to stand up for my child.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t want another play date ending in tears.
1
SPEAKER_01
Here s the unfortunate thing.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m very sad that this is happening, and I will say out of the gate, yes, you should talk to your friends, but it sounds like it s that whole thing of likely this child, this four-year-old, your friend s kid, there s probably something going on if she s that much of a nightmare or bully or
1
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putting your kid down, you know, there might be something traumatic going on in this four-year-old s life.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I know it might be hard to see that or care because she s hurt your child and made your life miserable, but I feel like talking to the parents might bring a better understanding and maybe
1
SPEAKER_01
very gently bring up, is there maybe something going on or is she learning something at school or playing with somebody else or is somebody being mean to her elsewhere?
1
SPEAKER_01
Whether it s a kid or a parent, I don t know, but I feel like you have to gently bring this up.
1
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And I think gently bringing it up will inevitably bring up a big conversation or shut it down, in which case,
1
SPEAKER_01
It might not be the friendship that you think you have or that you can have with these people, but that s what I feel and that s what I think.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I agree with that.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I mean, I m not a parent, but I ve been a kid.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I just know that it s so interesting because there were so many times where I would just go over to people s house and there would be people there who were like older kids.
1
SPEAKER_00
They were like sadistic.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I d never even mentioned it to my
1
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to my mother.
1
SPEAKER_00
I don t want to go over there and I never say, well, it s because they take my arm and they put it behind my back until it really hurts.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I think it s great that the parent is aware of what s going on and the child is communicating.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that s so great.
1
SPEAKER_00
But I think that s really good advice to talk to the parents, because maybe they are unaware.
1
SPEAKER_00
And you re right.
1
SPEAKER_00
There may be somebody in that child s life who is
1
SPEAKER_00
is teaching them that type of behavior or is bullying them.
1
SPEAKER_00
It could even be a sibling.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
Right.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
So, Laura, that s our advice.
1
SPEAKER_01
And Gary, what is the best advice you ve ever received?
1
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
1
SPEAKER_00
I would say my therapist in college, I was in the midst of my first
1
SPEAKER_00
adult relationship with a woman.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I said, I don t, I don t understand.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I was so foolish.
1
SPEAKER_00
I said, I don t understand women.
1
SPEAKER_00
How can you, how do you figure them out?
1
SPEAKER_00
And he said, he said one at a time, one at a time.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I thought that was, that was in its, in its brevity, it was so efficient.
1
SPEAKER_00
He was saying, yeah, they re human beings.
1
SPEAKER_00
You just, you re not going to find a rule for,
1
SPEAKER_00
But there s not an answer.
1
SPEAKER_00
At 19 years old, I was like, there s got to be some code to figuring out people.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I just thought that was that that prepared me for the search for the most important thing really in my life, which is an adult relationship.
1
SPEAKER_00
And and also didn t didn t make me susceptible to the type of here s how you treat women, kid.
1
SPEAKER_00
You got to you got to go out there and you got to be the boss or else they don t
1
SPEAKER_01
Or you just got to let them gripe and gripe.
1
SPEAKER_01
Just let them go.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it s just, uh, it was really good advice that I treasure to this day.
1
SPEAKER_00
It was, it was at the, it was the right, I mean, the other thing about great advice is it has to come at the right time.
1
SPEAKER_00
If it had happened when I was 11 or if it happened when I was in my thirties, it would have been too early or too late.
1
SPEAKER_00
So.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
And what about the worst advice?
1
SPEAKER_00
The worst advice, I remember this manager, when I first came to New York, I went on stage and I bombed.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it was one of those bombs where you re walking, or maybe this doesn t happen to everybody, but you are in kind of a daze afterwards, and everything leading up to this moment is just...
1
SPEAKER_00
I finished so short with the amount of material that usually lasted me 10 minutes that for three minutes I had nothing to say until the host came back from having a cigarette.
1
SPEAKER_00
I had run out of jokes and nothing that I had said already worked, so I was going into the stuff that wasn t good enough to not work.
1
SPEAKER_00
Anyhow, the manager afterwards, he said,
1
SPEAKER_00
You should go back to Boston and hide out for a couple of years.
1
SPEAKER_00
This whole thing where you re anxious and you re not comfortable with yourself, you should abandon that because nobody s buying it.
1
SPEAKER_00
You know that thing where you re you?
1
SPEAKER_00
You should stop being you.
1
SPEAKER_00
Get out now.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
And go back to Boston, figure it out.
1
SPEAKER_00
And another comedian talked me out of abandoning New York City.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I stayed and everything worked out.
1
SPEAKER_00
But I remember that was the worst advice.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it would have cost me everything to have taken that advice.
1
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I ve had many, many pieces of advice along the way that I could have taken.
1
SPEAKER_01
The special where I, you know, mentioned that I had cancer and everything.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I had been told by two people that I respected and was so close to.
1
SPEAKER_01
And they were just looking out for me.
1
SPEAKER_01
Because they were like, just you ve been through a lot.
1
SPEAKER_01
Don t go on stage and talk about that.
1
SPEAKER_01
Just do something light.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I think
1
SPEAKER_01
you ll feel better.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I m, I was like, I couldn t get it out of my head.
1
SPEAKER_01
I was like, I can t talk about anything else.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m like, yeah, dying.
1
SPEAKER_01
Right?
1
SPEAKER_01
You know?
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
And, and I can t just be like, knock, knock.
1
SPEAKER_00
Right, right.
1
SPEAKER_00
You have this opportunity to be the ultimate authenticity.
1
SPEAKER_00
And, and yeah, that would have been terrible advice.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, they they truly were just my, you know, they cared about me.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that s what they thought would be best.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I, you know, I it s it goes back to that idea of, of
1
SPEAKER_01
You know what you re supposed to do a lot of times.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
But Gary, now we re finally at the end of the show.
1
SPEAKER_01
Darn it.
1
SPEAKER_01
This has been so nice talking to you.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s been a pleasure.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I hope we get to connect the next time I m in LA or you re in New York City or we we cross paths.
1
SPEAKER_01
Thank you for spending your time with me today.
1
SPEAKER_01
And do you have anything that you want to let people know about?
1
SPEAKER_00
I m headlining at Carnegie Hall as part of the New York Comedy Festival.
1
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if this will air before then, but if it does, you can see me there or you can say, hey, that guy was at Carnegie Hall.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, congrats to you.
1
SPEAKER_01
I hope your mother comes and that she she gets it.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s the first venue I ve mentioned that she had heard of.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I m very excited.
1
SPEAKER_00
She d never heard of side splitters in Tampa.
2
SPEAKER_02
I was about to say side splitters.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s hilarious.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
And you know, like the owner of side splitters is listening to this going, well, I m sure they re not, but if they were, they were like, uh, no, they re not.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s not, that s not funny.
2
SPEAKER_02
What s so fun.
2
SPEAKER_02
What s so funny about the size?
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
We split your sides here.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
All right.
2
SPEAKER_02
It was great to see you.
2
SPEAKER_02
Thanks again.
2
SPEAKER_02
Same here.
2
SPEAKER_02
Thanks for including me in this.
2
SPEAKER_02
This is such a great show.
2
SPEAKER_02
Of course.
2
SPEAKER_03
Thank you.
2
SPEAKER_02
Bye Tig.
2
SPEAKER_03
Bye.
2
SPEAKER_03
And don t forget to go to TigNotaro.com to get your tickets to my national tour, as well as some Canadian dates.
2
SPEAKER_03
So see you there.
2
SPEAKER_04
There s so much I want you to see.
2
SPEAKER_04
I wish that I could give you the answers.
2
SPEAKER_04
I wish that I could make you believe.
2
SPEAKER_04
I wish that I could put you on your path and set you free.
2
SPEAKER_04
That s what you ll have.
2
SPEAKER_03
Don t Ask Tig is hosted by me, Tig Notaro.
2
SPEAKER_03
It s produced by Thomas Ouellette, Shana Deloria, and Ryan Lohr.
2
SPEAKER_03
Our executive producer and editor is Beth Perlman.
2
SPEAKER_03
Engineering and sound mixing by Johnny Vince Evans and Eric Romani.
2
SPEAKER_03
Digital production by James Napoli.
2
SPEAKER_03
Talent booking by Marianne Ways.
2
SPEAKER_03
Production support from Pizza Shark and Dan LaTue.
2
SPEAKER_03
Our theme music is Friend and Tig by Edie Burkell and Kyle Crusham, and Listen to Your Heart by Edie Burkell.
2
SPEAKER_03
Special thanks to Hunter Seidman.
2
SPEAKER_03
APM Studios executives in charge are Lily Kim, Alex Shaffert, and Joanne Griffith.
2
SPEAKER_03
Concept developed by Tracy Mumford.
2
SPEAKER_03
Our executive consultant is Dean Capello and Gobsmack Studios.
2
SPEAKER_03
You can always ask for advice at DontAskTig.org.
2
SPEAKER_03
Just write in with your problem or send us a voice memo.
2
SPEAKER_03
Remember to follow us on social media at DontAskTig.
2
SPEAKER_03
DontAskTig is a production of American Public Media.
2
SPEAKER_03
And as always, thanks, Dana, and I ll tell Becky.
2
SPEAKER_01
A six billion dollar con.
2
SPEAKER_00
It didn t take long for it to spread like wildfire.
2
SPEAKER_00
You got to take a look at this really crazy gold stock.
2
SPEAKER_00
A buddy of mine got in at a dime.
2
SPEAKER_01
Which destroyed lives and devastated communities.
2
SPEAKER_00
Every little town across the nation, people have shares in this.
2
SPEAKER_01
We lost everything.
2
SPEAKER_01
And to date, no one has been brought to justice.
2
SPEAKER_00
Somebody knows more than we know.
2
SPEAKER_01
The $6 billion gold scam from the BBC World Service and CBC.
2
SPEAKER_01
Search for the $6 billion gold scam wherever you get your podcasts.