The Little Dum Dum Club with Tommy & Karl - Episode 132 - Mike Birbiglia

Episode Date: March 26, 2013

Three Minute Spots, Who Books That? and Tom Hanks.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey mates, the Comedy Festival is upon us. It is happening in Melbourne right now. Carl, say I'm someone who's interested in seeing some things at the Comedy Festival. What can I go and check out that I might enjoy? If you're listening to this, you may enjoy a little thing that we do called the Live Little Dumb Dumb Club on a Monday in Melbourne. I've heard of it. Yes, okay, I'll go on then. 7.15 at the Town Hall. We do an absolutely live hour podcast. We've got three special guests on there, minimum. Yep.

We don't have a maximum at this point. Okay, I'm going to say maximum of like ten. Ten would be too many. Ten's a lot. Ten's too many. I'm going to guarantee less than ten. Single-figured guests. Between three and ten special guests every episode,

Mondays in the Town Hall. You can find our ones from last year at thelittledumbdumbclub.bandcamp.com and have a listen and see what you'll be in for. We've had amazing guests. We've got amazing shows lined up as well. We're also doing our own stand-up comedy shows every night of the festival in the Forum Theatre, 7.15. You can see my show spread.

Then you can have a little break in between, get yourself a little bit of dinner, and then follow it up at 9.45 with Carl Chandler has literally 1.5 million jokes. And also on top of that, heaps of friends of the show. Go and look at the blackboard. Look at the guide. So many people who've been on the show have shows. Here's a quick suggestion. If you want to watch the whole three, if you want to watch Tommy and My Show in between, you can go and see Xavier Michaelides' show.

Yeah, in the same venue. Yeah, really wear yourself out. Really poop yourself. And for people in Sydney, as soon as that finishes, we are coming up to do a quick run of both of our shows in Sydney at the end of April. Yeah, April 25th. We're doing our own shows for three nights only.

We've got a live little dum-dum club on the Saturday, all at the Factory Theatre, and we might be planning something a bit special for after the live show. We'll keep you updated on that, but yes, sydneycomedyfest.com.au for all the tickets for that. Guys, that's enough plugging. You get the show for free every week. Please come down, spend some money, see some live comedy.

We'd love to see you there, and enjoy the festival. See you, mates. Hey, mates. Welcome into the Little Dumb Dumb Club for another week. My name is Tommy Dasolo. Sitting opposite me, the other half of the show, Carl Chandler. G'day, dickhead. What have you got for us today, little buddy?

Well, long-time listeners of the show will know about, I've mentioned Spleen, Comedy at Spleen. It's one of the nights that I at least co-run in Melbourne. One of the best things I get to do there is part of running this gig is it's a free gig to get into, but then we take donations at the end of the gig. So then I'm sort of usually the sap that stands by the door at the end of the show and sort of jiggles the jar and, you know, makes coin noises and basically guilts people in to putting coins in.

Give us your best coin noise right now. Without coins, that's a tough one. I thought you meant you were doing them like vocal coins. Oh, like Michael Winslow, like Police Academy, right? Yeah, ling, ling, ling, ling, ling, ling, ling. Police Academy 8, mission to the comedy store. Yeah. No, I'll stand there and guilt people into it.

And now, because I've been doing it long enough now Now I actually get quite angry when no one puts any coins in So I usually, if they walk past me without it I just go, oh, pretty shit show tonight, wasn't it guys? See you mates, bye! But anyway, what happened last night was a new one Which was, sometimes you get used to, because it's a free gig Basically you get backpackers in some nights

You know, you get people You know, if it's a free gig, you're going to get people that want to go to a free gig with all that that entails right so sometimes i'll empty the coins out and then you'll get notes you get coins and you'll get like washers sometimes or tie coins or you know pesos whatever it is that people have been traveling with and just gone we'll get rid of this we'll get rid of this with this chump at the door tickets from the fun factory from the whack-a-mole machine yeah all that sort of stuff um so uh i tempted out yesterday and you know you separate the wheat from the chaff or whatever and the first time i grabbed a note and went oh that's not an australian note someone's giving me like a different country's note right

i'm like oh that's odd and then i checked it it was like a new zealand five dollar note i'm like that's a pretty weird thing to sort of mix up and accidentally put in and then i've seen, it was like a New Zealand $5 note. I'm like, that's a pretty weird thing to sort of mix up and accidentally put in. And then I've seen that it was not an accident. Whoever put it in had written on it, ha-ha, suck shit. That's great. That is the first time I've been heckled in the donation bucket.

Yeah. I like the idea that this person is going to come back week after week just with a different country's currency. So you'll get some euros next week. Yeah, that's amazing. Well, euros probably would be useful, but New Zealand dollars, not so much. It should have been suck shit bro, at least, to kind of keep in with New Zealand. Yeah, so I've got my revenge in the end, mate.

So you're wrong. Today on the show, a very special guest. We're both big fans of this guy. He's in the country for the Comedy Festival. You'll know him from his film Sleepwalk With Me or from his many appearances on This American Life. Please welcome into the little dum-dum club, Mark Babiglia. Yay!

Thanks a lot. This is a real honour. This is the first time I've ever been on a podcast based on just tweeting with someone yeah carl and i just started he said hey will you come on the podcast and i tweeted and i looked at his feed and i said this guy's really funny oh sure why not thank god it was him that hit you up and not me because you would have just looked at mine and gone this guy's just talking about the weather and food. Forget this. I've got no interest in doing that.

But also, hitting up a guest on Twitter is probably one of the more legitimate ways we've gone about getting guests for this show. Oh, I wouldn't have said that after the message I got from the comedy festival before, but anyway. Oh, really? Yeah, they got mad. They got mad. They like things done officially, so that's fine.

Sorry about that. No, that's not your fault. That's my fault, obviously. Well, now it's paying off. You're helping the Comedy Festival because before we recorded, you were sitting here helping Mike work out his set for a gig tonight, for like a publicity gig. Yeah, I wrote it all.

I've written Mike's set for tonight. Because you were listening to one of his old CDs on the way here or something. Yeah, this morning. Because you were listening to one of his old CDs on the way here or something. Yeah, this morning. Yeah, this morning. Can I ask you guys, because I don't know. I'm doing this one tonight, which is on the radio, and then tomorrow a TV thing.

Yeah, yeah. Please spend the next hour asking us what things we have here. Can I ask? No, it's not that. Just tell me if this is funny. We have comedy here. We have comedy here. Tell me if this is funny. This is my story

we have hotels because you're in one now I told this on Jimmy Fallon's show the other night which you guys have but I don't think do you watch that show? it's on cable

but not many people have cable's not as big here as it is in the States I like the idea that it may have worked on Fallon but you're like I better check it out on two guys from Australia

that I've never met though because who knows what he's well no because um it's about how my wife who's here yeah um my wife and i were in sydney a few years ago and we uh we were in a cab and our cab driver was this tiny chinese man and we said hey we're heading to Bondi Beach and he looked back and he goes Bondi Beach, you're heading to Bondi Beach and we were like you're not supposed to talk like that like are we in the Matrix are you the Oracle like I just never I've never met a Chinese man with an Australian accent. Oh was that an Australian accent? Yeah, right. Oh, was that an Australian accent? Yeah, it sounded Chinese to me.

I was like, what's the story here? Scoop, Chinese guy sounds Chinese. You don't have Chinese people in America? So I said to him, I go, are you from, where are you from? What is this? Which is the most offensive thing one can say. What is this? What is this? As you're pointing at him, what is this what is this as you're pointing at him what is this

what is this question mark and he said and now I'm self conscious he goes I was born in China and was raised in Sydney and I was like

you gotta you gotta hold back on that accent you gotta you gotta show restraint but anyway I was like is that

is that viable? That story to tell at the top of the show? I thought it brings you into, like, I'm here. I've been here before. I enjoy it. It's by making fun of your audience's accent. It's a gamble. Yeah, yeah, sure.

Yeah, it's weird. I wouldn't bank on it. I wouldn't bank on it. I wouldn't bank on it. Just because on top of that, you've got the word Chinese in there, which people go, ooh, are we allowed to laugh at this? Yeah, he were a bit more up to speed. We use Chinaman here. We just graduated...

You do not call Chinese people Chinese anymore. We just graduated from calling them Chinese. We've just stopped that. The Orientals. Can I just... This will quickly lead into a cab story that i have i got i was in adelaide a couple of weeks ago and was getting a taxi home late at night and we needed to do a u-turn but it was like in a bit where you couldn't do a u-turn so the cab driver has gone and turned into a hospital car park to sort of turn around in there. So we turn into the hospital car park and there's a car reverses like in front of us and there's this young girl in the car and she reverses out and kind of blocks off the cab

and the cab driver goes, oh, for fuck's sake, and gives her the lights and gets on the horn and really aggressively goes her. And it's 1am in a hospital car park. Nothing good's going on. And then we look and she's got tears running down her face. She's been at the bedside of a dying mother or something and then just had this guy giving her grief in the car park. Me and my girlfriend are going, please make this stop.

This is the worst thing we've ever been involved in. This is horrendous. Someone's probably running late for a business meeting at 1am in Adelaide. You don't know what they're. They're important people. Yeah, it was one of the worst cab experiences I've ever had. I thought you were going to say you had another Chinese cab driver

and they tried to do a U-turn, but of course in China, the character for you is just something completely different. Wow. He's written a completely new story for you. Do you want to use that on the go? Yeah, I was going to say. Mike, you could maybe buy that off Carl. I don't know if you need it.

Hang on. You can say all this. So Chinese taxi drivers, right? That still sounds probably the same. So my bit, we're going to ax it. I'll tell you right off the bat based on what you guys just said. But is my accent just so offensively terrible? Just weak? It's hard to know if if people here

like that or if they just find it annoying like i don't i don't know yeah it's one of those things where i wouldn't say hacky no it's one of those things where you know what when you come into a country and there's something you don't you're not used to you can't help but delight in it but we've sort of heard that accent for a long time now that's all we hear so maybe it's not as uh i mean we're still we're still kind of reeling from that time that bart simpson just fucking lampooned us all those years ago we still haven't really recovered from that oh really haven't you seen the simpsons australian episode isn't that how you heard of australia that's what put us on the map it all from fox from fox animated series how i've learned about australia no i will say let me preface this by saying that you know jenny

and i came to sydney for the arts festival two years ago that's right and uh with this show my girlfriend's boyfriend that i'm performing here at the Arts Center. Arts Center, yeah, which is supposed to be very nice. It is very nice, yeah. And we just love it here, and we love the people, and it's a little bit indescribable because a lot of times people will say to us, you know, we go to a lot of places. We go all over the world, and we're indifferent to a lot of places you

know and people say you know where do you where have you guys gone that you love and you know we went to sydney we just love it there and uh and people go why and we go well you don't even know well i'm not even sure i would hold off on the sydney praise when you're in melbourne because i know it's a rivalry it's stupid's stupid. I don't know who decided that there's a rivalry, but there's some weird. People say, I mean, I don't think there is, but people think that there is. But you've picked a great day to turn up. It's a beautiful day. I was walking here through Bourke Street Mall, and I think this is the only time I've ever walked through Bourke Street Mall, and there hasn't been someone playing the didgeridoo

with techno music under it. This might be the one Mall and there hasn't been someone playing the didgeridoo with techno music under it. This might be the one day that that hasn't been happening. I saw a decent kind of John Mayer rip-off playing acoustic guitar on the street today. There were like three of them. They're dotted around. There must be some kind of convention. I wanted to video it and put it on YouTube

and tweet it at John Mayer. This is great for you because all the things we're ashamed of in the city, you're probably delighted by. Yeah, I'm thrilled. What do you see our beggars? They're awesome. Yeah, putting – yeah, anyway, no, it's going to be a callback to something that wouldn't have worked at all.

Good thing I bailed out of that one. You're going to make New Zealand money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like, oh, hang on, that's going to tie a bail. No, but that's the opposite. That's getting money instead of giving it. Ah, shit. Oh, we've all laughed in the end, though.

And today, I don't suppose you were on the same plane as... Did you come in the same day as Ellen? No. Ellen, no. Very similar. Pete Holmes and Ellen. I've been tweeting at Ellen for a week. No response.

Nothing back. Yeah, oh, man. I keep saying, hey, American comedian as well. We're both in Australia. Let's get together. Both with our wives yeah yeah i was gonna say she has she's she has something else going on but uh yeah no but but i saw we drove by paparazzi oh really you know not paparazzi people with cameras yeah you know outside her hotel today oh we don't even get a paparazzi in australia you're downgrading our paparazzi to people with cameras.

The other day, also, in Adelaide, I walked past a group of people with all cameras set up, and I thought, oh, Haggis, this must be like, this must be paparazzi, like someone must be about to come past. And I grabbed one of them and said, oh, hey, what are you guys doing here? And they said, oh, we're from a photography class. Our teacher's gotten us to

take photos of the sign out the front of David Jones. I was like, you've got to get a better photography class teacher. You've got to to take photos of the sign out the front of David Jones. I was like, you've got to get a better photography class teacher. You've got to get better celebrities in Adelaide. It doesn't sound like he's really pushing you. But on the Ellen thing, Portia went to my, I think she went to the school that my girlfriend went to. Right. And they went there yesterday and had like a tour of the school.

Oh, like the Melbourne Girls Grammar School. Melbourne Girls Grammar, yeah. And my girlfriend was like, oh man, I could have met Ellen. I wish I'd been born eight years earlier. I'm like, yeah, I don't. This would be weird. That's a long way to go. If only.

To meet Ellen. I find it really weird that... Using the time travel machine. Not to cure AIDS. Not to kill Hitler. But to meet Ellen. You don't need a time travel machine not to cure AIDS, not to kill Hitler, but to meet Ellen. You don't need a time travel machine. You just need a travel machine to go to the studio or something. But also, Ellen is on here when people are at school.

So if you were still at school, like if you're still at school now, you arguably wouldn't even really be that fascinated by her because you never would have seen her show because you're at school every day. Another thing that came up. So her wife, it's Portia de Rossi, is officially Ellen's wife. Is that? I believe that's. Yeah, they're married.

I'm the American expert here. Yes, they are married. She comes from Australia, obviously, Portia. Now, what I find sort of amusing or interesting is that it came out in the news, I think, today, yesterday, that you think they're going to come back and see the family and everything like that because Portia is from around here. But Portia's actually from a town called Geelong, which is out of Melbourne, which is sort of like, you know,

it's like an hour or two out of Melbourne, and they've come out and said that they're not going to go and visit Geelong, the hometown of Portia, which I find sort of funny in a way because I think it's sort of like, you know, inviting someone back to see your hometown and then getting scared of like seeing your real upbringing because she changed it. She used to be Amanda Rogers. Amanda Rogers from Geelong.

And now she's come home and it's going to be, oh, no, I've been Portia and I've been gay the whole time. No. You know what I mean? Yeah, you're walking past the pub and there's people going, Oi, Mandy! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rogo's back.

Yeah, remember when we rooted in the back of the Ute? You know? It's like, we don't want to bring any of that. Kevin Bloody Wilson remembers her, yeah. Yeah, and I would venture to say that she's aged a little better than her peers. Yeah. Because Geelong is a bit of a... It's like, I guess, visiting New York and saying,

do you want to come out and see where I grew up in Coney Island? Sure. Something like that. Well, I performed in my hometown two weeks ago, Worcester, Massachusetts, which is sort of a middle class, working class town. Yeah, I have friends from there. I stayed there a couple months ago.

And so it was odd because my girlfriend's boyfriend, my show, all I do is talk about my childhood tortures, you know, of being beat up and having my first kiss and my first girlfriend and being degraded in all these ways. And I'm telling these stories to the people who it happened with. And it's a little bit odd because, you know, you embellish things as a storyteller and so you're you're you're you know I'm around the world telling these stories to strangers that wasn't a news that wasn't a New Zealand dollar I

was like I got last night I just completely made that up for example that was that was all rooted in in things that happened but yeah you take liberties with timelines and things sure yeah names you change yeah yeah all this kind of stuff and it was it's odd you know it feels i don't know about you guys but when i'm in the exact place where i grew up i feel less funny yeah yeah i feel more pain less humor because they know you from that what they remember you from is when you weren't funny yeah i guess yeah well because yeah the comedy festival is about to start in melbourne and so i'm i'm from melbourne so there'll be a night where my parents will come to my show and my parents will bring a lot of their

friends and stuff which is great like very supportive and it you know it fills the room out but if it's sort of exclusively just for a filling yeah yeah uh i love my mum and dad. They're numbers. They buy tickets. I love them. Sweet bunts in the bank. Padding number one and padding number two. No, but it's always weird if it's a lot of them and their friends in the one spot. It sort of feels like you're six years old doing a performance at the dinner party,

no matter how good the show is or whatever. I always tell this joke where I say, I wasn't the class clown growing up. The class clown was always the mean guy who walks in the room and is like, you're fat, you're gay, I'm out of here. I was always a little fat and a little gay. I never got along with that guy. But it really does feel like that. I go back and I feel like I'm talking to these people

and they're thinking, well, this guy's not funny. How come he's the comedian? Yeah. But you get to, I know exactly what you mean because I come from like a small country town and I've never gone back there and done a gig because I really think that's what would happen. Except with you, you get the pleasure of going back and probably playing,

you know, the town hall, whatever the biggest thing is. So it's like that shows where you've come from and where you've been and where you're coming back from. Whereas I'll be like turning up to some pub at midnight and like grabbing the karaoke mic off someone going, now listen everyone, I got a new five minutes guys, turn down the jukebox, come turn down, I will survive for just five minutes guys.

I'd like to see you do your comedy over the karaoke instrumental of I Will Survive. That would be amazing. That's what you should do on that gig tomorrow night. Oh yeah, no. On tonight, yeah. Yeah, yeah. What are you going to do tonight? Well tomorrow night. Oh, yeah, no. On tonight, yeah. What are you going to do tonight? Well, I've got short jokes, so... Are you doing tonight as well?

I am. I'm doing the radio gig. Not tomorrow night. You're not doing tomorrow night? Not the TV one. I'm doing the radio one. What are you going to do in three minutes?

How do you... Tell me... Teach me how to do a three-minute comedy set. Seriously, I reckon I'll pack about ten jokes into... No way!

Maybe more. Ten jokes in three minutes? Well, you know what? To be honest... What is this, a game show? It's a contest. Yeah, yeah. It's all about numbers, not about being funny for me.

It's just maths for me. It's not comedy. Well, there's no laughs, and so you can really get straight to the set-ups to the punchline for the next set-up. Yeah, you guys are on one side of the room and I'm on the other, and it really feels like that at the moment. Yeah.

Now, I'm actually a big, a massive, massive fan of an old friend of yours, which is Mitch Hedberg. Mitch, yeah. Yeah, so that was something I was going to talk to you off-mic, to be honest, but yeah, he's my absolute hero. He's the best. Yeah, he's someone that I only, you know, I haven't been doing comedy that long.

And he's someone that sadly passed away before I even started doing comedy. So that's the sort of, you know, time length of jokes and whatever that I sort of do as well. We had a bizarre experience driving across America when we were driving into Las Vegas where it was night on this freeway and you've put on a Mitch Hedberg bootleg that's like him very drunk and he kind of goes crazy at the end of it. Yeah. And it's like, and it's a really bad recording. So it's like pitch black and like the roads there are terrifying and we're just listening

to the guy on stage lose his mind very inaudibly. It was like a bizarre. As we're going into Vegas. I hosted a tour. One of Mitch's last tours was Stephen Lynch. Do you know Stephen Lynch? Yeah, yeah. He plays the guitar and songs.

They're very funny. And we were in Atlantic City, and I was the host, and neither of them showed up to go first. There was definitely some kind of tension and back and forth about who was first and who was second on that tour. I shouldn't say there was

tension because I don't know for sure but there was ambiguity behind the scenes as to who was first and who was second. So you just did an hour up front or what? It was this thing where i i i at the end of my set i said thank you very much i look over i go uh you know so i think it was supposed to be mitch i was like please welcome mitch hedberg and uh he's not there you know it's like a von trapp family singer you know and uh and uh and i go oh yeah i've i've i've wrong actually please welcome Stephen Lynch

he's not there and so I'm standing on stage and I go well and this has never happened to me I say to the audience we can do one of two things it's never happened to me I go I could just keep talking until someone shows up

keep telling stories keep telling jokes or I'll just leave and then the next guy will show talking until someone shows up. Keep telling stories, keep telling jokes, or I'll just leave, and then the next guy will show up when he shows up. And people cheered, and I did jokes, and eventually I literally saw Mitch and his wife Lynn walking into the back of the room and then darting across and up, and then Mitch came on. But, man, I'll tell you, I opened for him probably 15, 16 shows in my career. I was lucky enough to open for him and there was no one better live.

Yeah, right. I mean, I know there were shows like that, the ones that you're talking about. But I mean, it's still amazing to listen to. It was so in the moment. Yeah. Everything he did, it was so well written. Yeah.

You're saying short jokes, but then what he would do to them was so personal. Yeah. And it was so present. And you felt special being there. Right. Yeah. Well, even, like I said, even those bad bootlegs was because he had those great jokes, but there's a lot of personality in there.

And he was very, you know what? And to be honest, this is going going a bit comedy comedy at the moment but uh i always heard like if you'd hear stephen wright or whatever you hear one line of comics i'd always hear them and go oh that's all you can do if you do short jokes you can only stand still and say these jokes would go for eight words yeah and wait for that to finish and then tell another one and then to hear him he does a lot of those short jokes but then he he's got personality he talks to the crowd or he talks about how he's going, how the gig's going, whatever it is. He always had a million jokes about bombing and when it wasn't going well. Yeah, he was – and oddly, his one-liners have a lot of heart in them.

Yeah. He has that joke about, quit trying to tell call me a steamboat operator yeah yeah i don't know but he's like he had a lot of jokes about being misunderstood like in general and i don't know sorry i'm getting off on the tangent about mitch but uh but he's actually in my movie there's an homage to him right sleepwalk withwalk With Me, which, by the way, people are listening, it comes out, I believe, April 4th

across the country. Right. 15 theaters. So it's like in Perth. It's in Perth. Right. It's in Adelaide. I think the Nova Cinema

in Melbourne, which people will know if they're listening, is playing it when it's on here. Yeah, it's in Melbourne. It's in Sydney. It's across the country.

And so, there's a scene where a bunch of comics, me and a few comics, are bonding, and we're watching a Mitch Hedberg special on TV. So you can hear one of his jokes, and we're all having a moment. Because that was the thing I really wanted to capture in the movie was the camaraderie of comics.

I feel like you have a lot of gigs like you're talking about where it's like you're playing and it's like a karaoke. People are singing karaoke and it's loud and people aren't that into being there. And then I feel like the best part of it is with the other comics after the show hanging out and just being like, that was fucked. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's why doing these festival shows is kind of a bit, like it's great, but it's also very disappointing or frustrating in a lot of ways, because if you have a bad show, there's no one else, like you can all hang out after, you've all done your shows and compare it, but there's no one else really in the room to share, to gang up on that group of people with.

Well, how about this? This is something that's happening, we talked about last episode, but this is what I'm doing tomorrow, and this is a very odd gig, and maybe because you're a seasoned traveller and a seasoned comic, you might have some advice for me. You may have even done something similar to this. I'm doing a gig on a plane tomorrow. No way. Yeah.

I'm flying to Brisbane first. Unsanctioned. Like he's just going to get into the drinks cart and then... Just holding court. Yeah. That'm flying to Brisbane first. Unsanctioned. Like he's just going to get into the drinks cart. Just holding court. That's it. He's standing up. He will be clobbered by a large man from New Zealand. And that will be the end of the gig.

Yeah, he's sitting there going, what would Mitch Hedberg do? He was so loosened in the moment. I'm just going to take out the weight. It's like your Mitch gig. You're just going for as long as you can until someone turns up. I'm going for as long as I can until someone grabs me and forces me to the ground. It's going to be like King of Comedy meets Con Air.

How did you get this gig? Oh, the classic comic question. Do you have that in America? Oh, yeah, yeah. How did you get that? Who books it? Who books it? It's one of the funniest comedy comedians on Comedian Jokes of All Time.

We'll induct you into Australia. The local version is, how'd you get that? How'd you get that? And say it in a way that, oh, that sounds really good for you, but I want to know how I can get the next one. Okay, that's a good one. Who books it is nice because it's like nonchalant. Yeah.

Oh, yeah? Who books it? Yeah. Because, like, I've, you know,'s it's obviously it's a thing that comes and goes I'm going through a bit of a um you should set it up for the audience yeah so it's so it's basically yeah just you uh if someone says joke akin to like the aristocrats yeah people have heard of the aristocrats yeah it's like a joke where you can plug in a thousand different variables but the punchline is always the same yeah well people would always do it people would sort of do it seriously for a

little bit and then it's you know people sort of worked out that it's a thing that basically if you say I'm doing this great gig and then I go oh how'd you get that what I'm basically saying is why didn't I get that yeah because you're shit and I should be doing that instead of you but like a typical setup I don't know if you guys have this here and I'll I don't want to interrupt no flow what you're saying, but I want to set it up so people know. Yep.

It's like the Who books, that premise is generally like, ah, I was doing this gig, and there's two comics hanging out, and one guy goes, ah, I was doing this gig, and it was like in this swamp, you know? And I had to take this bridge that only fit like bicycles that has to and and I had to ride this bike I drove and I parked in this parking lot and I drove my bicycle over this bridge and I'm in this swamp and then it's like it's this club and it only seats like 10 people but there's only five chairs and then the the owner's there with his wife and his wife is all haggard and and like you have have to fuck his wife after the show,

and she's all gangly, and she looks like a Medusa, and her teeth are falling out, and then the other comic goes, Who books that? I think we're more likely, like, Tommy will have an ice cream, and I'll say, How'd you get that? Yeah, because that's what I started.

I saw that someone clocked it for me the other day. We're driving along and there were three of us in the car and my mate goes, I saw this guy on the street the other day just starting a story and then the guy in the back chimes in and goes, how'd you get that? I reckon I've got to retire this for a bit because that's...

I like yours because the reading of how'd you get that is so earnest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How did you get seeing a guy in the street? I went, you can't get anything more banal than that. That's the end of the game. We've beaten it. Yeah, how did you get saying how did you get that at that?

I hope the people listening to this are finding this as funny as we are. I mean, I think there's a certain level of understanding. And also it's interesting getting into festival time where it's just about to be a whole month of – the big one here is people will fly out the front of the town hall and go up to someone else who's doing a show and going, how many you got in tonight? How many sales you got?

Like just wanting the number to be just in your head going less than me. Please say less than me. Please say less than three Just say less than three And I'll be happy I'll feel like I'm winning With three people There's a culture down here

And you may see it You may be able to see people Beg people to go into shows And you will From your hotel right here Yeah Which is You'll see just people flyering

Desperate flyering Yes I already witnessed this Oh really Already Because I was looking For my own posters Because there's posters

For everybody You Yeah And there's posters for do you have a show i have a show yeah my posters up somewhere posters for you and and i was like are there posters for me and i had to look far and wide to find them yeah right great because that's what we have to do we have that sometimes yeah one person said to me because they didn't know who i was the person goes uh well if you didn't make it yourself, then there isn't one. We've had years where we go, our posters aren't up in any of the venues, and then you go into one of the toilets and you close the door behind you

and you go, oh, there I am. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because your room sort of overlooks a bit of a flyering hotspot. So I'm going to make an effort to fly there a lot, knowing that you might be. If you see me down there, get a twit pic going. How many have you sold? Oh, I don't know.

Pretty good. How many have you sold? Three. Oh, I got like media. I got a lot of media. And then I did some two-for-ones. I gave out some comps. And then mum and dad and some friends are coming.

So like five. That's a big thing i walked into the office down there like a tourist office and there's there's two for ones a lot for oh yeah half ticks yeah there is i don't know if you've got the equivalent in america but you know we do have what five six seven hundred shows are on at the moment it's 450 or something yeah it's a lot it's yeah so you there's a lot of competition three of them are good mind you but yeah yeah you know what it what what hanging out with you guys reminds me of is that um i would love to shoot a film here i was jen when jenny and i were here in australia last we were like it's so cinematic yeah it's so visual the people are so funny and just earnest and interesting people say it's like the New York and Sydney's the LA sort of thing yeah yeah and and I wonder like is that um is it do a lot of people shoot films here there there

has been a there is a lot of lot of... Ghost Rider was filmed here. Okay. It's... Yeah, there's a lot... Yeah? It was good? It's good, sorry. That's an unmarked conversation we're having right there.

Yeah, no, it is because it's like an old city, so you've still got that old architecture. So it's, you know, at night, there's a lot of stuff going on in the street. So it does look very nice. It is a very picturesque city. Maybe it's very expensive to shoot here. Maybe that's why people don't do it.

Yeah, I think mostly Australian movies are pretty terrible. I think that's more. We're very unsuccessful in the film business. What about Americans coming in and shooting a film? They do do that a lot. The Matrixes were all shot in Sydney. Oh, were The Matrixes shot in Sydney? The Wolverine.

Fortress with Christopher Lambert. That was shot in Sydney. What were the Matrixes shot in Sydney? The Wolverine. Fortress with Christopher Lambert. That was shot in Queensland. You remember that epic movie? Scooby-Doo. The Scooby-Doo movie was filmed in a theme park, I think, up on the Gold Coast. Wow. Yeah.

All right. Well, I'll take it back. If you want to do it, my mum is friends with the wife of Yahoo! Sirius. Is that a real thing? That is a real thing, yeah. I didn't know we were going to drop names. Yeah, my mom, Clay.

I know Tom Hanks. You trumped Tommy knowing his mom. How do you know Tom Hanks? No, not well. He came to one of our events for one of the movie shows in America. Oh, I thought you might have said he's got a ticket for tonight and maybe i can floor him after he came out or something no oh damn i know i was i here he came to we have a writer's guild uh event when the

movie came when sleepwalk with me came out in america and yeah and he actually came because ira glass is friends with him right and ira glass co-wrote the movie yeah yeah and he produced the movie with me. And yeah, Tom Hanks is one of those people you meet and you just go, oh, I shouldn't be meeting you. Yeah, yeah. You are too big and great of a person to meet. Was he funny?

He was very funny. Was he great? Yeah. Okay, we're back. It sounds a bit different. Our mixing desk kind of exploded. I don't know what's happened here. The power went off all of a sudden.

So I don't know... We started talking about Tom Hanks. Yeah. And we lost power. Some kind of crazy... Some form of the Da Vinci Code, I believe. Yeah, it was very weird. We were in the middle of...

So we don't know how much of that Tom Hanks chat we got off the end there. And it's weird. The energy's changed now. Tom Hanks, Chris Hardwick. Yeah. We're all reclining. Is Hardwick running the podcast industry in such a way that he's infiltrated our hotel room operation?

Is he running big podcasts? Yeah, yeah. Has he gone from small podcast to big podcast? Yeah, so it's gone from being a very casual thing where we're all lying back, reclining, you could say, with our own microphones, to now just huddled around this little plastic thing that we have. So, yeah, the energy's changed somewhat.

What I was going to ask was, Mike, with your hotel room right here, I was listening to Sleepwalk With Me, and it talks about your sleepwalking, obviously, and you said that one of your requirements in a hotel room is to be on the ground floor. Yeah. And we are not on the ground floor right now. We're on the second floor. This is the lowest floor that they have.

Oh, really? And we spent a good deal of time today. Originally, we were on the seventh floor. Oh, right. But I'll tell you, this is something I deal with. I'll try to shout because i'm walking over the window this is something we deal with all the time where we kind of have to come in feel it out feel what kind of a what kind of a shade oh yeah it is you

know like this is a pretty uh considerable shade and then what jenny jenny who's here that we you know i do this guy will end up this big desk which is an enormous desk will end up we'll push it in front of here we'll take these chairs and we'll push it in front of here so it'll be like

a lot of barriers to getting out right you have to build a little forts a little fortress you're just not playing in it you're just

trying to walk into it I wish we'd walked in and didn't know that you had the sleepwalking thing while you're in the midst of doing that because it just would have looked like you'd gone crazy. Yeah, like we've got Howard Hughes we can do a podcast about Howard Hughes

I'm the Johnny Depp of comedy. Yeah, he's been here one day and he's trashing the genre. Ripping apart the hotel rooms. This hotel doesn't have a ground it doesn't have a ground floor. It doesn't, no. There's like a hot dog restaurant underneath in the city square bit.

Oh, now you've given away. I was about to say, yeah. Ah, shit. They can piece it together based on being able to see where I fly. Now these super fans are just going to be looking up Google mapping hot dog. All those people who couldn't find Ellen

are going to come and look for you now. People coming in and going, I'm looking for a guy. He was staying on the seventh floor. I don't know where he is now. Do you realise that? He's my friend. I don't know'm looking for a guy, he was staying on the seventh floor, I don't know where he is now. He's my friend, I don't know his name, but I do know he was on the seventh floor of somewhere. I realise that every photography class across Australia right now is staking out hot dog joints.

Yeah, trying to get a photo of the sign. Yeah. It must be such a waste though, you get to travel and have nice hotels and stuff, but then you've always got to be on the ground floor i know everyone else is enjoying these city views and you've got car park views every time you go to a new city no it's absolutely true and you know a lot yeah a lot of times they'll want they'll say wow we got you in the 41st floor you know no no that's not so good, actually. But, yeah, I mean, in earnest, I will say that I walk a lot of these towns, you know? Yeah. Even so far, like Jenny and I went for a half-hour walk around town.

Great walking town. Yeah. Melbourne. Yeah. Well, you were in the perfect position. You were in the middle of everything. Yeah. Yeah, it's gorgeous.

Does it get hard sometimes with having to, like, because, you know, it's a very, like, it's a health thing and it's a very particular thing that you need to stay. And as you sort of are getting, like, I guess, more profile and stuff, if there is a problem with the room, do you find, like, it gets harder to make a thing about it? Because then it's like, oh, look at fucking, you know, look at this guy kicking up a stink.

Classic Hollywood. Yeah, I mean, well, that was the thing I say, you know look at this guy kicking up a stink classic hollywood yeah i mean that well that that's uh that was the thing i say you know on the sleepwalk live album which is that you know for a long time i wouldn't talk about having a disorder you know because i was ashamed of it and my you know i would check in you know my my agent would call ahead and he'd say mike has to stay on the first floor and they would say why and he'd be like because that to stay on the first floor. And they would say, why? And he'd be like, because that's what Mike Birbiglia wants. They would hate me before I even met them. That's such a weird thing to insist on. He wants the shittiest floor.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Who do you think you're dealing with? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a low-class performer. And that's how he wants to stay. I don't want you making my client think he's good by putting him in the penthouse suite. Because then he'll give up.

I've seen it before. I was interested to talk about the sleepwalking thing. Because I've got high blood pressure and I take pills and stuff like that. And I went in to the doctor the other day for what I thought was just... Because I have to get a prescription every time I run out of the pills that I take. It's a real pain in the ass. So I have to go in just as a routine thing. And my normal doctor wasn't there.

So, but she just said, I'll just tell the other doctor who works here, the situation, you just come in and get the script from her. Great. I go in and this doctor just was like nuts and kind of really gave me the ones over and was like making me go and get all these tests and stuff.

And she goes, Oh, and I reckon you've probably got sleep apnea as well. And I was like, Oh look, I've lived with my girlfriend for like a year now. And if I had sleep apnea, she would have said something about it. So, you know, thanks, but no thanks.

And then I go home and I tell my girlfriend that and I go, check out what old bloody quacko here thought. And I said to her, you know, I'd have heard about it. This is how an Australian talks. She goes, and then she goes. I believe the word quacko is used. She goes, and then she goes... I believe the word quacko is used. Then she goes, so I said, you know, I told the doctor to get lost because, you know, I've lived with you for a year

and I don't know, by now, if I had sleep apnea, you would have said something. She goes, to be fair, like, you do, you scream in your sleep. There are frequent times where you stop breathing, you make gargling noises. You make hotel bookings in your sleep for the first floor. Yeah. I was like, why has this never come up before?

And she goes, oh, you've just never asked. I'm like, oh, I didn't realize protocol was getting up first thing in the morning going, so can we just have a rundown of noises that we each made in the middle of the night? Well, you know, I can put you in touch with my agent because he specializes in booking comedians with sleep disorders. Oh, great. How did he get that how did you just get that oh we've really worn it out oh yeah it's four more weeks funny again

i just cannot wait yeah um so yeah now i've got to go and i've i i you know i and i was talking to a friend of the show, Justin Hamilton, about it because he has it. He's a local comedian. He has sleep apnea and he has the mouth guard that you have to wear. And he said, oh, well, how do you feel when you get up in the morning? I said, I just feel I have trouble getting out of bed. It takes me a couple of hours to click on.

And even then I just spend the day just feeling in a bit of a daze. I don't really like being awake. So you're saying Garfield had sleep apnea? I said that to him. I said all those things and he goes, oh, well, no, that's what I had before. That's how I felt before. And so you've got sleep apnea. And I was like, oh, I thought that was just life.

I didn't realize that was an actual medical thing. Yeah, yeah. And so now I'm, you know, like I'm, so I've got to, but the test that you've got to do you have to wear this bane like mask thing you have to wear like a full suit thing yeah it's in the end of my movie there's a photo of me with that suit that you're talking right right there's actual photos there's just one suit and just all these electrodes all over your face

and all over your body and then this mask on your face that's something to look forward to actual photos in a credit sequence I feel like I'm probably going to have to wait now until after the comedy festival I might just fake sleep apnea to go and wear this helmet it sounds pretty cool

no it sounds horrendous it's meant to test how you sleep but how are you meant to sleep with all that stuff on you yeah i'm pretty sure they've thought of that question before you have so i reckon there'll be a way no but oh i'll tell you though they maybe they haven't like i when jenny and i when i first jumped out the window when you first when i first jumped out of the window before it became hack yeah um i for a sleep study, the thing that you're talking about, where they put the electrodes all over your body and the mask over your face and everything. And we were on, Jen, what floor were we on?

At the sleep study. At the sleep study? Oh, I don't know. It was like 24th floor. It was like 24th floor. And I said to the sleep technician, I go, well, I jumped out a second story window. This is what I do because of my sleep disorder. I can't sleep on the 24th floor.

And he was like, no, we got it covered. And I was like, no, no, I'll be gone by the time you come in to get me. I'll be gone like the Roadrunner cartoon. And he was like no no no we got cameras on you we're watching you from the other room

and it was funny because it was like this real weird act of faith of just like okay I might die at the hospital yeah

when I was going to get help I might get killed at least the 6 o'clock news will have something to play that'll be a great story yeah I like the idea

that you like here like in this room that you're in now, if all this stuff backfires and you make it out this window. Well, this podcast will be priceless. Yeah. But also, say you have an afternoon nap before you show. And so you throw yourself, and the vantage point you've got from where people normally fly are out the front of the town hall.

The idea that you would just land on people out the front of the town hall and they'd go, this is the most insane flyering ever. This guy has literally thrown himself onto us. They'll be like, what chance have we got flyering? Babiglia, he's thrown himself out the window already. He's in the arts centre. If he's struggling, what chance have we got? They'll be like, but is it half price?

Yeah, and then just on your corpse, it just says two-for-one tickets with password deceased. Jenny's not going to like this joke. Oh, great. Everyone's saying, how can we not get that? So we still need to work out this three-minute thing. We've still got to crack the three minutes. How do you rate a three-minute stat?

Now, this is insulting coming from a guy I've just listened to like like, three CDs of today. You've got heaps of jokes. I have faith in you, Mike. What do you open with and what do you close with? I reckon you... Well, can I open with this? This is one of my jokes for my albums, which is...

Are telemarketers a thing here? Yes. Yes. Okay, because I have a joke where I say, you know, my name is Mike Birbiglia, because I have to introduce myself here, and so I say my you know my name is Mike Birbiglia because I'm you know because I have to introduce myself here and so I say you know it's a difficult name when telemarketers call they'll be like good afternoon mass people with mister oh man I'm like Birbiglia doesn't live here anymore and I said a lot of times I have to spell my name it's's B as in boy, I-R, B again, I-G. I wish my last name were just boy. I'd be like, it's B as in boy, and then the rest of the word boy.

So maybe I'll open with that. Yeah, sure. I always find the three minutes hard because it's like you have to introduce yourself. Yeah, yeah. But you, you're here. People know you. People don't know me at all. Yeah, that's a stretch. Maybe not as much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. More than you think,. People know you. People don't know me at all. Yeah, that's a stretch.

Maybe not as much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. More than you think, I think, though. You've got those nice posters. Your posters are good looking. Oh, thank you. Good. Makes your show look quite exciting.

Great. Awesome. Well, there's one person. Mike's coming, so that's great. Tommy's mum. Yep. Great. That's two.

Why is my mum coming to your show all of a sudden? She's a classic space filler she's not filling up the numbers actually this is and this is something that Mike won't know

the reference to but here's some news right now yesterday I got messaged by Nick Cody's mum saying she just bought tickets to my show oh it's the same

I've got nothing there's a comedian who we're friends with called Nick Cody who's a Melbourne comedian great Melbourne comedian who for some reason his mum has just started messaging both of us all the time on Facebook There's a comedian who we're friends with called Nick Cody, who's a Melbourne comedian, great Melbourne comedian, who for some reason his mum has just started messaging both of us all the time on Facebook.

And we've never met her. Like she's just, because Nick's been on this podcast a lot. Yeah. So she's taken a real interest in us. But what she specialises in is hitting me up saying, what are you going to get my son for his birthday? And me saying, nothing. I'm not getting your son anything.

And then her continually updating how many days it is to go until his birthday. Oh, wow. And I get that two, three times a week. So it just keeps going and keeps going. Have we told the story on the show about Nick's mum that he told us where it was late on a Saturday night and she left the house to get drive-through Hungry Jacks or like your American Burger King. Sure.

And there was like a party. I got that. Sorry. So she left the house and there was like a house party in their street, like a bunch of unruly kids. And like someone threw a bottle at a car, at her car. And like she got out and then she got hit with a bottle in the head, and then she woke up in the hospital. She had to go to hospital because these kids had thrown a bottle at her,

and they were talking to her around her bed. This ends funny. Yeah, they're like, are you okay? Is everything all right? And she goes, ah, I'm just pissed off I didn't get to get me Hungry Jacks. Wow. This is the kind of woman that we're... When's she coming to your show?

I can't remember I think she's coming opening weekend I don't know I don't know Oh I'm disappointed she's going to your show as well I thought it was special

What's the name of your show? Spread Spread And what's the name of yours? Carl Chandler has 1.5 Oh yes 1.5 million jokes Yeah that's right

I like that Yeah good That's a great title Yeah great Nice Yours is Spread Damn it No no I think I saw That's right, I like that. Yeah, good. That's a great title. Yeah, great, nice. Yours is... Spreads... Damn it!

No, no, I think I saw the poster for Spread. We saw that and I was like, that's a great fucking title. No, you don't have to do this. He did, he did. You don't have to do this. It's true. What font did they use? Well, no, you know what it was?

Particularly unknown for his expertise in fonts. There's a sparse design to it. Yeah? No. Would you say it's sparse? Not at all. I'd say it's busy. I think it's busy.

It's not busy. Really? No, it's not busy. It's simple. Simple. Very simple. It's a picture of you? Picture of you?

That's key. Good guess, yeah. This is a shame. I've got a little one in my bag, actually. Oh, great. I wonder if... Is this the one you saw? Oh, this will play great on the radio.

Yeah, yeah. Well, no, it's just... Yeah, was that... No. No, see? That is a busy flyer. Definitely not. Yeah.

I want to know who this one person is who has the photo of himself. It was another kind of five-letter word. Oh, okay. I can't wait to see the person that you think Tommy looks like. Yeah. And whether it is male or female. Wait, so you're the host of the podcast or are you the co-host?

Oh, that's a very good question. We're both the host, but he's decided to be a bit more modest on his flyer and put co-host, which makes me, because I've put host, look like I'm some bloody power-hungry... Exactly. Yeah. Exactly what it is. That's what's happened. Yeah.

What do you think about that? Do you have treachery in America? Do you have that sort of thing going on over there? It feels like a Julius Caesar situation going on where you've gotten carried away. I just don't like this at all. Your best friend Brutus here. This is a stitch up.

Jenny's reading Julius Caesar right now. We're representing it for everything. Is it really Julius Caesar? Because you've mixed up with Tommy's poster. That could be anything. Are you sure it's not Fifty Shades of Grey? Fifty Shades of Grey? We're ending on that.

That's our closer. I think that does bring us to the end of A Little Dum Dum Club Fifty Shades of Grey. Fifty Shades of Grey. We're ending on that. Good reference. Yeah, that's our closer. Well, I think that does bring us to the end of A Little Dum Dum Club for another week. Michael Biglia, thank you so much for joining us. This was an honour. People can see your show. You're on in Melbourne for ten shows. Something like that, yeah.

First ten nights of the Comedy Festival, the Arts Centre. The Arts Centre. Then you go to Sydney. If you're listening to this on the day it comes out, you can go basically straight away. Yep. You might even be listening to it on the day it comes out, you can go basically straight away. Yep. You might even be listening to it on the tram on the way to the show, just to really get yourself

revved up. And then significantly, anywhere in Australia, you can see the movie, pretty much. Yes. 15 cities, 15 movie theatres. Oh, really? Yeah. And I've seen it. It's really great. Thanks. I've got a US iTunes account. I paid money. I didn't illegally download it. I just want to put that on the record.

Interesting. Yeah. So you can see it here if you have a US iTunes account. Yeah. You just need to get iTunes cards from the States and then put in an American address. But you can literally just put number one Times Square, New York. And they go, this checks out. Number one Times Square.

Yeah. That's where my address is. iTunes thinks there's probably bills going there to the M&M store

or whatever getting on my iTunes bills if you do work if you

listen to the show and you live in New York and you work at the M&M

store and you're getting receipts for Tommy Daslow's Netflix account

or whatever let us know I've been watching a lot of Law and Order

SVU sleep walk with me I'm trying to account or whatever let us know what about watching a lot of Law and Order SVU really they're up on the iTunes store here yeah Sleepwalk With Me I'm trying to think what else you'll be getting

you're sending away for Law and Order episodes I'm not sending away for them like I buy the cards he's living large I mean he's the host

of the Dumb Dumb Podcast he's not the co-host one day one day I get his hand-me-downs I'll get the episodes once he's finished with them if you try hard one day you could be... I get his hand-me-downs. I'll get the episodes once he's finished with them.

If you try hard, one day you could be sitting on this ottoman. Yeah. Guys, thanks heaps for listening. We have our shows on every night in the Forum Theatre. We've also got the live Little Dumb Dumb Clubs on Mondays in the Town Hall. Check that out, comedyfestival.com.au for all the details. Thank you very much for listening and we'll see you next time. See you, mates.