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Every year, a million people commit suicide.
A million!
That's 2,800 a day.
That's one every 30 seconds.
There goes another guy!
Does anyone have drugs to ease my pain?
My kingdom for a Quaalude.
Do you know how hard it is
to get a doctor to write you a prescription
for a pill you don't need?
It's not hard.
I love my parents so much,
I lost my dad.
I didn't lose him.
I mean, I know where he's at right now.
I've never really thought of myself
as depressed as much as paralyzed by hope.
That's what your 30s is all about;
"How can I turn this shit around?
I'm a horrible person.
Help me, Tony Robbins, help me."
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
Hi.
Yeah, I think we should all just come and sit down,
and just shoot the shit.
What did they say you'd be doing today?
Just hang out other comedians
and talk about mental health.
I thought that we were gonna be healed
by Neil Patrick Harris.
And then it culminates in a beauty pageant, right?
Why is everybody so cute on this show?
Myself included.
- Camera set. - All right, here we go.
Ready?
All right, looking right at me.
Can we also make it clear this is my living room
and I'm lending it to all the comedians
to be interviewed in?
All right, you guys are rolling on everything?
- Yep. - Okay.
Great.
Quiet please.
Hi.
Hello, everybody.
Hey there, how are ya?
Hi.
Okay, who wants to start?
All right,
here we go.
C mark.
E mark.
I've done five solo autobiographical shows,
and my director, he and I always talk about
how it's crucial that the show is not therapy.
If it becomes therapy,
it loses the point,
'cause in therapy,
you're essentially putting on your therapist...
...your problems, your challenges,
your issues,
with the hope that you're working through them.
And with a show,
you're giving the audience something.
It's actually, in some ways, the opposite,
or it's certainly not the same thing at all.
Ideally, you're providing something to the audience
and not putting it on them.
So who here has struggled
with mental health in their lives?
Yes, oh, wow.
Oh, wow, I was assuming everyone
was gonna raise their hands.
- Yes. - The audience is like,
"We're fine."
You're either very healthy or lying.
Welcome, everybody.
What we are doing here today
is not a comedy show,
although the people that we have invited up
make their living doing stand-up comedy.
The six people who are here
have been able to use the things
that have happened to them in their lives
in effective ways.
And I think what I wanted to do
was have sort of a group therapy discussion.
To be clear, I am not a therapist.
- I was gonna ask, yeah. - Really?
- Unusual. - I am not a stand-up comic.
I am wildly unclear
as to why I am doing this,
moderating.
I think I'm affable.
Yeah.
And we got chosen as the mentally ill comedians
to be in this, yeah.
So it's really a high--
Out of thousands of people --
I know.
They chose us.
From all around the world,
- they chose us. - Yeah,
there's a lot of comedians.
We stuck out.
Oh, I don't know,
but sometimes --I hope I'll eventually answer this question,
but I'm gonna start here, in kindergarten,
announcing to the class
during show and tell that I could --
Here was the thing that was going on
in show and tell when I was five,
the kids were lying.
And so when it became clear
that you weren't being punished for lying,
I was like, "Well, fuck this,
I'm going for it,"
and I said, "I can speak French."
I couldn't really speak French, I could just do a French accent
'cause I had seen Inspector Clouseau
in "The Pink Panther" movies growing up.
My mom would take me to the movie theater.
And we were poor,
so that was like our air conditioning for a summer day.
So I got up in front of the kindergarten kids
and my teacher,
and I said, "Pardon me, monsieur,
do you have a license for your monkey?"
And then everyone laughed,
and I thought, "Oh, I'll do everything I need to
to make this happen again and again."
When was the first time you thought you were funny?
I was never the class clown in school.
I know some people were,
but in my town, I grew up in Massachusetts, like Gary --
the class clown was the mean guy.
- Oh, yeah. - Walks in the room, is like,
"You're fat, you're gay, I'm outta here."
I was always a little fat and a little gay.
I never got along
with that guy. I wasn't class clown.
The first time I ever remember getting attention
was I was probably five,
I remember I actually pulled my pants down
and just shat in our backyard.
So it was physical comedy first or?
So that was the height
of my sophistication.
No, that was prop comedy.
Prop comedy.
When I was a girl,
I liked my insides,
but I didn't like my outsides.
I knew I was, like, sweet and funny
and nice and charming,
but I didn't like how I looked. I didn't like that --
I didn't think I was cool.
It felt like I was auditioning.
Like life was one big audition
and everybody was judging me.
Yeah, that's who I was when I was younger.
I couldn't take a joke.
I was the worst.
All my family were funny
when they'd be roasting each other,
and I'd be crying, like, "Don't say mean things."
And everyone was like, "You need to get a tough skin.
You're eight."
"You need to grow up, we are the Hugheses,
we are a funny family, we make jokes,
this is what we do."
And I'm like, "No, you're teasing me."
And then something transitioned in me,
and I said to my dad,
like, "Dad, I think I'm ready."
And he was like, "Listen,
now, it better be good
if you're bringing it to the table."
And I was like, "I'm bringing a joke to the table."
And I made a joke up when I was eight.
- What was it? - So I was like,
"What'd you call a Rastaman
that wears glasses?
Rasta-four-eye."
And they all went.
"That's pretty good."
And I was in, I told my joke,
and I was funny from then.
I didn't cry when people teased me anymore,
I was in, I was in.
But I also like that they were very angry
about the comedy.
Yeah, 'cause they were like,
- "Listen"... - "Why can't you take
- a joke?" - ..."we're a funny family."
Yes.
"We are the funny Hugheses."
I envy y'all with like,
"Oh, my family's so funny."
It's like, I come from a family of non-laughers.
They're not interested in anything.
My grandma doesn't listen to any music.
She doesn't listen to TV,
nothing, it's just silence in the home.
She just cooks and eats.
And so it's just like,
I really need this is what I'm saying.
Yeah, I don't know if anything my family does
is a typical family dynamic.
In Japan, it was taboo to even be from a family
where, "It's broken," they call it, right?
So, like I was the only kid in my class,
usually, with divorced parents.
How did you develop your sense of humor
if that was your upbringing?
It was from watching TV.
I learned English from "Scooby-Doo."
- And so -- - Wow.
- Zoinks. - Zoinks.
So I was an outcast.
Yeah.
They were like, "What?
- Why does she talk like that?" - But that's probably how
you developed your sense of humor
was because everybody's just cooking and --
Yeah, and then so I was like,
"Is this deadpan comedy?"
And there was like, "Eat," right?
"Eat, please, eat."
"Did you eat? No?
Eat, please, eat, eat,
eat, eat, eat, eat,
eat, eat, eat, eat, eat."
"Did you eat? No? No? I didn't think so, eat, please,
eat, now, eat, eat."
"Did you eat? No? Please, eat, I cook,
eat, now, please."
"Eat, eat, eat, eat, eat. Did you eat? No?
Please, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat.
Did you eat? No? I didn't think so, I cook,
now, eat, please, eat."
"Eat, eat, eat, eat, eat."
And then the next time they see you,
they call you fat.
Hi, Atsuko.
- Hi. - I am home.
Hi.
Hey, hey.
There was confusion and frustration
and a lot of sadness.
I was very sad.
So I was always projecting,
"Well, my grandma's so sad."
My grandma had to raise three kids on her own.
Her husband was murdered when she was 30,
and then her daughter has mental illness and epilepsy,
and doesn't leave the house.
So she still takes care of my mom, her daughter,
at 89 years old. You know.
My grandma raised me,
so I didn't really hang out
with people my age growing up.
Yeah, yeah.
People are always like, "Atsuko, what's wrong with you?"
"Someone 50 years older than me
taught me how to socialize,
okay?"
I think that's the core of my comedy
is wanting other people to feel seen,
to build that camaraderie
so that nobody feels isolated,
um, like I have ever felt. You know.
- Sound speed. - Can I do it?
Okay.
Two camera marks, apples and bananas.
Oh, I forgot, we're doing a documentary.
That was very natural.
I've never been a part
of any group therapy-type situation.
Have you done group therapy?
No, I haven't.
Certainly not with Neil Patrick Harris.
And what is his role? He's --
He's a psychologist.
He's a medical doctor?
- I'm having a hot flash. - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I didn't move to Los Angeles
to become a comedian,
I didn't move to be in entertainment.
My two good friends that I grew up with
were headed out to LA.
I was like, "Well, I guess I'm moving to LA."
In high school, I was um,
I was voted least likely.
I've been running with it ever since.
And I was just very much
the failure in school.
And I failed three grades,
dropped outta high school.
My mother, she was always just wanting to make sure
that I knew the most important thing in life
was to be happy.
Even down to dropping outta high school.
My mother would brag to people.
She's like, "Yeah, Tig dropped out,
she's doing her own thing."
And my own thing,
I had nothing going on.
When I was performing
in dingy, smoky bars in the Dakotas,
she still thought I was
doing cool things.
Do you work here?
Can you hold this?
I loved that my mother was into it.
So I've never had this,
"I'll show everyone back in my hometown
or the people I grew up with,
or my parents, or my mother."
I just have never felt that way at all.
My parents just thought, "You're crazy,
just be a normal person."
My mom just wanted me to have kids, "Just have kids."
You know those pushy parents
that you see in TV shows, "Stage Moms"?
I wish I had a stage mom.
I had a normal mom,
normal dad,
didn't think that anything would happen with my career.
So I was like, "I've gotta take my career
into my own hands."
My parents didn't really do that either.
There was nothing I could do
that would elicit a reaction to be like,
"I'm so proud," or whatever,
especially my dad.
My dad was an engineer at AT&T,
which is, I don't know, science.
When I decided that I wanted to act,
he was like,
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
Who's single except for daddy over here?
You're single, what are you looking for?
A confident dude.
That's it?
Girl, come on, a job?
You're diagnosed with ADHD.
Was that recent?
This was 29 or 30.
I had a friend who was like,
"Hey, you need therapy."
And I was like, "That's pretty rude."
But it turns out she was right.
And I had an assessment,
and she let me talk uninterrupted for
like 10 minutes, and she was like, "It's bad."
It's bad.
Yeah. Things were happening
that I don't know if I could Google,
I don't know if I could put it into words
what was going on in my brain.
I just felt like I was lazy and crazy.
Once I got that diagnosis,
I was like, "Oh my God, I'm not an idiot."
My most magical moment on stage
was my Netflix special.
Aw.
Did you have a monitor with your set list on it?
No.
I wish, oh my God, no.
Little helpful.
I love that for you.
But I was looking to make sure I was on track,
and it was like, "Stop."
"Costumes needs to see you."
And I was like, "Yeah, and stop, costumes."
And I said it out loud, and I went, "Oh,
I think they're trying to tell me to stop."
I often seem very unhinged when I'm performing,
but I think that's just who I am in life.
That's who you are, babes.
My current therapist,
sometimes she's like, "Hey, can we just hold some space
that you will lose your keys twice a week?
Can we just --That's just a thing that's gonna happen.
And yeah, it's frustrating,
but you always find them
and you always get to where you're going, eventually."
Yeah, I think bombing gets easier.
I mean, I don't like it.
No, I hate it.
Bombing in England I'm fine with.
Bombing in America makes me feel sick.
When I bomb in America, I'm like,
"I've let down Richard Pryor,
all the people that have performed on this stage."
There's so much more history to it.
I remember the first time,
it's like, "Do you know how many big names performed here?
And you get your opportunity to perform here,
and you do that, you idiot?"
I find influence is super important.
Did you have any?
I'm here with some of my influences.
- Yeah? - Which is what's so cool
about comedy.
For the most part,
we've been in the trenches together,
so there's camaraderie, yeah.
I watched Gary and Tig and Mike
when I was a young comedian.
My first set ever,
I was trying to sound like Tig.
People were like,
"Is she?"
So Tig is more deadpan
and takes time.
- But when I did it -- - We also dress differently.
- A little bit. - Yeah, of course, of course,
we do dress differently.
And we're just different people.
- We are, we are. - But
so that's that.
- There's that, too. - Nobody ever mistakes us.
The first time I probably intersected
with Richard Lewis,
I was probably six or seven.
He was a really good-looking guy
with long hair and he was cool,
he dressed in all black.
Thank you, I'm thrilled to be here.
And he was just really honest
about how miserable he was
and how anxious and nervous
and also how full of self-loathing.
And even a week ago,
I'm in bed, this woman,
I was so looking forward to this sexually.
And I just, well, I'm screwed up.
She says, "Don't you wanna have an orgasm?"
And I said, "What's in it for me?"
So.
So how did you know that that was gonna be you
when you were older?
- Oh? - Why did you resonate
with this old, miserable man?
I remember thinking,
"Oh, there's a spot for somebody like me
who's quirky, funny and miserable."
My dad loved comedy.
He loved Richard Pryor.
And he would laugh at Richard Pryor,
and I didn't know what Richard Pryor was saying,
but I'd know when to laugh,
so I could laugh at the same time as my dad.
So I'd just be like.
I discovered masturbating by accident.
I'm not lying, I was about 10, I was in the tub.
And that's when you used to have to hold your dick
with two fingers.
You'd be.
I said, "Hey."
"I'm on to something here."
"I bet Dad don't know about this."
I think we're all
a little bit influenced by Richard Pryor.
He's, in some ways, the godfather
of a type of autobiographical storytelling and comedy,
opening himself up to the audience,
saying, "Here's my flaws,
here's my problems.
Let me tell you about my drug problem.
Let me tell you about the time I lit myself on fire
and it nearly killed me."
Now, listen to me,
all the people you ever heard of freebasing,
have you ever heard of anybody blowing up?
Why me?
10 million motherfuckers freebase,
I gotta blow up.
There's something about that,
and seeing someone like him,
who's such a tremendous performer,
open himself wide open
and be funny about it
all at the same time.
It's just inspiring.
Seven years ago,
I started walking in my sleep.
I was living with my girlfriend at the time
and I started having a recurring dream
that there was a hovering insect-like jackal
in our bedroom.
And I would see this hovering jackal
and I would jump on our bed
and I would strike a karate pose,
and I would say, "Abby," that was my girlfriend,
"there's a jackal in the room."
Well, around this time I remember thinking,
"Well, this seems dangerous,
maybe I should see a doctor."
And then I thought, "Maybe I'll eat dinner."
And I went with dinner...
...for years.
I have a serious sleepwalking disorder
that got so bad that I actually jumped
through a second-story window sleepwalking
in Walla Walla, Washington, at a motel
called La Quinta Inn.
There are two important details.
One, I was on the second floor,
two, the window was closed.
It was January,
so I jumped through a window
like the Hulk.
But my epiphany as a comedian
was that when I started talking with it on stage,
I thought that it would be very dramatic,
and actually it was very funny
and people were laughing,
not because they also jumped through a window,
but because something extraordinary in their life
that made them feel anxiety
or made them feel alienated from other people.
If comedy is impersonal,
if it's entirely outside of yourself,
you run the risk of losing the humanity
of what a live performance has the potential for.
There's a human connection in that moment
between the performer and the audience.
And that's unbelievable.
When I go to a show...
Guys.
... and there's a single performer on stage
connecting with 1,000 people all at the same time...
Oh, great, there's stairs.
I think my grandfather
calling me fat every Thanksgiving's
what's keeping him alive?
...when we're all feeling a thing
and we're all laughing at a thing,
- that's magical.
That joke came from pain.
And it's transcendent.
I grew up in the '70s and the '80s,
and I'm, ugh, as a sensitive boy,
not a very accommodating time
for sensitive boys.
And so if someone asked me for advice,
and I say like, "Hey, maybe you should tell that story,
it's a personal story," it's twofold.
One is, I'm saying the audience would enjoy that,
so they could have that kind of magical connection,
but also it's good for you, too.
It's a more deep human connection
with your own material
and what you're sharing.
I love therapy, I go to therapy.
I have couples therapy,
my husband goes to therapy,
my mother, I pay for her therapy, my brother.
I'm big into the idea
that talking about stuff provides solutions.
Well, that's the thing is you can find yourself
in anybody's story.
I had advice from a really good therapist who,
I didn't wanna tell anybody anything about my life,
and he said, "If you're an open book,
nobody will have anything on you."
Mm, there's another famous phrase is,
"You're only as sick as your secrets."
Secrets, said by the very wise Oprah.
- Oh, is that Oprah? - Oh, she's wise.
Oprah said that?
She is so wise.
- Oprah. - Oh,
- so wise. - Oprah is wise.
But she might've gotten that from a guest,
but I know I got it.
- She got her credits. - A guest.
I know I got it through Oprah,
so it's all under
- the Oprah umbrella. - The Oprah umbrella.
- Wisdom. - Wait a minute,
does Oprah get credit for everything
- a guest says? - Yes, she does.
She also wrote a lot of the Beatles catalog.
She did.
Also, all of you have doctors?
Is what I'm realizing.
Wait a second,
you don't see a therapist or have a?
Oh, yeah, I haven't had a therapist in years.
I'm raw dogging it right now.
Wow, wow, wow.
This is my true, authentic self, unfiltered.
It's almost like I woke up one day
and everyone was like, "We have a therapist.
We signed up without you."
And I'm like,
"You have, for how long?"
They're like, "Oh, we've all been seeing a therapist."
I was like, "Was there a Groupon
or a discount that I missed?"
- A Groupon? - And everyone.
You think there will be a time?
I don't wanna talk about it so much
because I haven't felt like I'm ready
or that I would have,
I feel like, yeah.
Does anyone else have diagnosed medical conditions?
Yeah, I mean, I have major depressive disorder
and anxiety, yeah.
I take medicine, and that changed my life,
of course, yeah.
What are the valleys like?
I say that because I think stand-up seems wrought
with so much insecurity
because you're writing your own material.
You're literally putting yourself and your stories
out to other people to judge them,
night after night, show after show.
And it seems like, if depression is an issue,
that it would be a challenging career.
And it is a challenging career,
but it's also a career that allows you
to go to work at 9:00 p.m.
Yes.
And wear what you wore all day,
and they don't require you to shower
or anything like that,
- or put on ironed clothes. - I mean, it does.
At 17 years old, 1988,
I was six-foot-six and 255 pounds.
I had built
a very convincing man costume.
I was bigger and faster and stronger than everybody,
so I did very well in high school.
And then I got to college and everybody
was the Gary Gulman of their high school,
and it was just, I was overwhelmed.
And I was like, "But this is all I have, all I am."
And about three weeks into it, I --
I had this breakdown.
I didn't know that I was being seen
as this great potential,
which is, I think it's a quote from Socrates
or somebody who said,
"Those the gods wish to destroy
they first call promising."
I was athletic, I'll own that,
but then we put on football helmets and pads,
and I go out there, and these guys
just kicked my ass for three weeks.
I mean, guys bigger than me,
but also guys just smaller
and faster and tougher than me.
I dropped a ball the end zone,
and I went home on a Friday night
and slept through Saturday afternoon,
stayed in my room on Sunday.
I had put my self-esteem
into how I was on a football field.
And my brother was really helpful,
he said, "You need to go to the trainer on Sunday
and tell him that you're suffering."
I don't know why you cry.
My older brother told me,
"Tell the trainer that you have depression."
My brother diagnosed me.
I didn't really understand what it was,
what the symptoms were.
I just thought I was very weak.
And I went to the trainer,
I went to a therapist, got diagnosed,
and suddenly this thing I'd felt since I was seven
had a --had a name.
And that was helpful,
but then it wasn't until like six months in,
they put me on a medication.
And I remember when it kicked in,
I remember like, "Oh,
this is how everyone else feels all the time."
- Huge. - Yeah.
How are you feeling
about all the feeling?
So I do feel a little scatterbrained.
- Really? - I forgot to take
my medicine today.
There's been a couple times where I have very much zoned out
and not been here,
but then I kinda have to ground myself a little bit
and be like, "Someone's talking."
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
My relationship with stand-up is,
it's very up and down.
Right now, I'm in a phase where I don't wanna tour,
I do wanna tour, I don't wanna tour, I do wanna tour,
I don't wanna write, I do wanna write.
I've had a lot of moments where I didn't want to do it.
And I had weeks where I was like,
"Oh, yeah, I quit comedy,
I don't do comedy anymore."
But here's the thing,
I used to think, "I need jokes
and I need 45 minutes and I need an hour,"
and I think about how daunting it must be
to have this, "I can't concentrate for" --
And I can't concentrate to sit down
to write the hour.
There's a book called "Bird by Bird" about writing.
It was advice that the author's father
had given his child.
He said, "Well, how am I gonna do this big report
about all the birds of North America?"
And he said, "Bird by bird."
- Which is right. - Which is exactly
- what it is. - And then how do you
write jokes? One sentence at a time.
Me, personally, I look at all the birds in the sky,
and I go, "Oh, my God,
how on earth am I gonna do all of this?"
But if I just keep in my brain,
"Just one bird at a time.
You like parrots, start with a parrot."
That's great.
"And then you can move on to a flamingo,
but make sure you get to that parrot first."
Do some easy ones up front.
Yeah, that's just like a nice thing
to be like, "Nicole, one bird at a time."
Yeah, the author is Anne Lamott.
Anne Lamont?
- I'll never-- - Lamott, L-A-M-O-T-T.
- Lamont? - Lamott.
Am I not saying it good?
Yeah, because there's no N in--
Lamott?
- Like Mott's Applesauce. - Lamott?
- Mott? - Or Mott Street,
or Mott Haven.
If you live
in the neighborhood that I live in,
which is called Mott Haven.
I can't believe you had so many examples of Mott
- just in your pocket. - Of Mott, yeah,
yeah.
I collect.
When I was starting out in the early 2000s,
just in New York clubs, it was tough.
People would be so mean to me, merciless,
'cause I was young, young 20s.
Mitch Hedberg was the first person
who was someone who I really admired.
And asked me to open for him
on a whole bunch of dates.
Whenever I walk, people try to hand me out flyers.
And when someone tries to hand me out a flyer,
it's kinda like they're saying,
"Here, you throw this away."
I'd ask him all kinds of questions.
And when you're the opening act,
you pick up the headliner sometimes
and bring them to the club,
that's part of the gig, I guess.
I just couldn't believe it.
It's like, literally,
there's moments in my comedy career
where things like that,
where I'm like, "This is the best thing
I've ever done by far."
I actually have a habit of making awkward situations
even more awkward.
Like I was moving a new bed into my apartment recently
and this woman that lived in the building
opened the front door for me with her key.
And she goes, "I'm not worried
because a rapist wouldn't have a bed like that."
Now, what I should've said...
...was nothing.
What I did say was, "You'd be surprised."
And then we went,
I was like, "Do you guys wanna go bowling?"
There was a bowling alley,
I had my own bowling shoes.
- Oh boy. - Mm.
Yeah, I know.
Hey, now's a good time to announce that I am a nerd.
We go bowling,
and I'm nervous 'cause it's my hero, Mitch Hedberg,
and I'm bowling all kinds of zeroes and gutter balls
- and ones. - I'm sure he cared.
Well, at the end of it, he says to me,
"Thought when you asked us to go bowling,
that you would be good at bowling."
I'll give you a fact about Mitch.
"Time Magazine" once dubbed Mitch
the next Seinfeld.
Was this our friend who had the drug problem?
Well, I got the drugs under control now.
- Do you? - Yeah.
You had to take them responsibly?
Yeah, just for the creative side of it.
With Mitch's drug stuff,
I was in the dark to some degree,
like most people, I wouldn't witness it,
wouldn't be out in the open.
Were you aware that it was happening,
- or were you just? - I would hear stories
about it.
I used to do drugs.
I still do, but I used to, too.
Yeah, I mean, I saw Mitch
about a week before he died at Caroline's.
I like to drink
before the show, I have a couple drinks
before I go on stage.
Every time people applaud,
I'm always going, "No, no, no, hold on."
He asked me to come up and do a guest set.
And afterwards I saw, we went to a bar,
and people, fans of his were coming up to him
and offering him drugs, handing him drugs.
And it was the first time I was like,
"Fuck, this is bad,
this is bad."
My manager's cool, he gets concerned,
he says, "Mitch, don't use liquor as a crutch."
I can't use liquor as a crutch,
because a crutch helpsme walk.
In relation to substance issues,
I think like everyone in his life,
I struggled with, "What could we have done differently?"
And I --
Alcoholism is a disease, but it's like the only disease
that you can get yelled at for having.
I gotta get off this damn stage.
I wish there was just
a trapdoor that would open up and I'd fall in it.
"You are done."
And I land on a couch and have a drink.
I've lost a handful of comedian friends over the years.
Mitch Hedberg and Greg Giraldo and others.
And the pain of it doesn't go away,
there's no answer in it.
I remember at Mitch's memorial,
I was with Mitch's mom
and Dave Attell was outside together,
and it was really sweet.
Dave Attell, I think,
one of the great comedians of all time.
And Dave said a thing that,
I mean, in some ways, it's sort of silly,
but in some ways, there's a lot of truth to it,
is he goes just like,
"We'll always have the records."
And I love that, "We'll always have the records,"
'cause it's true, I still listen to Hedberg records.
- Yeah, yeah. - Aw, yeah.
Yeah.
The makeup artists in England are insane.
- Oh, no. - When
I was at the BBC,
the makeup artist that they had for me,
she'd never done makeup
- for black people before. - Oh, no.
And she panicked,
she didn't realize I would be Black,
and she didn't have any black makeup...
- No. - ...so she put cocoa powder
- on my face. - What?
- Literally. - Like the actual?
- Actual -- - Wait.
Like Ovaltine?
- Yes, on my face. - She said, "Ovaltine."
You can drink it.
And she tricked me, because I could smell it.
And I was like, "It smells really chocolaty."
And she was like, "Oh,
it's called Cocoa."
She put me in blackface,
it was just ridiculous, so yes.
London, what on earth are you doing?
I was doing children's television to pay the bills,
and because I wanted to be on TV,
and that was the only form of television
that would accept me.
Eau de toilette?
Toilet water more like.
- Huh? - Dodge, you smell like
a bog brush.
Kids TV in Britain's so diverse
and that's where it stops.
And then normal television is just old white men
and hot young white women
or just hot young white men.
I was told I wasn't conventionally attractive,
so I didn't see myself as attractive.
So I just was like, "You're a ugly black girl
trying to make jokes in Britain,
and they keep telling you no."
And I watched a lot of my white male friends
become famous, one by one,
they'd start comedy one year,
then the next year, they'd be on TV.
And I just saw it happen, happen, happen.
And all of a sudden, you just get depressed.
And so after every show,
- it felt like a rejection.
It would make me die inside.
And I'll go in the comments
and read the comments,
because I'm looking for people
to call me ugly, or annoying, or not funny,
but every negative thing
that anyone's ever said about me,
I've already thought it about myself.
People had problems with my hair,
they didn't know what the fuck it was.
Now everybody looked like me.
Watching American TV
and just seeing people like Whoopi Goldberg
and people Brandi
and Tia and Tamara from "Sister, Sister" and Moesha
and all these black girls
that are All-American.
I said to myself, "That's where I need to be.
Once I get to America, they'll see,"
because blackness in Britain
was American blackness.
The music we listened to, American,
our heroes, Oprah, American,
Beyoncé, American,
Whoopi Goldberg, American.
So as a black British girl
that's trying to make her mark in anything,
I had to look to America
as guidance to get me there.
I tell you what, I just turned 31.
I know, I don't look it,
right?
Just turned 31, I'm very attractive.
It's not a joke, it's more factual.
I'm rich, I'm rich as fuck, guys,
seriously.
When I eat McDonald's,
I eat McDonald's in Beverly Hills, okay?
I'm rich as fuck.
In Britain, a lot of the female comics there,
God bless 'em,
they uh, they would just stand still,
keep the microphone on the stand,
and then just put their hair back behind their ears
and speak like this,
and then maybe an anal joke,
and then that's it.
This whole tone like that.
And I watched that and I was like,
"I don't like that, that's not me."
So I was like, "What do I wanna do?"
And I would take the mic off the stand, kick it down.
All I know is that if I was a mute
that worked in 7-Eleven,
I'd be married by now.
It's true, it's true.
And I ain't even been proposed to.
There's bitches in Kentucky with no teeth
that have been proposed to.
Fuck is wrong with me?
I'm in your face, I'm loud.
And then essentially that just became how I enjoyed stand-up
and how I wanted to perform
and show the world who I was.
So is the version of you
that you're presenting
when you're doing stand-up armor,
like a character version of you?
- Yes. - I don't mean that
- in a disrespectful way. - No, it is, 100%.
My stand-up version of me
is basically just a ultimate bad bitch.
And so I don't know,
when I'm on stage, my energy and my stand-up rhythm,
like Tig was talking about, is gunfire.
It's like.
I literally won't give you enough time to laugh.
If you're laughing, choke on those.
Ah, here's some more jokes, ah.
So when I watch comics, like Tig and Atsuko,
and they're on stage and they're drinking the water.
I've never done that before.
I literally do not stop.
I'll stop for the applause breaks, obviously,
I'm just like --
Is that to potentially overcome an insecurity
- or a shyness? - Yeah, probably,
I probably am like, "I'm not good enough to stop,
- so I gotta keep going." - Wow.
I should try your style.
Yeah, try it.
Yes, go on, Tig.
I would be like, "Oh, God."
- "Oh geez, my spinal fusion." - Just all.
Yes, everyone's dead!
Anal jokes.
Ah!
Coming at you with my anal jokes.
I think my style changed over the years.
When I first began,
it was very kind of one-liner, quick joke.
I notice more and more women
are getting fake boobs.
Meanwhile,
I still haven't even gotten real ones yet.
Then it became.
I went on Conan once
and pushed a stool around.
Made everybody uncomfortable, but.
I feel like maybe some of you aren't into it.
Got some laughs.
But yeah, I just, I kind of allowed myself
to do whatever I felt most comfortable doing at that time.
And then that's also what ended up happening in 2012.
Can you talk a little bit about the circumstances
leading up to that?
Well, in a four-month period of time,
in 2012,
I had pneumonia,
then I contracted this very deadly disease,
C. diff, the intestinal disease.
Then my mother tripped,
hit her head and died.
My girlfriend and I split up.
And then I was diagnosed with invasive cancer.
And yeah.
I didn't have depression,
I had deep, deep sadness,
deep, deep fear.
Deep, deep sadness,
deep, deep fear.
I had this show booked
at the venue Largo in Los Angeles.
And I remember I called to say,
"Hey, I don't think I can do this,
I'm really struggling emotionally and physically."
And I remember the owner saying,
"Let's just keep it on the books
and just see how you feel
when we get to that date."
And I thought, "This guy,
I don't think he heard me.
My mother died and I have cancer and my girlfriend."
But he was like, "Yeah, just if you don't wanna do it,
you can cancel it
the second before you're gonna walk on stage."
And I thought, "Okay."
And as it got closer to the show date,
I found myself making jokes
about these different things
that I hadn't been able to find humor in.
I allowed myself to go with what was happening,
and that was that it didn't make sense
to do anything other than to share
what was actually going on in my life.
Good evening, hello.
I have cancer, how are you?
Is everybody having a good time?
Diagnosed with cancer.
It's okay.
It's gonna be okay.
It might not be okay,
- but I'm just saying.
You're gonna be okay.
After my mother died,
the hospital sent this questionnaire
asking how her stay at the hospital went.
And when I first got that in the mail,
I was outraged.
Whereas that night I walked on stage,
I talked about it,
and I answered the entire questionnaire.
Number one, "During this hospital stay,
did nurses explain things
in a way you could understand?"
I mean, considering you had zero brain activity.
Number four, "Suggestions for improvements...
...such as should we stop sending questionnaires
- to dead people?" -
There was nervous laughter,
there was hysterical laughter.
People were stunned,
people were confused.
I really felt like I was stepping off of a ledge
and suddenly I could fly,
even if I was maybe gonna crash and burn.
It was very freeing to...
...share...
these personal aspects.
What if I just transitioned right now
into silly just jokes right now?
- No. - No!
No.
"No, I wanna hear more bad news."
- Yes.
Yes.
We can take it.
No!
This is fucking amazing.
Oh.
On that note, let's take like a five-minute break.
Let's take a break.
Do we leave the room?
I find LA
the hardest city to live in.
- LA? - 'Cause it's
a very industry-centric town
where everyone at their level is annoyed, seemingly,
that they're not at the next level.
Thank you.
We got invited to the Vanity Fair Party
after the Oscars.
Like, "We made it."
"We're at the fucking Vanity Fair party."
And we walk in, we do the whole thing,
and then we're looking
and there's a velvet-roped area
in the--
And we're like, "What? Who's in?"
And they're like, "Oh, no, that's."
So then the next year, we got invited back,
and we're like, "Can we get into?
We know there's like a velvet ropey kinda area,
could we go in that?"
So we did, and we get into the velvet-rope area
and we're sitting there
and we're hanging out with a couple of people,
maybe Bryan Cranston was there, it was so fun,
and then everyone starts leaving.
And we're like, "Oh, where you going?"
"Oh, we're going to Madonna's thing."
And we're like,
- "Huh?" - Another velvet rope?
Literally.
- Another rope. - And then you go
to Madonna's,
and there's a group of people
that get to go downstairs to where Madonna is
at Madonna's party. So that was LA to me,
was no matter...
- Wow. - ...the cool spot you got,
it felt like there was another level.
And the thing is, you would've been fine,
if you hadn't have seen
that velvet rope, you would've had
- a great time. - Woulda had a great time.
Would've had the best time.
I'm watching Britney Spears dance.
Dance?
She always just dances semi-naked in her house.
Oh, yes.
I remember being 12,
knowing that Britney Spears made it
on "The Mickey Mouse Club"
when she was 12.
And I hadn't made it,
and I wasn't on "The Mickey Mouse Club" or "Barney."
I remember just feeling like,
"I've missed my chance, I've passed my prime."
And that was me at 12.
So me at 34.
It's no surprise that I'm blonde right now.
I remember wanting to be a white girl so badly,
because I just, I thought as a kid
that being white was seen as beautiful.
Richard, I don't wanna be obsessed with race,
but this is a different angle
I really never heard anybody discuss.
Can white writers write for you?
You know what I mean?
If they write for the human being in me, yes.
If they try to write for some idea
they have of what I would be as a black person,
they usually cannot do that.
Most of the shows that we have on British TV
that include black people
were written or created by white people.
And for me, because I was in the industry
and I wasn't like that,
I wasn't black enough for the white people,
then also I'm black,
so I was too black for the white people as well.
Earlier in my career,
I'd be steered in a direction
to sound a certain type of way.
What would be a case of somebody trying to sound black?
Could you give an example of it?
I mean, I know they don't mean any harm,
but they don't realize how ignorant it is
trying to have that black voice
that some whites try to do,
and really don't do well.
Like, "Why you jive turkey."
Yeah, that was.
I did a commercial,
it was one of the only commercials I've ever booked,
I play a fairy in it.
And at the audition, the casting director was like,
"Be as black as you can be.
And if you go too black,
I'll bring you back."
- What? - And,
in the room, I was like, "How is she gonna bring me back?
One."
"Two, what is too black?"
- Was she black? - You know she wasn't.
- You know -- - Wow.
It was a thin white woman
who was like, "I want you to say things
that your people say, like call the little boy, 'Son,'
and say, 'Sister.'"
And she wanted neck movements
- for a fairy. - Sheesh.
She'd be like, "I grant your wish."
And the comic in you
could probably know that is it
- material potentially? - Oh, yeah,
I ended up writing a sketch about it
called, "Be Blacker."
Right, Nicole, I need you to be blacker.
Do you understand what I mean when I say, "Blacker?"
No, I'm sorry, I-I don't.
Do you know how to be sassy?
Yes, let me see, yeah,
sassy, that's great, sassy.
I want you to take that,
go right into it, I love that.
- Sass it up. - Okay, sassy.
Still rolling, go ahead.
LeShwana, did you get those clams I asked for?
Whoo, child,
I got them clams.
I got everything on that list you gave me.
Okay, um, have you heard of Madea?
It doesn't feel good when someone's like,
"The black you are
is not the black I want."
- Oh. - "I want you to pretend
to be this other type of black
that I only know from TV or whatever."
And it wasn't only that,
I'm also fat and I had to be in a harness
and hoisted to the sky.
And the first thing the stunt guy said was,
"We tested this on the biggest man we could find.
You're bigger, but we tested it."
And I was like,
"So I'm like a parody of a black person,
I might die, I'm the biggest thing there,
people were staring at me."
It was wild, the whole thing was wild.
Wow.
You're told as a kid, "Ugh, ugh, she's fat."
And you're told that fat is a bad word.
In my early 20s,
I worked at a clothing store called Lane Bryant.
I called it Lame Giant,
nobody thought it was funny.
And I would
wear really skin-tight clothing.
And my manager, she looked just like Shrek,
her name was Judith.
Please leave her name in.
And she would yell at me, reprimand me,
she would be like, "You can't wear tight clothing."
And in my brain, I was like, "What?
So am I lying to the other fat people about being fat?
That's insane."
I just had an epiphany where I was like,
"I don't give a shit.
I'm just gonna wear what I feel comfortable in."
And then I started wearing bikinis out in public.
And then I was like, people do stare,
but I was like, "That means my body's really powerful."
So I tell a lot of fat jokes.
And there's always
someone in the audience who's like,
"Nicole, you're not fat, girl, no."
"You're beautiful!"
Bitch, I know.
Look at this!
Thank you.
It's nice to pull from something
where you're like, "Oh, that didn't feel great,"
and turn it into something great.
You'll talk about anything on stage,
- yeah? - For the most part, yeah.
- You're more -- - I don't know, I just feel
like everyone kinda goes through shit,
so why not talk about it?
Because there's somebody in the audience
that's gone through it or identifies with it.
Nice.
After my mother passed away,
I was diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer,
but I have not told anybody yet.
You're the first people to find out.
Wow, that's a very cold response.
After all of the attention I got,
it confused me,
because everybody was saying
that I found my voice
and that I am a dark truth teller.
And I was thinking, "Yeah, I guess that's what I am."
Before my surgery, I was already relatively
flat chested.
And I made so many jokes over the years
about how small my boobs were
that I started to think
that maybe my boobs overheard me.
And were just like, "You know what?"
"We're sick of this."
"Let's kill her."
But I was really lost, you know.
I was still swirling from so much.
I was trying to have a child.
Even before Stephanie and I got together,
and I kept it a secret from her
'cause I didn't wanna freak her out
in the beginning of our relationship
To be falling in love and say, "Oh, by the way...
...I'm also injecting myself on the side of the road
with hormones to try and have a child by myself.
Wanna go out?"
Once I revealed it to her,
I couldn't believe that she was all-in.
She was like, "I don't want you hiding that from me,
I wanna be a part of that."
And I could not believe
she was saying that.
Then we started to do that together as a couple.
I was the subject of a documentary film called "Tig."
The producers and directors
wanted me to get the results
of my pregnancy test on camera.
I know if the news that he's in there,
if that is the news,
I don't think it would be possible
to have another bad day while I'm alive.
Because of my health,
it was questionable whether or not
I should be even trying to do
this hormone treatment to have --
It just, it was really a lot.
Oh, my gosh,
there's the doctor.
Oh, boy.
And then I got the news on camera.
Hello?
Hi, so I got the results of the blood test,
and unfortunately, I don't have good news for you.
- Uh-huh. - The results came back
as less than two for pregnancy test,
and that means it's negative.
It's so wild to think about now
because there really wasn't an ounce of my being
that thought that it wasn't gonna happen.
I was so convinced.
It was devastating.
And there I was with cameras on me.
I really wanted privacy at that moment.
I have massive impostor syndrome
- with a lot of things. - Do you know
- any of these guys? - No.
- No? - No,
I think I've met Gary before,
but like decadesbefore.
So that's as much as I know anyone here.
Gary and I have funny history
because when we first met,
I was in Los Angeles for a few days.
You and I did a show together on Sunset Strip at some bar.
And then he was like, "Here's my number,
let's hang out."
And then you ghosted me
- for about five years. - Nice.
- Wow, wow. - That is funny.
Why did you ghost him?
I'll tell you why I ghosted him.
When I wasn't on stage,
I was frequently standing on a window sill.
I'd never been more depressed.
I was on the 12th floor
and I remember looking out,
the thing that saved me was like,
"I know I'm gonna regret it halfway down."
- Oh, wow. - I would stand up there.
Would there be anyone
that could take you off that ledge at that point,
or would it just have to be you?
It was just me, yeah.
I mean, I always thought somebody would call
with some nice thing or something like that,
but it was--
I was calling.
Aw.
Mike was calling you. It was me,
- I was calling. - It was Mike.
I called the ledge.
- The ledge. - I even called the landline
that was attached
- to the ledge. - The living room ledge?
- Yes. - The living room ledge?
- Okay. - You kidding me?
- There was a landline. - Were you paying rent
or were you just standing out on a ledge?
No, it was a --
Since I've been seven years old,
I couldn't imagine an ending for my life
that wasn't self-inflicted.
Oh my gosh.
- Do you have those? - When was the last time
I had that thought?
Sure.
Probably October of 2017.
The best 2017 was Chris Pine.
He was Captain Kirk in "Star Trek"
and the love interest in "Wonder Woman."
Let's compare to my 2017.
Psych ward.
I would have three-to-six-month periods of depression,
I remember, as early as seven years old,
just about every year through 46.
And then at 46,
I had one that lasted for 2 1/2 years.
And it had never been that deep,
it had never lasted that long.
It was just, my wife said,
"I thought you were dying."
I was catatonic on the couch all day long,
I couldn't take shows.
And that was the one thing I was always able to do
through my, at that point, 24-year career
was pull myself together
for an hour or so each night and work.
And then I couldn't even do that.
Excruciating.
I'd been offered to come into the hospital for two years,
and I've fought it because of every reason
why people are afraid of hospitals.
Movies and television tell you
that the psych ward is dangerous
and it'll make you worse
and that it's unclean.
And I checked myself in, and it was ordinary.
Other than you have to give up your shoelaces
and wear socks with treads on them,
it's very ordinary.
And I got recognized by another patient from television.
And he said, "I won't tell anybody
and I don't wanna embarrass you,
but am I crazy or are you Gary Gulman?"
And I said, "Oh, you're crazy."
But I'm only taking that from the context.
My psychiatrist is an advocate for and an expert
in something called electroconvulsive therapy,
which used to be called electroshock therapy,
but they felt electroshock
was not quite horrifying enough.
They said, "Yes, electroshock is disturbing,
but I feel like we're soft-selling the convulsions."
I had only seen that in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."
Wow.
And it scared the shit outta me.
But I'm grateful that I can talk about it
from the other side
and make people less afraid of those treatments,
because it's the gold standard,
and especially for a treatment-resistant depression.
What I'm trying to say is,
I've tried everything up to then, every medication.
Pamelor, and then Prozac,
Celexa, Effexor, Zyprexa.
I think my doctor just said,
"Let's try drugs that rhyme."
And it was that that I think rewired, or defragged,
or however you wanna put it,
to my brain, got out the grooves that it was in,
and it saved my life, and so I'm --
Oh, thank you, and --
After ECT, I made a decision
to move back to the town that I grew up in
to convalesce.
And I wound up moving into the same house
I grew up in.
And coincidence of coincidences,
my mother still lived there.
46 years old.
- Yeah? - Yeah.
And here's the other thing,
I find it easier to tell people
that I had received a dozen
inpatient electroconvulsive therapy sessions
than, at 46 years old, I had moved back in with my mother.
I got better and started doing stand-up.
And it got me to do
this thing, which is very therapeutic,
which is get out of the house
and be around people.
And I happen to be welcome
at a comedy club in Harvard Square
called the the Comedy Studio
to try out jokes about mental illness.
It was the ideal place
because I felt loved there.
And I could fail and I could do well.
And that permission to fail was essential.
Thank you.
Thanks so much.
I've been diagnosed depressed for over 30 years,
and it went from sneaking
into my therapist's office
to telling anyone with an HBO subscription
in 30 years.
So those are great strides.
- That's huge. - There has never been
a better time to be mentally ill.
My husband's mom also has schizophrenia.
And some people think that's how we started dating.
Yeah, no, yeah,
which can you imagine
that being your only criteria
for finding a partner?
Like how would that work, right?
Just “YourMomToo.com."
I didn't really mention
that my mom has mental illness or anything
with friendships or relationships at all.
It just happened to be
that on a night I'm just hanging out
with someone I like
and we're about to get intimate
for the first time,
he gets a call from his mom.
And I was talking to my mom
before we were about to, um, you know.
- Do it? - Do it.
- Yeah. - Ryan told me first
that his mom has schizophrenia,
and then I revealed that my mom, too.
- That is so wild. - Yeah,
it was weird, where I was like,
"I feel like I'm in a movie."
- Mm-hmm. - Yeah.
And she doesn't even know
you're talking about it?
She knows I talk about a lot.
I say, "Mom, I'm an open book on stage.
I talk about our family, I talk about a lot of stuff.
But just know, people,
- they never judge us for it. - Yeah.
They share their stories with me afterwards, too.
So they don't feel like they're freaks,
and so we're not freaks either."
I kinda tell her that.
And then, you know.
And schizophrenia is hard to talk about in comedy
because people are afraid of it
and it's so stigmatized.
And I don't think it helps
that it has such a scary sounding name.
No, it doesn't, yeah, it doesn't help, yeah.
I truly wish schizophrenia
had a more approachable name,
something like Splash Mountain.
That's fun, I love that ride, right?
In fact, what if all mental illnesses
were just named after rides at Disneyland?
I would watch a lot of Disney movies,
and Disney movies don't have great examples of moms,
they're usually not there. You know.
Little Mermaid doesn't have a mom.
Belle from "Beauty and the Beast"
doesn't have a mom.
Cinderella doesn't have a mom.
Pocahontas doesn't have a mom.
She has a grandma, but she's a tree.
So I just thought moms
were maybe like my mom.
I don't know what mental illness is when I'm a kid.
We didn't talk about that. You know.
And you've never had a therapist?
I've had therapists before,
and I thought, "Well, I came to you to figure out
how to break up with my boyfriend,
and we achieved that goal,
- so, oh man." - I have a therapist.
Yeah?
- You don't? - I do,
I've gone for like 20 years, I think.
- Right, yeah. - Since we've known
- each other. - Yeah, 25.
Is it because of our relationship?
- Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, yeah.
20-some years, same person?
- Yeah, yeah, for real. - Yeah,
yeah, that's wild to me.
I like it for other people.
But you don't like it for you?
I do think therapy's something
that you need to want to do.
Right, yeah.
But it is hard because,
and my mom's not on medication right now
because she refuses to go to the psychiatrist.
And I'm starting to think,
I'm like, I can't force her,
I'm not gonna put her in the car
while she's kicking and screaming.
She doesn't leave the house,
she's scared of the world,
she hasn't bathed in 20 years.
She just stays home
and she's so scared of the world.
And I wonder, sorry, you asking made me realize,
maybe I don't see a therapist
because a part of me feels like
maybe I don't deserve it
when my mom needs so much help right now.
And I'm always like, "Oh,
maybe we could get you a therapist
to even talk out some of the traumas, that you know,
the voices in your head."
Maybe I see a therapist and I go, "Mom, look at me."
- Maybe. - Yeah, honestly,
that is helpful.
Anytime I've had a friend who I'm like,
"I think you should probably see someone,"
I tell them about how therapy helps me.
And so she's not at all
able to function on her own?
We're scared to let her,
but she has a daydream.
That's where she's able to live outside of the confines,
the limitations that life gave her.
I have dreams of getting her a cat though.
You can make that come true.
But if she gets it and she realizes...
- Oh. - ..."This is too much,
I don't want it," you can send it to our house.
- Really? - Mm-hmm.
That's a bold statement,
that's a bold promise.
Well, I have three cats.
- For sure. - Why would a fourth?
What if this cat's evil?
- You deal with it. - Okay, no,
I'll take you up on it.
- Yeah, okay. - Yeah.
We ended on a promise.
Kitty promise.
Do you know Tig Notaro?
- That's my other mom. - That's my other mom.
Rick?
I'm here, Tig.
During my childhood,
I was not terribly close with my stepfather.
He had told me that my career
was a waste of my time and energy,
because I think, in his mind,
it was like, "You go to school, you go to college,"
you take all those steps
that I was not at all taking.
And so it created this deeper rift
between the two of us.
When my mother died,
we were leaving my mother's funeral.
He broke down and apologized.
I couldn't believe that I was seeing him cry.
And then he said this thing
that I still am blown away
that it came from him.
He said, "I realize now
it's not the child's responsibility
to teach the parent who they are,
it's the parent's responsibility
to learn who their child is."
And he said, "And I did not do that with you,
and I'm so sorry."
If I could tell my mother that that happened,
I know that she would've said...
..."It doesn't matter when it came,
it's just important and good that it did come."
We continued to grow closer, and...
...nothing that had happened before
mattered anymore to me.
And then, yeah, March 28th of 2022,
Rick contracted C. Diff...
...the disease that had nearly killed me 10 years before.
And then 10 years to the day
after taking my mother off life support,
I was taking him off of life support.
We were all gathered at his grave site.
There was the green AstroTurf over the grave.
And my brother got up and he fell
- into my stepfather's grave. - Oh, wow.
- No. - Oh.
- Wow. - That's funny.
Yeah, and I --
Into the six-foot hole?
Yeah, he fell in.
They had forgotten to put plywood
- under the green AstroTurf. - What?
Oh, my God.
He was like,
but because there was the green AstroTurf,
- it, like, slowly. - It sloped him in.
- He was going. - Oh, wow.
And I was truly,
I was sitting there thinking,
"This must happen
all the time."
And then a second later, I was like,
"No, this doesn't happen
all the time."
And then I was like,
"Oh, I have a new show to write."
I love it when people
can make jokes like that
'cause it just makes you feel, "Oh yeah,
we're all in this together
and there's funny things about this
and sad things about this,
and we're all just going through it."
A funeral audience is really amped
- to laugh. - For laughter.
- Yes, they are. - My dad's funeral,
- I murdered. - You crushed at
- your dad's funeral. - I murdered
at my dad's too.
And then the rabbi tried to do time after me.
- Oh, no. - Oh.
Couldn't follow me.
- Yes. - Of course.
Couldn't follow me.
I said, "Rabbi, you don't go on after the headliner."
"The show is over."
My mom died when I was 16,
and then my dad died when I was 21.
And I guess the way I dealt with it
was through humor and stuff.
So when we were spreading my dad's ashes,
we were fighting over who was gonna do it.
And I snatched outta my granny's hand,
I was like, "I'll fucking do it."
And as I sprinkled them,
the wind picked up and my mouth was open.
Oh.
- Oh, my God. - You ate your --
I ate my daddy.
Oh, my gosh.
I was never really close with my dad,
but we shared some really fun times before he died.
He had sent me an e-mail
and was like, "They're looking for a new lottery person
to call the numbers."
And he's like, "You should do that,
that's a thing you could do on camera."
And I was like, "Oh, my God."
He didn't call them auditions,
but he'd be like, "Are you going to the tryouts?"
And I'd be like, "Yeah, Dad,
I'm trying to do the tryouts."
And I told him about improv
and I was like, "Will you come to the city and watch me?"
And my dad hated the city,
and he was like, "I will come."
And I was like, "Oh my God, that's amazing,"
and then he died.
The further I get from that,
I'm like, "Well, at least I had that.
At least I had a year or two
where he was like a cheerleader
and asking me about stuff."
So I guess I just feel really lucky
that I had those years with him.
The stuff I've been
through has certainly been a heavy load.
I felt cursed for a while,
even though I don't believe in that type of thing.
It's hard and easy to say,
"I wouldn't change a thing."
And I reconcile that
by imagining showing my mother my life.
If things hadn't happened the way they did...
...I wouldn't have my life with Stephanie
or with my children.
You were saying before
that now that you were married and have children,
it affects the way that you construct bits and stories.
- Mm-hmm. - Do you think ultimately,
you land in a better place?
Or do you think it impairs your jokes?
No, I think it's in a better place
because of the bigger picture.
I mean, there's always an editing process,
and it's like, what is your motivation in your edit?
And sometimes now it's I have other people in my life
that I have to think about.
Do you talk about everything
or is there stuff that you choose notto talk about?
Tig and I were talking about this backstage,
but some of it is, wife and child,
you do consider like,
"Well, I don't wanna hurt their feelings in this way,"
or that's their story as well.
So I wrote this joke about
how Jenny and I went to our daughter's ballet recital,
and Jenny and I are crying and crying
'cause she doesn't have it.
Well, 'cause I'm in the business, I know.
You have a sense.
You're in the ballet business.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Oh, of course, no, I was crying 'cause it was so good.
And then I'm hugging Una afterwards,
and I go, "You were fantastic."
And she said, and this is true,
she goes, "Dad, you would say I was fantastic
even if I wasn't fantastic."
And I had to say, "That's a really good point,
and you're right."
I just did a matinee show,
my kid saw me perform for the first time.
- Oh, wow. - And it was really
interesting 'cause I did not consider
that my son, Max, was going to heckle me.
And so I'm --
Amazing.
I'm doing my show!
I'm doing my show,
and my son, Max,
he goes, "No, she didn't."
- Wow. - Wow.
That's so good.
- Aw, that's incredible. - And I was like,
"What?"
I was like that.
And he goes, "That's not true."
- Oh, wow! - Amazing!
When I met Stephanie,
she said that her big dream
was to live to be 100.
And I thought, "Well, that's insane."
I always thought, "I'll probably kick it
somewhere in the 60s, 70s,
and I've had a good run."
But she said, "No, I want us to die together."
And I was like, "Well, I'm 15 years older than you,
so that means I'd have to live to be 115."
And she said, "You can do it."
I think it's most important
to figure out what your north star is.
What's driving you to do the thing,
whether it's stand-up
or living to be 115,
you have to have that thing.
Otherwise, none of the other elements
are gonna fall into place.
And that's what drew me to changing my diet,
meditation, prioritizing my sleep,
all of those things.
But I think it's so crucial.
I had appeared multiple times
on every single late-night TV show.
Gary Gulman, everybody.
April 13th at the Warner Theater.
I had a lovely girlfriend,
who's now my wife.
I had from the outside what you would say, "This guy,"
I remember my friends, when I opened up to them,
telling them how depressed I was,
they would say, "I thought you had everything together."
I kept thinking that my first "Tonight Show,"
then I'll feel like...
Yeah, the you'll feel like you made it.
...I can tell people, no.
Second "Tonight Show," third "Tonight Show"?
- Nope. - First "Letterman,"
- second "Letterman," no. - No, no.
It's good to have ambition, but I think gratitude,
I have to check myself.
No, it's so true.
I mean, gratitude,
it's an antidote to compare and despair.
- Oh, yeah. - It's like, "Yeah,
I don't have that, but I have this."
"But I have this."
Yeah, it's crazy.
We are so lucky.
I'm so grateful right now.
I'm happy that I'm me, I'm happy you are you.
- Yeah. - I'm happy we're here.
Me, too.
Let's leave everyone here with how to stay hopeful.
How do we maintain our sanity?
Yeah, I write in my journal all the time,
'cause I find that if you write down
sort of what you're saddest about or angriest about,
you can start to see your own life as a story.
And sometimes you can zoom out
and encourage the main character to make better decisions.
Hmm.
My first therapy session,
she was like, "What's your goal?"
And I was like, "To fix me."
And she was like, "Well, I can't fix you,
you're not broken.
I'm gonna give you tools
in order for you to adjust your life to you."
So I lose my keys almost every day,
so now my keys are five pounds.
There's like 100 keys on them.
- Being kinder to yourself - Yeah,
- and I forgive myself a lot. - Oh, yeah.
Self-acceptance is enormous.
I see how I feel now as a remission,
or I'm in recovery,
to use an AA term,
and I do all these things
to maintain --exercising, eating right,
sleeping, my medicine, my therapists.
Just dancing.
$22, dance class, living my best life.
And there's people there from all ages.
One of the women's like 70,
one of the girls there's like 18,
and we have the best time.
And I always feel,
even if I haven't got the routine down
or I forget the choreo,
I always leave
feeling so much better that I went.
That or get yourself a mental health designer handbag.
I do that.
I got myself a mental health
- Chanel bag. - Girl, it helps.
Yeah, exactly.
The handbags.
Mental health, yes.
It's so hard for me to say
that other people should find help
because I don't seek it myself.
Yeah, in no way am I perfect or there
with looking out for my mental health needs, yeah.
In fact, I'm just starting to figure it out.
One thing that was really helpful
was a quote from Mark Twain.
Me.
- Yeah, it's Mark Twain. - Well.
From Oprah...
- From Oprah. - ...from Maya Angelou.
That my therapist famously said.
I prefer Samuel Clemens.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens.
- Yes. - Yes.
What was his quote?
"If you wanna cheer yourself up,
cheer somebody else up."
- Yes, yes. - Oh, I love that.
And Kurt Vonnegut's son, Dr. Mark Vonnegut,
has this great thing,
he says, "The meaning of life
is to help each other through this,
whatever it is."
- Mm. - Yeah.
- Well said. - I don't have
a single original thought, by the way.
Yeah, no, all of this.
This is what I'm learning
about you, I love it.
But at least I cite my references,
which is ethical.
No, of course, of course.
Well, and as Ram Dass said...
..."Regardless of where anybody is in life,
we're all walking each other home."
- Wow. - And I love that
- so, so much. - Oh.
And it ties into taking care of each other.
There's another quote that was like,
have you ever heard, "The glass is already broken?"
- Who said that one? - Oh, God.
Yeah, who?
- It's Oprah. - Mark Twain.
"Walk other people home."
I'm trying to summarize.
Let's summarize.
- In summary. - Treat yourself,
walk other people home, share yourselves.
- Go to the circus. - Share --
Misquote Oprah.
Misquote Oprah,
and you're not alone.
- Yes. - Did I do good?
- Yes, you did. - That was perfect.
Thank you guys for being here.
Yay.
Thank you, Neil.
Atsuko Okatsuka,
Nicole Byer,
Tig Notaro.
London Hughes,
Gary Gulman,
Mike Birbiglia,
and I'm Neil Patrick Harris.
Good night.
- Group hug. - Group hug,
group therapy hug.
Bye, thank you.
Bye.
Yeah, let's do it.
I have very little wisdom.
All I would say is,
whatever you're feeling,
you're most likely not alone.
Most likely is allowing for pedophilia,
just in case anyone was wondering.
I don't want people to feel carte blanche,
like, "Yeah, fuck it,
everybody feeling that, so."
I want people to feel some sense of shame...
...if they're evil.
Some days it's hard to get out of bed.
And people say, "Why is it hard to get out of bed?"
And I think I know why,
this is my theory.
The thing they don't tell you about life
- when you're growing up... - Bye-bye.
...is this --life, mm...
...it's every single day.