← Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
The Healing Power of Laughter with Jeffrey Gurian
01:05:38
Loading summary
Transcript164 lines
- [00:00]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
This is an iHeart podcast. Lowe's has the Labor Day deals you need to give your home a new look. Buy one get one free select interior paint via Visa gift card rebate then add the final touch with two for $8 on select 2.5 or 3 quart mums. Refresh your home and save big while doing it loaves we help you Save.
- [00:27]
Commercial Announcer
Valid through 93 mums offer in store only.
- [00:29]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Selection varies by location while supplies last. More terms and restrictions apply. C loads.com rebates for details hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile.
- [00:36]
Lynne Hoffman
Now. I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try@mintmobile.com switch upfront payment.
- [00:57]
Commercial Announcer
Of $45 for plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy taxes and fees extra.
- [01:03]
See mint mobile.com with comprehensive reports on local schools you won't find anywhere else, homes.com is the only place to find the in depth info home shoppers want very in depth info. Curious about where a school ranks in the state? Look no further. Percentage of teachers in their first or second year? We've got it. Lowest student teacher ratio? No problem. The best cafeteria lunch in the district for your nine year old food blog. Would it surprise you if we said yes? Homes.com We've done your homework.
- [01:35]
Since 1983, Nissan has been building award winning vehicles right here in America. And this summer they're making it easier.
- [01:41]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
To drive one home.
- [01:42]
Commercial Announcer
No new tariffs, just lower MSRPs on the rogue and Pathfinder so you can get the car you want at the.
- [01:47]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Price that feels right.
- [01:48]
Commercial Announcer
But don't wait. These deals are only here for a.
- [01:50]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Limited time and while supplies last.
- [01:52]
Commercial Announcer
See why Nissan is number one for.
- [01:54]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
New vehicle quality among mainstream brands?
- [01:57]
Commercial Announcer
Learn more@nissanusa.com For J.D.
- [02:00]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Power 2025 award information, visit J.D.
- [02:03]
Commercial Announcer
Power.Com awards this message comes from Greenlight. Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money.
- [02:12]
Lynne Hoffman
App that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely and invest with your guardrails in place. With Greenlight, you can send money to.
- [02:20]
Commercial Announcer
Kids quickly, set up chores, automate allowance.
- [02:23]
Lynne Hoffman
And keep an eye on what your.
- [02:24]
Commercial Announcer
Kids are spending with real time notifications.
- [02:27]
Lynne Hoffman
Join Millions of parents and kids building.
- [02:29]
Commercial Announcer
Healthy financial habits together on greenlight. Get started risk free@greenlight.com iheart comedy saved me.
- [02:37]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
I guess that's why you're doing what you're doing. How Comedy saved me. It saved me so many times. It saved me from depression. It got me through dental school. I used to draw on my walls. They treated me so badly that I get to talk about that now at dental conferences. They want to hear my story because they tortured me in dental school. I was banned from because I grew a mustache.
- [02:58]
Lynne Hoffman
Welcome to another episode of Comedy Saved Me. I'm your host Lynne Hoffman, here to explore the power of laughter in overcoming life's challenges and shining a light on the moments when humor truly saves us. Each week we dive into meaningful conversations with comedians, storytellers and creative minds who remind us that even when times are tough, there is always something we can find to smile about. Today we are joined by the multifaceted comedian, author, healer, Jeffrey Gurion. I'm so excited to even say this. With a remarkable journey from dentistry to stand up stages and decades spent chronicling the world's funniest people, which you can see anytime you want on his Comedy Matters TV show, Jeffrey's life is a true testament to the healing power of humor. Together we'll delve into this inspiring story, uncover lessons laughter has taught him. No matter what we're up against, comedy can help us all find hope. That is the message of, of this show. And I'm so excited to welcome Dr. Jeffrey Gurion. Yes, a real doctor and comedian. To comedy Save me. Jeffrey, welcome.
- [04:13]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Thanks so much, Lynn. I'll tell you one thing, with an introduction like that, I better be good.
- [04:17]
Lynne Hoffman
You better be good. No, honestly, it, I, I wanted to, to start off by saying that I watched this beautiful documentary. I'm in the middle of producing a documentary with some friends of mine and so I know what work goes into them and your documentary called who the Fuck is Jeffrey Gurion? And I love being able to say that because that's really the title, although it just says F, but, you know, when can you do that publicly? It was just such a beautiful documentary and I wanted to say congratulations on that and everything in your life and career because it seems as though the seeds that you planted have, have come back to root and all these beautiful ways. So I would like to implore everyone listening right now when this show is done, just go check this show out, the documentary. I don't know how they did it, but in 20 minutes, ish. They put quite A beautiful story together. So thank you for that.
- [05:22]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Thank you so much for saying that. When I watch it, actually, it brings tears to my eyes. It's a very big honor for somebody to do something like that about you and how it came about. This young filmmaker contacted me and he said, you have an interesting story, and would you be open to me doing a doc about you? And I agreed to meet with him. You know, it's a big risk when you do that. You never know how you're going to be portrayed. People can make you look really weird and stuff. And anyway, I met with the guy and I had a sense of trust, which is why I opened my life to him. It's a very odd thing to see your whole life unfurl in a film on the screen, you know, starting from when I was a child, footage that he had of me playing the piano and, you know, from when I was a kid. And it really encompassed all areas of my life. And I was very happy with what he did, you know, I didn't find any fault with it. It was very heartwarming to me. And as I said, when I watch it, it brings tears to my eyes. The music, the whole thing, it was really very masterful.
- [06:28]
Lynne Hoffman
I couldn't agree more. And it brought tears to my eyes, too, and I do believe it will. For anyone who watches, it's homework. If you're listening to this podcast, that is homework for you to go watch that for no other reason than to discover a wonderful human being on this planet. And very funny, too.
- [06:48]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
That's so kind of. And it led to something possibly very, very big. Even bigger than that. I'll just say that a production company saw it, contacted me, and if you're familiar with D.L. hughley, one of the original kings of comedy, he just signed on to produce this. It's a special thing about me as a result of that documentary. And it's in the process, they're pitching it to networks, but a production company saw it, made a sizzle reel about me, which was really just as moving, almost just as moving as that doc. And DL Came on. He's a very dear friend. And when he saw it, he said, I want to produce this. His words were, I would do it for free. And I'm like, no, I don't expect you to do it for free. He goes, I would do it for free. But his. His production company is behind it, and it's gonna be DL Hughley presents Jeffrey Gurion.
- [07:44]
Lynne Hoffman
Wow.
- [07:45]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
But it's something. But it's as a result of that document. So you never know what happens in life, you know?
- [07:52]
Lynne Hoffman
No, you don't. Can you share a little bit with our congratulations? Wow, that is really big news. And even more on top of the big news you shared before we even started the show, which is equally as exciting. We'll definitely get to. But before we do, can you just share with our listeners a little bit about how you found your way into the world of comedy? Especially because, as I mentioned up front, you were going to be a dentist, or you are a dentist.
- [08:20]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
It's a nasty rumor that started the day I graduated from dental school. I. Oh, oh. People think I'm in the music business. No one thinks, no one ever guessed dentist. And I don't know about comedy, but, you know, because I was a very sensitive kid and I knew I wanted to be a doctor, but I knew I couldn't handle life and death situations. I didn't know at the time. I'm an empath. I feel things more deeply than I want to, which I had to learn. It took me many years to learn to own it as a strength and not as a weakness. And it's one of the things that I lecture on and I write books about because sensitivity is a very big part of my life. And our society very often tells women that they're too sensitive, which is a terrible message. And men don't want a cop to being sensitive because they feel like it's not masculine. I have no choice. I feel things so deeply. There was a time in my life if I was with you and you were sad, I was sadder for you than you were. I felt my feelings. I'm like an antenna for feelings and I have no choice. So I have to learn how to own that. So at 12 years old, I don't know what made me think I had to decide what I wanted to do for my whole life. But I knew I wanted to be a doctor. I knew I couldn't handle life and death. And I was wearing braces and I said, you know what? I'll be a dentist and I'll make people look beautiful. Like, you have an amazing smile, Lynn, I have to tell you that. So thank you. I said, all right, I'll make people look beautiful. And I was already writing comedy. And I remember laying awake at night thinking, you know, I want to be a dentist. But whoever heard of combining that with comedy? No one ever did that before. And for some reason that's become my whole life. I never changed. Most 12 year old kids have no idea what they want to do they want to be a policeman or a fireman? They change their mind a million times. I never changed my mind. My whole life was geared in that direction. And so in my junior year of dental school, I contrived a way to meet Woody Allen, who was my comedic idol. And I didn't have a lot of self esteem in those days. I was a very poor dental student living in Philadelphia. But I had a lot of nerve and I never let anything stop me. And I was determined to meet Woody Allen. So on the rare occasions when I would come to New York, I would go to the theater. He was in a show called Playing Against Sam. Play it Again, Sam, with Tony Roberts. And I would go to the theater and I would drop off a note on the back of my dental school card as if I knew Woody Allen, as if we were friends. And I said, woody, it's Jeffrey, and I haven't seen you in a long time. And I'm coming to the show. And I would leave little strange notes. I'm bringing my cardboard thumb with me. I thought I had to impress him with insane comedy because I don't know if you ever saw his standup, but it was so bizarre, it was amazing. You know, he did a joke that I'll never forget. He said he was walking down the street and a maniac threw a Bible out of the window. And luckily he had a bullet in his breast pocket. And if it wasn't for that bullet, the Bible would have pierced his heart. And I was like, oh, my. That's the essence of insanity, of insane, of absurdism. So over a period of months, I'm leaving Woody notes with the stage manager every time I could afford to come home on the back of my dental school card. So finally, I saved up enough money for tickets because I had no money. I was a poor dental student, and I borrowed my father's car. And because I had no self esteem, I knew that there's only two ways to impress a celebrity. If you're going to meet a star, you have to show them that you're sane. So there's only two ways. You either wear a tie or you bring a pretty girl with you. And I didn't have a tie, and I only knew one pretty girl, and she hated me because we had just broken up. But I begged her to come with me because she knew that my dream was to meet Woody Allen. And she agreed to come with me. So this night, I drive up to the theater and I leave my last card. Woody, I'm here and I'll be back during intermission. I was so naive. I didn't know that you don't go to see somebody during intermission. You wait till the end of the show. So during intermission, I'm nervous. I want to back out. I'm too nervous to go. And she goes, you have to do this. You have to. I came with you. You can't back out. So I go backstage. Stage manager is not in his seat. Now, in those days, there was no terrorism. You could just walk backstage at a Broadway show. So I opened the door, the stage manager's not there. I take a hand, I run up the stairs, and I wind up on the roof. I went the wrong way. So I come back down, the stage manager's there, and he says, can I help you? And I said, yes, Woody is expecting me. And he said, go right in. So I go to Woody's dressing room, and it's empty. He's in Tony Roberts dressing room with the whole cast, right? And I see this. Lynn, I'm telling you, I could see this like it was yesterday. It was decades ago. Woody is sitting on a couch across the room, and I go up to the door and I go like this to him, and he goes. And I'm like, yes, you like this. I crook my finger and he comes over and he's actually holding my card. And he says to me, you must be Jeff. And at that point, I lost it. I'm meeting my idol. I'm so excited. I'm 21 years old. And I said to him, I started saying ridiculous things like, let's open up a day camp and throw winter clothes at people. Let's walk low like we used to in Europe. And he looks at the girl I'm with, he goes, this guy's a fucking nut. Just like that. And I realized I was overexcited. You know, I'm a kid, I'm meeting my idol. So I said to him, listen, I write comedy. And everyone says that everything I write is just like you. And he says, well, I'm in the middle of a show. And he goes, do you think you could come back tomorrow night? And I was like, no, I'm much too busy. No, I didn't say that. I said, no. I said, of course I'll come back tomorrow night. So I begged the same girl to come with me again. And she did. Because I had no self esteem. I thought it was about who was on my arm. I didn't know in those days that people were inviting me because they wanted me to come, not because of who I could bring with me, but I didn't have the confidence. So I bring the girl. He sits with me for like an hour in his dressing room and reads all my material. And I didn't even have scripts. I had like scraps of paper. My dream was that he was going to say, jeffrey, we need to make movies together. That's not what happened. He said to me, he said to me, your comedy is very visual and you should really think of making films out of it. Which I did. A few years later I made a series of films on the street called the Men who Series that wound up in the Toyota Comedy Festival. And it was about. It was about men who do very unusual things, like men who take a pitchfork to the movies. Men who enjoy Latin dancing with tools. I'm sure a lot of Latin dancing with tools. I had a guy do the tango with a wrench. That was unbelievable. He was so good. So. So years later, I became friends with Jack Rollins, who was Woody Allen's manager. And he was managing Woody Allen, Billy Crystal and Robin Williams, which is how I met all of them because Jack Rollins became a mentor to me called Saturday Night Live and asked them to meet with me. And I wrote a movie years later called I Am Woody that. It was a short film, a 40 minute long film about a violent mob boss who was obsessed with Woody Allen. And he survives a mob hit and he comes out of it with amnesia. And now he really thinks he's Woody Allen, but he's 6 foot 5 and 300 pounds. So he's a huge Woody Allen. He becomes afraid of his own men. He thinks he's small and thin. So they want to take him to a sit down and they can't get him to go. They have to tell him that it's a meeting to raise money for his next movie. So I wound up being connected to Woody Allen very strange ways. And his manager, Jack Rollins said to me, Woody must have really seen something in you, because it wasn't like him to invite people to come backstage and sit with him. It was very, very rare. And that's how I got to meet Billy Crystal, because Jack Rollins wanted Billy Crystal to play me in a sitcom. He thought he would be great. But Billy was doing Saturday Night Live, he was doing a million things and it didn't work out. But that's how I wound up meeting Billy and, and Robin Williams. And years later, when I wrote the book on the comic strip with Chris Rock, there's a picture of me and Billy Crystal in it. And he's pointing to his teeth because.
- [17:06]
Lynne Hoffman
Did you work on his teeth?
- [17:08]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
No. But he remembered that I had been a dentist.
- [17:10]
Lynne Hoffman
Oh, wow.
- [17:11]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
The concept of the sitcom that Jack Rollins wanted him to star in was a dentist who wanted to be in show business. And he thought Billy Crystal would be perfect to play me. Wow. So he brought Billy down to the office to meet me. He took a liking to me, and again, that's how I met Billy Crystal and Robin Williams. And when I told him my Woody Allen story, he was like, that's amazing.
- [17:34]
Lynne Hoffman
It is amazing. And Jeffrey, it is sort of that feeling you get when you meet you. Even before I met you, I was excited. And I'm curious, you know, you said you realized you were an empath. Two side questions. One, how did you know? When did you know? And two, if there are people listening who have similar feelings, like when they get around somebody and they can feel their pain, even if someone hasn't even opened their mouth, you can sort of feel that in the room. How did you learn how to harness that as opposed to make it, you know, take you down because that you can't save the world?
- [18:11]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
No, that's a great question. And it's an important thing for people to know because there are a lot of people struggling with their sensitivity. When I was only seven or eight years old, I already knew that I could take away certain pain with my hands. If my little sister had pain, I would just say, I'll take it away. And I would put my hands on her and the pain would go away. And I used it all my life. My parents didn't teach it to me. No one showed me that. It came to me intuitively that I could do that. And years later, it's what opened me up to the concept of past lives. Because sometimes little children have certain gifts that there's no explanation for. I was just reading about a five year old piano prodigy who's going to be playing at Carnegie hall. And it just makes sense. I open my mind to all positive things. I don't want negative thoughts, but all positive things because it's arrogant to say that you know what's true and what's not true when it comes to things like that. How can it diminish you in any way to open your mind to the concept that there's a possibility of past lives? You know, you can't kill energy. When people pass on, their body stops moving, but the spirit has to go someplace. You can't kill energy, you know, so growing up, I always used that I would Always just touch people and take away their pain. When I went into practice, there's a concept the universe puts people in your life that you're supposed to know. And I would get a lot of patients that came to me that had very bad headaches and physical symptoms of stress from clenching and grinding their teeth. It's called bruxism. A lot of people do that. Millions of people in this country alone. There's more than 150 million people.
- [19:56]
Lynne Hoffman
See my little tiny teeth back there?
- [19:58]
Commercial Announcer
There.
- [19:58]
Lynne Hoffman
That's. That's me.
- [20:00]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
There's more than 150 million people who suffer with what they think are migraine headaches that are really what we call musculoskeletal headaches from clenching and grinding the tmj, which is the jaw in front of your. The. Not the jaw. The joint that you can feel in front of your ear when you. It allows you to open and close your mouth. And that joint is considered a master joint, which means that it controls not only how your head feels, but how your whole body feels. When that joint is out of whack, you get many different physical symptoms. So I had to learn. I started studying spirituality about 30 years ago. I wanted to know what it was that I was given, what this gift was that I was given. It's helped me in many different ways, and I had to learn that people will try to manipulate you because of it. A lot of people take kindness for weakness. And people who are sensitive need to know that you need to censor your life. When you have that kind of energy, you draw a lot of people into your life. But not everyone deserves to be there. And it's not an easy thing to do. But you have to eliminate people that will drain you, because there are some people that will only call you when they're in crisis. And then you help them. You stay on the phone with them for an hour. By the end of the conversation, they feel great and you feel suicidal because you allow them to drain you. Look, I write books about that. Wow. My first happiness book, I don't know if you saw it, is called Healing youg Heart by Changing youg A Spiritual and Humorous Approach to Achieving Happiness. You know how hard it is to get a dog to sit in load?
- [21:37]
Lynne Hoffman
I was gonna ask you, was that up, do you think? Can I ask you before we get too far? Do you think Woody Allen was an empath and that's why he allowed you that day to come in there?
- [21:48]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
That's an interesting question as well. You have great questions. I don't know that he was an empath. But I think he missed the felt energy from me.
- [21:55]
Lynne Hoffman
Had to, right?
- [21:56]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
I don't mean that in an egotistical way, but people have told me, like, on My Comedy Matters YouTube channel, they say everybody stops off to talk to me on the red carpet, even if their publicists are pulling them away. Like Kevin Hart, you know, his publicist, like, we have to go. He's like, I gotta talk to Jeffrey. And he came over and, you know, I never try and trap people into saying something awkward. I only want to put out positive energy to the universe. Jerry Seinfeld once asked me to keep it a secret that he was doing his Netflix special at the Comic Strip. And it would have been a great scoop for me to put it in my column, but I would never. But you didn't. I would never do that. You know, I would never risk a friendship to try to get something better for myself. And he really. He really respected that I kept it a secret for three months. He was getting paid, like, $100 million to do a Netflix special, and he didn't want people to know that he was doing it in the club where he started. And at the time, that was my home club. That's the club. I did the book on that with Chris Rock, and I kept it a secret. So my feeling is that maybe Woody felt that he could trust me in some way. I don't know. I can't speak for what people feel, but people have said to me that when I'm on the red carpet, they come over and they give me a hug because I make them feel safe, because they know that they can trust me, that I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna put something up on the Internet that makes them look bad, let's put it that way.
- [23:26]
Lynne Hoffman
You're not gonna sabotage them.
- [23:27]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Yeah, I only wanna support people. That's what I wanna do. I love to support talented people. When people have a gift, I wanna help them put it out there.
- [23:36]
Lynne Hoffman
Such a beautiful thing. I mean, what was the first moment that you realized that comedy and humor could be a force not just for healing you personally, but also for others?
- [23:51]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Well, I'm on the board of this group called Laugh MD that comes out of California, and we bring comedy to people in hospitals and people in recovery. I performed at Sloan Kettering once for cancer patients. They wheeled them out with IVs in their arm. You know, when people are very sick, other people feel very awkward around them because you don't know what to say or what to do, you know, and as an empath, it was very hard for me to see people that were so ill. And I performed and I made them laugh. And it was a great feeling. It was a wonderful gift that you can. You know, laughter. It's not just a cliche, that laughter is the best medicine. It's so important. It releases endorphins. It changes your whole mood. You know, I realized that when I got started from Saturday Night Live. Can I tell you that story? Cause that's a crazy story.
- [24:42]
Lynne Hoffman
Please tell me about that story. And then I'm gonna tell you my notes that I got from your. From. Just go ahead, tell me the story. I'll tell you.
- [24:51]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Saturday Night Live comes out. I'm making films on the stream, you know, Super 8 with my Super 8 camera. And they're like kind of crazy kind of films, like, false news items. Like, several men were arrested for smearing cream cheese on the ankles of elderly women who wore their stockings rolled down like bagels. You ever see the old women with the stockings around their ankles? It looked like bagels to me. So I went to my dear grandmother. I had two grandmothers. One had a great sense of humor. She and her husband owned a nightclub growing up, and she had a great sense of humor. And she made believe she had a Jewish accent. I was so sick. She let me put cream cheese on her ankles on my own grandmother. I put cream cheese on. I go. And she says, you know, in the Jewish religion, we have two kind of stockings, one for milk and one for meat. She goes, and this crazy man, he smears cream cheese on my meat stockings, and I can't get it off. And I hook in with the camera on the ankles with cream cheese. And I was doing, like, stories like, two master criminals who disguise themselves as inanimate objects to commit their crimes. So it starts with two men disguised as coats rob a hack store. They come over two. They come in over the arms of two other men, and they say, just act natural. Like, wear your coat and nobody will get hurt. Right? I love it. Two men disguised a pair of eyeglasses rob a local optometrist. They come in on another man's face. And I interview. I interviewed the guy. I interview the victim of the crime. And he says, I don't know what's going on here. I'm walking into this optometrist to get my glasses adjusted. Another pair of glasses jumps onto my face and whispers into my ear, just act natural. Like, wear your glasses and nobody will get hurt. What's the city coming to? So I make these films and I say, I got to get up to Saturday Night Live. So the same way I met Woody Allen, I had a lot of balls in those days. I couldn't do it now. What I did then, I'm driving a Pitmobile. And I had met a pimp from Maryland and his name was Benny. And I was very impressed with his lifestyle. And he drove an old Cadillac El Dorado with a clear bubble over the driver's seat and a clear bubble over the passenger seat. I'm like, this is the car that I need. So I went to a place in the Bronx and I bought a mandarin orange Cadillac El Dorado that had been made for one of the Isley brothers. True story. I found out later it was really for one of the Isley brothers. And I put a Rolls Royce grill on it because that's what the pimps drove in the 70s. But mine had doctor's plates on it, DDS plates on the front. So it was very confusing to people. Hookers would check out the car. Drug dealers, cops would follow me. I was married at the time, and my wife was like, we're Jewish and we live in Scarsdale. Why am I driving an orange Cadillac? You know, no one got it but me. I totally got it. It made perfect sense to me. So I drive up to 30 Rock with my films. I throw the doorman a few bucks, because in those days, you could drive right up to the front of the building. There was no terrorism. I threw the doorman a few bucks and I said, watch my car. Lorne Michaels is expecting me. Lorne Michaels, the producer of Saturday Night. He had never heard of me. Lorne Michaels was not expecting me. So I snuck into. I snuck past security. I got up to Saturday Night Live. Alan Zweibel, I don't know if you know the name, but he's become an award winning writer, producer, director. In those days, he was the main writer for Saturday Night Live. He was playing handball on the wall with a guy named Neil Levy, who is Lorne Michael's cousin. And I interrupt them playing handball and I introduce myself and I say, I have these films. And Alan sits and watches the films to this day. Decades later, he says he can't get the image of cream cheese on the ankles out of his. I spoke to him this past week, you know, wow. He did the kindest thing for me. He didn't just give me the phone number of his manager. He called him on my behalf.
- [28:42]
Lynne Hoffman
Wow.
- [28:43]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
And he said to. And his manager's name was David Jonas and who Left us in recent years at 100 years old. And at the time, he was managing Freddie Prinz, who was the star of the show Chico and the Man.
- [28:55]
Lynne Hoffman
I love that show.
- [28:56]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
So he sent me up to meet with David Jonas. And David took about a year trying to talk me out of it. He goes, you're a doctor. You don't need this business. It's a crazy business. You don't want to be in the comedy world. You're a doctor. I said I wouldn't take no for an answer. And it took me about a year to learn how to write jokes, because I'm thinking cream cheese on the ankles, which you can't do on stage. It's a visual, right? So I started writing jokes for his comedians Dick Capri and Freddie Roman, the guys who did the show Catskills on Broadway. And through them, I got to meet Rodney Dangerfield. And Rodney started doing my jokes on the Tonight show with Johnny Carson.
- [29:35]
Lynne Hoffman
Amazing.
- [29:36]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
That's really what started my career. But it was. Cause I had the nerve to drive up in a pimp mobile the Saturday Night Live. And they. And they actually did that in the documentary. They did it in an animated version, if you remember, of me vibing this orange catalog.
- [29:50]
Lynne Hoffman
I would love to have seen that, though, in real life.
- [29:53]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
I'll send you pictures of the car. I have pictures of the car.
- [29:55]
Lynne Hoffman
Jeffrey, can you just tell me where the chutzpah. I hope I said that correctly, because if I don't spray it, then I didn't say it correctly. But what gave you that? I'm not gonna take no for an answer. That creative thinking to just act like you already knew these people, just to get. You know. Because that has to come from somewhere. Someone instilled this in you, or you just naturally knew.
- [30:23]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
I wish I had a great answer to that. I was just. I was so determined. I felt like people needed to know who I was, that the only reason I wasn't best friends with Mick Jagger was because he didn't meet me yet.
- [30:36]
Lynne Hoffman
Oh, wow.
- [30:37]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Like, I finally met Mick one night, and I recently met Melanie Hambrick, his girlfriend. I told her the story because when my kids were little, they would say, how come you're not like the other dads? And I'd be like, you'd understand if I was Mick Jagger. And they'd be like, yeah, dad, but you're not. And I told Mick that story the night I met him. He didn't think it was that funny. I thought it was hilarious. But Melanie thought it was funny, you know? But I don't know. So where it came from. I was just determined. I felt like I was given this gift of comedy. My parents had great sense of humor. My dad used to take me to comedy films when I was a little kid. He was always laughing. He had a. Oh, he was such a wonderful person and had a great sense of humor. And maybe that's where I got it from. But I was determined because I didn't know one person in show business. I didn't know anybody. So I'm like, how am I going to do this? How am I going to get to meet all these people that I needed to know?
- [31:36]
Lynne Hoffman
Yeah. Yeah.
- [31:37]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
I don't know where I got the courage from. Like I said, I don't think I could do it now.
- [31:41]
Lynne Hoffman
No, I mean, you could in any way.
- [31:43]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Just because it's a different world. I could.
- [31:44]
Lynne Hoffman
Yeah.
- [31:45]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
They would shoot at me if I tried to sneak into Saturday Night Live. Now you'd see me on the news in handcuffs. It was a much safer world in those days.
- [31:54]
Lynne Hoffman
It was.
- [31:55]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
People weren't being set on fire on the subway. It was, you know.
- [31:58]
Lynne Hoffman
No, but. But still very important. Just to know, for anyone who may want to get, you know, into comedy or whatever they want to be, don't.
- [32:07]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Do what I did. Don't.
- [32:08]
Lynne Hoffman
Don't do what Jeffrey did.
- [32:10]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
No, I had a lot of nerve, is what I'm saying. I really had a lot of courage to go out and do that, because these people could have said to me, who the heck are you? Get out of here. They could have, but for some reason, they accepted. There was only three people I ever wanted to meet. Woody Allen, Salvador Dali and the Beach Boys. And I met them all. I got to meet them all and spend an evening. I spent an evening with Salvador Dali. You know, that's another crazy story, but I don't want you to run out of time on your podcast. But I have a lot of stories.
- [32:41]
Lynne Hoffman
You do. And that's why I was saying that the documentary, to sum it up as quickly as it was, who the F is? Jeffrey Gurion is. I said, my goodness, I would have gone down each one of the segments of that documentary. I could have spent hours discussing each element of them alone. But it was so nicely done. It got me so excited to talk to you.
- [33:06]
Commercial Announcer
We'll be right back with more of the Comedy Save Me podcast this Labor Day.
- [33:13]
Say goodbye to spills, stains and overpriced furniture with washablesofas.com featuring Anabe, the only machine washable sofa inside and out. Where Designer quality meets budget friendly pricing. Sofas start at just $6.99, making it the perfect time to upgrade your space. Anibay's Pet Friendly, Stain resistant and interchangeable slipcovers are made with high performance fabric built for real life. You'll love the cloud like comfort, the of of hypoallergenic high resilience foam that never needs fluffing and a durable steel frame that stands the test of time with modular pieces you can rearrange anytime. It's a sofa that adapts to your life. Now through Labor Day get up to 60% off site wide@washablesofas.com Every order comes with a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not in love, send it back for a full refund. No return shipping, no restocking fees, every penny back. Shop now@washablesofas.com Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
- [34:11]
With comprehensive reports on local schools you won't find anywhere else. Homes.com is the only place to find the in depth info home shoppers want very in depth info. Curious about where a school ranks in the state? Look no further. Percentage of teachers in their first or second year? We've got it. Lowest student teacher ratio? No problem. The best cafeteria lunch in the district for your nine year old food blogger. Would it surprise you if we said yes? Homes.com we've done your homework.
- [34:41]
I bet you've probably been to the doctor's office in the past few months. I bet you had to hand over personal info like your insurance, your id, maybe even your Social Security number. And I bet you weren't thinking about how your doctor is just one of many places that has your personal information. If any one of them isn't careful, it's a good bet they could accidentally expose your details to hackers and identity theft, putting you at risk. Fortunately, Lifelock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity. If your identity is stolen, a LifeLock US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back with plans covering up to $3 million for stolen funds and expenses. Don't take chances with your personal info. Help protect it even when it's out of your hands. Brands save up to 40% your first year with promo code iHEART. Call 1-800-LIFELOCK and use promo code iHEART or go to lifelock.com iheart for 40% off terms apply.
- [35:35]
Now I'd like to introduce you to Meaningful Beauty, the famed skincare brand created by iconic supermodel Cindy Crawford. It's her secret to Absolutely Gorgeous Skin Meaningful Beauty makes powerful and effective skin care simple and it's loved by millions of of women. It's formulated for all ages and all skin tones and types and it's designed to work as a complete skin care system leaving your skin feeling soft, smooth and nourished. I recommend starting with Cindy's full regimen which contains all five of her best selling products including the Amazing Youth Activating Melon Serum. This next generation serum has the power of melon leaf stem cell technology. It's melon leaf stem cells encapsulated for freshness and released onto the skin to support a visible reduction in the appearance of wrinkles. With thousands of glowing five star reviews, why not give it a try? Subscribe today and you can get the Amazing Meaningful Beauty system for just $49.95. That includes our introductory five piece system, free gifts, free shipping and a 60 day money back guarantee. All of that available@meaningful beauty.com.
- [36:37]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Still getting around to that fix on your car? You got this on ebay, you'll find millions of parts guaranteed to fix. Doesn't matter if it's a major engine repair or your first time swapping your windshield wipers, ebay has that part you need ready to click perfectly into place for changes big and small, loud or quiet. Find all the parts you need at prices you'll love. Guaranteed to fit every time. But you already know that. Ebay Things people love Eligible items only EXCLUSIONS apply.
- [37:11]
Commercial Announcer
Welcome back to the Comedy Saved Me podcast.
- [37:15]
Lynne Hoffman
Some of the things that I made note of and I have to share this with you because it's so huge and I I want you to explain if you could be very careful what you spend your time being afraid of because we tend to manifest our biggest fears. Is that sort of like people getting in their own way of success or those old sayings, be careful what you wish for, you know, can you explain that? Because that's really huge. Just that sentence.
- [37:40]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
I'm glad that you said that. It's one of the things, you know, Stuttering was a very big part of my story and it had to do with fear. For some reason I I've been leading a fear based existence for my whole life and I never let it stop me. As a kid I had a lot of fears. I was afraid of the dark and I made myself go in the dark. I started stuttering when I was about seven years old and I stuttered through my 20s and beyond. Even after I was a doctor, I was still blocking on certain words when I went to college. I made myself run for the president of the freshman class. I was only 16 years old. I didn't feel part of. I couldn't say my name. I could never say Gurion. Most stutterers can't say their own name, as you can see. Not only don't I stutter anymore, but you can't even shut me up. I have a lot to say. I always taught. I have a lot to say. But as an avocation, I work with stutterers all over the world to teach them how not to stutter. When I went to college, as I said, I ran for president, telling myself if I could win, I wouldn't have to stutter anymore. And to make a long story short, I won. I was the president of the whole freshman class of Hunter College, and I still stuttered. And it was a great lesson because it taught me that outside validation in life doesn't work. It doesn't matter how many people tell you that you're wonderful and talented and fantastic. It matters what you think of yourself. And that started my journey on learning about who I was and what thoughts I was holding that were not valid for me. It's a very big topic. I do a talk called don't believe your thoughts. We're all holding thoughts that are not valid for us, that, usually negative, that work against us. I created a false disability for myself. As you can see, I no longer stutter. It's not a genetic problem. The stuttering community doesn't tell people that they can get better. It's a very big frustration for me. So I work very hard to cure myself. And it took me years to undo the unhealthy thoughts that I was holding. And it's what led. I hope you don't mind, but it's what led to me writing my second book, fight the fear, Overcoming obstacles that stand in your way. Because I've been battling fear for so many years, and other people do, too, when I speak to them. So I started studying spirituality about 30 years ago and learned how to process the events in my life. Fear is a bully. Fear is the thoughts in your head that tell you that you'll never be successful, that you're not enough. You're too old, you're too young, you're too thin, you're too heavy, whatever. You're just not right. It always tells you these things, and they're not true. And you have to fight against it. And what I teach people is you have to make that voice a whisper. If you were in a crowd of People and somebody was whispering to you, There's a good chance you wouldn't hear what they were saying. That's how you have to make that part of your mind. It's your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is your enemy. And it's very strange to think that I'm battling with my own mind. So I have fears of traveling. I have fears of getting lost. So in 2019, I made myself go to Japan all by myself as a challenge. I performed in two shows while I was there, I was lost every single day because they say that the Japanese subway system is the most difficult in the world. I was lost every day, but I never let it stop me. I figured out where to go. You know, I have fears of getting caught in the rain without an umbrella, probably because of my hair. I don't like to get my hair. So I'm walking down the street in Japan, and it starts to rain out of nowhere. So I found a store, and I bought an umbrella. I solved the problem. You know, I spoke Japanese. Things that other people can do comfortably, I must be able to do. When I go to the airport, I'm not alone. It's filled with millions of people who are traveling. If they're traveling, I have to be able to do it as well. So I challenge myself on a daily basis. And again, it's one of the things that I lecture on. I had so many fears. Fears of performing, fears of getting on stage, fear of having a practice, fear of having a family, fear of being a dad. I conquered every one of those fears. Not to say that they're gone, but I can battle fear on a daily basis. So many things can make me uncomfortable, and I'll never figure out exactly why. And it's not important to figure out exactly why, but it is important to look at all the possibilities. So I'm always grateful to get an opportunity to talk about stuttering, because if anybody out there knows somebody who has that problem, just tell them that they can get better. That's the message. You don't have to tell people they could be cured. For some reason, the stuttering community doesn't like it if you tell them you have a cure, but they should know that you can get better, that the problem is in here. I realized I'll end it on this. I realized one day I didn't stutter when I was alone. I only stuttered when I was trying to talk to somebody else, which is very common in the stuttering community. And I was given the grace to figure out, you can't have A disability based on your location or on who is in the room with you. A man with a limp limps in every room of his house. He can't go into a room alone and walk perfectly. But if I could speak fine when I'm alone, then theoretically, it means there's nothing wrong with me. And I had to confront the fear and undo the negative thoughts in my mind to allow myself to free myself from the bondage of stuttering. That's a very long answer to your question.
- [43:08]
Lynne Hoffman
That's incredible, though, because what you are saying, in essence, is, first of all, you have to train your brain to think optimistically and look at every challenge in life and anything that you're afraid of as just an obstacle you have to overcome. There's so many people that when you get stuck in the. You get stuck in a rhythm, the fear just guides you constantly. And I don't know if you. Or even myself sometimes. I mean, yeah, I've been afraid of things in the past, but for some weird reason, I have this. I always thought it was a problem, that I was overly optimistic. I was too optimistic. I was too happy. I was too excited. Just the opposite of almost all my friends who promptly, like, didn't want to be friends with me anymore because they didn't know how to be happy. And I learned that when I was teenager. So when I talk to someone like you, who's done all this research and written books, and, you know, it just. It all makes so much sense that there's so much we just do to ourselves that we need to learn.
- [44:11]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
It's very hard to objectively look at your own thoughts. You know, I had a healing center for a while called the happiness center, and I teach people to create their own happiness center. If you come to my house, it's filled with balloons and crayons and toys, and you would think that little children lived here. And I do it. For me, it's very important. My inner child is my best friend. When you were a little girl and people would come to your house and say, could Lin come out to play? And you were so happy, that's not supposed to stop. Just because you grow up and do serious things, you're supposed to stay connected to that. And so when I teach people to create their own happiness center, every place where you live, every place you look, should be something that makes you feel good inside. Like, my whole apartment is white. My carpeting is white. My piano is white. My car is white. I need brightness because as an empath, I'm affected by Color by music, by the people I'm with, by the room that I'm in. I'm sensitive to everything around me, so I have to center my life and make sure that everything there is something that makes me happy. And it does. I don't keep things around that bring back bad memories. I only surround myself. That's my own personal happiness center, and that's what I teach people to do.
- [45:25]
Lynne Hoffman
Oh, my gosh. Now it explains everything about all. Everything is so neutral in my life, and people make fun of me. They're like, could you put a little something of color around here or something? You know, everything's just so. And there's no. Yeah, it there. It's interesting how you go into someone's home and it can explain a lot about what's going on in their head.
- [45:43]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
People live in dark places and they wonder why they're depressed. Yeah, I'm like a plant. I need lots of light. Sunlight and water. Happiness. Happiness. That's the thing. That's what I lecture on. You know, in the past few months, I've been a keynote speaker at major dental conferences, and the topic they gave me was how to survive a career in dentistry using positive thinking and humor. Because dentists have the highest rate of suicide and the highest rate of divorce.
- [46:13]
Lynne Hoffman
You're kidding.
- [46:14]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
I did the divorce. I'm trying to put off the suicide principle.
- [46:19]
Lynne Hoffman
Please, no, we need you.
- [46:21]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Yeah, no, that's just their joke. I'm kidding. I feel good. I feel wonderful. You know, my ADHD kicks my butt. It creates a lot of confusion. I talk about that also. So many people. You know, it's very fashionable these days for people that say they have adhd. I was actually tested by a neurologist, and he said to me, you must have had to work 10 times as hard as everyone else. And it's true. I did. In 2015, I had a heart attack.
- [46:47]
Lynne Hoffman
Yes.
- [46:48]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Came out of nowhere. It was one of those. They called it a widow maker heart attack. I guess it was lucky I wasn't still married. Right. There was no widow, but I was lucky enough to survive. And I was back on stage five days later, and the owner of the comedy club said to me, what, are you crazy? You just had a heart attack? I was like, yeah, but it's hard to get a spot here. I didn't want to lose my spot. Only a comedian would say something like that. Only a true comedian. Because when I left the hospital, they said to me, try and make believe this didn't happen. And I'm like, how do you make believe you didn't have a heart attack. It really put me in touch with my mortality because it was the major artery to the left side of my heart. They said it was about 95% blocked. I had never been sick a day in my life. The night before, I was out with the Sirius XM people because I had been a regular on SiriusXM for a couple of years, bringing on special guests. And I was on air, and we were partying for the holiday. And the next day, this thing happens to me. And then March 11th of 2020, the day they declared it a pandemic, that's the day I came down with it. Well, as you can tell, I'm a trendsetter. I went right out. I got Covid immediately. I didn't wanna wait. Covid? Double pneumonia, right?
- [48:05]
Lynne Hoffman
Oh, my God. The whole thing.
- [48:07]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
I'm laughing now. But it was very serious. The ambulance had to take me away. I waited two weeks to call an ambulance. Cause they were warning people, if you had any kind of heart condition, try not to go to the emergency room. Cause the germs were so strong. It was when New York was the epicenter of the virus. And when the ambulance finally came, I couldn't take the pain anymore. I never was so sick in my life. And when the ambulance came to get me, two men in hazmat suits came to my door. And one of them took my hand. I couldn't believe this to this day. And he said to me, don't worry. You're going to make it. That small act of kindness meant so much to me because I had been alone and so sick for two weeks. I didn't. And he was amazed that I could get on the stretcher myself. He said most people needed to be carried. And when I lay in there in the hospital, I was trying to make myself laugh because my life is so bizarre. The first two days, they put me in isolation. The third day, they put me in a room with three other very sick men. And they tell me the guy in the bed next to me is from Wuhan, China. I'm like, what? That can't even happen.
- [49:13]
Lynne Hoffman
But that's impossible.
- [49:14]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Those are the kind of things that happen to me. I'm laying there next to patient zero, right?
- [49:20]
Lynne Hoffman
Oh, my God.
- [49:20]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
The guy's coughing and choking into the air with no mask on. So when I expressed my concern to the nurse, she told me not to worry. And she pointed to a thin curtain that was hanging between us. And I'm like, excuse me for being so concerned. I said, you know, everyone knows if you want to protect yourself from a deadly virus, you hang a thin curtain around you. Too bad Dr. Fauci didn't know about that. I mean, it was ridiculous. So I turned my hospitalization into, like, 10 minutes in my actual. Wow. I was lucky that I survived. As I said, I joke about it now. They saved me with hydroxychloroquine. Before they politicized it, I had put myself on Z pack, which I like to tell people, always keep Z pack in the house. It's an antibiotic that's specific for your breathing.
- [50:05]
Lynne Hoffman
Yeah. Especially if you end up getting pneumonia because you wait too long, like most.
- [50:09]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Yeah, exactly. And you're supposed to take it for five days, and I took it for 10 days, and that and the hydroxy saved me, so.
- [50:16]
Lynne Hoffman
Well, thank goodness you're still with us.
- [50:18]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Thank you. But humor is very, very powerful. It could change people's lives, and I guess that's why you're doing what you're doing. How? Comedy saved me. It saved me so many times. It saved me from depression. It got me through dental school. I used to draw on my walls. They treated me so badly that I get to talk about that now at dental conferences. They want to hear my story because they tortured me in dental school. I was banned from school because I grew a mustache. And the dean of the school these days told me it was because they were racist and anti Semites. I didn't know that in those days, but I was tortured in dental school. So I've been through a lot of difficult times, and comedy always saved me being able to think differently. You know, comedy is taking things that you see every day and pointing out what's funny about them. That's why the audience laughs, that we have the ability to see things that you take for granted. Like now I'm talking about ripped jeans. Ripped jeans drive me insane. Because the truth is, ripped jeans are just torn pants. That's what they are, man. Just torn pants. If you went into a store and you saw a sign, a sale, a big table filled with pants, and it said, sale. Torn pants, there's a good chance you wouldn't buy them. You'd be like, probably not. I'm good. I'm good. You know? But people are wearing torn. And it's so stupid, because the more torn they are, the more expensive they are. I saw a girl, Wesley, just wearing pockets. That's all that was left. Both legs were completely gone. Just pockets. $1,000. Poor people can never wear ripped jeans. They can't Afford them. It's like so. It's so silly. Everybody wears ripped jeans, but to me I'm seeing torn pants.
- [52:02]
Lynne Hoffman
It's funny how your mind works.
- [52:03]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Like that's what comedians do. We take the things that you see every day and we see the humor in them.
- [52:09]
Lynne Hoffman
You know, something you said to me, or maybe it was during the. One of the things that I've watched of you or read that there are still mornings even today that you will wake up and, and feel a little. Maybe I don't want to know if depression's the word, but you just don't feel right and you can't get out of your own head. How do you do that? I mean, for example, I am the happiest person that I know, but I still wake up. Like just the other morning I woke up and I had this sense of gloom and doom and I couldn't shake it and I didn't know how to shake it. And you really have to work hard with your own mind to fix that. And sometimes it's really hard.
- [52:49]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
There's a possibility that you're an empath. Look, we're surrounded by stress every day, Every place you look, tv, you read the newspaper, horrible things. There's such evil in the world world. It's possible not to internalize some of it. I find that I wake up in a positive mood. But if I wake, look, you may be internalizing stuff. Maybe you're an empath as well and you're internalizing something from someone else. It's confusing to people until they learn about their sensitivity. What am I feeling? And what am I feeling that someone else that I picked up from someone else. When I do healing work, I have to protect my heart chakra that I don't internalize someone else's negativity. But it's very easy to do that. What I do is I make a gratitude list. All the things that I'm grateful for. It's very important to be grateful for things. Self pity is one of the worst things that a human being can do for themselves. To feel sorry for yourself. Anytime I've ever done that, I walk out in the street and God puts some unfortunate person in front of me to show me how lucky that I am. I have a very, very long gratitude list. There are things that I've wanted in my life that I don't have for a long time now. But what I've learned is that I'm not the ultimate victim of the universe. If I don't get what I think I'm supposed to have. It's not cause I'm being punished. It's because I'm supposed to have something better than that. And if I got what I thought I wanted, I wouldn't be available for the really good thing that's coming to me. The problem is I have to have patience. And as human beings, we have no patience. We want everything right now. So I've come to understand that, like I said, I'm studying spirituality for 30 years and it's taught me how to process the events in my life. And I understand the path that I've been on. I understand it much better than I used to. You get what you get. You get what you're supposed to get. Not necessarily what you want, but what you're supposed to have. And you don't lose anything you're supposed to have either. On a very personal note, divorce is very painful. But my ex wife is a wonderful person and she adopted two other children. She remarried and adopted two other children and had another daughter of her own. And those two children needed to be adopted and that little girl needed to be born. That little girl recently had twins of her own. All those things couldn't have happened had I stayed. And sometimes you only see that in retrospect. Well, we're all friends. Holidays come and we celebrate everything together with my kids, my ex wife and her husband and their kids. And I have a very big extended family because of the principles that I've spoken to you about. Not necessarily comedic principles, but spiritual principles. And I try and lead my life that way. And when you do that, you wind up with a much bigger life than you thought you'd have. Because people very often hate each other when they break up. And for me, like, she's the mother of my children, there's no greater gift. No one else ever gave me any kind of gift that even comes close to that. And so I value that and so I honor her. You know, I tell her, I don't know if she likes to hear it or not, but I tell her all the time that I'm very grateful for her because she gave me that amazing opportunity. And not everybody has that opportunity. And, you know, so being grateful is a key to getting out of that gloomy state. If you wind up waking up like that sometimes could just be a bad dream too. You know, you can pick up something that you heard or saw. It's why when you dream, there are people in your dream that you never met before. There are probably people you passed on the street that you don't Know.
- [56:36]
Lynne Hoffman
Oh, how interesting.
- [56:37]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Our minds are like video recorders. They record everything. I'm very big. Talking about cellular memory. Every single thing that's happened to you since you're born, Lin, is still inside of you. It's the reason why you could hear a song you like, and you remember the boy you liked in the third grade. Or you smell a perfume and you're like, my kindergarten teacher wore that perfume. You know, it's sensory deja vu. There's no thought involved. It happens automatically. And so we get triggers all day long, and you never know what triggers a weird thought. And suddenly you can be happy, and suddenly you could feel sad, and you won't even know why. And it could be a bit of a song. Somebody walks by that reminds you of somebody you used to know. You walked by 13th street and you had a relationship on 13th street, and just seeing that sign brings something back to you. We're very delicate instruments.
- [57:29]
Lynne Hoffman
We sure are. Oh, my goodness. I feel like you should be sending me an invoice at the end of this podcast.
- [57:38]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Well, I have a feeling that you are an empath. When I read about you, you do so many interesting things. I wouldn't be surprised, because it seems that what I'm saying resonates with you, that you get it. I'm not saying stuff that you don't understand.
- [57:51]
Lynne Hoffman
No, I. I get it. I. I think the one. The one thing that. Where I realized that something was going on was I don't. I can't handle large crowds. Not because I'm afraid of anything current day, you know, large crowds of people.
- [58:04]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
And the energy can be overwhelming.
- [58:06]
Lynne Hoffman
But I never knew that, and someone told me that, and I was like, that makes so much sense. I'm feeling all of everybody else's energy, and I don't. My. I'm like. My brain is going crazy because I don't know which way to turn. So maybe. Maybe there.
- [58:19]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Maybe you're on the wonderful signs of an empath that you feel too much. You take in. I'm like an antenna for people's feelings. Still. I feel more than I want to. So I've had to learn to censor my life. If I encounter someone who I get a negative vibe from, I eliminate that. I don't allow them in anymore, wherever I can. Sometimes if you're doing a big project.
- [58:42]
Lynne Hoffman
Some of them slip in.
- [58:43]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
You can't quit everything you're doing just because somebody's negative. But when there's a choice, you have to try and protect yourself.
- [58:51]
Lynne Hoffman
You are so right about that that's what makes work work sometimes instead of fun. Now, you've interviewed and written and thank you so much for all that. I know you're also on a time schedule, too, so I have so many more questions.
- [59:07]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Please, I'm not in a hurry. This is very important to me. Take as much time as you need.
- [59:12]
Lynne Hoffman
Well, thank you. You're so generous. You've interviewed and written for legendary comedians. Can you tell us maybe about a particularly memorable encounter that may have deeply impacted you? Maybe somebody like, you know, who may have gotten in your way with SNL or have you ever confronted that, but, you know, or any even anecdotal.
- [59:37]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
You know something, I've been given the gift to meet all the people that I've been inspired by in the comedy world. Written for them, worked with them, you know, Milton Berle. A lot of people who are listening to this may not even know who Milton Berle was. Mr. Television.
- [59:52]
Lynne Hoffman
Yeah.
- [59:53]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Greatest entertainers of all time. The reason he was called Mr. Television was because people bought TVs to watch his show. In the 1940s, before there was TV, he had one of the first big shows, the Texaco Star Theater. And he was my sponsor in the Friars Club. As a little kid, I'd watch him on the Ed Sullivan show, and Milton Berle became a friend of mine. He saved my life once. I was very depressed and he. I'll never forget. I was get home on a very cold winter day and my phone was ringing. This was before cell phones. I got home from teaching and I was feeling really sad. And as I was opening my door, my phone was ringing already and I was trying to get to it before it stopped ringing. And I picked it up and it was Milton Borough. And he said to me he was being honored and he wanted me to come as his guest. I think it was an honor from the Friars Club, man of the Year or something like that. And it was so amazing to me that I went from being so sad and depressed to being so happy that a man like that would think to call me. We actually became friends, you know, and I got to write for him and I got to write for Woody Allen. Not Woody Allen, for Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers and Gilbert Gottfried and Richard Belzer and Andrew Dice Clay. I'm one of the few people that ever got to write for Dice, and he says that openly. There was a time I wouldn't say who I wrote for because it's not to take anything away from them. They did most of their own material, but they worked with Me, you know, And I got to work with Nick Kroll and John Mulaney.
- [61:24]
Lynne Hoffman
Oh, yes.
- [61:25]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
They had me open their Broadway show, and they made me this jacket, which. Oh, my gosh. An exact replica of the Guardian Angels jacket that Curtis Sliwa wears. Who's running for. That's awesome. But my jacket says Gurion Angels, and Nick Kroll and John Mulaney made this for me. See on the front? Exact replica of the Guardian Angels. So they didn't know that I was friends with Curtis Leawp. They mentioned him in their Broadway show. I used to be Curtis's dentist, and he says it. So it doesn't matter that I say that.
- [61:56]
Lynne Hoffman
Get out of here.
- [61:57]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
He's my friend for 30 years, and he's got to win for mayor, by the way. So as a surprise to Nick and John, I brought Curtis to their Broadway show, and he wore his Guardian Angels jacket, and I wore my Gurion Angels jacket.
- [62:10]
Lynne Hoffman
Gurion Angels. I almost feel like you should have some hot chicks and Gurion Angels jackets, too, like Charlie's.
- [62:17]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
They made up Gurion Angels T shirts, and they got two models to wear them to the opening night. I've had a lot of amazing experiences, and we did the show in Montreal, and they had me. They do too much tuna where they prank.
- [62:29]
Lynne Hoffman
I was just gonna say, this is more homework for those listening to the show. Besides, who the F is John Gurion? And you have to look up Nick Kroll and John Mulaney doing too much tuna with you, because that is so funny.
- [62:42]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
I'm the first person to be pranked. It's a strange thing to put on your resume, but I'm the very first person to be pranked with too much tuna. Nick and John think it's very funny to give people a tuna sandwich that's about this tall. And I'm the first. They brought me out to LA to do it on Comedy Central. It went viral. And then we did it in Montreal at the Just for Laughs festival, which is the biggest comedy festival in the world. And they had me give the tuna sandwich to Judd Apatow, the king of Hollywood. Oh, get out of here. The king of Hollywood movies. When they were ready to give him the sandwich, they said, jeffrey, come out. And I was wearing my Gurion Angels jacket with the big tuna sandwich to give it to Judd Apatow.
- [63:20]
Lynne Hoffman
Did you know what you were gonna say or was it totally ad libbed?
- [63:24]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Totally ad libbed. And I thought I did something wrong.
- [63:28]
Lynne Hoffman
You were so funny.
- [63:29]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
They stopped shooting after the second take, and they Were doing other sketches, and they did a lot of takes, and I'm like, did I do something wrong? And they're like, no, we love what you did. We don't want to change it because I refuse to be pranked. Yeah, you were pranking you. And I'm like, no, you're not.
- [63:45]
Lynne Hoffman
No, this is good.
- [63:46]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Yeah, I love it this way. This is a perfect tuna sale. I'm like, no, there's cameras all around. I'm like, I'm not looking. I'm not looking, you know?
- [63:53]
Lynne Hoffman
Oh, my God. You were amazing. I had to know. I mean, it seemed like it was. It was impossible that it could be that funny without being scripted, but it really is.
- [64:02]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
It just happened. And like I said, I was worried that I did something wrong, and they had me back a couple of times. I wound up doing a thing with Laura Dern and Amy Poehler and Seth Rogen and Katy Perry. It was Katy Perry's comedy debut, and I was on the red carpet doing crazy stuff with them.
- [64:21]
Lynne Hoffman
For those listening who might be in pain or pursuing a dream that seems impossible, what message do you hope that they would take away from your journey in life? I know that's a big question, but.
- [64:34]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
I have an answer. I have an answer to everything.
- [64:36]
Lynne Hoffman
Okay.
- [64:37]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Perseverance is very important. If you believe in yourself, if you truly think that you have a gift, then you owe it to yourself to persevere. The entertainment business is very, very, very difficult. You have to be able to handle rejection. Not everyone is good for whatever they think they're going out for. At some point, you have to have a clear picture of yourself and realize that maybe you're not what you think you are. But if you really believe that you have talent, then you have to take it as far as you can take it without driving yourself crazy. You have to have balance in your life. You know, I was lucky. I couldn't get a job as a waiter, so I went to dental school. It's important to have a second career, something to fall back on. If you're only looking at getting into show business, it's a very, very hard field to break into and make a name for yourself. And you have to be really tough and creative. People are very sensitive, so it makes it very, very hard. I was lucky that I had two careers. You know, as hard as it was for me to do both at the same time, it gave me balance. Very left brain, very right brain. And when the comedy thing wasn't working, I always had a career to fall back on. I was Always doing things. Whether I was making people laugh or making them look pretty, I was always doing something to put out positive energy to the universe. So perseverance is key up to a certain point. Then you have to be realistic, and you have to say, maybe I'm not as talented as I think I am.
- [66:10]
Lynne Hoffman
Good advice from a man who knows. They call you one of the most connected people in comedy. They do. Let me ask you, how do you use that platform to inspire joy and kindness?
- [66:26]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
How I use that platform is when people approach me and people do, they say, can you help me get a big star for this show or this whatever, to produce shows? Because once in a while I produce shows, I'm able to call the talent directly without going through their manager or agent. I call them first and present it to them and see if they're even interested in it. And then if they are, then I go through a manager or agent, because you have to do that out of respect. But it gives me the option of talking directly to the big star themselves, because fortunately and again, I don't even have an answer how this happened. Nick Kroll said it in that video. He said, you know more people in comedy than anybody I know. And I'm not even sure how that happened. I was in the right place at the right time. You know, I go through life. My motto is, I love everyone until they teach me not to. I embrace people, you know, and so maybe they feel that. I don't know. I've just been lucky. I've been able to meet everybody that I wanted to meet in comedy. And I don't know a lot of the real newcomers. You know, they say, I know all the YouTubers. I knew the comics from the golden age and the YouTubers from today. There are people that I read about that I haven't met yet. But there are some people that I met that I didn't even know they knew me. There's one who's. So. I don't know why I'm blacking on his name. Oh, Troy Bond. So I was performing at the Sunshine Festival in Florida, and everybody was talking about Troy Bond, this new big star, and I was so excited. I was going to go meet him and do an interview with him because aside from performing, I was interviewing people for the festival, and I heard he was in this room. So I went into the room, and as I approached him, he said, jeffrey Gerkin, I can't believe that you're here. And when I interviewed him, he said, I can't believe I'm going to be on Comedy Matters tv. I've been watching it for years. I didn't even know. I was excited to meet him and he was excited to meet me. So we took some great pictures together, and he's in his little sizzle reel that they made about me. So it's just funny. I don't have a good answer for it, but I love meeting people that are successful, people that are doing things to put positive energy out to the world. That's the best answer I can give you.
- [68:50]
Lynne Hoffman
Well, it's a fantastic one. You just added to perseverance and gratitude. And you've got a book. Oh, but you already wrote that, so we'll have to check out.
- [68:59]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
I wound up with eight books. The last book that I want to show you is the book that I wrote after I recovered from COVID And it's called Facing Stories of Courage and Inspiration. And it's true stories of people who overcame tremendous difficulties. We all think we have problems. These people, a man born with no arms and legs, who was going to commit suicide at 10 years old. And today he's an internationally known motivational speaker, married to a beautiful woman, and he has four children. And I think I have a rough day sometimes. And this man, Nick Vujicic is his name. No arms and legs. And my whole book is those stories that I collected over a period of 20 years. And while I was recovering from COVID I was in the house for months and I said, what can I do? I don't want to waste this time. Time is too precious. How can I turn a negative into a positive? And I took this folder down from my closet that's packed with these stories, and I wrote Facing Adversity, and it's part of my happiness series. Those three books that I showed you are what I call my happiness series, and they've all become bestsellers on Amazon. They seem to resonate with people. They inspire people. That's my thing. I want to motivate people and inspire people that no matter what's going on in your life, there's a possibility that tomorrow is going to be better. You know that we're not mind readers. Every single person in your life that, you know, there was a day before you met them and you had no idea you were going to meet them, and then you met them, and something is different in your life, you know? And so it's important for people to hold on to those thoughts so that when things are rough, when you're having a rough day, that you can shift your consciousness and think of something different and be grateful for the things that you do have and realize that tomorrow can be much better. You know, as an empath, I used to think if I was sad today, I'm going to be sad for the rest of my life. There's no hope for me. I'm just going to be sad and depressed. And I didn't know how to shift my thinking in those days and how to change a thought. And that's what I've learned, that thoughts are not facts, feelings are not facts, and thoughts are not facts. And thoughts. Our thoughts are not necessarily based on our experience. They're based on our interpretation of our experience. Which is why you can have siblings that are completely different people. And if you ask them about their childhood, you'd think they had different parents.
- [71:28]
Lynne Hoffman
Wow, that's a whole. That's the next podcast. You have to come back. We need to talk about that.
- [71:33]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
I'll come back anytime you want.
- [71:34]
Lynne Hoffman
Thank you. Jeffrey Gurion, Just write this name down, just google him and watch everything he's involved in because you will feel better after. I promise. Jeffrey Gurion, thank you so much for your time today and coming on, Comedy saved me and I really do truly hope that you come back and best wishes. Good luck with everything you do in the future and thank you.
- [71:54]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Thanks so much Lynn. It's been very special spending this hour with you and I hope you do ask me to come back. I'd love to come back again. Thank you so much.
- [72:10]
Commercial Announcer
Every day has a to do list, but adding Enjoy Belvita to yours can help you knock out the rest of it. Belveda Breakfast Biscuits are a tasty and convenient breakfast option when paired with low fat yogurt and fruit that provide steady energy all morning while Belvita Energy Snack.
- [72:26]
Lynne Hoffman
Bites give you the perfect mid morning refuel.
- [72:28]
Commercial Announcer
Best part, they both taste great so make the most out of your morning with a bite of Velveeta. Pick up a pack of Belveda at your local store today.
- [72:39]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
Fox one is now live. It's the new way to stream all your Fox favorites all in one place. That means NFL Sundays and college football games, breaking news with the Fox voices you trust and your favorite shows streamed as they happen. So nothing gets spoiled. With Fox one you get it all live, edge of your seat plays, jaw dropping moments and that feeling like you're right there in the action. Start your seven day trial today. Offers are subject to change. Go to Fox one for complete terms and conditions. Fox one We Live for life Streaming now.
- [73:10]
Commercial Announcer
Every business has an ambition. Paypal Open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo, Paylin and all major cards so you can focus on scaling up when it's time to get growing. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations.
- [73:40]
Homes.com has collaboration tools to help home shoppers search, share and discuss home shopping with family, friends and their agent directly through the site. Though it was fun to get that email from your husband about that three bedroom in the hills, to which you replied via text text that you would never live in the hills and you'd like to find a three bedroom closer to the beach, to which he replied, why are you so uncompromising? A fun way to spend an afternoon, but we think it's just a tad bit easier our way. Homes.com we've done your homework.
- [74:10]
Chances are you've been to the doctor recently and you probably handed over your insurance, your ID and even your Social Security number. Your doctor is just one of many places that has your personal info, and if any of them accidentally expose your details, you could be at risk for identity theft. LifeLock monitors millions of data points a second. If you become a victim, they'll fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year. Call 1-800-LIFELOCK and use promo code iheart or go to lifelock.com iheart for 40% off. Terms apply.
- [74:43]
Dr. Jeffrey Gurion
This is an iheart podcast.