I was opening for him, in central Pennsylvania at a theater, and it was all these superfans and they were just shouting like, BANANA!, or whatever joke they wanted to hear. SHAPIRO: When I was watching the show, I wondered how much of the discomfort being a parent is connected to the sense that you've spent your whole life becoming good at the things an adult has to be good at, and then suddenly, there's a new thing that you're not at all good at and not at all prepared for, and it's kind of a sense of dislocation almost. 1 - I've never felt like there should be more of me in the world. And then I was able toI went to the well on that one probably two or three times until finally they were like, "No." Father's Day: Mike Birbiglia talks new book, being a dad in a pandemic In one particularly funny passage from the book, Birbiglia frets that all the dark joy will vanish from his life: the simple pleasures of staying up until dawn, smoking pot through a watermelon, having sex on a broken kite and watching YouTube videos of waterslide accidents. Mike Birbiglia. and, "Tell this person I said this!" And they're like, this is what it is. You know, there are like 150 kind of happy tricks to get people to applaud but there's no real tricks to get people laugh. I actually think that the show will be better by the end of the run because I'm always thinking about not major tweaks but minor tweaks. The chapter concludes with Steins Last Meal.. I mean, it feels like mainstream in this way that I, like, never really aspired to be, yet it feels right because - I didn't mean for this to happen, but it has the most wide appeal in terms of, like, ages and types of people. What does your wife think of the new play? When I'm doing segments of it on tour, because I'm perpetually touring as my job, when I'm doing this stuff as stand-up, it's really to kind of feel out where the laughs are, because I think actually stand-up is one of the absolute best ways to get to the heart of what is interesting about a subject to people and not just to you, you know? When I would cross the line, I would usually walk it back with an audience. It's unspoken in the show, but yeah, it's a control thing. THR: So if you wrote something that was not based on stand-up, youd want someone else to act in it? I always live tweet SNL. But I was like, this is not connecting the same way it's connecting with, like, people in their late 20s and middle age. Few people get as much mileage out of one story as Mike Birbiglia. Was there anything in there that you had to cut because she wasn't comfortable with it? Whether or not we stopped or put a hold on three to five marriages, that may be an exaggeration. BIRBIGLIA: And then you have to take it home. live Instagram They're like, we'll put a striped blanket on and a beanie. I mean, it's completely frowned upon to leave it there. All rights reserved. Mike Birbiglia (/ b r b l i /; born June 20, 1978) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, storyteller, director, producer and writer.He is a frequent contributor to This American Life and The Moth, and has released several comedy albums and television specials.His feature-length directorial debut Sleepwalk with Me (2012), based on his one-man show of the same name and in . But it wont last forever. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Comedian Mike Birbiglia, his wife and his cat take a trip together and meet some parasitic zombie mice. In 'The New One,' Mike Birbiglia And Jen Stein Share 'Painful - NPR Mike Birbiglia: The Old Man and the Pool - Steppenwolf Theatre The comedian Mike Birbiglia has checked a lot of big items off his bucket list. fungus and Andy Capp's Fries be damned. Taking material across different formats is a very specific skill set, says The Daily Shows Roy Wood Jr., whose new show, Stand-Up Playback, features comics watching old sets and roasting themselves. [Laughs] You know what I mean? Encore: 'The New One' Follows Comedian Mike Birbiglia's Journey - NPR