GARY GULMAN IS TERRIFIC!
An Interview with Comedian Gary Gulman, who recently published a book, and premiered his new special Born on 3rd Base on Max
By Leo Baum
Gary Gulman walked into a health-foods restaurant holding a basketball, just like how he holds a basketball on the cover of his new book: Misfit: Growing Up Awkward in the 80s.
His routine has transformed throughout his career, initially ridiculous (Abbreviating the States), and later personal (The Great Depresh)—and all of it with the greatest skill.
Gary Gulman is now performing across the country on a stand-up comedy book tour. I saw one of his New York shows at City Winery in the early fall, and another at Union Hall the month after. We later met for an unbelievable lunch interview which is transcribed here.
Thank you, Gary Gulman, for this terrific, generous, and honest interview! Happy New Year!
Leo Baum: Were you always focused on being funny?
Gary Gulman: Yeah, I was always going for the laugh. I remember I had these friends on my football team when I was in college, and to get to their dorm room where all the action was—cause the freshmen were put, it probably wasn’t a mile but it felt like a mile, right, it felt like a 10 or 15 minute walk, it could have been, it may have been less, but it felt like I had a long time between my dorm and walking to my friend’s dorm where we were gonna hang out all night.
And I used to think of funny things I would say to them when I got there—because they had really good senses of humor, and they were really into Letterman, and the Simpsons when the Simpsons had first come out, and so I used to think of things I would say to them, and then I would say them. And as I think about them now, it’s kind of interesting, and it’s also kind of sad that I felt I had to prepare comments and remarks for these guys so I could entertain them.
But again, my perception of myself was that the only thing I had to offer was my funniness, which is, which is sad. But also, sometimes I think, if it hadn’t been for that kind of motivation in my head—trying to always think funny and think up funny things—I wouldn’t have been as good at this as I am, and I would have gotten into a profession that wasn’t as valuable, in terms of my interests. I probably would’ve just been a salesman, or, I don’t know, maybe I could have been a manager, or an agent. Cause I was so interested in comedy, but it takes a lot of thinking. At least for me it took a lot of thinking, to get good enough at it that it could be my sole source of income, which is a terrible reason to go into something, but it was in the back of my mind the entire time.
Is there a certain way you like to use words in your jokes and specials?
I love to do that. We’ve been told it's really hard to come up with new material. It isn’t. It’s hard to find your voice. Once you find your voice, material comes pretty rapidly if you’re serious about it.
I was always trying to make the jokes that I had a little bit longer, and so interrogating some of the words within them, it enabled me to stretch them out and keep the people's attention. Also, if you’re from joke to joke, premise to premise, an idea to idea, topic to topic, it’s harder to keep a distracted audience’s attention. And when you start off, most of your audiences are distracted: they’re being fed, they’re eating, they’re drinking, they’re noticing whispers, the rooms are loud, and it's hard to hold attention. So I found it easier to stay on one subject for a long time, because I wasn’t doing a lot physically, or in terms of delivery or voice, to really put on a show.
Sure. So when was this voice for you?
I think that purple shirt special (In This Economy) is definitely the first one that has my voice. It took two years to write that, and another two years to get that filmed. So I probably developed a voice around 2008, so that’s 15 years into a 30 year thing. I had a tone, I had a style, but it was a melange of influences and techniques to do well in front of audiences who didn’t know who the hell I am for the most part.
But did you always think what you were performing was funny?
For a while, it was, “I’m trying to grab for clothes in a dark closet. I hope this works, I wonder if this works,” just trying a lot of things.
And now, I think in the sense of, “This is funny. The audience may like it. If they don’t, it’s going to take a lot from me to drop it because I really believe in this.”
And that’s a really important stage to get to in comedy—where you believe in your idea and you stick with it, and maybe you adjust it, but sometimes you just stick with it, and it's the confidence you deliver it with that can make the difference.
I had this line, that I said that the Greatest Generation shared a lot of the same ideologies with Hitler. And the first few times I told it, I didn’t tell it with any kind of strength, or confidence, and the audience probably could sense it, and that didn’t work. And then recently, I literally physically stood with both of my feet planted at the front of the stage, and I said these things without any apology, and the audience responded in a way that I was so pleased with. It was really telling.
It's not everything, but confidence will make it—I mean you’ve seen it, you’ve seen comedians with very meager writing ability. They believe in what they’re saying and they commit, and the audience just falls all over themselves to meet their approval. When you can combine those two things––with somebody like Richard Pryor or George Carlin––the confidence and the commitment, with great writing, that’s those people that are so special.
I also like seeing comedians say things that the audience doesn’t laugh at, but I say “that’s really funny, and I’m glad they said that.” Because whether people laugh, that’s important—most of your show should get laughs. But it's okay for some of your sentence just to be really clever, or poignant, pithy, or well-worded. I think those are really good too. And then years later you find out a sentence that never got a laugh is somebody’s favorite moment in a special. It’s just the broader the audience, the more variety of people exposed to it, and the bigger variety. They’ll enjoy it.
How did you figure it out to then say, “I have a line that’s hilarious and I know it’s hilarious”?
I mean, I knew early on I had to get laughs for five minutes, or for however long I was on stage in front of the people who could get me more work. And now, this is subtext, but part of what I do is try to get people to want to come back after seeing me live. Or seeing a special and wanting to see me live rather than watching on the TV. There has to be something that resonates and motivates. It’s hard to distinguish yourself––you need to be the only place where they can get a certain feel, or a vibe, and that’s your particular, unique, personality, and everyone has one. The more you’re able to manifest that in your act, the more people will find you the only source for your spirit.
But, I never thought about that in that way, I’m just describing what was going on in the subconscious, and also what you learn from reading, say, Emerson’s Self Reliance, and how important it is to be yourself, and to be specific. Being yourself means being specific—you’re the only person with your perspective and your experiences.
You mentioned in your book the Synagogue where you went to Hebrew School, “Temple Nir Tamid,” which people would call “Temple Near The Mall”
Yeah, they also used to call it—because there was a Chinese Food restaurant called Su Chang’s down the hill from it—sometimes they would call it Temple Near Su Chang’s. It was just a perfect synagogue name for jokes.
Was there ever a certain Jewish Joke that you thought was really great?
Yeah. “There are two Jewish men and they’re about to face a firing squad, and the sergeant at arms says to them, do you have any last requests? One of the men says, “can I get a blindfold?” And the friend says, “Murray, don’t make trouble.” That, I feel, captures a certain type of anxiety and helplessness for a lot of people in my family.
But you would never put a joke like that in an act, you would never do like an older [joke] in the middle?
If I came up with something that good. I mean there is the possibility, Woody Allen talks about that old joke, “I never want to belong to a club that would have me as a member” and he makes a meal out of it.
And with Woody Allen, he would do a lot of longer story jokes that were really ridiculous, which are different from the realistic jokes that could be more popular now. But he did not want his to seem true?
No, he was working in absurdism, right?
Right, it was so, I love where he talks about how he was hypnotized, and there’s a magician on TV and he’s hypnotized by it, and he’s a fire engine.
Yeah. Or when he was kidnapped? As a child?
Right, and the father had “poor reading habits.”
I mean it’s incredible! And I can’t think of another comedian who’s doing anything like that, but, I don’t see everybody.
True, but you see a lot of them?
I mean, I can’t remember everything Joe Pera said, but there is that kind of vibe about him that these stores they may be fiction they may be true, but they’re so absurd that, he’s, he’s extraordinary, and really nice. That’s interesting. Yeah. I mean The Moose––and that kidnapping story––it’s definitely the same type of joke as the Abbreviating The States.
It is!
Yeah totally!
Did you think about that when you were writing [the Abbreviating the States Joke]?
I just remember one night, I had been trying it for years, and then one night I said––it was during a time when they began making documentaries about everything, or small things––and I was like, “let me tell it this time, but say that it’s a documentary.”
Have you done so many similar story jokes? Or not as many?
No, I don’t think so. I mean, I make up certain fantasy parts of the Trader Joe’s joke. And obviously the joke about roll playing with my wife is not true. And so, I guess I have, but it becomes something that I wouldn’t want it to be known, “he only does this,” right? Because if you only do that, then it’s hard to say “oh yeah, I was in the psyche ward.” And then they’re like “wait, is this made up?”
Right.
So, it was a nice transition. I was very lucky to be able to go from that type of absurd and observational to the confessional without having to be famous in between, or something like that.
