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

Hey there, I'm Stephen Dubner, the host of Freakonomics Radio. So what am I doing here in the What Now feed? Well, Trevor Noah has very kindly let us share a preview of our new show called Better in Person. It is a video talk show where I invite remarkable people over to my apartment to talk, yes, but also to eat and drink, argue, laugh. If Freakonomics Radio is about how things work, then Better in Person is about how people work. And one of those people is the comedian and all-around remarkable human Gary Gullman. In our time together, Gary got candid with me about his mental health, his comedic workflow, and the power of basketball in helping keep him sane. In the portion of the conversation you were about to hear, we even get out and play together. So I hope you enjoy it. You can watch the full episodes of Better in Person on the Freakonomics YouTube channel or on Apple Podcasts. Thanks so much for checking it out. I'll see you next time on Better in Person. On any day that it's above 40 degrees Fahrenheit in New York City, Gary Gullman plays basketball outdoors to help maintain his mental health. One day when it was maybe 43 degrees, I tagged along. He was shooting baskets on a court up in central Harlem. There was no one else around. Nice. All right. I want to ask, do you mind if I ask you questions while you shoot? No. All right. Here's what I want. Before every shot, I simply want you to tell me one thing that you love about basketball. Okay. Larry Bird. Boston Celtics. Nice. What about for you? What does it do for you? Oh. Basketball is good for the heart. Basketball is an anti-anxiety. Gary Gullman! So you were very good. You were very good at basketball when you were a kid. Yeah. But you ended up playing not college basketball, but college football. What happened with you and basketball in there? Well, I would say part of it was I didn't believe in myself and I didn't value the enjoyment of it. I wanted to get a scholarship. And I didn't value how much fun I had and how much I looked forward to it. And at the time, they were giving literally 10%. 10 times the number of football scholarships than basketball scholarships. Bigger teams. Bigger teams, because they had 100 players at the time. I had the intersection of a bad coach. In my book, I refer to him as Ron Bitter. He was a very short man who didn't teach us anything about basketball. He took everything he had learned about Bob Knight, except the skills and technique. Chair throwing. The cruelty, the chair throwing, the swearing. And I was discouraged. And when some football coaches showed me the type of enthusiasm that I deserved in basketball, I immediately was hooked on that type of feeling. And ultimately, they were able to get me a four-year scholarship to college. So it worked out in some ways. But I think I would have been happier had I reached my potential in basketball. But I will tell you that what I've decided to do is apply. Apply that type of love to my comedy and my writing, and that's been very satisfying. I'm happy for you that basketball is, again, a fun part of your life. Yes, yes. But I also think it's a good lesson for anybody watching. Like, the thing that you love, you've got to remember to keep the love in it. Yes. Or it turns into a different thing. No, I know. I know. It's just, and I feel so, so grateful that I was able to rediscover it, actually, after I started basketball. I started to feel better from my depression. Yeah. Yeah. Was it a big part of your getting better? Yes, absolutely, because I always used to take for granted that there were so many aspects of basketball that were antidepressants. I think the thing that people get put off by is when they're not immediately good at it or if they're not as good as they used to be when they were younger. That was part of it. I had to come to terms with the fact that I would never dunk again and that I would be shown up by much younger people. So, but if you can, but that's also a great lesson, which is to curb your ego. I've been asking my guests on Better in Person to bring some show and tell. The architect, Bjarke Ingels, brought some synthetic moon dust. As you'll hear later in the season, the rocker and writer, Warren Zanes, brought in a piece of Beatles memorabilia with a heartbreaking story attached to it. So what did Gary Gullman bring? A big notebook with stickers on the cover. Every page absolutely crammed with joke ideas and much more. All right, so this is my most recent notebook. And the first thing is I make a collage. Yes, you do. Of the stickers and photographs. This is my favorite actor, comedian, Chris Elliott. Oh, yeah. The back is a lot of set lists and transcription. Can I see a set list? Yeah, so here's a set list. Yeah, just walk us through that a little bit. August 27th, Gen X wave traffic. The Gen X is the last. Is the last generation that will wave to you for letting them into traffic. Microwave popcorn button was a diversion from the microwave company's inability to get it to make toast. And the same thing happened to aliens where they were able to make the UFO, but they couldn't figure out how to manage the last 10 feet. So they put out a ramp. And so that's the interesting thing that I love. What I love about comedy is a lot of it is just trying to make connections between things that aren't connected. And so that's very fun. Now that you've said it, the toast failing seems large to me now. Shouldn't it have been like, yeah, of course it can make toast. And it cannot. It can make a turkey in 11 minutes. And it can't make toast. But then it also has a diversion, not a diversion, a digression where the toast people are frantic over the microwave. And they have ovens prospects for toast making and pushing them out of business. But then the man who runs the toast. And the problem with this joke is it feels too much like the abbreviating of the states. But the man who runs the toast consortium says, we'll always have bathtub suicides. Like that's. And to me, that's the. That's the bottom. That's the bottom line of capitalism. That's the way they think. I don't know. We'll always have bathtub suicides. Yeah. Do you remember writing that line? I remember thinking of it on stage. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So then I wrote it down afterwards. Did it work the first time? It got such a reaction. It was similar to what happened in here where people were like, oh. Because it's really, especially for a depressive to talk about, to talk about bathtub suicides. Also, I could imagine you trying to have toast in the bath. Yeah. Somehow. Right. But then I also followed up with, because this is, this is where the real writing comes in. So you have that line where he says, he says, we'll always have bathtub suicides. But then I thought of something that he says after that. You want to, you want to frighten me. Tell me they've outlawed dead end jobs and loveless marriages. Then, then I'll start panicking because as long as there's despair, we will, we will sell toasters. The man was a psychopath, really. I'm so glad you came by. It's great to see you. And I'm so glad that you're doing well. And we're able to see each other and spend this time together. Thank you. And I think that you're, I really think you're an inspiration to a lot of people. So well, well done, man. Oh, that's so nice to hear. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Gary Goldman. you