Podcast Summary
Podcast: Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out
Episode: 181. Jo Firestone Returns: The Best Stand-Up (Who Doesn’t Do Stand-Up)
Date: August 18, 2025
Host: Mike Birbiglia
Guest: Jo Firestone
Main Theme & Episode Overview
This episode features the irrepressibly original comedian and writer Jo Firestone, returning for her third conversation with Mike Birbiglia. The episode explores Jo’s unconventional approach to comedy, her transition away from traditional stand-up, what it’s like to head up a TV writer’s room, and the joys and oddities of her experimental shows (including pie tasting and interactive clay “performance”). Throughout, Mike and Jo riff on the complexities of creative fulfillment, insecurity, and the tension between their personal comedic instincts and public reaction. With their signature mix of warmth, awkwardness, and insight, they also “work out” new material, ideas, and, as always, a few deeply silly tangents.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. Jo’s Comedy Journey: “The Best Stand-Up (Who Doesn’t Do Stand-Up)”
- Jo explains her move away from traditional stand-up:
“I don't do standup anymore.” (06:42) - She recounts a disastrous recent show at Union Hall:
- The show involved audience members making deliberately bad art with five pounds of air-dry clay, to “cleanse” them for better work.
- Jo's fiancé was in the crowd and, as Jo describes, “I kept looking at him... and you know the face your loved ones make when you are making a fool of yourself?” (08:42)
- She is frank: “It was so bad. And I'm doing a second one.” (06:58)
2. Experimental Shows & Creative Fulfillment
- Jo details her love for creating over performing:
- She feels most fulfilled “making it, getting it done,” not from audience approval. (12:54)
- “The reception is really the worst. The worst part.” (13:10)
- Discusses other “concept shows”: car wash show, pie tasting “not a contest, just a taste,” and a show where the audience beat paper mache objects for hours.
3. Comedy & the Audience: The Venn Diagram of What’s Funny
- Jo feels her comedic sensibility is often different from the crowd:
- “I feel like nothing I think is funny is funny to others.” (14:22)
- Mike offers the “Venn diagram” metaphor:
“Here's what I think is funny, here's what they think is funny. And I'm trying to figure out, like, what's in that middle area, the little shaded area.” (14:00)
4. Working in Writers’ Rooms (After Midnight, Tonight Show, etc.)
- Head writer for After Midnight, Jo describes the job as:
- Less about a singular vision, more “trying to wrangle other people's ideas.” (27:18)
- The breakneck pace: “With Late night, they're like, build it fast... you have three hours, write the whole thing.” (23:32, 23:39)
- Challenges of being the “camp counselor” in a room of comedians.
5. Personal Stories & Creative Insecurities
- Jo shares her feelings of not fitting:
- “I was the shortest, ugliest person there [in LA] ... I kept trying to find an uglier, shorter person, and I could not find it.” (14:31)
- She often feels like “that old pizza slice” in comedy, with newer talent being the “fresh pizza.” (49:33)
6. Modern Life, Technology & Internet Culture
- Explains her confusion with Google Docs (“thought once you did a Google Doc, you could never find it again” (20:57)) and her role as a reluctant “youth ambassador” in the After Midnight room.
- Amusing struggle with internet lingo: T Job Jobo vs. IDJ BOL (“I just burst out laughing”). (28:27, 29:06)
- Talks about the “Mu Dang” baby hippo meme phenomenon.
7. Relationships & Domestic Life
- On the mutual self-sacrifice of long-term relationships:
- “Whatever you want to do. Whatever you want to do. ... Twenty years later and no one’s done what anyone wants to do.” – Mike (42:36)
- Jo recommends couples alternate days of decision-making on vacation to avoid frustration. (43:11)
- Discussion of comedy about height and dating (“short king” and “size queen” culture).
8. Mental Health, Anxiety, and Burnout
- During stressful times as head writer, Jo self-medicates with “five caffeines a day... four coffees and one soda,” and delves into using “good vibes” music as a coping mechanism—“I crashed my car while that was playing.” (32:26, 33:07)
- Reflects on losing her “comedy hustle” post-pandemic: “I think that maybe... I believed comedy is my life. And now I’m like, I don’t know her. I don’t have that hustle.” (35:31-35:52)
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
-
On creative failure:
"I kept looking at him... and you know the face your loved ones make when you are making a fool of yourself?"
— Jo Firestone (08:42) -
On audience response:
“The reception is really the worst. The worst part.”
— Jo Firestone (13:10) -
Mike, on couples’ mutual indecision:
“It’s like whatever you want to do. Whatever you want to do... and it’s 20 years later and no one’s done what anyone wants to do.”
— Mike Birbiglia (42:36) -
Jo, on quitting stand-up and her place in comedy:
“For me, personally, I just... I’m like that old slice. I just don’t think that’s true.”
— Jo Firestone (49:33–49:36) -
On head writing:
“It's not like you're like, I got this creative vision. Come with me. Yeah, it's like... you're trying to wrangle other people's ideas.”
— Jo Firestone (27:18-27:33) -
On learning internet slang:
"I can't believe I'm your youth ambassador. That's wild."
— Jo Firestone (29:14)
Timestamps for Key Segments
| Time | Segment | |----------|-------------| | 03:14 | Jo returns; Union Hall and experimental shows | | 06:42 | Jo: “I don't do standup anymore.” | | 08:42 | Jo recounts her fiancé’s mortified face at her conceptual art show | | 09:20 | Air-dry clay show; “making the worst art ever” | | 12:54 | Jo on fulfillment in making, not sharing creations | | 14:00 | Mike’s ‘Venn diagram’ of comedy audience | | 17:00 | Both discuss taking martial arts for ‘the end is nigh’ anxiety | | 20:57 | Jo: “I thought once you did a Google Doc, you could never find it again.” | | 22:38 | Jo's style in TV writer’s rooms; needing collaboration | | 27:18 | Jo on being head writer: “wrangling other people's ideas” | | 28:27 | Jo’s confusion over internet laugh acronyms (“T Job Jobo”) | | 32:26 | Jo’s caffeine habits; coping with job stress | | 35:31-35:52 | Jo on losing her comedic hustle post-pandemic | | 49:33 | Jo’s “old pizza slice” metaphor for her place in comedy | | 51:59–53:31 | Jo chooses the Ali Forney Center as spotlight non-profit |
Standout Jokes, Bits & Bits-in-Progress
-
Short/Ugly in LA:
Jo’s ongoing bit about being “the shortest, ugliest person in LA,” and how this fails with Brooklyn audiences who are “short uglies” too. (14:31, 46:24, 46:41) -
“Clay cleansing” show:
Jo’s conceptual comedy: “trying to get [audience] to make the worst art ever so that we can cleanse them.” (09:20) -
Relationships: The “Whatever you want to do” loop
Bit about couples deferring to each other endlessly and never doing what they want. (42:36–42:46) -
Nicknames:
- “The girl with the Ronald McDonald hair.” (36:27)
- Restaurant nickname: “Little piece of crap.” (36:41)
- Trying (unsuccessfully) to get “Meatball” going. (37:08)
Tone & Flow
The episode is spontaneous, playful, and a little “unhinged” — per Mike’s intro. Jo’s signature mix of self-deprecation, surreal concepts, and warm detachment blends with Mike’s gentle ribbing and thoughtful questions. Both acknowledge the messiness of creative work, the insecurity beneath performance, and the odd satisfactions found more in making than in any reaction.
Nonprofit Highlight
The Ali Forney Center (aliforneycenter.org)
— Chosen by Jo Firestone, supporting homeless and at-risk LGBTQ+ youth.