Advice for New-ish Comedians (with Gary Simons and Listener Questions)

Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out

Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out podcast

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4.8 • 4K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mike welcomes back comedian Gary Simons, who, since his last appearance on the podcast, opened for Mike on his latest tour, had a few of his stand-up bits go viral, and has been performing at the Comedy Cellar. Now, Mike and Gary answer listener questions from people who have taken the leap into stand-up comedy and are looking for advice about how to continue. They discuss open mics, bombing, pre-show mantras, and more.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody, it's Mike Berbiglia.
0:11.6	We are back with another episode of working it out.
0:15.0	We have a really cool episode today.
0:17.7	We have a return visit from Gary Simons, who is the comedian, who actually we toured
0:23.5	together for the last two years leading up to this special, The Good Life, which comes out
0:30.6	May 26th. If you have Netflix, go on the coming soon part and click on Remind me. That's like a real thing. And it will show up
0:40.1	on your Netflix when it comes out May 26. I'm so excited to share it with you. I have a great
0:44.7	conversation with Gary today. If you are someone who is in the first few years of doing stand-up
0:51.0	or just trying a new kind of creative form. This is a great episode. We talk about
0:56.6	sort of like, where does one begin? Gary started doing stand-up a few years ago, and at this point,
1:04.3	he was on tour with me. He got past the comedy seller in the fall, and so he's doing really well,
1:09.2	and it's kind of like a next-step's conversation
1:12.0	today, and we take some questions from Instagram. We talk about doing open mics. We talk about
1:19.0	being okay with bombing. We talk about telling stories and feeling like it's worth it to even
1:26.1	hear your stories at all.
1:27.9	If you want to follow Gary on Instagram,
1:30.7	he is at Gary from Connecticut on Instagram.
1:34.5	Such funny clips from Gary Simons over there.
1:37.4	Enjoy my conversation with the great Gary Simons.
1:40.1	Oh, working it out.
1:52.1	It's Mike for Biggley.
1:53.1	I'm here with Gary Simons today.
	...

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