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You feel it coming don't want to acknowledge it
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So sick of fronting Stand up in front of it
'Cause I don't wanna waste no time
I don't wanna waste no time
Don't hear your mother Father, or family
They said it won't give up Well, wait and see
'Cause I don't wanna waste no time
'Cause everybody's playin' it loose
But what if we were real with it?
'Cause honestly I'm just too good for that half love
Know that you've been feelin' it too Ah, admit the truth
Thanks so much.
Never gonna love another like you…
Thank you, guys. Good to see you. Thanks for being here.
How are you? Hey.
Thank you so much. I…
Thank you.
I…
About a year ago…
I'm walking my daughter home from school.
My wife and daughter and I live in Brooklyn.
There's all these smoke shops there, and they have cutesy names
like Blazy Susan…
…and Yes We Cannabis.
And…
And my daughter Oona looks up, she's nine years old,
she looks up at the name of a shop, and she goes, "Dad, what's the good life?"
I was like, "I don't even know."
"It's not what I'm doing." And…
But it was one of those moments where I'm like,
"I should try to explain drugs as best I can."
It's like, "Well, some people use drugs, and they sort of make your brain happy,
but it's sort of a fake happy,
and you don't wanna get too happy 'cause then you gotta use more drugs
to get it as happy as it was the first time."
"And then the eighth or ninth time, you're in real trouble."
"Anyway, Mom and I use them sometimes."
"Not often, mostly when we were younger."
"Not your age. Like three years older than you are now."
And, of course, I have to explain drugs to my daughter,
but I don't-- No one explained it to me.
My parents didn't explain it.
The closest thing to it was in sixth grade,
they had the D.A.R.E. program, and it was the '80s.
It was an acronym that stood for Drug Abuse Resistance… Education,
which sort of feels like it was written by someone on drugs.
You know, like…
"It's gotta be four words!"
"We know what the 'D' is!"
"We're printing the shirts on Monday!" You know?
It was a very shirt-driven campaign,
and those shirts are worn, ironically, to this day,
by people actively on drugs.
And…
before the D.A.R.E. program, I had not considered using drugs, and…
…once they laid out all the options,
I was like, "I should try these drugs and make an educated decision,
because they made it sound pretty exciting."
Like, "Kids will come up to you." I was like, "Keep talking."
Like, kids… kids hadn't come up to me.
This was the most exciting social development
of my childhood.
"Kids are gonna come up to you. They're gonna offer you crank…
…and boomers,
and angel dust."
I was like, "Angel dust?"
I was a sixth-grade altar boy. I was like,
"I shall try this angel dust!"
"Soar to the heavens aside my Lord Jesus Christ!"
To this day, I have not been offered crank,
…nor angel dust,
nor… nor any-- I mean, nor even cocaine.
I've nev-- I've never seen cocaine.
Sometimes people don't even believe it when I say that. I work in nightclubs.
Not once has someone thought, "We should show it to Mike."
It's like, "What do I look like? I…"
That's how people see me.
I was in Washington Square Park the other day,
and this stranger was walking in front of me,
and someone said to that stranger,
"You got an undercover cop walking behind you." And…
And then he looked back at me,
and I looked behind me,
and there was no one there.
And I said to this stranger, I go, "No."
Which is exactly what an undercover cop would say.
So I don't, you know-- I've never used recreational drugs.
In college, my friends would smoke pot,
but I was the least fun person to smoke with.
I was the guy who was like, "Do you guys hate me?"
"Why does my heart hurt?"
"Is that rickets? Who's at the door Who's at the door? Who's at the door?"
Like, I just wasn't a good hang,
and so I just veered away from all that, and…
But I use prescription drugs.
I don't want to, but I have to,
because I have a serious sleepwalking disorder.
About 20 years ago,
I sleepwalked through a second-story window
of a La Quinta Inn
in Walla Walla, Washington.
True story.
And when you do that once,
they always bring it up when you go to the doctor, and…
I was diagnosed 20 years ago with this very rare condition
called REM sleep behavior disorder.
And I've talked about it so much in my comedy specials,
that when you go to med school, and you study sleep disorders, in the DSM,
the example of REM behavior disorder
is me.
My dad is a doctor.
He wanted me to go to med school, and I didn't…
but I'm in there.
I basically teach.
I went to my sleep doctor a couple years ago and mentioned this.
I go, "You know in the DSM, I'm the example of RBD."
And he goes, "That's not good."
I go, "What do you mean?"
"We did it."
He goes, "The problem is that I'm not entirely convinced
that's exactly what you have."
And I said, "We're going to have to write a mass email…
…because there's a lot of people walking around this earth
thinking they have Mike Birbiglia disease,
and Mike Birbiglia might not have it."
Can you imagine if Lou Gehrig…
…was like, "Actually, I'm feeling pretty good."
"I think I might play baseball again."
People would have been furious.
That's right. I just compared myself to Lou Gehrig.
The reason I bring up the sleepwalking
is that 20 years ago, I get diagnosed with REM sleep behavior disorder,
and they put me on Klonopin.
And I recently went to a new doctor, and she's looking at my chart,
and she goes, "You've been on Klonopin for 20 years?"
And I go, "Yeah." And she goes, "All right."
And I was…
That is not what you want to hear when you go to the doctor.
I go, "Are you concerned?"
She goes, "Do you know the side effects?"
I go, "I don't know."
She goes, "Depression, loss of memory, poor motor skills…"
I said, "I just thought that was my personality."
Like it's…
It's a strange moment in one's life
when you realize your personality is side effects.
Because then I'm just self-conscious about all my daily activities.
Like, one thing I do every night before bed
is my dosage of Klonopin is one-and-a-half milligrams,
and so I have to break a pill precisely in half, yeah.
You know who shouldn't have a precision task like that?
Someone with poor motor skills.
Because, inevitably, I break it in half,
and there's a pile of Klonopin dust on the sink,
and then I'm depressed,
and I'm crying into the…
into the dust,
and the tears are merging to form a Klonopin sorbet,
and then I… I lick up…
…what I perceive to be a half a milligram…
but definitely isn't a half a milligram.
So how do I explain that to my daughter?
That's the good life. Yeah, that's the good stuff.
There are so many things I feel like I can't explain to my daughter.
She's nine years old, and it's just getting harder,
because when they're younger, it sort of doesn't matter.
Like, they're an animated bag of rice,
and you just gotta make sure they stay animated.
And then, even when they're toddlers,
it's a lot of layups.
"What's that?" "That's an egg. I'm a genius." You know?
But…
And my wife doesn't know that much stuff either.
She's a poet. I'm a comedian.
Together, we're a sculptor.
We… you know, we just don't know a lot.
I mean, we've read hundreds of books about leaves.
We can't…
We can't explain leaves that well.
And…
And it just started to become very clear to me about a year ago
because I get a call from my mom,
and she said, "Dad was sick this week,
and I tried to get him to go to his doctor, but he wouldn't go."
"And then yesterday, he fell down in the bathtub,
and I called 911,
and the ambulance took him into the ER, and it turned out he had had a stroke."
And I get off the phone,
and I'm alone in my bedroom,
and I go into my closet, and I'm just sort of organizing things,
and I just start crying alone.
And my daughter Oona comes in, and she goes, "Dad, what's wrong?"
And I go, "Well, Grandpa had a stroke."
And she says, "Dad, what's a stroke?"
And that's when I realized…
I can't really explain what a stroke is.
I took a swing.
I mean…
I know the bullet points.
You know, I go, "It's a brain injury, and there's bleeding in your brain."
And then it was a lot of free association after that, you know.
I was like, "Your brain is bleeding,
and… I'm not sure where the blood was,
but I think it was, like, in the vessels,
and they're sort of all in there, you know, and…
but now, it's just, you know, everywhere."
"I think. And…
I mean, in a way, our whole body is sort of filled with blood."
"There's gallons and gallons of blood all over your body."
"In a way, we're bleeding at all times."
"Maybe ask your mom about that."
"Or Grandpa."
"But not this week, you know." And…
So Oona goes, "Is Grandpa Vin going to be okay?"
And I go, "I don't know. I'm going to go home tonight."
So that night, I drove to Providence, Rhode Island,
to the hospital,
and I take the elevator up to the eighth floor,
to the stroke unit, and I see my dad, and he's just a shell of himself.
He can't move half of his body, and he can't really speak.
And the neurologist came in, and she goes, "Vince!"
"We're going to do a spinal tap."
My dad happens to be a retired neurologist.
So from the condition he was in,
he suggested a type of spinal tap.
He goes, "Guided spinal tap."
Which is impressive.
But also a good example of how controlling my dad is.
I'm…
I'm watching a half-dead neurologist
tell a fully-alive neurologist
…how to do her job.
I mean, that is next-level mansplaining.
I mean, that is…
…that's dead-mansplaining.
If you don't… If you don't know the term "mansplain,"
it's when a man explains to a woman something she might understand better
than the man.
I'm not explaining it to you. I'm conveying it.
I am "man-veying," and…
It was devastating seeing my dad in this condition,
because when I was a kid,
I always viewed my dad as larger than life.
He was almost like a mythological creature.
In a way, I sort of wanted to be my dad
because he knew so much stuff.
He was a doctor,
and in his free time, he got his law degree.
Yeah.
That's how much he didn't want to be a dad.
He was like…
He was like, "What could I do in these slots of time
when I would be parenting?"
In fairness, we weren't great kids.
We always wanted a dad…
and he wanted another secondary degree.
So our goals were at odds.
I never saw that side of my dad, you know?
Sometimes when I was a kid, strangers would come up to me.
They'd be like, "Your dad is a great doctor."
I'd be like, "All right," you know.
From Worcester, Massachusetts, that's how everyone talks.
"Your dad is a great doctor."
"All right, you know, he's not my dad."
I mean, he is my dad. That was Freudian.
I don't know if that will make it in the special.
The whole show is about my dad. "He's not my dad."
"What was that first part where he said it's not his dad?"
"Is this going to twist into the ending of Chinatown?"
He wasn't my…
He wasn't my doctor.
Someone came to me recently, I was walking Oona home from school,
and they said, "I love your comedy." I said, "Thanks."
They look at Oona and go, "Your dad's a great comedian."
She was like, "All right." Know what I mean?
I was like, "I know what you mean."
And we walk a few blocks.
I go, "Oona, what do you think when people say that stuff?"
And she goes, "It's a waste of my time." And I was like…
…that's the meanest thing anyone has ever said to me,
and I know Bill Burr.
It's very rare that I would see my dad being a doctor.
I remember one time-- I played soccer when I was a kid.
I was the goalie, and one time I dove head-first for the ball,
and I got to it, and then the kid on the other team
kicked my head…
I know.
With the intensity he had intended for the ball.
And I don't know the rest of the story,
but I have been told that I hopped up and was like, "I'm good,"
and they took my word for it, and they kept me in the game.
And about 15 minutes later, I just wander off the field…
…onto another field.
My teammates ran over, and they go, "Mike, are you okay?"
And I said to them, and I quote, I go, "What are we even doing here?"
And my dad ran onto the field, and he picked me up,
and he carried me off, and he drove me home,
and he asked me all the questions that doctors ask their patients,
"What's your middle name? What are the classes you take at school?"
I was like, "Okay, this is what my dad does."
And then the other time, when it came up,
is that I went to Saint Mary School for grade school,
in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. Every Friday night, we had science club,
which is kind of like a mafia front for Catholic school.
Like, "We believe Jesus turned water into wine,
and also, there were dinosaurs," you know? And…
So every Friday night,
it's like a different parent explaining… what science has to do with their job.
And one night, it was going to be my dad.
And I was so nervous. I was like, "What's he going to say?"
"He doesn't know anything about science."
And he came in, and he brought his medical tools,
and he took them out one by one and explained what each of them does.
He took out a three-dimensional model of the brain,
explained the hemispheres of the brain,
and all these kids came up to me afterwards,
like, "Your dad is wicked smart."
"You have the smartest dad."
I was like, "Yeah,
I do have the smartest dad."
"But how come he didn't explain any of that stuff to me sooner?"
Because I didn't see a lot of that.
What I'd see of my dad, he'd come home from work around eight o'clock at night,
and he'd sit in the corner of the living room, read a war novel,
and scowl.
And every now and then, he'd sort of fly off the handle
about some little thing.
He'd be like, "Where are my goddamn keys?!" You know.
I'd be like, "We gotta find Dad's keys!"
Spent my whole life looking for those keys.
Jumped through a window to get those keys.
My dad would not like that joke.
We'd look for the keys, and then my mom would just pray.
She'd be like, "I'm gonna say a prayer to Saint Anthony."
I was seven. I was like, "I don't think this is gonna work."
"We need more concrete tactics to locate the keys."
If you don't know the Christian Saint Anthony…
he's sort of the finding-stuff guy…
…which feels like a bum deal as a saint. It's…
'Cause it's hard to become a saint.
You gotta perform three miracles,
they have to verify the miracles, you know?
A lot of… A lot of dark money in that space.
A lot of, "Yeah, I saw it."
And then they get canonized, if you're lucky,
and chances are you find out five minutes before you die, you know?
They're like, "Great news! You're a saint!"
You're like, "Ah!" You know?
"One last thing. You gotta find everybody's keys."
You're like, "No!" And then you're dead.
So I'm with my dad in March at the hospital, and it's devastating.
If you've been with someone who's had a stroke,
it's the worst thing you can possibly imagine.
But I will say, if I'm being completely honest,
it has calmed him down.
Stay with me. Most of the jokes are for you,
but a few of them are for me.
This is a… This is a coping mechanism.
I hope it is for you too.
I mean, most of the time, this is horrific,
but then every once in a while, I'm like, "Where was the stroke when I was five?"
You know what I mean?
When I was a kid, he'd be like, "Where are my goddamn keys?!"
Now he's like, "Keys." And I'm like…
I can't say I don't prefer the latter.
It is a little more polite.
Stay with me. It is my dad.
I'm allowed.
It would be weird if it was your dad, you know?
I came out here and was like, "This guy's dad is like, 'Keys!'"
You'd be like, "Mike has really crossed a line."
The most perverse insult-comic of all time.
"The roast of Mike Birbiglia's audience members' ailing parents!"
So I'm with my dad in March at the hospital,
and then he can't even really move his face,
and so the only way I can understand his expression
is through his eyes.
And the expression
in his eyes
is fear.
So how do I explain that to my daughter?
That's not the good life.
So a few days later, I drive home,
and I take my daughter
to one of her friend's birthday parties that weekend.
I go to probably 200-300 children's birthday parties a year.
It's a huge part of my life. I…
My daughter has six friends.
Last year, I went to 235 children's birthday parties.
The birthday party industrial complex has grown wildly out of control.
It's my least favorite part of my life. I really…
I don't like it, 'cause…
'Cause I just don't like my daughter's friends.
Am I allowed to say that?
I don't even know.
I love my daughter more than anything in the world.
I don't like her friends. I don't know…
I don't know if you've spent a lot of time with nine-year-olds
you're not related to.
This is an insufferable bunch.
When I'm with her friends, I'm like,
"This makes me really not understand pedophilia."
Stay with me.
I'm gonna…
I'm gonna tiptoe through this minefield… of a topic.
You're like, "We weren't with you for the stroke stuff." I…
Obviously, I'm evoking the most heinous of crimes,
but when I'm with her friends, I'm like, "I don't even get the hook."
"I don't get the sell."
Who would want to spend any meaningful amount of time
with these people?
I mean, these are our worst and dumbest.
Stay with me. I… I have examples.
So…
I'll give you an example. So we're driving to this birthday party,
and it's me and Jenny,
my wife Jenny, our daughter Oona,
and then one of her friends, and then the friend's dad.
And the dads are losers.
Can we talk about the dads for a second?
Not me, the other dad. I mean, they're nothing like me.
I mean…
…they're all just dead in the eyes,
they've recently developed a stutter, they storm into a room,
"If anyone asks, tell them I tried to find oat milk."
You know what I mean?
They're always desperately seeking an alibi
for a misdemeanor I'm not familiar with, and…
So we're with one of the dads. His name is Rob.
It's one of our good friends.
Jenny and I call him Broccoli Rob, and…
Thanks for laughing.
We think it's hilarious. Broccoli hasn't laughed once.
We've called him this hundreds of times,
which I think is technically bullying.
So it's me,
Jenny, Oona, Broccoli,
and then Broccoli's son Arrow, which is a name.
I mean, we live in Brooklyn.
It's not the only Arrow we know.
We know a quiver of Arrows.
We know…
a murder of Beaus. I mean…
So we're driving to the birthday party, we stop at this bakery,
and this is what drives me nuts about nine-year-olds.
Arrow says to his dad, "Dad, I don't want 'wosemawy' ciabatta."
"I want 'wegular' ciabatta!"
I wanted to say to this kid, "Look, Arrow."
"Life is going to serve you all kinds of ciabatta."
"If you want to remain true to yourself, hold out for the 'wegular.'"
So we get the "wegular" ciabatta, and we drive from the bakery
to this place called Urban Air,
which, if you don't-- Yeah, if you don't know these places,
it's like a birthday party factory.
It's like… It's like a warehouse with, like, trampolines and ice cream,
and those sticks from American Gladiators that kids can whack each other with,
and the moment you enter,
you have to sign a stack of forms,
because they know your child is about to be injured.
And they get real specific.
It's like, "Your daughter is about to be stuck under a rusty trampoline."
"Mike Birbiglia."
"She may jump so high, her head is stuck in the rafters."
"Mike Birbiglia."
"She may throw up on a rusty trampoline."
"You have to clean it up with your own mop and bucket,
available for purchase at the Urban Air store."
"Mike Birbiglia."
As you're filling out these forms,
the loudspeaker is like,
"Angelina's birthday party in room 571."
"Joshua's birthday party in room 1,310."
It's like the Seventh Circle of Hell, and all I want to do is go home.
Fortunately, our daughter is injured almost immediately,
and I say…
I say "fortunately" not because I wish this upon anyone,
never mind my own child,
but if it's going to happen, you want it early,
so you can beat the Urban Air rush.
So… I drive Jenny and Oona from Urban Air to urgent care…
…which might as well have a shuttle bus.
There were a lot of familiar faces over there, and…
I'm not entirely convinced there should be urgent care.
I just…
I'm not sure what they do, exactly.
I think they created this thing because someone was having a panic attack,
and they were like, "I need care!"
Someone's like, "When?"
"Now!"
Some well-meaning person was like, "I own this empty building,
and we can paint the word 'Urgent Care' on the side,
and I'll open my laptop to WebMD.com."
That's all it is, right?
I mean, urgent care is the Urban Air of medicine.
Four weeks a year, it's a Halloween store.
I think that's a red flag.
We go in. We're frazzled.
We're like, "Our daughter came down wrong on the trampoline on her foot."
And they were like, "She should probably see a doctor."
And we're like, "That's why we came here."
And they're like, "No, we don't know any doctors."
So they sent us to a pediatric orthopedist.
First thing she says, "I think Oona should have an X-ray."
Oona looks at me, she goes, "Dad, what's an X-ray?"
And I took a swing, you know. I said, "Well…
you go in this machine, and then there's these rays…
…and the rays go through your skin…
and they look around…
…at your bones, right?"
"And then they come back, I think,
and, you know, I don't know how they'd know how to come back,
but fingers crossed."
"And then we hire an artist,
and the artist draws the bones based on…
what the rays have said."
"And it all takes place in that room right there."
"Mom and I will be out here."
"We are not allowed anywhere near what is about to happen."
"It is… way too dangerous."
"I…"
"There will be technicians in there with you."
"They will wear bulletproof vests."
"You will not be wearing one. Don't think too hard about that."
"And…
take it away, fellas." So…
So she's worried, and for good reason,
because the doctor came out a few minutes later,
she goes, "Oona broke one of the bones in her foot,
and so we're going to put a cast on her."
And so the cast was on for about two months.
And when your daughter breaks her foot,
it's really like the whole family has broken your collective foot,
because you've got to come up with a lot of foot-free activities.
Like, "What about sitting on couch, or stewing with anger?"
And…
Oona was angry about Arrow
'cause he jumped in front of her on the trampoline.
I was angry about Urban Air.
At my lowest point, I was like, "We should sue Urban Air."
And then I remembered all the paperwork we had signed
that explicitly stated we would never sue Urban Air.
But what the forms don't mention is anything about me discussing Urban Air
in the context of a comedy show.
So…
…if I showed up at the Beacon Theatre tonight
and said, "Urban Air shouldn't be a company,"
you would know that's a joke.
That's not how I feel about Urban Air.
I think it's a fantastic company that injures children 365 days a year,
which is comedic hyperbole.
If I came out here tonight and said,
"Guns don't kill people. Urban Air kills people,"
…you would know
that's the perfect example of satire, Your Honor, and…
But the Urban Air, urgent care situation really… really hung a lantern
on how few things I feel like I can explain to my daughter.
I mean, I can't explain strokes or X-rays or drugs.
Uh, increasingly, we have to explain sex, younger and younger,
because everyone's devices in your pockets have access now to porn.
So now we have to also explain porn,
which, you know, I can hit the bullet points, but…
…I'm hazy on the genres.
Uh--
Even the simpler of genres, like homemade porn, I'm confounded by.
After I have sex, all I can think is, "At least no one saw that." You know?
I'm never like, "How were we not rolling?"
"All right, go again."
"It's going to be 40 minutes."
I didn't have a sex talk growing up.
When I was 12, I had hard nipples…
…which I'm aware isn't sex.
I had hard nipples, and…
it's something that happens sometimes during puberty.
I say "sometimes" because when I built up the courage
to share this story with my college roommate,
he laughed for five minutes straight.
At the end of the laughter, he said to me, and I quote, he goes,
"I think that's just a you thing."
So when I was 12, I had hard nipples, and I've always been a hypochondriac,
so I thought it was cancer.
And if you know a hypochondriac, you know I'm not exaggerating.
I didn't think "maybe" it was cancer.
I thought, "I have cancer."
"What are the next steps?"
We didn't have urgent care…
…and I didn't know any doctors…
…other than my dad.
And so,
one night, I walked into the living room,
and he was just reading his war novel,
and I go, "Hey, Dad,
I think I might have cancer."
He goes, "Why do you think that?"
I said, "I have hard nipples."
He said, "That's not a symptom."
I said, "See for yourself," and I took off my shirt.
My dad stood up, he walked over to me…
and he felt my hard, hard nipples.
Which was nice.
Stay with me.
I'm not from a very physically-affectionate family. I…
We don't say I love you. We don't hug.
So when my dad caressed my hard, hard nipples…
I distinctly remember thinking, "It's not 'I love you,'
but I'll take it."
And then my father, Dr. Vince Birbiglia,
gave me the briefest medical diagnosis I have received to this very day.
He goes, "Nope."
And that was the end of the conversation.
That was the closest to a sex talk I would receive for the rest of my life.
We just weren't physically affectionate. I mean, every now and then.
I remember when I was about five years old,
I was hypotonic, which means I was dangerously dehydrated.
And my mom told me this story.
Apparently, I was passed out, and she picked me up, threw me in the car,
drove me to the emergency room.
She was a nurse, so she explained to them, "My son is hypotonic."
"He needs an IV immediately."
They go, "We need you to fill out these insurance forms."
So she's manically filling out these insurance forms,
and then my dad was working at the hospital,
and he walked in, and he surveyed the situation,
and he goes… "Give that goddamn kid an IV!"
And they did it,
which is a weird affirmation of my dad's dysfunctional personality,
because it worked, and so I don't remember that whole thing.
My mom explained it to me.
But what I remember is that I was admitted in the hospital
for four days.
And one day my dad came in, and it was just me and him,
and he brought me a Curious George doll.
It was about this big. I kept it through my entire childhood.
And he…
he just rubbed my shoulder
for about 15 minutes.
And it was the slightest gesture…
and I still remember it.
Jenny and I are the opposite with our daughter.
We are too much.
Whatever too much is,
we're going to find out when she's an adult because…
…we say "I love you," we hug her, we squeeze her.
Like we were at her ballet recital a few years ago,
and we're in the audience, and we're just crying and crying,
because she doesn't have it, you know?
And…
We're in the arts. We have a sense for these things.
There are a lot of early indicators, and…
and we're crying because we've spent thousands of dollars on the lessons,
and hundreds of hours going to the rehearsals,
and she's not going pro. It's not happening.
No, we're crying for all the right reasons.
And I run up to her afterwards, and I just squeeze her, and I go,
"Oona, you were so fantastic!"
And she goes, "Dad, you would say I was fantastic
even if I wasn't fantastic."
I know.
I had to say to her, I go, "That is so true."
"You are so much better at logic than you are at ballet."
Now…
I left out that last snippet.
I'm going to save that till when she's 15, and she tells me I'm garbage,
and I'm going to say, "I had some candid thoughts about you as well…
…when you were seven, that I withheld out of respect,
but I did share with a group of strangers at the Beacon Theatre in New York City."
We're very, you know, emotional, but we do withhold certain things.
Like I withhold anger.
I experience anger, and I hold it in,
because when I was a kid, my dad would get angry,
and I remember thinking, "I'm never going to do that."
Because kids don't know a lot,
but they absorb everything.
If you're selfish, your kids know you're selfish.
If you're kind, they know you're kind.
A few months ago,
Oona noticed that when I had woken up, that Jenny had made me pancake.
You heard that correctly. It was just one.
She made me pancake,
and I said, "Thank you for pancake."
Because she's deeply familiar with my health profile,
so she knows the right amount of pancakes for me to eat…
is pancake.
So I wanted to do something nice for her, because my love language is keeping score.
And if you're clapping, yours is too.
And if you're not clapping, yours is too,
and you're losing.
You didn't know there was a game going on. I…
Last year, Jenny said to me,
"Sometimes I feel like you're keeping score."
And I was like, "Right."
Like, I'm not being coy about it.
"What do you think the whiteboard is for in the kitchen?"
I'm just not subtle about it. I wish I were.
Jenny describes me as the narrator of our marriage
whom no one asked for.
I'll be scrubbing dishes in the sink, and I'll be like, "I'm doing the dishes,
then I'm going to grab ice cream for your parents,
then I'll take the hair out of the drain in the shower."
And she'll be like, "You don't have to say all that."
"You can just do it, and then it'll be done."
"We don't have to talk about it."
"Because I do a lot of stuff too."
"I don't talk about it. I just do it, and then it's done."
And I said,
"I'm gonna give you five points for that here on the whiteboard."
"You're still down by three. It doesn't matter."
I keep score. Not proud of it. Don't even know where it came from.
I don't know if I learned it from my parents…
I don't know how to be married.
Like, no one taught me to be married.
I'm just winging it, every day.
My marriage doesn't look anything like my parents' marriage.
My parents would argue about stuff all the time,
and like, Jenny and I argue, but it's different,
because Jenny's an introvert.
And so arguing with an introvert is just reading into the silences…
…and deciding which of the silences you want to have words.
We were walking to pick up Oona the other day, and Jenny seemed quiet.
I said, "What is it?" She goes, "Nothing." But it wasn't nothing.
It was like one of those forks in the road where I'm like,
"Wait. Do I probe,
or do I let it lie?"
Does anyone know?
I've been married 16 years. I have no idea.
Has anybody--
Who's been married a long time? Shout out how many years.
How many years have you been married?
Thirty-five.
Thirty-five years. Anyone longer than 35 years?
-Forty. -Forty. How about you?
Fifty-seven.
That's a lot. That--
First of all, what's your name?
-Anne? -Yeah.
-And what's your husband's name? -Jan.
Your husband's name is Jan?
And your name is Anne?
Okay. And…
I'm just getting that correctly? Anne and Jan?
Are you real people?
Are you…
So Anne and Jan have been married 57 years.
By the way, my parents have been married 60 years.
Yeah. Too long, right?
I mean…
When I was in my twenties, I said to my mom
something I'd held in for years.
I go, "Mom, if you ever wanted to divorce Dad,
we would be okay with that."
I thought she was going to be like, "Thanks." You know what I mean?
But she said to me something I'll never forget.
She goes, "Michael,
you cannot understand someone else's marriage."
Do you think that's true, Anne?
Jan, do you think that's true?
Anne and Jan…
Or is it "Jan and Anne"?
So Anne and Jan…
…you are the Broccoli Rob of this audience.
I think this is hilarious.
You probably do not think this is hilarious.
This is your life all the time.
So, Anne, I want to ask you advice.
If you're in this situation, and you say to Jan,
"What are you thinking about?" And he says, "Nothing,"
would you probe,
or would you let it lie?
-Probe. -Probe.
So Anne says probe.
And Jan…
…would you probe,
or would you let it lie?
Let it lie.
And that's why it works, ladies and gentlemen.
That's why the story of Anne and Jan has a happy ending.
Because
they are the oil and vinegar that creates a successful marriage salad.
So I'm with you, Anne.
I am. I probe.
I just think it's just better to know more than less.
I said to Jenny, "What are you thinking about?"
And she said, "Nothing," sort of doubled down on it.
And then I threw an off-speed pitch.
I go, "Where did you just come from just now?"
And she goes, "I was at home watching the news,
and I got sad about the war."
And I said, "Do you think it's my fault?"
And…
I was raised Catholic.
I'm open to the idea that anything could be my fault.
I-- I think it's possible I masturbated so much
it caused a war in the Middle East.
Maybe I'm a dreamer,
but I'm pretty sure that's what that song is about.
My dad would not like that joke. I…
My dad doesn't like a lot of my jokes,
but he particularly doesn't like it when they're crude, uh…
and then also personal.
So he wouldn't have loved
the five-minute section on hard nipples.
And he doesn't like political jokes. Matter of fact, when I was in my twenties,
I was doing a political joke,
and then we ended up having this discussion from it about politics,
and… it was tense.
You know, I was visiting him,
and we went for a walk
on this wooded path behind his house,
and the farther we walked,
the more tense it got,
to the point where he was just saying mean-spirited things about me,
and then I started saying mean-spirited things about him.
And we-- And I got back to my car, and I said, "Bye, Dad."
And he didn't say goodbye.
He goes, "Well…
you've gone another way."
And that was it.
And I just drove home,
and I just felt so adrift.
You know, I thought my whole life, I sort of wanted to be my dad.
And at a certain point, I decided I wanted him to be me.
But I never had that with my mom.
My mom and I have been close since I was a kid.
'Cause she's very religious.
When I was a kid, I was very religious,
because kids love magic.
And I…
I loved going to church because the priest got so many laughs
on so little material, you know?
They'd be like, "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John-Boy."
People would be like, "Father Patrick's hilarious!"
I'm like, "He's not hilarious."
"There are no punchlines. It is all set-ups."
And…
I was just like, "Get me up there."
"Put me on the mic."
"Sign me up for some open altars."
"I would kill."
"I would crucify."
"I mean, in the right context, I would crucify."
I wanted to be a priest when I was a kid.
And then I was an altar boy, and the answer is no, I wasn't.
I think it's because they knew I was a talker.
I have that look about me.
I was so bad at it, I think they thought if he's bad at lighting candles,
he's not going to be great at blowing them out.
No, I know.
Some people, that's too much.
But I think what those priests did in the '80s was too much.
I think my joke about it isn't nearly as bad.
I don't think we should let it lie.
I was raised very Catholic.
It's hard to even describe to my friends now
how baked into my childhood religion was, but every now and then it comes up.
Like, Jenny and I were in an Uber recently,
and a hymn from church just popped right into my head.
All the words.
It was this hymn that goes…
Keep in mind
That Jesus Christ
Has died for us
And is risen from the dead
All of those lyrics went straight into my head
in an Uber to CVS.
You cannot be cured of this religion.
It is the forever chemicals of religions.
So I look over at Jenny in the Uber, and I said to her,
"This hymn just came into my head."
And then I sang it to her like I sang it to you.
But she didn't laugh.
It was just stone face.
I was like, "No, but it's funny, right?" And then I just sang it louder.
She still had a very serious face.
And then she texted me…
…from three inches away from me.
And I was like, "Uh-oh."
And I look at my phone,
and it's a text from Jenny that says,
"The Uber driver has rosary beads on his dashboard."
And I'm an improviser.
So I said, "The reason I'm bringing up that hymn…
is that it's very meaningful to me…
…and I would like to teach it to you."
"So repeat after me."
Keep in mind
I had rosary beads when I was a kid.
My grandma gave them to me when I was eight for my First Communion.
If you don't know rosary beads, they're like an abacus for Catholics.
Like, count your prayers, you know?
If you don't know what an abacus is, it's like a calculator.
Like a Catholic calculator.
And I had them from my grandmother, and every night before bed, I would pray
I would do Hail Marys and Our Fathers and Glory Bes.
And my whole childhood,
my consciousness was… was me and God.
And at a certain point,
it was just me.
So in May,
I'm visiting my dad at the hospital with my mom,
and she's praying, and I'm not praying,
but I'm kind of back-up dancing, you know what I mean? I'm like…
You know.
I'm "yes, and"-ing the situation, and…
But she's praying because my dad has gotten worse.
In addition to not being able to move, he has a blockage in his stomach,
and it got so bad,
they had to put an NG tube down his throat to suck out the liquid and the gas,
and… and he's in agony.
You know, his stomach was distended about five inches.
And he says to me, "Michael, I'm dying."
And I said, "Dad, I don't think you're dying."
But I didn't know.
And the next morning, I get a call from Jim Gaffigan, the comedian,
who I've known for years, but he had a very different tone.
He goes, "Hey, um… so the pope, Pope Francis,
wants to meet a bunch of comedians,
and apparently, you're on the list, and I'm on the list, and I don't know,
I'm going to go."
And I was surprised. I go,
"Does the Pope know if he invites a bunch of comedians,
they'll probably talk about it on stage?"
And Jim goes,
"He's gotta know."
"But maybe go easy on the molestation stuff."
And I thought, "I will when they do."
You first, Catholic Church.
Don't clap, because then it becomes a rally. I…
My first inclination was to say no,
because, you know, for years,
my parents have encouraged me and Jenny to take Oona to church,
and we haven't gone.
Not because of anything anti-religious,
but if anywhere had that kind of track record…
If there was a Whole Foods in Brooklyn
that had a series of molestations,
we wouldn't shop there anymore even--
Even if people were like, "It only happens sometimes,"
I'd be like, "I think that's my number. I think that's my limit, sometimes."
So my inclination was to say no.
And then I'm with my dad that day at the hospital,
and I say, "Dad, I got invited to meet the pope."
And he lit up
like Grandpa Joe in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
And that's when I realized I was going to go to Vatican City and meet the pope.
So in June, I get a plane ticket for me and Jenny and Oona,
and we fly to Rome.
And we're walking around the Vatican, and it was surprisingly emotional,
because it's a stunning place, of course,
and then I'm explaining it to Oona.
I'm like, "This is the religion that I was raised in, and you know,
Grandma MJ believes in a lot of this stuff,
and I believe in some of it,
and a lot of this artwork was stolen, and…
…I don't think you should steal artwork, but if you do, don't give it back."
I think that's the lesson from the Vatican is if you steal, steal big.
Don't give it back.
And then Oona asked me a question that really took me by surprise.
She goes, "Dad,
who is Jesus?"
I thought, "This is a huge oversight in my education of my daughter."
Because she knows a lot of stuff.
She knows the Greek gods and the Roman gods
and the Egyptian gods and the Norse gods…
Somehow, I have entirely glossed over Jesus.
So I try to do a crash course.
Like, "Well, there's this guy, and 2,000 years ago,
he was walking around, and he was like God,
but also he was the son of God, and he had this cult, and like…
It was like a well-meaning cult, and…"
Which, by the way, not even controversial.
If Jesus were here on stage with me at the Beacon Theatre,
he'd be like, "Yeah, it was a cult. There were 12 of us."
"Seventy, tops."
You know, he would be the most confused by what happened to Christianity.
He'd be like, "This isn't what I intended at all."
"I'm more of a cross between David Blaine and a food bank."
I mean, it was a well-intended cult, and no offense to cults even.
Some offense to cults. I mean…
No, I'm not--
I don't support cults,
but I will say Jenny and I do get hooked in
to the documentaries about the cults.
Especially the first episode,
because it's always about, like, shared meals and carpooling…
We're always like, "This could work," you know?
We're looking it up on Google Maps, like, "Where is this place?"
Second episode goes dark.
It's like, "Then we had to have sex with Leader."
And I'm always like, "How often?" You know what I mean?
"There's 100 of you. How often are you even in the rotation?"
"Once a month? Once every three months? You know how many things I do
once every three months that are worse than sex with Leader?"
"Put it in the calendar."
I think that's the key to any good marriage.
You gotta…
…you gotta get it in the calendar.
Sometimes, I'll have sex with Leader.
Sometimes, Jenny will have sex with Leader.
Sometimes, I'll have sex with Jenny, and I'll call her Leader.
I think we count it.
I gotta be careful with my tone when I talk about cults because…
…because I got an email recently when someone came to one of my shows.
They were like, "I enjoyed the show, but I want you to know
if you ever did join a cult, Jenny would have to have sex with Leader
more often than you'd have to have sex with Leader."
And it really sent me into a tailspin,
because I was like, "How poorly am I conveying my humor…
…if someone leaves my show,
and they think, A, I might join a cult,
and B, that if I joined a cult,
that I don't know that Jenny would have to have sex with Leader
more often than I would have to have sex with Leader.
So I want to take this moment in the show to point out
that some of these are jokes.
The point is I'm in Rome with my family, and…
It's interesting. Everywhere in Rome that you go,
there's these beautiful chapels and statues of Jesus
and paintings of Jesus,
to the point where I said to our tour guide,
I was like, "Was he here?"
"Because I know he wasn't. I went to Catholic school,
but I feel like you guys kind of make it feel like he was."
Like, in some ways, Rome is guilty of the original case
of cultural appropriation. You know what I mean?
Because Jesus didn't get all the fun stuff out of Rome.
He didn't get the pizza and the pasta.
He didn't get to go "Mamma mia" with his buddies.
All he knows about Rome
is that the Romans showed up at his cult in Jerusalem,
and they were like, "Hey, we love what you're doing."
"It's a great story. It's a classic rags to rags."
"We feel like it might be more compelling if the protagonist died."
No, I know. I'm not happy about it either.
And then they killed him,
which is really sad, but then actually more perverse than that,
is they killed him and then sold paintings of themselves killing him
to take over half the world.
It's like if the Wilkes Booth family sold Lincoln Logs. Like…
So I explain this to the pope, and he thinks it's hilarious.
But…
…he doesn't speak English, so who's to say? And…
No, we actually didn't perform for the pope,
which I felt like was a missed opportunity,
because there was a lot of great comedians there.
It was, like, Chris Rock and Stephen Colbert and Conan O'Brien
and David Sedaris, and all these people, and me.
And by the way, I get that I'm at the bottom of that list.
Like, they called me in May to go in June.
I'm pretty sure there was an April list, and they got some nos,
and then the pope was googling "comedian" on his Dell laptop…
And his last name is Bergoglio,
and my last name is Birbiglia, and I think he was like,
"He's a Birbiglia. I'm a Bergoglio."
"It's my long-lost cousin!" And…
He doesn't talk like that.
I…
He's not even Italian.
He's from Buenos Aires.
But I don't think the comedy community has signed off on that as an accent yet,
so… until that happens,
"Mamma mia! I'm the pope!"
"We make pizza with the Eucharist!"
My dad wouldn't love that joke either.
We didn't perform for the pope.
The pope spoke… to us,
comedians,
about comedy.
Which is a great example of power corrupting.
If you get to a point where you're so good at being a priest
that you're like, "I'm going to invite Chris Rock over to my house
and tell him my thoughts on comedy."
It's like if I showed up at NASA and said, "I got some thoughts on rockets."
"I think we should build them and fly in them,
but never on the outside, like in cartoons."
"And that concludes my speech about rockets."
"Now, everyone kiss my wedding ring."
Everyone's like, "It's sweaty."
The pope spoke to us about comedy.
And this pope, if you don't know this pope, Pope Francis, he's pretty good,
but only compared to other popes.
I mean…
If you met him at a party, you'd be like, "This fucking guy." Like…
But compared to other popes, he's amazing.
And he invited us in to what's called the Apostolic Palace,
and he gave a speech about humor.
And it was about 40 minutes long, but I jotted down my favorite parts.
These are the actual… my favorite parts.
It was in Italian, but they gave us a translation. He says,
"Dear friends, in the midst of so much gloomy news,
immersed as we are in many social and personal emergencies,
you have the power to spread smiles."
"You are among the few who have the ability to speak to people
from different generations and cultural backgrounds."
It's sweet. Good, friendly pope stuff.
Then he says, "According to the Bible…"
This is where he loses me a little bit.
"…at the beginning of the world, while everything was being created,
divine wisdom practiced your form of art
for the benefit of none other than God himself,
the first spectator of history."
Which is oddly a concept
that's always bummed me since grade school.
Because the spectator of history thing is something they taught
when I was growing up. They were like, "God is watching you
at all times."
I took it literally. I was seven.
I just thought he was, like, tailing me in a Chevy Malibu,
like, "What's Mike Birbiglia up to?"
"He's hiding porn in the forest."
"I'll make sure he doesn't have a girlfriend until he's 20."
And that prophecy came true, so maybe there is a God, but…
But that imagery just stuck with me through my childhood.
Like, when I was 15, I started masturbating.
I just assumed God was watching me do that too, you know?
So I would sort of cheat to the camera because I…
I thought if he was looking at the monitor at that moment,
he'd think, "I've seen a lot of 15-year-olds masturbate,
but this kid's good."
"I think he might go pro."
And I have, which is a happy ending.
Not technically, but…
All right. Then the pope said…
"I'm reminded of the story in the Book of Genesis
when God promised Abraham within a year, he would have a son."
"He and his wife Sarah were old and childless."
She was 23.
"Sarah conceived and bore a son in her old age."
Twenty-four.
"Then Sarah said, 'God has made laughter for me.'"
"That is why they named their son Isaac, which means 'he laughs.'"
And finally he says, "Remember this."
"When you manage to draw knowing smiles from the lips of even one spectator,
you also make God smile."
Which I thought was nice.
And then he gave us rosary beads.
He gave us each a little green satchel of rosary beads that he blessed,
and I brought them home to my parents in July.
It was my dad's 84th birthday,
and it was me and my mom and my brother Joe,
my sister Jean, and my sister Patty, and all of our kids,
my dad's six grandchildren,
and we're all around my dad,
and I brought him these rosary beads.
And he lit up,
and then my mom said, "Michael, you were called by God."
I want you to know…
I don't think I was called by God.
And when she said this, what I wanted to say was, "No."
"I was called by Jim Gaffigan…
…who was called by Stephen Colbert,
who may have been called by God."
But when you've had a year like my parents have had,
you find yourself saying things like, "Yes…
I was called by God."
So we have a cake for my dad,
and then everyone headed home.
And I'm just standing there with my dad. He's lying in his bed,
and I'm talking to him. He's able to talk,
but he doesn't remember anything that's happened in the last year.
So I'm asking him questions about things that happened a long time ago.
He was born in 1940 in Bushwick, Brooklyn,
and I said, "When you were growing up,
were your family members coming back from World War II?"
And he goes, "Well, yeah, my Uncle Charlie and my Uncle Joe and my Uncle Tony,
they all came back, and they had these wild stories
about how they were nearly killed."
I said, "Did you get drafted for Vietnam?"
And he said, "Yeah, I got drafted, but then, because I was a doctor,
they stationed me on a base in Texas,
and that's where your mother and I met a lot of our closest friends
for the rest of our lives."
And I said, "When you were growing up, what was your address in Bushwick?"
And he told me the address, and I put it into my phone,
and then I drew a line
between my dad's childhood home
and his granddaughter Oona's childhood home now,
and it's about four miles apart, and I showed it to him,
and I thought, "How come my dad never told me any of this stuff sooner?"
Then I thought, "How come I hadn't asked?"
And my Dad at this point is getting tired, and he can't really speak anymore,
but I'm with him…
and I want to be there for him.
Because you know when your parent has been through
what my dad has been through,
you just don't know how many more times you'll get to see him again.
And so I reached over, and I rubbed his shoulder,
and I could tell from his eyes that he enjoyed it.
And his lips crested up a little.
And so I just rubbed his shoulder for about 15 minutes.
And I felt as close to my dad
as I did when I was a kid,
and he brought me the Curious George doll at the hospital…
and when I was 12, and he caressed my hard, hard nipples.
And the next morning, I drive Jenny and Oona home to New York,
and a few days later, I'm walking Oona home from school,
and I think, "That's all I can really teach my daughter…
which is that we will never know everything."
"We will all often be wrong."
"And it's possible that small acts of kindness
are all we have."
"And maybe…
that's the good life."
Thank you so much!
Thank you so much for coming out!
'Cause everybody's playin' it loose
But what if we were real with it?
'Cause honestly I'm just too good for that half love
Know that you've been feelin' it too Ah, admit the truth
Never gonna love another like you
Never gonna, never gonna Never gonna love another
Never gonna love another like you
Never gonna, never gonna Never gonna love another
Never gonna love another like you
-Never gonna love another like you -Ahh
Never gonna love another like you
Never gonna, never gonna Never gonna love another
-Never gonna love another like you -Ooh-ah! Ooh!
Never gonna, never gonna Never gonna love another
Never gonna love another like you Ooh-ah! Yeah!
-Never gonna love another like you -Ooh-ah!
'Cause everybody's playin' it loose But what if we were real with it?
'Cause honestly I'm just too good for that half love
Know that you've been feelin' it too Let's admit the truth
Never gonna love another like you
What if we were real with it?
'Cause honestly I'm just too good for that half love
Know that you've been feelin' it too Ah, admit the truth
Never gonna love another like you