← Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out
Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out
211. Nish Kumar Returns: Dinosaurs Before the Meteor
00:54:07
British comedian Nish Kumar returns to the podcast to discuss the humbling nature of stand-up comedy, lessons learned from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and more. Nish explains the concept of his new tour, “Angry Humour From a Really Nice Guy,” and how he finds the comedy within his pessimistic views about humanity. Plus, Mike and Nish discuss different kinds of heckling, and why Nish’s voice caused an audience member’s Apple watch to call an ambulance.
Loading summary
Transcript369 lines
- [00:01]
Mike Birbiglia
The descriptor of your new show reads, Nish Kumar is 40. His mind is breaking. His body is worse, which I love as a description. What is breaking your body and what is healing you?
- [00:11]
Nish Kumar
If anything, I would say so. Like, my body is sort of showing the signs of the slowdown.
- [00:22]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah, yeah.
- [00:23]
Nish Kumar
The big slowdown. It's the first yawn before the big sleeve feel. You could feel everything. Like it's just the thing of that noise. That noise has started to happen without me wanting it.
- [00:37]
Mike Birbiglia
The overall feeling of.
- [00:39]
Nish Kumar
The overall feeling of people having to look at my butt more than they did before. Why is that just Barry's butt?
- [00:52]
Mike Birbiglia
That is the voice of the great Nish Kumar. Nishi Nish is back. One of my favorite guests we've had through the years and we work out a lot of jokes today. Like a lot of our repeat guests, we really get in the weeds on jokes. I was thrilled to have him. If you don't know Nish, he is a brilliant comic from the uk. He's got a new special out called Don't Kill My Vibe. Nish is a super nice guy. He's very angry about a lot of things, but very funny about it. Talk about that today. We work out a lot of jokes. By the way, we have a new episode of me working out listeners jokes over on Working it out premium on Apple Podcasts. We just dropped it. Pete Holmes and I work out your jokes that you sent to working it out podmail.com if you go over to the Apple podcast app, you can subscribe. It's 4.99amonth. You get no ads for any of the episodes. You support the show, which we appreciate. It's an independent production. And you get these fun bonus episodes which are really honestly the inside of the inside of the inside of what I do every, you know, every day. By the way, you're probably listening to this, but you can also subscribe on YouTube and watch this episode. You get the full video this episode and you get all of our episodes starting at episode 100. That's when we started doing video and we appreciate it if you subscribe. We post more and more videos, so don't miss that. By the way, I'll be at the Netflix is a Joke Festival this Wednesday. This Wednesday, May 6, at the Wilshire E. Ball. There are only a few tickets left, so get on that if you're nearby. It's going to be me and several friends, all of whom have been on the podcast before, headliners in their own right. And I'm going to be doing probably a half hour new material at least. Actually, I'm really excited about that show. Also, if you are in Canada, I will be in Montreal this summer hosting a gala at the Just for Laughs Festival July 24. And if you're in Nantucket or anywhere near Cape Cod, really, you should visit Nantucket. Take the boat over. It's so nice. I'm gonna be at the Nantucket Performing Arts Center. Tickets for that go on sale May 11, and I'm doing a bunch of dates to support John Mulaney along with Fred Armisen in May. Colorado Springs, Eugene, Oregon. Bend, Oregon. Moorhead, Minnesota. All of these things are on Burbigs.com Sign up for the mailing list. And if you want to go even deeper, sign up for text message alerts. That way it doesn't go to your spam, just text for bigs to 917-444-7150. To be the first to know. Love talking to Nish Kumar right out of the gate. We talk about Edinburgh Fringe, which is couldn't recommend more highly if you can possibly go to Edinburgh Fringe in Scotland this summer. Nish has done that festival five times. We talk about hecklers. We talk about the humbling nature of standup. He's so funny, so insightful. Enjoying my conversation with the great Nish Kumar. I went into my notebook about Edinburgh today because I was like, you've done what, six shows at Edinburgh?
- [04:03]
Nish Kumar
Yeah, I did 20, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 full runs. Premiere the show there.
- [04:13]
Mike Birbiglia
I'm obsessed with the. I've only been once and I'm obsessed with it. And I always tell my listeners, go to Edinburgh. Try to go. If you can possibly go to, if you like comedy and arts and performing arts, figure out a way to go to this festival. It's bananas. It's like 10,000 shows in one month in one city.
- [04:36]
Nish Kumar
It's. It's. Yeah, it's like nothing else. Like, I've been to a lot of the big, big ones.
- [04:43]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah, Melbourne's good, too. Kilkenny's great. There's a lot of great ones. But somehow Edinburgh and of course, Montreal is great. Somehow Edinburgh is unbelievable.
- [04:54]
Nish Kumar
I think there's two things. I think one, it's bigger than any of them. Like, the scale of it is so huge and the comedy is one element of it. So, like there's like a weird mime show. There's like four hamlets. At any given time, at any given time in Edinburgh, someone is doing Hamlet, right?
- [05:11]
Mike Birbiglia
And there's like three improvised Shakespeares or something. Like, it's it's outrageous how many. Just the bulk of things.
- [05:19]
Nish Kumar
Well, it started as the Edinburgh International Festival, so there is still that festival, and it's theater, dance, all kinds of things. Classical music.
- [05:27]
Mike Birbiglia
Yes.
- [05:28]
Nish Kumar
And then the fringe was literally the fringe of the festival. And it was at the peripheries of the main festival that comedy happened. Because comedy, as we all know, is not art. In spite of how much we try. Comedy is not art. I don't know what it is.
- [05:43]
Mike Birbiglia
No, of course it's not.
- [05:45]
Nish Kumar
But then now, the fringe is now overrun almost the rest of the festival. So now the fringe is, like, way bigger than the actual festival itself.
- [05:55]
Mike Birbiglia
Oh, that's interesting. So. So the. So comedy was perceived as, quote, unquote, fringe, and that's how it ended up being sort of a comedy festival.
- [06:04]
Nish Kumar
Oh. And so now I didn't even.
- [06:06]
Mike Birbiglia
This is all news to me.
- [06:07]
Nish Kumar
But also, it's like you go. You start at 11am and you can watch shows until 2 in the morning. Like, it runs like that. And the biggest thing about it is there is no curation of it whatsoever. Anybody.
- [06:23]
Mike Birbiglia
There's no festival director, there's no fest.
- [06:26]
Nish Kumar
No one's directing it. It's anarchy.
- [06:29]
Mike Birbiglia
Like, it's like, it really is anarchy. It's a hodgepodge of performances. And they're anywhere. Like, you know, we're in a studio on the third floor of a building in Brooklyn. There could be a show here, Mike.
- [06:42]
Nish Kumar
Not only could there be a show here, this would be one of the best venues. Like, this would easily be. There's a toilet. There's, like, drinking water available. There's, like, space for things to happen.
- [06:53]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah, yeah.
- [06:54]
Nish Kumar
Also, there are walls and soundproofing. This would immediately be in the top 5% of Vegas.
- [06:59]
Mike Birbiglia
It's so hard to explain to people that you'll go there and you'll be at University of Edinburgh or something, and it'll be a lecture hall, and that'll be a show. And then you'll go somewhere else and it'll be like a gift shop and that'll be a show. Obviously, every cafe is a show. Every bar is a show. Everything is a show.
- [07:18]
Nish Kumar
There are caves. Because Edinburgh is. You know, it's. It's like a ancient city.
- [07:23]
Mike Birbiglia
Right.
- [07:24]
Nish Kumar
So there are caves that have been there for hundreds of years. There are caves that way predate the existence of the country that you and I are now sat in in its modern incarnation.
- [07:34]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [07:35]
Nish Kumar
And I still believe that we made a mistake in Covid because as soon as everyone was like, there's this disease, I think somebody should have cracked one of the bricks in one of the caves in Edinburgh. And, you know, it's like Godzilla. You have to fight Godzilla with Mothra. Like, I think there was a disease living in the walls of that cave
- [07:52]
Mike Birbiglia
that could have defeated with. With one of the.
- [07:58]
Nish Kumar
I've seen people get flus from doing a month in that cave. And you're like, that's medieval. What you have needs to be cured by, I don't know, Leeches.
- [08:06]
Mike Birbiglia
Yes.
- [08:07]
Nish Kumar
And an exorcist, like, oh, it's unbelievable. But it's. Because there's no curation. It means anyone, regardless of their mental health problems.
- [08:15]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [08:16]
Nish Kumar
Is able to get a venue for a month.
- [08:17]
Mike Birbiglia
Oh, yes. And they do.
- [08:19]
Nish Kumar
And they do. And it's. And as a consequence, you kind of see the most exciting stuff. You see some of the worst things. Whenever people come and see me now, I always say, go and see something by someone you've never heard of. Like, that's the magic of it, because either it will be the best thing you've ever seen or it will be the worst thing you've ever seen. And both of those things will be an.
- [08:39]
Mike Birbiglia
The excitement of seeing something great that you've never heard of and no one, you know has ever heard of is a thrill beyond almost anything you can do in seeing live performance.
- [08:53]
Nish Kumar
I think, oh, God, yeah. I mean, I. You know, there are shows that I saw 20 years ago that I can almost, like, physically relive the experience of, like, watching them for the first time. It's so great.
- [09:04]
Mike Birbiglia
When I was. I wrote this down this morning when I took a cab to the airport after I went to Edinburgh, 5:30 in the morning, the taxi driver asked us if we went to the festival. We said yes. He goes, my wife and I went to see a show. Terrible Scottish accent. But there were five comedians and three of them were pretty good and two of them were rubbish and they knew they were rubbish. And it always sticks with me that they knew they were rubbish is somehow the meanest thing you can possibly say. They knew they were rubbish. And then I was like, wait, am I rubbish? If I were rubbish, would I know I were rubbish? And is that the great crime of being a comedian is. Is A, being rubbish? B, knowing you're rubbish?
- [09:53]
Nish Kumar
I mean, that is. That's everything, isn't it?
- [09:57]
Mike Birbiglia
Everything.
- [09:57]
Nish Kumar
That's why I think there's two key reasons it has to happen in Scotland. One is the weather is so bad that even in August, at the height of summer, you can justify going and Sitting inside a cave. I think that's a huge factor.
- [10:09]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah, yeah.
- [10:09]
Nish Kumar
But also, there is something about. And there is this idea that, like, a lot of the fringes, not really Scottish people, and it's people coming from outside of Scotland, but there are a lot of Scottish people that go and watch shows, and they can sometimes be the most damning critics possible. I'm gonna tell you a story. I'm gonna try. I'm not gonna name the person just because, like, I have to stop slugging off other British comedians, otherwise my agent is gonna punch me in the head.
- [10:38]
Mike Birbiglia
Trashing people. Afternoon.
- [10:39]
Nish Kumar
I'm just gonna say so just in the kind of Aftermath of the MeToo movement, there was a lot of. The kind of initial conversation around MeToo. There was a lot of very dismissive comedy done about it, which was not helpful and didn't really engage with the substantive issues that were being raised by the women that were coming forward in that period of time. And a British comedian was doing a show where they were being dismissive of the MeToo movement. And my friend is backstage because, you know, is like an assembly line. Like, one show finishes, the next show starts. So you have to be kind of ready and in position, especially because this is quite a big venue. So there's like 500 people that have to get in and 500 people that have to get out in a really quick 15, 20 minute change.
- [11:21]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [11:21]
Nish Kumar
And so when you've got the next show, you are often just stood in the, you know, in the back of the curtain and you form these kind of really interesting month long friendships.
- [11:29]
Mike Birbiglia
Right.
- [11:29]
Nish Kumar
With the people that are either side of you.
- [11:31]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [11:32]
Nish Kumar
And this comedian is on stage and every night was doing a piece of material where they dismissively referred to the MeToo movement as being sort of people complaining and then would say, me too. What's next? Me three, me four. Which is not even really a joke. It's not like, regardless, separating my feelings of the politics of it out. It's not even really wordplay.
- [11:52]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah, yeah.
- [11:52]
Nish Kumar
It. So it's. They've said, me, me too, me three, me four. And my friend is backstage and he can just hear what he immediately identifies as a very old Scottish woman's voice. And he just hears her go, what?
- [12:09]
Mike Birbiglia
What?
- [12:10]
Nish Kumar
What? It has to happen in Scotland, because there is a. There is a. There is a kind of hostility, a learned hostility to the Scottish people.
- [12:23]
Mike Birbiglia
Yes.
- [12:24]
Nish Kumar
And I think that that helps you. And I think that just all I think about. I think about that so often.
- [12:30]
Mike Birbiglia
What it's. It is funny. When people have a reaction that, like, there's. There's performative heckling.
- [12:40]
Nish Kumar
Yeah.
- [12:41]
Mike Birbiglia
Right. And that's one thing. We all. We've all seen that. But then there's what. And what is interesting because it's of a piece of, like, a larger type of, like, response that people will have. I. I've had it in my shows. You do premise. People go, no, no. And you go, wow, this is really. There's something here.
- [13:02]
Nish Kumar
The thing with heck, you're on something. Exactly correct. There are people who come to shows. Like, my friend saw somebody leaving a show once, and the man was saying to the woman he was with, we have interacted with a comedian. And my friend was like, that's a whole story. And I know that you ruined that comedian's show.
- [13:20]
Mike Birbiglia
Yes.
- [13:21]
Nish Kumar
And there are people who go with a plan to heckle, or there are people who heckle because they think they're gonna heckle. And then sometimes the core of someone's being is activated and something is thrown out. Really? Without their full awareness. That is happening.
- [13:35]
Mike Birbiglia
Yes.
- [13:35]
Nish Kumar
Which I think, crucially, you have to spell that. Hwh. Yeah. Yeah. That's how you spell that. That word. Yeah.
- [13:43]
Mike Birbiglia
What? And no.
- [13:44]
Nish Kumar
What? And no.
- [13:45]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [13:45]
Nish Kumar
No. Plan. No, that was not plan.
- [13:47]
Mike Birbiglia
No plan. No. It's guttural. There are certain responses in comedy shows that are guttural. And it's. It's a fascinating thing to watch.
- [13:56]
Nish Kumar
In 2000, 2009, I think I was. Maybe it was earlier. There was a very big show on in the UK called the in between is huge sitcom. I remember really strong following that. I think they tried to remake it in the States, which was a kind of weird thing only because I auditioned for it.
- [14:17]
Mike Birbiglia
Am I in it? Does anybody. Has anybody heard anything? Did we get feedback?
- [14:21]
Nish Kumar
Does anyone know if Mike is in the US In Betweeners remake? Does anyone know?
- [14:27]
Mike Birbiglia
Comment, Comment. Like and comment below. Subscribe.
- [14:31]
Nish Kumar
But it was a huge show. It still has a very strong, very loyal audience now, and it's a big deal. So. But at the time, it was like the big show that was on tv. And I know the guys that are in it. They're great. And they were in a sketch group that was on at the end of a show that I was doing at a college in the uk and I was the first act on stage and I walked out and literally I picked the microphone out of the stand and a man just goes, when are the famous people on?
- [15:01]
Mike Birbiglia
When are the famous people on? When are the famous people on? Is something you can't you can. You can run and you can hide, but that's gonna come for you eventually. As a performer.
- [15:15]
Nish Kumar
It's Thanos. Dread it. Run from it. It arrives all the time.
- [15:18]
Mike Birbiglia
You can't do anything. I did corporate event last week, and it was like. It was. It was me. And then it was a super famous actor.
- [15:26]
Nish Kumar
Okay.
- [15:27]
Mike Birbiglia
Like, I can't say who it was.
- [15:28]
Nish Kumar
Yeah.
- [15:29]
Mike Birbiglia
And I showed up and I knew I was screwed because I wasn't in the program. So it's not even like, yeah, we've got someone.
- [15:41]
Nish Kumar
We've got someone from the thing that you like.
- [15:43]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah. It was just, this is the. This is the person we're all here for. And then you don't know this, but there's gonna be a comedian who you do not know who's about to come on for 20 minutes and bomb, and then he's gonna leave. And I was just like, oh, that's a tough one, that. But it's funny because it's like you. You know, and I'm far along in my career, like, you cannot run and hide from this. No, this is coming for you. No matter what stage of your career you're in.
- [16:14]
Nish Kumar
Oh, my God. It's. It's. This job is consistently humbling.
- [16:21]
Mike Birbiglia
Oh, it's deeply humbling.
- [16:22]
Nish Kumar
And I think that that is a good thing, because I think if you think otherwise about the premise of this career, and as you become more successful in it, you know, you're sort of. You're charging people just to essentially spend time with you and your thoughts, feelings, and opinions, and I think that that could create monsters. It has created monsters, obviously.
- [16:42]
Mike Birbiglia
Nish, have I got some stories to tell you. You're not gonna like this.
- [16:50]
Nish Kumar
Apparently, I am one of the biggest divas in British cult.
- [16:54]
Mike Birbiglia
No, look, the humble already.
- [16:57]
Nish Kumar
Based on already what we've talked about, the famous actor and the monsters that you're talking about, everybody listening to this now or watching this now is thinking, as soon as that thing ends, I know. I know that that British asshole is gonna go, I need all of those names. And I know that that American asshole is gonna give him the names.
- [17:14]
Mike Birbiglia
That's what Mulaney said when he was on the podcast. He's like, the real. The true. Great stuff in podcasts happens five minutes before and five minutes after when you name names about who you. But the humbling is crucial, Essential. It's essential because this. The. The potential for narcissism is so high.
- [17:38]
Nish Kumar
Oh, my God. And also, you stop being. If you stop being able to be humbled by this job, then that is when I believe you start being bad at it.
- [17:48]
Mike Birbiglia
I think that's true. And we've of course witnessed that a lot of times.
- [17:51]
Nish Kumar
Yeah. How do you. I sometimes see people where they've become incredibly successful stand ups and you see, you know, you know what it's like. And every comedian knows what it's like. You see the, you know them live or you see them do especially go, you went soft, I know. Oh, yeah, yeah. You went soft.
- [18:06]
Mike Birbiglia
I know.
- [18:07]
Nish Kumar
You're not, you're not doing the necessary legwork to stop this from being shit.
- [18:12]
Mike Birbiglia
You're not, you're not taking the subway, you're not taking the tube. Yeah. You're not living what people are living
- [18:18]
Nish Kumar
and you're not living what people are living. And also you're not putting these. You're not taking enough. You're not allowing yourself to be humbled in the process of doing this work because, like, it's so easy. You put it, you put jokes up in front of an audience.
- [18:32]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [18:32]
Nish Kumar
And if they don't work, you change them or you get rid of them. And there's. But I think sometimes you see people who are maybe just not quite pushing themselves because they know when they get into a big room, it can absorb, like there's enough people there laughing that it can cover the slightly weaker material. But I think you got to allow yourself to bomb still. No, I know, and I do, Mike. And on that basis, I'm the greatest comedian of all time.
- [19:03]
Mike Birbiglia
Oh, my goodness. Yeah, the humbling's gotta happen. Has there been any specific humbling on this tour? Because you're on, you're on a huge tour, as far as I can tell. I mean, I've. I feel like you and I have known each other a little bit for five or 10 years.
- [19:16]
Nish Kumar
Yeah.
- [19:17]
Mike Birbiglia
It's like this seems like the biggest you've been. It seems like you're on a big upward trajectory.
- [19:22]
Nish Kumar
I. The thing with this is that I've kind of bled one tour into another, essentially. So last year I was in the States finishing like a tour that I'd started the previous September. So I did Edinburgh as a work in progress. Then I toured UK and Ireland September to December, then end of February, I started in Toronto in Canada and then came down into the States and then. But that was the first time I've ever toured in America.
- [19:47]
Mike Birbiglia
Wow.
- [19:48]
Nish Kumar
Previously I just, you know, come here and done two shows in New York, two shows in LA and then gone home. And this time because I had the visa, I just thought you know what, let's just experiment and see what it's like.
- [20:01]
Mike Birbiglia
Wow.
- [20:01]
Nish Kumar
And it was, it's, it definitely has impressed on me how hard it is. Just the kind of physical act of getting from place to place in America because.
- [20:12]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah. By the way, scored the visa in the Trump years. Nice.
- [20:19]
Nish Kumar
I don't want to give too much away. Yeah, it was scored in the Biden area.
- [20:22]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah. Yeah.
- [20:24]
Nish Kumar
It's been renewed in the Trump administration. But the phrase permanent thin ice really
- [20:31]
Mike Birbiglia
feels like it's a nice.
- [20:33]
Nish Kumar
But. Yeah, it. So I did that and then I went back to the UK and filmed that show and that's that the film of that is going to come out at some point. I should have this information. I don't. It is available at some point. It will be available at some point. As people are listening to this.
- [20:48]
Mike Birbiglia
Does it have a title?
- [20:50]
Nish Kumar
That show is called Nish. Don't Kill My Vibe.
- [20:52]
Mike Birbiglia
Oh, nice.
- [20:53]
Nish Kumar
Because I wanted something Nisho. Kill My Vibe is a great title, basically. You know, when you're titling a show, is it. I'm interested to see how you work it because at what point do you realize what the title is? Because you write shows that are often stories or they're very.
- [21:07]
Mike Birbiglia
It goes both ways. Sometimes it's. I have the title and then I'm building backwards from the title. The idea. Yeah. And then sometimes it's. You do it for a couple years and then you go, well, like with the last one, the Good Life, it's like the guy. Well, the principle is the Good Life. What is the Good Life? And it, it was like years in.
- [21:28]
Nish Kumar
So I, I don't, I've only done one show that is kind of one story and that was a bit of a departure for me. But the, the, generally the shows are, you know, and it's where I am at this point in my life, my career. And so like I sort of have like that show. I've been doing a lot of political stuff in my stand up shows in my kind of television and podcast and radio output.
- [21:52]
Mike Birbiglia
You've been killing people's vibe.
- [21:53]
Nish Kumar
I've been killing people's vibe. And there was, there was a guy, I was walking in the park near my house during COVID and I was talking to my brother about the way that the UK Conservative government was handling it at the time. And you know, I was like just going like this people, you know, like screaming into the phone to my brother who lives in Germany and who was like, okay, I just asked how you were. And at no point have you Told me you've just gone straight into what seems to be five minutes of prepared material about your frustration with Boris Johnson. And I saw this guy kind of clock me. And in my head I was like, I think that guy recognized me. But then he didn't say anything. And then when I got home, I found that that guy had gone on Twitter and said, I saw Nish Kumar in the park today. And it turns out it's not a character.
- [22:39]
Mike Birbiglia
Oh, yes.
- [22:40]
Nish Kumar
And so from there you go, oh, okay, that's like a fun bit of material. And then you go, okay, so I think the show is going to be about doing stand up about unfunny topics, which is like, I feel like I heard Chris Rock say that in an interview, I think maybe with Marc Maron a long time ago. He said that he likes doing stand up about unfunny topics.
- [22:58]
Mike Birbiglia
Sure.
- [22:59]
Nish Kumar
And I think I sort of internalized. And so I think, you know, because I, you know, those HBO specials either side of the millennium bring the pain bigger and blacker and never scared are like three of the main reasons why I do stand up.
- [23:15]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [23:15]
Nish Kumar
And why I do the type I
- [23:16]
Mike Birbiglia
think a lot of us. Yeah, yeah.
- [23:18]
Nish Kumar
And so I think I internalize that. And so I like the idea of doing stand up. So then when you, when it comes to naming a show, you're like, okay, well, I'm doing stand up on Funny Topics. I also, I'm a huge fan of the recorded output of Mr. Kendrick Lamar. And so I was like, okay, so then this could be like a funny Kendrick reference and also give you a sense of what the show is called. So anyway, I toured that show, filmed it. That film's about to come out now. I'm on a new cycle of material. And in a similar spirit of. I just had the idea for this and it made me laugh out loud when I had it. So then you're like, well, I have to call the show it. So my new show is now called Angry Humor from a really Nice Guy.
- [23:56]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah, I saw that. I love that too.
- [24:00]
Nish Kumar
The stupidest possible titles for these things.
- [24:03]
Mike Birbiglia
What are you most angry about on a day to day basis?
- [24:07]
Nish Kumar
Like right now I'm really angry because I'm 40 and I'm really angry that I'm 40.
- [24:17]
Mike Birbiglia
Definitely. Probably about halfway through.
- [24:21]
Nish Kumar
Oh, Mike, I've seen my genetic history. I think we might be more than halfway through. I. I'm angry that I'm seeing patterns repeat themselves, negative patterns repeat themselves. You know, like people my age came of age in the Iraq war.
- [24:36]
Mike Birbiglia
That's Right.
- [24:37]
Nish Kumar
So we come of age at a time where you have a war that is, again, I'll use the phrase legally unorthodox. So you have a legally unorthodox conflict being engaged by America with a country that starts with I. And you also have that within that it's a response. It's punishing a civilian population for a terrorist attack.
- [24:57]
Mike Birbiglia
Right, sure.
- [24:57]
Nish Kumar
Now, I was under the impression that we had all come to a conclusion that that was bad.
- [25:01]
Mike Birbiglia
Right.
- [25:01]
Nish Kumar
And so now when you look at what's going on in Gaza and Iran, you have the same thing. You punish a civilian population for a terrorist attack. And you also have a war that has seemingly almost no legal mandate.
- [25:12]
Mike Birbiglia
Right.
- [25:13]
Nish Kumar
At the same time, you've got like everyone. A lot of economists who predicted 2008 basically saying a lot of the underlying markers are happening again because of the lack of regulation of AI and the way that the. The way that there's been an inflation of the value of stocks and we could be about to head into another financial crisis.
- [25:31]
Mike Birbiglia
It's like a multi trillion dollar valuation of a thing that nobody even knows what the value.
- [25:36]
Nish Kumar
It isn't finished. It isn't finished. It's a work in progress. Finish your jokes. Let's get AI on working it out.
- [25:43]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's work out. That's what we need. Mike Verbiglia is going to punch up
- [25:49]
Nish Kumar
AI you can't spell Babiglia without a. And I. You cannot do it. So let's. But look, so I'm. I'm most angry right now because I feel like I'm seeing a lot of the stuff that I thought I'm seeing us fail to learn lessons, you know?
- [26:02]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah, I get that.
- [26:03]
Nish Kumar
I'm watching Bill Murray in Groundhog Day continue to just hit on Andy McDowell and punch Stephen Tabulaski. Like we're learning nothing.
- [26:11]
Mike Birbiglia
No, I get that.
- [26:12]
Nish Kumar
Frustrating me at the moment.
- [26:14]
Mike Birbiglia
How does that hit you? How does that hit you? When you wake up in the morning? Are you able to put that off? Are you able to keep your phone on the other side of the hotel room?
- [26:24]
Nish Kumar
Dude, I like. It's exhausting. Yesterday I went to Greenwich Village because this is everything about. This is a very revealing anecdote about me. Okay, So I went to Greenwich Village because I like to listen to Our Drain's gonna fall on MacDougall Street.
- [26:48]
Mike Birbiglia
Amazing.
- [26:49]
Nish Kumar
Because it's where Dylan premiered at the Gaslight. It's a very famous story. I like to listen to hey Joe outside the cafe. I like to walk around McDougal street, because Chaz Chandler went to see Jimi Hendrix at the Cafe Wa and he was thinking about bringing that back to the UK to record a cover of hey Joe.
- [27:04]
Mike Birbiglia
Wow.
- [27:05]
Nish Kumar
And serendipitously, Hendrix opens with hey Joe and Chaz Chandler brings Jimmy back to London. And like those, those are like two of my like all time heroes. And then I was like, what? Walking through Washington Square park. And again, like, I like, it's like a spiritual thing for me because you know, in the 60s you would, Dylan would play. Dylan and Joan Buyers are playing in the afternoon. And then Richard Pryor is doing stand up in those same rooms. Like this is the, this is the birthplace, this kind of crucible that formed so much of the culture that formed my personality. So I'm like so happy and so excited. And then I walked through Washington Square park and like there's those old guys playing chess and one of them tries to play chess with me and I'm like, dude, I suck at chess. And he really laughs at that. And then I was looking at all these musicians and it was really beautiful. And there are all these kids doing this kind of. I think it's like a K pop dance for TikTok right there. And it's just so nice. And then in the middle of all of this, in my head, a voice just goes, Dinosaurs before the meteor.
- [28:00]
Mike Birbiglia
That's very funny. Yeah. It's like, of course you can't enjoy
- [28:03]
Nish Kumar
anything, but there's a part of you
- [28:05]
Mike Birbiglia
that's where the meteor is coming.
- [28:06]
Nish Kumar
This is the thing. What are we doing? Like, it also, it feels very apocalyptic, but at the same time you're like, can you not just enjoy five minutes of your life, Nish? Can you not just move around without having the.
- [28:18]
Mike Birbiglia
I know you mean I, I have the. I have the same thing in that neighborhood, by the way. Yes. That's where the comedy seller is. It's the club I play the most in New York. And totally it's. It is. I lived on Sullivan. Oh my God. Right next to McDougall in a studio the size of this room.
- [28:36]
Nish Kumar
And even in my twenties, amazing Edinburgh venue. You lived at an incredible Edinburgh fringe venue.
- [28:41]
Mike Birbiglia
And I, and I really romanticized it for the, for the same reason that you do, which is that's where Dylan and Hendrix were and, and, and prior and all these people is unbelievable. And I always have this thing where I go, because I'm 47 now and I'm go. And I walk around New York and I go, I think it's still New Yorkin.
- [29:01]
Nish Kumar
Yeah.
- [29:01]
Mike Birbiglia
Like, I. I think. But from. From your perspective from London, like, how do you find it? Do you think it's still doing a good job being New York?
- [29:10]
Nish Kumar
Well, I mean, I think a lot of these cities will always attract young, creative people that are trying to do interesting things. But I think we're sort of at risk. You know, I get very annoyed when people start picking out. People do it with bands a lot where they're like, oh, this is. These are Nepo babies, or these are privileged, is that. And the other. But you've got to look at the kind of socioeconomic circumstances that we're all living in. And if you're pricing young people out of cool cities, then cool cities won't be cool anymore. Of course. And it's interesting how it's sort of been pushed to the peripheries. And now probably, if you want to meet those young people, you know, was Brooklyn 20 years ago, and now even it feels like they've been pushed slightly further out. So now I think if you have to go up to, like, Bed Stuy and stuff like that, with London, you can feel it kind of. It. It's. Hackney was the kind of epicenter of exciting trendy stuff that was happening, and that's now sort of been pushed almost further, further out down to Tottenham and Walthamstow. Like, it's interesting how we're just at risk of making our cities a lot less cool by not letting young people over them. I think that is worrying. But New York will. New York and London will still turn up. You know, I was at Geese in the Hammersmith Apollo on last Wednesday. Wow. And, you know, you watch them and you go, okay, so this is the next. This is the Ramones. This is television. This is the Strokes. This is the next one of those New York bands. So New York and London will always continue to throw up interesting people and exciting people.
- [30:39]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah, yeah.
- [30:40]
Nish Kumar
Because you got just. You just. If you pack lots of different types of people into any place. That's why I think Edinburgh is so cool. Because if you just pack a load of creative people into a space where they don't really have enough room to maneuver without bumping into each other, that's where the cool shit really happens.
- [30:56]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [30:56]
Nish Kumar
I don't think it's coincidence that people from different disciplines come out from the same city at the same time. I think that that is by design. That's what makes cities.
- [31:06]
Mike Birbiglia
No, I think that. I think that's the point.
- [31:07]
Nish Kumar
Yeah.
- [31:08]
Mike Birbiglia
The point is it's basically impossible to live there.
- [31:16]
Nish Kumar
Good luck.
- [31:18]
Mike Birbiglia
Good Luck, everybody try to work together because that's the only way this is going to make sense.
- [31:24]
Nish Kumar
But you've got to have like, you gotta have like cheap. You gotta have some housing that makes allowances for it. Like, I, I was talking to a friend of mine about the show Friends and saying how Even in the mid-90s, it felt unrealistic that people could do that.
- [31:35]
Mike Birbiglia
Oh, of course.
- [31:36]
Nish Kumar
But that's because the creators of Friends, like Seinfeld, Friends and Seinfeld are shows written by people in LA in the 90s about living in New York in the early 80s. So the reason that the finances don't make sense is actually because it's about the experiences of people 10 years previous.
- [31:52]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [31:52]
Nish Kumar
In those cities. And like, you ha. You know, you have to, you know, Larry David lived next to Kramer in subsidized housing that was specifically for artists, you know, and so sure of those two people, one of them is gonna be Kramer. But Kramer might be crazy enough to inspire his neighbor next door, Larry David.
- [32:13]
Mike Birbiglia
Right.
- [32:13]
Nish Kumar
Who will then end up, you know, it's horrible to think of things in these terms, but like the net contribution, if you invest in the arts by creating subsidized housing, by putting government money into them, you get it back so many times.
- [32:27]
Mike Birbiglia
Like, this is a strong case. It also for every two people, one of you is Kramer and one of you is Larry David. And we need to support both of those people.
- [32:37]
Nish Kumar
And I am honored to be the Kramer to be Kramer. To James Acaster Seinfeld.
- [32:43]
Mike Birbiglia
Well done.
- [32:44]
Nish Kumar
Deeply well done. Profoundly honored.
- [32:49]
Mike Birbiglia
Foreign. Support for working it out comes from Aura Frames. Mother's Day is right around the corner. Take it from me. And Aura Frame is the perfect Mother's Day gift. Make Mother's Day special with Aura Frames. It's like a wifi connected digital picture frame. Jenny and I have these at our apartment. We love them. Super easy to upload and share photos via the Aura app. And if you're giving Aura as a gift, you can even personalize the frame with preloaded photos and memories. It's just a really pleasant, super personal thing that it's a perfect gift because it's one of those things you wouldn't think to buy for yourself. Named number one by Wirecutter, you can save on the gifts moms love by visiting auraframes.com for a limited time listeners. You can get $25 off their best selling Carver mat frame with code WIO. That's a U R A frames.com promo code WIO for working it out. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. We really appreciate it. Terms and conditions apply. Support for working it out comes from Rula. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. And the goal isn't just to talk about mental health. It's to actually take action and get people real support. A lot of online therapy doesn't accept insurance at all, which means even during a month focused on mental health, you're stuck paying out of pocket or signing up for an expensive monthly subscription. Rula does things completely differently. They partner with over 120 insurance plans, making the average copay just $15 per session. That's real therapy from licensed professionals at a price that actually makes sense because the whole point of Mental Health Awareness Month is making sure people actually get help, not just thinking about it. Mental Health Awareness Month is your reminder to finally take that step. This is one of the easiest ways to actually follow through. No wait lists, no frustrating back and forth. This Mental Health Awareness Month, don't just think about your mental health. Actually take the step to take care of it. Visit rula.comburbigs to get started. That's r u l a.combrbigs you deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget. Who are you jealous of?
- [35:08]
Nish Kumar
I read like everybody.
- [35:11]
Mike Birbiglia
Everybody.
- [35:12]
Nish Kumar
I'm really jealous of someone like Frank Ocean.
- [35:16]
Mike Birbiglia
Okay, Yeah, I get that
- [35:20]
Nish Kumar
there's laughter in the room. Even the thought that I would be.
- [35:23]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah, we. When you walked in the door, I was thinking Frank Ocean, Part 2.
- [35:28]
Nish Kumar
Frank. I think I love the idea that Frank Ocean, because this everybody talks about now how you have to be, you know, you have to be out there, you have to be on these platforms, you have to be on social media, you have to be in Frank Ocean just like does an album and then vanishes. Yeah, I'm jealous of him on every level. I'm jealous of his talent because I
- [35:50]
Mike Birbiglia
really believe that is enviable.
- [35:53]
Nish Kumar
I think he's a genius. But I'm also jealous of his ability to disappear and not have to sort of keep feeding an algorithm with this stuff. I think this, you know, I like the idea that there are still people who can retain a kind of air of mystique again because like, just because like I grew up on Bob Dylan and Bob Dylan is somebody. There's an Guardian article today and the journalist is quoted in it as saying that Bob Dylan is like China. We know what he's doing, but we don't really know why.
- [36:27]
Mike Birbiglia
Right.
- [36:28]
Nish Kumar
Like Dylan, like his whole life has retained this air of mystique. And there's always this idea that if he existed now, he would have to be doing like, you know, front facing camera videos, being like, hey, guy. Hey, guys. Hope you got the new album. It's out tomorrow. It's really weird. I'm crooning on it, you know, something like it. Whereas, you know, now everybody has to expose us. Be so out there.
- [36:50]
Mike Birbiglia
And I like a few outliers, though. Like, I, I thought about this recently. Donald Glover is an outlier.
- [36:56]
Nish Kumar
Yeah.
- [36:56]
Mike Birbiglia
I would say, like, it's like, where is he?
- [36:59]
Nish Kumar
Yeah.
- [36:59]
Mike Birbiglia
You know what I mean? He shows up when he does these great things.
- [37:02]
Nish Kumar
Even he had to do a promo. I saw a promo video for him for the Mario Brothers movie.
- [37:06]
Mike Birbiglia
Okay.
- [37:06]
Nish Kumar
Even he ends up.
- [37:09]
Mike Birbiglia
They got that in the contract. He didn't want to do it.
- [37:12]
Nish Kumar
When I saw Gambino in a Mario Brothers advert, I thought they got, they had. There's no way that man wanted to do that.
- [37:18]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah, yeah, but you.
- [37:19]
Nish Kumar
But it's just part of the reality.
- [37:20]
Mike Birbiglia
Like, I mean, Bo Burnham has mystique.
- [37:24]
Nish Kumar
Yeah, Bo Burnham has mystique. Yeah, he has mystique. He's also tall, which I think helps.
- [37:29]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [37:29]
Nish Kumar
Which I think helps Donald. Yeah, yeah. Glover and Burnham have a bit of that.
- [37:34]
Mike Birbiglia
Like, mystique has mystique. I guess someone's got mystique.
- [37:38]
Nish Kumar
I guess Acaster of the, like, my sort of contemporaries. I'd say Acast has some mystique around him. And I only know that because people occasionally go ask me about him, like I'm his spokesperson. You know, when in the 90s and 2000s, Banksy had spokespeople. So Banksy was, you know, the artist and nobody knew who he was.
- [37:55]
Mike Birbiglia
Right.
- [37:56]
Nish Kumar
But then he would have, like the comedian Simon Munnery was one of his sort of spokespeople for a while. And sometimes me and Ed Gamble are James Acaster spokes.
- [38:04]
Mike Birbiglia
Yes, yes.
- [38:06]
Nish Kumar
But, yeah, I guess, I think. I think Frank Ocean was the first person I thought of because I, I would like to be as talented as him. And B, I would like to. I would like the idea that you could sort of slightly disappear between things. But I suppose Glover has. Has a lot of that.
- [38:23]
Mike Birbiglia
What is, what's the best piece of advice someone's given you that you used?
- [38:30]
Nish Kumar
Man, this sounds like such a trite thing, but I just remember my uncle saying to me, you know, if your name is on something, you gotta have some pride in it. Like, he was just talking about work in general, like, you know how he feels about work. But he, he said you know, at the end of the day, if your name is on something, you've got to make sure it's the best that it can possibly be.
- [38:54]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [38:54]
Nish Kumar
When you, when you do something. And I think that is the thing that I think about a lot, which is just the pride that you, you know, if you're gonna make something.
- [39:04]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [39:05]
Nish Kumar
Just try and make it the best it can possibly be.
- [39:07]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [39:07]
Nish Kumar
You know, you're not, you're not gonna, Even if you don't come out with something that's like a masterpiece, at least you need to walk away from it thinking that's the best version of what it could possibly have been.
- [39:19]
Mike Birbiglia
What is the weirdest thing that your algorithm serves to you on Instagram?
- [39:27]
Nish Kumar
My algorithm, My friend, I showed my friend my Instagram Discover page the other day, my friend Gabriel, and he said, are you a 75 year old American academic? Because if you look at my Discover page, it is videos of Bob Dylan.
- [39:44]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [39:45]
Nish Kumar
Videos of James Baldwin. Dylan Baldwin, Seinfeld bloopers, like general sitcom bloopers. And then like some new stuff.
- [40:01]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [40:02]
Nish Kumar
And then you're a real old soul. Marc Maron on a podcast. Well, Mark Maron, not on his podcast, but on a different podcast having a go at some American comedian. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's amazing how much of that. One of the weirdest things that I get served consistently is like, is just people playing the guitar. Just like, as a, not professional guitar players, but.
- [40:28]
Mike Birbiglia
Do you play guitar?
- [40:29]
Nish Kumar
Yeah. And I'm real bad, but that's never stopped me.
- [40:33]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah. Yeah.
- [40:34]
Nish Kumar
And so I get loads of like, guess this chord sequence and every time I get one Right.
- [40:39]
Mike Birbiglia
Come on, that's cool.
- [40:41]
Nish Kumar
That makes me feel like.
- [40:44]
Mike Birbiglia
Have you ever been punched in the face?
- [40:46]
Nish Kumar
So many times.
- [40:47]
Mike Birbiglia
Really?
- [40:47]
Nish Kumar
Yeah. Have you never been punched in the face?
- [40:49]
Mike Birbiglia
I have, yeah. Quite a bit. I'm surprised you have. I'm not surprised. I have. I'm surprised you have.
- [40:57]
Nish Kumar
I, I've been punched in the face a lot and I remember one times
- [41:01]
Mike Birbiglia
that that felt demoralizing.
- [41:05]
Nish Kumar
When was the time that it felt demoralizing? I mean, I, I, I should say I, it hasn't happened to me. It hasn't happened to me for a long time. But when I was in school, I used to get in fights all the time because I can't let things go. Like, if somebody says something to me, I've always got to have the last word on it. And it's a sort of impulse that has served me very poorly because it's like with an audience. You're like, just meet them halfway.
- [41:37]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [41:37]
Nish Kumar
Don't get in a screaming row with them.
- [41:39]
Mike Birbiglia
Sure, sure.
- [41:39]
Nish Kumar
And I, I don't have that sort of ability.
- [41:43]
Mike Birbiglia
Oh, that's interesting.
- [41:44]
Nish Kumar
And so if I feel that somebody is being behaving poorly in my presence, even if it's not to me, I can't not say something. And I, I'm not gifted physically and that's a really bad combination.
- [42:03]
Mike Birbiglia
Sure.
- [42:03]
Nish Kumar
You know, it's. You've really got to have, you've really got to be able to back up the checks you're writing.
- [42:12]
Mike Birbiglia
Oh, I know.
- [42:12]
Nish Kumar
And I cannot physically.
- [42:13]
Mike Birbiglia
You're a fighter. You do not have fighting tools.
- [42:16]
Nish Kumar
I, I am completely lacking.
- [42:19]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah, yeah.
- [42:19]
Nish Kumar
I have, I don't even have the first. Like, I fight. It looks like. I'm like, I look like Scrappy Doo in a fight situation.
- [42:30]
Mike Birbiglia
Did you get, can you think of a time where you got fully punched?
- [42:35]
Nish Kumar
Yeah, I got fully. I actually this was like a story that I told on stage in my first show. And I was in Burger King. I was in a railway station branch of Burger King at, you know, very late at night in London. And this, I was with my friend and this guy pushed both of us and I just turned around to him and went, hey, fuck you. Like really? Like, fuck you. Yeah, don't do that. That's. And the guy punched me just fully in the face, just straight out. And then I hit him with the only object I had in my hands. And so this would have been 2009, I would say, and that's quite important. I rolled up the newspaper I had in my hands and started hitting him with the rolled up newspaper. And it is like a grandma truly. Like, it's the sort of thing you would see Aunt May do in a Spider Man. Like, it was exactly like that. Like just. He punched me, I hit him with a rolled up newspaper. Exactly that. Exactly you. You wait. Wait till my boy Peter gets on you.
- [43:50]
Mike Birbiglia
It's w.
- [43:54]
Nish Kumar
It was also like. And this is again, would just require some context for an American audience, but it was a Guardian newspaper, which is like our version of the New York Times. It's like the progressive lefty, mainstream left newspaper. And so I often say that that is the thing that set me up for my career, which was trying to hit people in the head with vaguely left of center ideas and repeatedly go smashing the baseball. But there's something about being beaten up at a railway station branch of Burger King because you couldn't just let someone push you and not say any and Then it's like, if you're gonna say stuff like that, you've got to have some ability to back it up. Otherwise, you've just got to take the push. But there is a kind of disconnect between what my brain thinks my body is like and what my body is actually, like, 100%.
- [44:43]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah. I relate to that deeply. Do you have material. Do you have any, like, anything from the Notebook that you're kind of considering right now kicking around?
- [44:53]
Nish Kumar
Yeah, there's stuff that I'm trying to work out about how I. I'm. I'm trying to work out. There's two things. One is I'm trying to work out how the, like, dinosaurs waiting for the meteor thing could be made funny.
- [45:09]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [45:09]
Nish Kumar
Like the idea that I can't just have a nice time in a park without thinking.
- [45:13]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah. You can't be in the present. Yeah.
- [45:14]
Nish Kumar
And also I think there's something funny about the comparison of the climate crisis to dinosaurs getting hit by the meteor, because I'm like, that's actually kind of unfair on the dinosaurs because the only. We have done this so.
- [45:28]
Mike Birbiglia
Right.
- [45:28]
Nish Kumar
Our equivalent is if the dinosaurs had had, like, a pro meteor lobby.
- [45:32]
Mike Birbiglia
Yes.
- [45:32]
Nish Kumar
That had spent, like 50 years.
- [45:34]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [45:34]
Nish Kumar
Actively lobbying dinosaur congress.
- [45:37]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [45:37]
Nish Kumar
And buying up members of the dinosaur political establishment and then hired a dinosaur advertising agency to get individuals to calculate their meteor footprint.
- [45:46]
Mike Birbiglia
Right.
- [45:46]
Nish Kumar
To pass the blame on to them and fully worked out.
- [45:49]
Mike Birbiglia
Which they might have. Don't rule it out.
- [45:52]
Nish Kumar
I haven't fully worked out.
- [45:54]
Mike Birbiglia
How well do we know where that.
- [45:55]
Nish Kumar
I haven't fully worked out the, like, how to make that funny or, like, there's kind of an initial premise there, but I need to work out what the full thing is. And I'm also trying to work out how to say, like, I have so much. I've. I'll. My brother has had a baby.
- [46:12]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [46:13]
Nish Kumar
His wife had a baby. I have a nephew, two years old. And I've suddenly realized that I will never ask my parents to take me seriously again.
- [46:22]
Mike Birbiglia
Right.
- [46:22]
Nish Kumar
Because my nephew did a shit on my hand. And I love this kid, but I will never be interested in his opinions because he will always be the kid that did a shit in my hand.
- [46:32]
Mike Birbiglia
Right.
- [46:32]
Nish Kumar
And now I'm like, oh, that's why my parents don't respect me.
- [46:36]
Mike Birbiglia
That's right. That's deep.
- [46:37]
Nish Kumar
It's really.
- [46:38]
Mike Birbiglia
I think that's really deep.
- [46:39]
Nish Kumar
I. Because if you had a friend that did a shit in your hand.
- [46:43]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [46:43]
Nish Kumar
You'd still be friends with them.
- [46:45]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [46:45]
Nish Kumar
But you wouldn't Say, seriously, what do you think? What's your. What do you think about the AI bubble?
- [46:50]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [46:54]
Nish Kumar
Hey, Captain Handshitter, shut the fuck up.
- [46:56]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah, no, that. That is true. It is. Is like, do you have a thing. I mean, I guess you tie it to, like. Do you have a thing with your parents where there is a disconnect?
- [47:13]
Nish Kumar
No. And I think the interesting thing is part of the thing. Like, I think. I think my parents and I are like, our relationship is almost better than it's ever been now. And I think part of it is because I've stopped trying to get them to take me seriously as an adult. Oh, that's interesting. And met them more at their level. But I think also they. We've kind of met each other at a level where they're. They are. They now are like, willing to countenance the idea that, like, I am an adult who has some agency.
- [47:43]
Mike Birbiglia
I think, like, maybe if you talked about your relationship with your parents and then you backdoored into the. On your hand,
- [47:53]
Nish Kumar
you got a backdoor
- [47:54]
Mike Birbiglia
double entendre, of course, with backdooring into the. In your head. But I think like backdooring into it is your friend because the audience doesn't see it coming.
- [48:04]
Nish Kumar
Yeah, right.
- [48:05]
Mike Birbiglia
It's not like this is this premise I thought of.
- [48:06]
Nish Kumar
Yeah, yeah.
- [48:07]
Mike Birbiglia
But it's. But it's already interesting hearing you just talk about your parents.
- [48:11]
Nish Kumar
Yeah.
- [48:12]
Mike Birbiglia
And then like, if you happened your way into that. Yeah, I think that's super fun.
- [48:17]
Nish Kumar
I mean, the thing that's working, that's the. I think would be the way in at the moment is just my mom actually said to me there was like a like large scale, like far right sort of race riot in London in September last year. And two days afterwards I was going to do a show and my mum said, what are you doing? And I said, I'm working, I'm going to do a gig tonight. And she said, are you doing your normal material or something fun for a change?
- [48:41]
Mike Birbiglia
Oh, God.
- [48:42]
Nish Kumar
Which. All of which is funny.
- [48:43]
Mike Birbiglia
So great.
- [48:44]
Nish Kumar
Also my 40th birthday, I think, fun for a change. Also at my 40th birthday party, my mum kept going up to groups of my friends pointing at me, just pointing at me and saying all those stretch marks and for what? Nothing. That was my mum's like cocktail party conversation. And so I think maybe the way into.
- [49:02]
Mike Birbiglia
For what? Nothing. And also, by the way, she knows it's a joke. No, that's not like doing it as a bit.
- [49:09]
Nish Kumar
Yeah, it's not like it's not you're not. My parents say the funniest things. You're like, she knows exactly.
- [49:14]
Mike Birbiglia
It has a setup. It has a punch.
- [49:16]
Nish Kumar
It has a setup. It has.
- [49:17]
Mike Birbiglia
It has. It has imagery.
- [49:18]
Nish Kumar
She knows exactly. She knows exactly what she's doing. Right. She. She like. But I think maybe that's the way in, because actually, instead of people, I think I get laughs for the first two bits, but then I'm struggling to get into. But I think the. The funnier perspective is to go. And you know what? She is entitled to say anything that she wants because actually I have. Don't have a leg to stand on because I did a. In both of their hats.
- [49:44]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [49:45]
Nish Kumar
At various points.
- [49:46]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [49:46]
Nish Kumar
Maybe that's the way to kind of get into that second phase of the material.
- [49:50]
Mike Birbiglia
And maybe it's like. And maybe if you in the audience agree with some of my opinions tonight, you think of me as shitting in your hands. And so if that's your experience of this, I apologize. You have every right not to respect me.
- [50:07]
Nish Kumar
It's such a funny perspective to be empathetic with someone that is not enjoying what you're doing.
- [50:12]
Mike Birbiglia
I wrote this down, which is, I have an iPhone and an Apple Watch and a MacBook laptop, and they all do the same thing on different body parts. It's the same thing. Just where is it? You know? And one day, my Apple watch starts doing a mysterious countdown from 10. It goes 10, 9, and I press every button. At the end of 10 seconds, it called the police, and they showed up. And that's when the war and that's when I knew the war between humans and machines had begun. My watch called the human police on me. I tried calling human tech support, but all I got was more machines. And the machines laughed at me. And I said, agent, agent, agent. And finally, I spoke to a human, and I was so relieved. And he laughed at me, too. And that's when I knew the humans had changed alliances. By the way, totally true story. I actually talked to an Apple person who didn't believe me. I was like. They were like, no, I don't think that happened. I would go, no, no, this a hundred percent happened.
- [51:29]
Nish Kumar
What?
- [51:29]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah.
- [51:31]
Nish Kumar
That's great.
- [51:32]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah. Isn't it wild?
- [51:33]
Nish Kumar
It's really funny.
- [51:34]
Mike Birbiglia
There's got to be somewhere to go with it. It's the beginning of something.
- [51:37]
Nish Kumar
Like every time that there's been any kind of colonization that has been, there has been a requirement of maybe not every time. I'd say probably. Probably not in the Americas. Right. But there are Certainly like people that like, if you think about Germany, obviously not everybody was completely supportive of the Nazi regime. But there were some people that collaborated, Right? Like, there were people in France that collaborated. We don't really talk about the people that are going to collaborate with Skynet.
- [52:06]
Mike Birbiglia
Oh, yeah.
- [52:06]
Nish Kumar
We never really talk about the people who are gonna be like, okay, I've always been a huge supporter of the machines.
- [52:11]
Mike Birbiglia
Love the machines.
- [52:12]
Nish Kumar
I love the machines.
- [52:13]
Mike Birbiglia
You gotta love the machines.
- [52:14]
Nish Kumar
Rage for the machines.
- [52:15]
Mike Birbiglia
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Rage for the machines.
- [52:17]
Nish Kumar
Like, I think that's a really interesting idea. And like, also, it'd be funny to position yourself as someone who would totally take the machine side. Like, everyone likes to think that they're
- [52:26]
Mike Birbiglia
gonna be John Connor, holier than thou, but actually some people are gonna side with the machines.
- [52:31]
Nish Kumar
Some people are gonna be cash flow Patel.
- [52:33]
Mike Birbiglia
That's so funny. Yeah, so I got that.
- [52:39]
Nish Kumar
And during a show of mine in Australia, a woman's Apple watch called an ambulance.
- [52:45]
Mike Birbiglia
Oh, interesting.
- [52:46]
Nish Kumar
Because my voice is so loud that I. I can't wear an Apple watch because it always warns me that I'm in a area of loud noise.
- [52:55]
Mike Birbiglia
Yes.
- [52:55]
Nish Kumar
And prolonged exposure to my own voice could damage my hearing. And during a show in Australia, a woman's Apple watch called an ambulance. And I said, what's going on? And she said, I think it thinks I'm in a tornado.
- [53:08]
Mike Birbiglia
Oh, my God. That's great. Support for Working it out comes from Helix. I love my Helix mattress. I've had it for, wait a minute, six years. My sleep has improved since I've gotten Helix mattress. I never jump out of windows anymore. I love it. It's springtime. Time for spring cleaning. Time for a new mattress. Ooh, perfect for this ad. If you're a listener to this podcast, you know how much we love Helix mattresses. Everyone on staff here Working it out has a Helix mattress. We are never going back. Helix makes award winning sleep products tested and reviewed by experts like Forbes and Wired. You can also rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges. The Happy with Hel offers a risk free customer first experience designed to ensure you're completely satisfied with your new mattress. Helix offers a 120 night sleep trial and limited lifetime warranty. 120 nights. Go to helixsleep.com burbigs for 27 off site wide exclusive for Working It out listeners. That's helixsleep.com for 27 off site wide support for Working it out comes from Quince. I love Quince. Quince has all the wardrobe staples for spring. Think 100% European linen shorts Linen shirts from $34 Lightweight, breathable, comfortable 100% Pima cotton tees with a softness that has to be felt to be believed. I just got myself a three pack of Alpaca Crew socks from Quince. You know how soft they are? Exactly how soft you imagine. Everything is priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find at similar brands. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the metal men, so you're getting premium materials without the markup. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to quince.com brebigs for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. Hello Canadian listeners. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com burbigs for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com purbigs support for working it out comes from Article. Article offers a curated range of mid century modern, coastal and Scandinavian inspired pieces. I love this article furniture. They have a thoughtful design approach that makes it incredibly easy to mix and match, helping you create a space that feels cohesive as well as stylish. You know it's getting nice out an article. Man, they have really good deck furniture. My favorite place to be is the deck. Oh the deck. Any deck. I got this really nice outdoor swivel chair at Article. I highly recommend it. Super comfy. They have all of these really good looking folding lounge chairs and matching tables and ottomans and things. Great stuff over at article. Perfect for the springtime outdoor hanging. By the way, Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit Article.comWIO and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. That's article.com wio for $50 off your first purchase of a hundred dollars or more. So the final thing we do in the show is working out for a cause. Is there a nonprofit nonprofit that you like to support? And what we do is we contribute to them when we link to them in the show notes and so people can support them as well.
- [56:51]
Nish Kumar
So I, I mean I do a lot of work. There's a charity called Help Refugees slash Choose Love, who do a lot of really great work with refugees and migrants. And they sort of started as just people who were like, oh, you know, there's a refugee crisis going on in Europe, we would like to do something. And it's now kind of exploded into this like international organization. And Josie, who runs it goes and speaks to the UN and stuff. And so they are really amazing.
- [57:21]
Mike Birbiglia
Nish Kumar, thanks again for coming on. Always so much fun.
- [57:25]
Nish Kumar
What a pleasure. Mike, lovely to see you.
- [57:27]
Mike Birbiglia
Lovely to see you working it out because it's not done working it out because there's no. That's gonna do it. For another episode of Working it out, you can follow Nish on Instagram @MrNishKumar. Mr. Nish Kumar. His new special don't Kill My Vibe will premiere on YouTube May 12, but you can get early access right now, actually through 800 pound gorilla. You can find that on Nish's Instagram or his website, Nishkumar. Nishkumar.co.uk.com check out birdbigs.com to sign up for the mailing list. Our producers of Working it out are myself, along with Peter Salomone, Joseph Birbiglia, Mabel Lewis and Gary Simons. Sound mix by Shub Sarin. Supervising engineer, Kate Balinsky. Special thanks to Jack Antonoff and Bleachers for their music coming up this month. We got Jack coming on the show. We just recorded it. It's an awesome episode. I got a sneak preview of that album. It is incredible. It comes out and in, I think about a week and a half. And also he's playing Madison Square Garden in June again. So good. I went last year. Special thanks to my wife, the poet J. Hope Stein, and our daughter Una, who built the original radio fort made of pillows that makes this all sound so nice. Thanks most of all to you who are listening. If you enjoy our show, rate us and review us on Apple podcasts, it really helps us out. We're approaching 5,000 user reviews. That's when we'll know we've really made it. Thanks, everybody. Tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell your Scottish cab driver at Edinburgh. Just say, hey, those comedians you saw might have been rubbish and they might have known they were rubbish. But you know what's not rubbish? Mike Birbiglia is working it out. It's working. Comedian Mike Birbiglia talks about the creative process with other comedians, filmmakers and writers. No rubbish, no problem. That's a good tagline. Thanks, everybody. We're working it out. We'll see you next time.