Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out - 150. Michael Ian Black: How to Do Comedy with Your 10 Best Friends

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

 In the 90s, Michael Ian Black’s college sketch group The State got a show on MTV, spawned another iconic group, Stella, and led to the classic movie Wet Hot American Summer. Now Michael sits down with Mike to talk about how all 11 members of The State have remained friends through the ups and downs of show business. Michael shares his advice on how to keep a comedy group together as well as a marriage, as he and his wife just celebrated 26 years. Plus, jokes and stories about truth or dare, the pros and cons of leaving New York City, and behind the scenes of Michael’s love scene with Bradley Cooper.Please consider donating to the Mark Twain Library.

the state was doing a show at South by Southwest. We'd seen a sketch group before us, or maybe even a couple, and they had done a gag about getting naked or something, but they didn't get naked. And so we were like, we had the conversation of like, why would you like go 80% of the way there and not go- Not get naked.

So we wrote a sketch for South by Southwest where we all got fully naked on stage. Wow. But that was our mentality. It was like, no, if you're gonna say you're gonna do it, do it and then go a little further. Yeah. Yeah.

That is the voice of the great Michael Ian Black. I have been waiting for so long to have Michael Ian Black on this podcast. He is one of my favorite comedians and actors and sketch comedians and I'm so have Michael Ian Black on this podcast. He is one of my favorite comedians and actors and sketch comedians and writers of all time. I have been a fan of his since the 1990s. When I was in college, he was on an iconic MTV sketch show

called The State, which we talk about a lot today. After that, he was in a group called Stella with Michael Showalter and David Wayne. If you're not familiar with Stella and the state, you have to go on YouTube and just look up some of these things. These guys were really pioneers in this space. They would make short films, like, every week, and then they would premiere the short film at their

show at the live show at the Time Cafe. It was really like it's something that people today do very commonly on Instagram and TikTok. But at the time, no one was really doing this. I was really truly fascinated by it. So we talk about that today. It's an exciting week for my tour because we just announced a fourth Yes, a fourth show at the Beacon Theatre in New York City the historic Beacon Theatre March 19th is what we added. So it's March 19th through 22nd All of that get tickets on BurrBigs.com sign up for the mailing list. We have added the final

tour cities of this tour. This is again, to clarify, this is the Please Stop the Ride Tour, which has a finale in New York City under the name The Good Life. The final cities are Iowa City at the Englert Theater, Pickering Ontario at the Pickering Casino Resort, Baltimore, Maryland at the Baltimore Center Stage,

which is a gorgeous little theater in Baltimore. Ira Glass was telling me that he grew up going to see plays there. Northampton, Massachusetts, I'm at the Academy of Music, one of the coolest little city towns in America, Northampton, Massachusetts, Western Mass. And then finally I'll be in Burlington, Vermont at the Flynn. I love the Flynn, February 23rd. And stay tuned for a Los Angeles announcement. There will be a few

shows in Los Angeles and those will be the final shows. And then The Good Life, The Biggest Theater, New York City, all of those shows are on sale now at Berbigs.com. Again, to be clear about what the show itself is, over the last two years, if you've seen me live, whether it's in Boston or Chicago or Seattle, or coming to see me at The Beacon in March, it has been a show in progress. The jokes I talk about

on the podcast are part of that process. So anything, if you saw Christmas Parmesan, if you saw Please Stop the Ride, and if you're going to see The Good Life, it is all a work in progress. Every show is different from the last. I'm always adding jokes, taking away jokes, shaping the contour of the show and of the stories with my director Seth Barish, who is also directing The Good Life. So I hope to see it one of those shows. I love this episode with Michael Ian Black. We talk about collaboration,

particularly with a sketch comedy group that had a lot of drama in it. They're still friends. They did a reunion tour about a year ago, but he has a fascinating story about that. We also talk about him performing a very intense love scene with Bradley Cooper in Wet Hot American Summer. And we just talk a little bit philosophically about relationships, relationships in marriage, romantic relationships, group dynamics, group relationships, old college friends. It's a great conversation with the great Michael Ian Black. ["Workin' It"]

So when I moved to New York, you were doing Stella live. Before it was a Comedy Central cult hit sketch series. Well, we can just call it a cult. There's no reason to put the word hit in there. There's no hit. It was not a hit. Cult sketch series? Sure. Right, right, right.

But it was a short lived show on Comedy Central. But it be loved. I loved it. Thanks. Still love it. It was you, Michael Showalter, David Wayne, who you were in the state together years before. Yes.

When I moved to New York, it was like a huge downtown live sketch show. The biggest, I mean, I performed on it a couple of times and I felt like I was performing on Letterman or Carson. Like I was like, this is my shot. And then years later, I remember talking to David Wayne about it. And he was like, no, no, when we were doing that,

we were all broke and like living on like 300 bucks a week from that live sketch show. Oh, no, no, no. We didn't make any money off. No. How'd you make a living? At that time, I don't remember. I might've been doing Viva Variety,

which was a TV show, sort of concurrent with that. But no, I mean, nobody made it. The only people who made any money from Stella the live show were the band, because we had to pay the band every week. Wow. From our point of view, we were just putting on a show,

like a little rascal show, like for friends. From our point of view, like we were just doing this thing cause it was fun. We never thought of it as this is at all anything that anybody would aspire to be on. We filled it every week. I mean, we filled the audience and we were able to book it. But it never occurred to me until years later

that people were looking from the outside in it at that and going, wow, this is something really cool. To me, it feels like a pioneering show in the sense that it was completely DIY. You would shoot film shorts that were a riot. And even to this day, like some of them not even televised. None of them have been televised. Right, like the pizza one, which is brilliant,

it's just lives on YouTube. Yeah. And it's just like you and Showalter and David Flynn being like, oh, New York pizza, doing these Italian stereotypical characters. And then it goes really risqué and insane. And- Well, the thing is we bought a dildo

and once you buy that dildo, you have to start amortizing those costs. Right. So- You built backwards from the dildo. That's right. So we had to have the dildo in every episode just to make it cost effective.

Was there a dildo in every sketch? No, but most. And it was the same dildo. But to put in the context of comedy as it stands right now, like so few things have the DIY quality that that show had. Like, but it's very common now with Instagram and everything, TikTok stars, they're like creating multiple character sketches.

That wasn't the thing that people did then because there was no distribution platform for it. So we were making these videos with the intention of, we would just show them for one time at Stella and then that would be the end of them. But what happened was we made enough of them that we made a DVD of them and then people could buy that DVD.

That DVD ended up getting spread all over the country. And so at a certain point, the three of us decided to go on tour. And I had no idea, but like every city we went, like there were a thousand people, 1200 people showing up to see Stella. And I'm like, how do you even know about this? And it's because the DVD had been just in circulation

and sort of people knew the brand, which was so cool. I guess my question is like, what led you to make your own thing? Well, like, cause the production is so hard. Well, why make the videos production is so hard. Lighting the scenes is so hard. Why make the videos? Yeah. Well, cause we had a rule.

If it takes more than, I think the rule was, if it takes more than three hours to shoot, we're not making it. Really? Yeah. We did them so fast. Really? Turn on the camera.

The whole pizza one was three hours? No way. Probably, yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, that was the rule. And- Why was that the rule? Because production's annoying. Right. Cause it the rule. And why was that the rule?

Because production's annoying. It's like we're showing this one time at a show in front of 150 people, what the fuck are we doing? But we did it every week. And it really was Showalter's idea to start doing those. David and I were like, I don't know. That just sounds like so much work.

And he's like, trust me, trust me. I'm like, fine. Oh, interesting. Yeah, he was right. When you did the state, if people don't know the state, it was cultural phenomenon in comedy in the 1990s. You're able to see that now, right? You're able to acknowledge that

even as self-deprecating as you are. The thing is, it's like, I mean, I'm always very able to acknowledge that even as self-deprecating as you are. The thing is, it's like, I mean, I'm always very reluctant to acknowledge the import of anything or whatever the opposite of import is of anything I've been involved in because I can only see it through my eyes, meaning that people who talk to me about them are gonna be nicer to me than they would be

to anybody else. So they go, oh, that was such an important show to me. I take all of that with a grain of salt. I'm like, thank you so much. I'm like, bullshit. When you were living it, because like you were probably 23 years old, right? Like right out of NYU.

A lot of you guys were in a sketch, an improv group at NYU. The state was our sketch group. The state was the sketch group. The state was the sketch group. And then all of a sudden it became, you entered a thing on MTV and it went well, like a one-off, and then they gave you your own sketch comedy show and you were like 23 years old.

For like improvisers and sketch comedians like I was when I was in my 20s, that's all people dreamed of. That's all people wanted. And what I'm asking is, what did it feel like? Like you had the thing that people think they want. Do they want it? Probably depends on the person.

Okay, but did you want it? And then what did it feel like? When we were doing the state in college, we all felt like, oh man, like we really got something here. Like we're gonna do this after college. We're gonna stay together. Yeah. And there's like 13 of you, right?

There were 11 of us. 11 of you, yeah. And it's like, looking back on it, I'm like, what? Like you're gonna take your college comedy club, featuring like 10 white dudes and one white girl, and you're gonna make a career out of that, really? But we were like, so arrogant. We were like, yes, that's what we're, yes, absolutely.

That's what we're doing. So, when it happened, it sort of felt like, yes, that's what we're, yes, absolutely. That's what we're doing. So when it happened, it sort of felt like, well, yes, of course. Of course we have our own show on TV. We sort of manifested. We did, in a weird way, we did manifest it. And at times it felt awesome. At times it was like, oh yeah, this is cool.

Like I'm, I think I was probably 22. And we've got our own show. We did exactly what we said we were gonna do. It seems like it's going well. But on the inside, doing it every day, it was hard. It was really hard. Like, you know, there's 11 of us and we were all young and stupid. And, you know, there's 11 of us and we were all young and stupid.

And, you know, we had 22 year old egos and it was very competitive. It was cutthroat in a lot of ways. It wasn't very supportive in a lot of ways. Like it was a, I don't wanna say it was a bad work environment. It wasn't like there was a lot of awesome things about that work environment,

but we were really hard on each other and not very kind. And that only got worse as we got more successful. As I knew it would. I mean, I knew at the time success was gonna break us up. So you could feel the tension in the group. Oh yeah. Were you jealous of anyone in the group? Everybody in the group.

Who specifically though? Give me, on Monday it might be Tom Lennon, on Tuesday it might be Ken Marino. Really? Yeah, and Wednesday it might be Joe Lachruglia. Like, yeah, but we all felt that way about everybody. Wow. We were all just like really desperate

and that desperation drove us in really good ways. But it also was our undoing as again, as I knew it would be. So there was, it was an amazing time. It was also a very difficult time. I was depressed a lot and the state reunited for a tour this last year during the showbiz strike. We were like, hey, nobody's doing anything why don't we go on tour?

I would say 65, 70% of the reason I wanted to do it was in a way to make amends. It's not like we hadn't been in touch. We've all been in touch. We've all worked together. We've all collaborated. But there was something about doing the state specifically on the road, as many of us as we could get,

and doing it in a way that I felt like was going to be healthy, healthful, and sort of laid a rest, a lot of whatever resentments people had towards each other over the years. And that's exactly what it was. It was such a fun, warm, mature tour. That's so sweet.

That actually reminds me of my own college improv group. I feel like we were like on a text chain together and we like, I'll see those guys when I travel to where they live and likewise. And I think a lot of it is like coming to grips with what happened in college and thereafter and kind of making things right. Even though nothing was like wildly wrong, but it's just like the loose ends of being young.

Yeah, I think that's what it is for us. I mean, as I said, we had the advantage of, like we've never lost touch, but there was something, it was almost like a formalizing of making amends and doing this tour. Yeah. And the fact that I now have a lawsuit against all of them. That's hard.

Oh, it's so hard. That's gotta be really hard. So hard. Individually too, it's not like I'm suing them as a collective for different things. What were the high points that looking back are still high points about it? The one that comes to mind, and this is so random,

is that right after our fourth season premiered, our producer, Jim Sharp, came into the writers room and he just had like a yellow Post-It note on his chest. And on the Post-It note, it said, I can't remember what the number was, but something like 2.4. And the 2.4 was the rating that we had gotten the night before when it premiered.

On MTV. On MTV, it was like a huge number. That's millions of people. Yeah, it was a huge number. And in that moment, I felt like, oh, like, I think this is like we're catching on. Like this is gonna be really good. And then within weeks, we had destroyed the whole thing.

What do you mean destroyed the whole thing? Well, we were like, so when David Wayne was saying like we were making 300 bucks a week, that's true. Like on the state, we were making like three, 400 bucks a week. No way. Yeah. On your hit TV show. On my hit TV show. Like we were, I shouldn't say making, taking home,

like around 400 bucks a week. After your fees to different people. After, yeah, I mean, we're making nothing. And so again, our arrogance was like, fuck it. Like we should go up against SNL, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so our managers were like, yeah, let's go up against SNL. So they made a deal with ABC.

For us to leave MTV, go to ABC and have a late night sketch show that goes up against SNL. And we're like, this is unbelievable. We're gonna fucking kick their asses. They're terrible. Fuck them. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. To this day, I don't know what happened to that deal.

There was a deal. Right, because you went head to head with them. I remember this sort of, there was one episode and then you were canceled. No, so we had to deal with ABC. And ABC, like there was some story in the trades that came out and the trades were like, ABC pulls out a deal because of-

With the state. With the state, because somebody's asking for too much money or something. And it wasn't us asking for too much money. So who was it? Like our managers or I don't know wasn't us asking for too much money. So who was it? Like our managers or I don't know who the fuck it was. But suddenly that deal went away and we're like, what the fuck?

So did you ever go to air on ABC? No, so then CBS was like, we'll take a shot on you. We'll give you a series of specials and then we'll give you your own show. We're like, okay, cool. Never thinking. Was that gonna be head to head with us now? Eventually.

And we never thought to ourselves, wait, why are we going to CBS? Whose average age at that time and to this day? 115. 115? Yeah, yeah, 115. Les Mubez had just taken the job then. And he was like, we're gonna make the demo younger,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah, 112. Yeah, so we were part of that. Yeah, yeah. So we aired one, we did a Halloween special. We called it the state's all-star 49th annual Halloween special. 49th, you're all 22 years old?

We're all 22, 23 years old. It was, I know this because Entertainment Weekly used to publish this, it was the lowest rated broadcast show of that week. Like the only things that were lower than us were like UPN shows and like CW shows. This is crazy. So you basically went from having a cult phenomenon

MTV show. To follow in Murder She Wrote. To follow in Murder She Wrote. You basically bet the farm. Cause that was the farm. You had a hit show on a cable channel that had millions of viewers. Which in modern times, so people know, is kind of unheard of. You bet the farm, because that was the farm. You had a hit show on a cable channel that had millions of viewers, which in modern times, so people know,

is kind of unheard of. You bet that to go with a network that you didn't have any idea whether it would work or not work. There was no reason, there was no reason, other than it was the same thing that got us to MTV in the first place. It was that same thing of, fuck it,

we're gonna go up against SNL. It's funny, I think there's a lesson in all this. place. You know, it was that same thing of, fuck it, we're gonna go up against SNL. It's funny, I think there's a lesson in all this. Yeah. You think? You tell me yours, I'll tell you mine. Don't fuck up your whole life. Sure, that's a good broad way. Well, here's mine.

Mine is... Bird in the Hand? Bird in the Hand, also, go with what you're doing well and relationships you feel good about. So your relationship with MTV was pretty good. Dance with the one what brung ya. Who brung ya, yeah.

Famous expression that's completely outdated. I will say. Who goes to dances anymore? Right? Yeah. We would have self-immolated anyway. Oh, okay. Like had we stayed at MTV, it would have fallen apart.

Within a year or two, almost certainly. And in fact, I think they'll be cool with me talking about this. Nice, this is the good stuff. Yeah, I'm not gonna. This is the good stuff. When Impractical Joker started. Yes, I'm sure he'll be fine with it.

Those guys are cool with everything. They're so popular, they don't care about anything. At this point, I don't think they care. I met them, my son and I and daughter were like binge watching them one day and then like a couple of days later, we saw them shooting in the park and I was so starstruck. I was like, oh my God, it seemed like,

nobody knew who they were at this point. So I introduced myself and they knew who I was, we took a picture and whatever and we stayed friends. But at a certain point, one of them came to me and said, hey, like I'm having a problem with another one in the group and I think it might break us up or something. And I told them exactly what I'm telling you about the state and I was like, do whatever you have to do to make it work.

To make it work. This thing will have a shelf life, like I told whatever you have to do to make it work. This thing will have a shelf life. Like I told you, it will have a shelf life. It's going really well for you right now. Just whatever your issues are, work your way through them. You will never regret having done so. It's very wise. And so they did.

And I haven't seen a dime from that piece of advice. You should invoice them. You know what? Invoice them from one million dollars and see what happens. Another lawsuit. I think that's fine. You've, like you're talking about relationship dynamics

and your friendships in that group, it's like you've been married, I want to say 20 years. 26 years as of last night. 26 years, congratulations. Thank you. How long have you been married? For 14 years. Okay.

Yeah. It's pretty good. Hold on, I have to count. 16 years. We've been together for 23 years. Yeah, me and Martha have been together like 30 fucking years. But what do you think in terms of advice, enduring marriage, what do you think makes a marriage endure?

I literally just wrote a piece about this because I was joking like my marriage is now at the age where people come to me for advice. People ask. What's the secret? And I wrote a piece about it yesterday and what I came to, I guess, is that my first instinct was like the secret is forgiveness.

Oh, that's great. Like not only forgiving the other person, but forgiving yourself for things. But then the more I thought about it, I was like, I don't think that's it. I think it's actually acceptance. Like accepting the whole of somebody and forgiveness can be nestled within that.

And accepting yourself is also a huge part of that. And understanding that love isn't something that happens to you. It's a choice you have to make. And you have to make it every day. Like you have to choose to love this person who, you know, there will be many times in a marriage where you don't feel like loving them at all

because they suck. And so like for many years, like I just, I wasn't great at marriage and it really took me until probably my early 40s before I was ready to deal with myself and I had to be ready to deal with myself before I was able to really be ready to deal with her. It was hard.

Well, it's interesting like that is a really enduring marriage for comedy. Is it? 20 plus, 25 plus years, 26 years? I don't know. She's not in comedy. No, but I'm saying- And she doesn't find me funny.

But my question is, in what ways do you think comedy, and being a comedian, being an artist, runs in conflict with having an enduring relationship and runs in service of it. In certain ways, the main thing is both. So because I'm away a fair amount, particularly when the kids were young, that was really hard for her.

Great for me. Awesome for me. Get away from the children. Yeah, yeah, sure. You can't stand your children. It's not that I can't stand them, I just don't like them. She says. You have two kids, they're all grown up.

They're all grown up? Yeah, yeah. Being away for a couple of weeks at a time here and there, I think has been really good for us overall. Like having that separation, not being so tied together at every moment, that's been really good for us. Your romantic relationship with Bradley Cooper

has helped because she can view you as a sexual object because he's sexy. Maybe, I think you phrased that very, very well. You have a famous love scene from a summer camp movie, called Wet Hot American Summer with Bradley Cooper. Which turned into a throuple with the three of us. And I always felt like Martha was physically more attracted to Bradley.

Well, of course. Of course, you said? No, I didn't say of course. I feel like you said, of course. Are we recording this? Is any of this going to be played back? That's kind of an iconic scene, the Bradley Cooper scene. Because it's like summer camp romance. Everyone's kind of an iconic scene, the Bradley Cooper scene. Cause it's like summer camp romance,

everyone's kind of, there's something about White Hot American Summer that it's so nostalgic and it's also silly in a way that almost like movies haven't been since like the 80s or something. So it was, I mean, it was designed to be an 80s summer camp movie with, you know, their sensibility. Except with grownups. With grownups, yes.

Playing the kids. Playing the teenagers, yes. Yeah. With that Bradley Cooper scene, it's kind of like an iconic scene with a, like you're saying, like it becomes a throuple. Now, if they shot that, there'd be an intimacy coordinator.

Yeah, there probably would be. There wasn't then. I would imagine, like, how did it even go in the filming? Well, so Bradley and I, so it was Bradley's first film was my first film. So we had, he and I had a conversation, you know, I don't know, a couple of days before we were shooting or something, which was basically like, look,

we can either sort of wink, wink this. Yeah, yeah. Or just really go for it. And we were both like, yeah. Or just really go for it. And we're both like, yeah, we absolutely just go for it. Like just play this. Which is a great lesson of comedy in general. And I think of your comedy, which is do the thing. Do the thing.

Yeah, yeah, commit to what it is. So we played it straight, pun intended. And I think there was a conversation about who would be pitching and who would be catching. And I think there was a conversation about who would pitch and who would be pitching and who would be catching. And I think I said people would think I would be the receiver in this relationship just cause he's bigger. So would it be funny if we reversed it? And he was good with that.

So yeah, so when we were shooting it and Michael and David also felt very strongly that this is gonna be the one thing in the movie that is lit well. That's what you're saying. That is shot well. And we're gonna take like. Michael Showalter was the writer and David was the director. Yeah. David Wayne was the director.

I mean, yes, they were both, you know, I mean, Michael was very involved in the directing. Everyone was doing a lot of stuff, yeah. Except you. Except me was doing nothing. Apparently doing nothing. I was there to fuck Bradley Cooper and nothing else. And on that day, yeah, we just played it as straight as we could.

No intimacy coordinator, obviously? No, just a lot of- Was it take after take after take? No, we did it very quickly. I think it was maybe two takes. We just, we shot it all pretty quickly. Which sucked because after the first take, like I came.

Oh, Jesus Christ. That, he's joking. I'm looking at the camera, he's joking. This is a joke. I've never come so much. Okay, this is sickening. This is crazy. It's funny, like I'm thinking about

when I'm American Summer in the state and Stella and that whole era, like your commitment level so high to all your work. It's like, who taught you that? We did. But how, like how did you know that that was gonna lead you to where it led you? We didn't.

I mean, when we were in college, like all of it comes from college. All of it comes from this group of people sitting in like a shitty little theater rehearsing every single night. Yeah, yeah. For no reason. It's not like we were doing shows all the time. Yeah.

We did maybe two shows a year. Really? We were there every single night. We did maybe two shows a year. We were there every single night. Every night, seven days a week? Yeah. Really? Maybe realistically, maybe five days a week, five, six. And then when we weren't doing that, we were just hanging out.

So hanging out, nobody says it like that. We were just hanging out. Spent a lot of time together. Spent a lot of time together and nobody taught us anything. So our style evolved from that. And that style was very much like full commitment, go as far as you possibly can.

Take it as far as you can and then go just a little bit further. So like a good example of this is I remember we were, the state was doing a show at South by Southwest. And there was a sketch, we'd seen a sketch group before us or maybe even a couple and they had done a gag about getting naked or something, but they didn't get naked.

And so we were like, we had the conversation of like, why would you like go 80% of the way there and not go. Not get naked. So we were like, fuck that. Like, so we wrote a sketch for South by Southwest where we all got fully naked on stage. Wow. But we wouldn't have done that now

because there were no smartphones at the time. Right, right. But. So it's like 11 of you naked in a sketch in Texas. Yes, and the premise. And you're like 20 years old or whatever. You're in college. Yeah, we were older.

I mean, the show had been on the air. Oh, okay. So, and the premise was so stupid, but it was funny. It's like we did our opening, whatever opening thing was, and then Ken Marino sort of moved forward to the edge of the stage and was like, okay, those guys are gonna go backstage and get changed. And while they do, I'm gonna do whatever I'm doing.

So they can see us, we all sort of shuffled over about two feet as if we were backstage. And then we're just- This is a great sketch idea. So stupid. And then we're just like talking and getting changed, but just taking off our clothes. Oh my God.

And then Ken had like a disposable camera. Oh my gosh. And he's like, I'm gonna take a picture of you guys on the count of three. And when I count to three, everybody wave and say hello and everything. So he goes one, two, three. And as soon as he says three, we take off our underwear

and we just hang out on stage, totally naked, for, I don't know, 10, 15 seconds, whatever it is, and then we start to put our back on. But that was our mentality. It was like, no, if you're gonna say you're gonna do it, do it, and then go a little further. This is the slow round. What's the best piece of advice anyone's ever given you that you used? I don't know that anybody has ever given me a piece of personal advice that I have listened to.

Okay, that's fair, that's fair. But I will say that, especially in the last few years, I've come to understand that I've come to understand that so much of what makes this life tolerable and joyful is the simple act of empathy, the simple act of listening and being empathetic. The more, the Beatles gave me some good advice. The love you, what is it? What is it? The love you make.

Yeah. Is equal to love you take something like that. And that might be ultimately the best piece of personal advice that I've ever been given. And I want to thank The Beatles for that. They're big listeners. They're the fans. The living members, yeah.

Yeah, no, not both of them. Do you remember being an inauthentic version of yourself? Yeah. Describe it. How old were you? What was it like? I was 45. I wouldn't say, so for me being my inauthentic self

had a lot to do with the sort of armor that I had erected just to sort of get through life. And the best example that anybody can watch if you want to, go watch me on VH1, I Love the 70s, 80s and 90s, where I was being, I was very deliberately being kind of straight faced and stoic about everything I was saying. Like I never allowed myself to smile or laugh or anything like that. Right, you were being a two dimensional version of yourself

that was a little snarky. Yeah, and that worked a little snarky. Yeah. Yeah. And that worked really well for me, professionally to a point. And then once I had kids and I just sort of, you know, matured, I was like, increasing, I just felt like the person I was in public

was not the person I am in private, and I was uncomfortable with that. And I felt like I needed to figure out a way to marry the two. Yeah. I relate to that so much because there was a whole period of time in the 2000s where VH1 had a series of television shows

that were, I love the 80s, I love the 90s, best week ever, and they were all just talking heads, a camera. You're saying things that are snarky about a thing. Usually cultural things. I remember, I only did a couple of them, but it was such a two-dimensional version of myself that wasn't me, and I had to walk away from it, because I said something about Huey Lewis and the news.

And it was a snarky thing about the band. What if Huey's watching? Well, I got an email. It was basically like, Huey Lewis and the News has more talent than their fucking pinky finger than you have had in your whole career. Signed Huey Lewis. And it was so funny,

because my brother Joe and I looked at his email and we're like, they're not wrong. You know what I mean? Like, talking about like a really talented band that really put blood, sweat, and tears, totally different band, into their career. And here I am like making fun of them on TV with like some half-baked joke that's like probably a pun.

They're like, who am I? And I stopped doing those stupid shows. There's something about the format of that show that actually is kind of weirdly negative and like, and it's almost like pre-internet. It's like what the internet and social media became. That's so funny. Yeah, it's true.

I mean, when they first started doing those shows, it wasn't really like that exactly. Like the first I Love the 80s. Was actually I Love the 80s. It was like people were being really sincere. Except for like me and Mo and maybe Hal Sparks were just being kind of snarky about it. And then that's sort of what people responded to.

And so it's my fault. Yeah, you ruined it. What's a nickname you've had in life that you really like or don't like? That I currently don't like? Yeah, or like. I've never really had, well, so the only nicknames I've ever had, one's not really a nickname,

but people call me Mike. Yeah, you're black. I'm not a Mike. Yeah, you don't say it that way. I'm a Michael, one's not really a nickname, but people call me Mike. Yeah, you're black. I'm not a Mike. Yeah, you don't say it that way. I'm a Michael. Yeah. Because I'm kind of an asshole, and I feel like Michael's a little more formal,

a little more standoffish, a little more aloof, and you're friendly. I've been doing this run in my show about truth or dare. And I kind of, I blew it out, which is I think truth or dare is a fundamentally evil game because truth is never truth. Truth is I'm gonna squeeze out of you intel that I can use on you in school. And dare is at best, I dare you to eat dirt. And you're like, oh great, now I'm eating dirt

and I've just handed over three factoids that bullies can use to make me feel terrible about myself. No one ever leaves Truth or Dare better off than they went in. They're never like, I played Truth or Dare with Phil and I admitted I'm an alcoholic and then he dared me to come clean with the people I've wronged.

And I'm like, dude, I think you went to AA. Nope, pretty sure it was truth or dare. See, in my experience, that's funny. Thanks, that's all funny. I've never done that stage. In my experience, truth or dare, like when you're little, you play truth or dare and then it is eat dirt and whatever.

But then as you get a little bit older, truth or dare becomes about like sexual dares. It does. So it's about, hey, I dare you to go make out with so and so. For sure. I dare you to lick so and so's bunghole. Jesus. Yeah, I dare you to go make out with so-and-so. For sure. I dare you to lick so-and-so's bunghole. Jesus. Yeah, I played very hardcore.

No, but you're right. The escalation of truth or dare is astonishing. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it basically goes from a very simple kind of like, sometimes I pick my nose to like... You porn. Go in that closet. You know what I mean?

Okay, so that's my Truth or Dare. I like it. Right now it's called Truth or Dare versus AA. Yeah, funny. That's AA. I wrote this down the other day. I find that when someone tells you you're pulling off an outfit or a look, you're definitely not pulling it off.

The other day I walked into a thing, someone goes, you're really pulling off that backpack. I'm like, fuck you. Like, I guess I'm not. I hadn't been thinking about it before. Why would you be bringing it up? Wait, was there anything about the backpack that was weird? Was it one of those like rubbery ones with the spikes on it?

Like a black backpack that you can slip a laptop into or whatever. I just wanna be like, like obviously I'm not pulling it off. So either you just shut up and keep your thought to yourself about how I'm not pulling off my backpack. I wanna understand more fully what not pulling off a backpack looks like.

Cause a backpack is a backpack. Yes. I don't understand, oh, you're really not pulling off that backpack, like I don't know what that would look like. Well, it's so funny because it was some kind of like corporatey event, it wasn't like my wavelength, right? Like it was not, it wasn't artists, it wasn't comedians,

it was just kind of like whatever. And so it was a little fancy maybe. So it's like wearing a backpack, but where do you want me to put my laptop? In your briefcase. Yeah, in my fucking briefcase. Fuck you, Mike Lee and Black. They're really pulling off that briefcase.

Really pulling off that briefcase. Like if you walked into the Comedy Cellar with the briefcase, people would be like, well, what the fuck, we're big. We're really pulling that off. I would be mocked until I walk out the door. But do people even use briefcases anymore? Is that a thing?

They use backpacks. I don't think I've seen a briefcase in years. No. Okay, this is when you're liberal, they say people call me a coastal elite just because I live on a coast and I'm better than other people. And I want these people to know

I live part of the year in Aspen. That's very good. Yeah, it's sort of fun. Like it's fun, but it's also like, it's just not true. You know what I mean? Well, you don't spend part of the year in Aspen. No, I do not. I do not, yeah.

But I am a coastal lake. But I don't think I'm better than other people. I mean, you live in Savannah. I do. Which people will go, oh, he lives in the South. I live in the deep South. But it's like, how do you find the people there? How do you find the people in Savannah?

For the most part, lovely. We moved there about three years ago. It is a Southern city. So I was apprehensive about that. Like, I just didn't know what it would be like. But Savannah is pretty liberal. So the sweatshirt I'm wearing is from the art school there. And I've met like more artists and entrepreneurs

and musicians and just interesting people there than I feel like I've met anywhere else, including New York. Because it's one of those cities that's still kind of affordable. So people can move there and pursue the thing that they wanna pursue without having to do the shitty thing that they don't wanna do, at least as much.

Yeah, that makes sense. So I've met sculptors and ceramicists, and I know these guys who are making a jewelry store, and I know interior designers, and I know actors, and it's just cool. It's a cool group of people down there. One of the great, I think, misunderstandings of people who live in places like New York and LA

is of the rest of the country. Yes. I'm always, people always go, oh, what's it like to go to Cincinnati? What's it like? I'm always like, it's great. You know what I mean? I'm always like, the country's great,

especially the cities. Places like Savannah are fantastic. Places like Ashevilleaces like Savannah are fantastic. Places like Asheville, North Carolina are fantastic. Charleston's fantastic. It's like, it's all, there's like 75 to 100 cities in this country. If you move there, you go, oh, I love these people.

And it's a weird judge. I do think it's a weird judgment that New Yorkers and- Well, because people show up in New York and they think it's the center of the universe. And it is to them in that moment. And they say, I can't imagine living anywhere else. And then they might have kids or something and then they move and they're like,

why the hell was I in New York? Why was I in New York all that time? And that's a good potential bet, by the way. Yeah. Just a new, like, because also like, do you have bits you're working on right now? I did have a joke about that. I won't get it exactly, but it's something like,

I used to live in New York and I left and I was, and I left because I couldn't remember why I was staying. Like the cliche about New York is, yeah, but why would you ever leave? You can get souvlaki at two o'clock in the morning and you can go to jazz at Lincoln Center. And at a certain point I realized I don't wanna eat souvlaki at two o'clock in the morning.

And I've never been to jazz at Lincoln Center and I will never go to jazz at Lincoln Center. So I don't need any of that. Plus the rents are so high. And so I would encourage people to get in their car, or rent a car, drive an hour outside the city, see what it's like. And then maybe some of you will realize

like it's lovely out here and you can move. And when you do, enough of you do, rents will come down and then I can afford to move back to New York City. That's a great bet. All right, here's the thing that we end with, is working out for our cause, is there an organization or nonprofit that you think does a good job and we'll contribute and link to them in the show notes?

I have a very, very specific organization that I sponsor. I used to live in Connecticut as we talked about in my little town in Reading, Connecticut, the library there was founded by one Samuel Langhorn Clemens. Oh, wow, huge. Mark Twain founded the town library and over a hundred years ago, that library in his original charter for it is not allowed to receive government money because they were censoring his books

at the time and he was like, fuck you, no. So it's a great repository of Twain because he founded it to be his personal collection of books. A few couple thousand of them are in that library. And it's also- I did not realize that. Yeah, and it's also just a great, I think it's just a great piece of America.

Twain as valued as he is in our culture, I think is still maybe undervalued. I mean, just a great humanitarian, obviously like maybe the funniest American. So I support the Mark Twain Library. I donate a lot of money to them and I do a lot of events for them. That's awesome.

We'll contribute to them. We'll link to them in the show notes. Michael Ian Black, it was an honor, a privilege. I continue to love everything you do and anticipate what you do next. Well, I won't do anything next. This is the last job I'll ever have and the last podcast I'll ever be invited on. I will anticipate that eagerly.

Working it out, because it's not done. Working it out, because there's no... That's going to do it for another episode of Working It Out. You can follow Michael Ian Black on Instagram, Working it out, cause there's no one. That's gonna do it for another episode of Working It Out. You can follow Michael Ian Black on Instagram, at MichaelIanBlack. You can check him out on CNN's Have I Got News For You, with our friend Roy Wood Jr. and the very funny Amber Ruffin.

That is also streaming on Max. You can check out Michael Ian Black's Substack. He does a lot of great writing on there. He wrote a piece about the thing we talk about today, his 26 yearyear marriage. That's michaelianblack.substack.com. You can watch the full video of this episode for the body language on our YouTube channel at Mike Birbiglia.

And subscribe because we're going to post a lot more videos. The last few weeks with Bridget Everett and Lin Miranda and Hannah Gadsby were great. Check out Birbigs.com to sign up for the mailing list to be the first to know about all of my upcoming shows. You know our producers are working it out are myself along with Peter Salomon, Joseph Birbiglia, and Mabel Lewis, associate producer Gary Simons. Sound mix by Ben Cruz, supervising engineer Kate Bolinski. Special thanks to Jack Antonoff and Bleachers for their music. Special thanks to my wife, the poet J. Hope Stein, as always my daughter Una, who built the original radio fort made of pillows. Thanks most of all to you who are listening.

I think we're going to hit the 4,000 user review mark this month. We're so excited. 4,000 people went on Apple Podcasts and gave us some stars. It made us feel like star students. If you're new to the podcast and you enjoyed this episode, we have almost 150 episodes we've done, and they are all free. We've had Jim Gaffigan and Maria Bamford

and Tegh Notaro and so many great people. If you like one of the episodes in particular, comment on Apple Podcasts, which one is your favorite? It helps new listeners figure out how to find their way in. Thanks most of all to you who are listening. Tell your friends, tell your enemies. Let's say you're in a comedy team with 11 of your best friends from college, and you don't want those friends to become enemies.

So if there's friction or creative differences, gather around, listen to a very special podcast about creative process and collaboration, and who knows, maybe you'll get a TV deal. If there even is television anymore. Thanks, everybody. We're working it out. We'll see you next time.