Better in Person Podcast | How Gary Gulman Turned Depression Into Comedy Gold

Comedian Gary Gulman joins Stephen Dubner in this preview of an episode from the Freakonomics Radio creator's new show, Better in Person. Watch Better in Person on the Freakonomics Radio Network YouTube channel.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Hey there. I'm Stephen Dubner, the host of Freakonomics Radio. So what am I doing here in the What Now? feed? Well, Trevor Noah has very kindly let us share a preview of our new show called Better in Person. It is a video talk show where I invite remarkable people over to my apartment to talk, yes, but also to eat and drink, argue, laugh. If Freakonomics Radio is about how things work, then Better in Person is about how people work. And one of those people is the comedian and all-around remarkable human Gary Gulman. In our time together, Gary got candid with me about his mental health, his comedic workflow, and the power of basketball in helping keep him sane.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  In the portion of the conversation you are about to hear, we even get out and play together. So I hope you enjoy it. You can watch the full episodes of Better in Person on the Freakonomics YouTube channel or on Apple Podcasts. Thanks so much for checking it out.

• 1:05Speaker 00

  On any day that it's above 40 degrees Fahrenheit in New York City, Gary Gulman plays basketball outdoors to help maintain his mental health. One day, when it was maybe 43 degrees, I tagged along. He was shooting baskets on a court up in central Harlem. There was no one else around.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Nice. All right, I want to ask, do you mind if I ask you questions while you shoot?

• 1:27Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  All right, here's what I want. Before every shot, I simply want you to tell me one thing that you love about basketball.

• 1:34Speaker 02

  Okay, Larry Bird.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  The Boston Celtics.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Nice. What about for you? What does it do for you?

• 1:44Speaker 02

  Oh, basketball is good for the heart.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  Basketball is an anti-anxiety.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Gary Gulman! So you were very good at basketball when you were a kid.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  But you ended up playing not college basketball, but college football. What happened with you and basketball in there?

• 2:07Speaker 02

  Well, I would say part of it was I didn't believe in myself and I didn't value the enjoyment of it. I wanted to get a scholarship. And I didn't, I didn't value how much fun I had and how much I looked forward to it. And at the time, they were giving literally 10 times the number of football scholarships than basketball scholarships. Bigger teams, because they had 100 players at the time. I had the intersection of a bad coach. In my book, I refer to him as Ron Bitter. He was, he was a very short man who didn't teach us anything about basketball. He was just, he took everything he had learned about Bob Knight,

• 2:52Speaker 02

  except the skills and technique.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  Chair throwing.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  The cruelty, the chair throwing, the swearing. And I was, I was discouraged. And when some football coaches showed me the type of enthusiasm that I deserved in basketball, I immediately was hooked on that type of feeling. And ultimately, they were able to get me a four-year scholarship to college. So it worked out in some ways, but I think I would have been happier had I, had I reached my potential in basketball. But I will tell you that what I've decided to do is apply that type of love to my comedy and my writing. And that's been very satisfying.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  I'm happy for you that basketball is, again, a fun part of your life. But I also think it's a good lesson for anybody watching. Like, the thing that you love, you got to remember to keep the love in it. Or it turns into a different thing.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  No, I know. I know. It's just, and I feel so, so grateful that I was able to rediscover it, actually, after I started to feel better from my depression.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Was it a big part of your getting better?

• 4:03Speaker 02

  Yes, absolutely, because I always used to take for granted that there were so many aspects of basketball that were antidepressants. I think the thing that people get put off by is when they're not immediately good at it, or if they're not as good as they used to be when they were younger. That was, that was part of it. I had to come to terms with the fact that I would never dunk again and that I would, I would be shown up by much younger people frequently. So, but, but if you can, but that's also a great lesson, which is to curb your ego.

• 4:37Speaker 00

  I've been asking my guests on Better in Person to bring some show and tell. The architect, Bjarke Ingles, brought some synthetic moon dust. As you'll hear later in the season, the rocker and writer, Warren Zanes, brought in a piece of Beatles memorabilia with a heartbreaking story attached to it. So what did Gary Gulman bring? A big notebook with stickers on the cover and every page absolutely crammed with joke ideas and much more.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  All right, so this is my most recent notebook. And the first thing is I make a collage

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Yes, you do.

• 5:11Speaker 02

  Of stickers and photographs. This is my favorite actor, comedian, Chris Elliott.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  The back is a lot of setlists and transcription.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Can I see a setlist?

• 5:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, so here's a setlist from August 27th. Gen X wave traffic. The Gen X is the last, is the last generation that will wave to you for letting them into traffic.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  Microwave popcorn button was a diversion from the microwave company's inability to get it to make toast.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  And the same thing happened to aliens, where they were able to make the UFO, but they couldn't figure out how to manage the last 10 feet. So they, they put out a ramp. And that's, and, and so that's the interesting thing that I love about comedy is a lot of it is just trying to make connections between things that aren't, that aren't connected. And, and so that's very fun.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  The toast failing seems large to me now.

• 6:10Speaker 02

  Shouldn't it have been like, yeah, of course it can make toast. And it cannot. It can make a turkey in 11 minutes. And it, and it can't make toast. And then, but then it also has a diversion, not a diversion, a digression, where the toast people are frantic over the microwave ovens' prospects for toast making and pushing them out of business. But then the man who runs the toast, and the problem with this joke is it feels too much like the abbreviating the states. But the man who runs the toast consortium says, "We'll always have bathtub suicides."

• 6:48Speaker 02

  Like, that's, and to me, that's the, the, um,

• 6:53Speaker 02

  that's the bottom, that's the bottom line of capitalism. That that's the way they think.

• 7:03Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  "We'll always have bathtub suicides."

• 7:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Do you remember writing that line?

• 7:14Speaker 02

  I remember thinking of it on, on stage.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. So then I wrote it down afterwards.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Did it work the first time?

• 7:21Speaker 02

  It got such a reaction. It got such a reaction. Like, it was similar to what happened here, where people were like, "Ah!" Because it's really, especially for a depressive, to talk about, to talk about bathtub suicides.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  Also, I could imagine you trying to have toast in the bath somehow.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  Right. But then I also followed up with, because this is, this is where the real writing comes in. So you have that line where he says, he says, "We'll always have bathtub suicides." But then I thought of something that he says after that. "You want to, you want to frighten me? Tell me they've outlawed dead-end jobs and loveless marriages. Then, then I'll start panicking. Because as long as there's despair, we will, we will sell toasters." The man was a psychopath, really.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  I'm so glad you came by. It's great to see you, and I'm so glad that you're doing well.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  See each other and spend this time together.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Thank you. And I think that you're, I really think you're an inspiration to a lot of people. So well, well done, man.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  Oh, that's so nice to hear. Thank you. Thank you.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Gary Gulman.