Mike Birbiglia Faces His Darkest Fears and Puts Them On Stage

The Hilarious World of Depression

American Public Media

Comedy Interviews, Comedy

4.8 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2020

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Monologist and comedian Mike Birbiglia has always had a mile-long dark streak. Even if he’s never been diagnosed with clinical depression, he’s recognized his own lack of capacity to feel joy and is constantly aware of a kind of existential dread that haunts him. But rather than shy away from all that, he picks at it. Mike fills us in on how he deals with that darkness and the inner meaning of a lot of his work.

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Visit MakeItOK.org to get resources, tips for talking about mental health, and more.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Jokes are something I think about all the time.
0:02.2	They're a volatile type of speech.
0:03.8	I mean, you just look at the news that Charlie Hebdo incident two years ago
0:07.6	where these 10 satirists were killed for drawing a disrespectful cartoon.
0:12.4	And the Muhammad of the killers believed to be the prophet of Allah,
0:15.1	their Lord and Savior, which, by the way, he might be.
0:30.0	Our guest for this episode is a delightful storyteller, a skilled comedian.
0:45.1	But we're the show we are, and I want to make sure you notice a consistent darkness,
0:50.4	a bleakness almost in his work.
0:53.4	I want you to notice it because it's the premise of this podcast that laughter
0:57.9	and depression can exist together, but also because he uses the darkness as a
1:03.2	tool in his work.
1:04.7	He harnesses that power.
1:06.7	Yokes up the darkness makes it pull a plow.
1:10.2	It's the hilarious world of depression.
1:12.2	I'm John Moe.
1:14.4	I'm Mike Burbiglia, and we are in a studio in New York City on the east side of
1:20.4	Manhattan.
1:21.4	And what do you do for a living, Mike?
1:24.8	It's so complicated.
1:27.2	That's why I ask.
1:30.4	I would say primarily I create things and perform things.
	...

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