Roland Ros - The Hustle Behind Kumu

How am I ever going to be happy again? That was the question the wife of this week's guest asked him after the death of their one-month-old son, Fisher. Michael Cruz-Caine is a comedian actor and a staff writer on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, whereas work has earned him a Peabody Award, a WGA Award, and two Emmy nominations. He made his off-broadway debut in "Sorry for Your Lost," a raw, comedic, and deeply vulnerable one-man show about coping with a parent's worst fear, the loss of a child. You can watch the show starting March 27 on the Dropout Network. This is Michael Cruz-Caine. You're never going to be perfectly happy all the time. The best you can hope for is to be reasonably happy. We so know we're happy with our dreams. Most of the time. So how long have you been writing for, Stephen? I have been writing there for six years, roughly. What's the mood like these days? The mood is basically good. Yeah. It's like he's kind of a happy warrior in general. That's very reductive, but his energy permeates and it's kind of like, let's keep doing the best job we can all the time. So how's it we're doing? When you have time to work on side projects? Yeah. The job is all-consuming when it's happening, but when it's not happening, it's kind of whatever. They're very respectful of, you know, your time outside of work. So how long have you been outside of work? How long have you been here? I should know the answer to that question, but I don't. Not 52, another word. It's definitely not 52, but there's like, you know, we have, like right now, I'm here because we have today off and next week off. I want to say there's like six weeks we don't, but anyone who works with me at lessons to this will be like, you're an idiot. It's. I have no idea. I'm sure they hire you for your rape, your wit and not for your. Not my schedule. Not your logistical skills. That's exactly right. I'm weak in that category. Well, cool, man. Thanks for doing this. I mean, obviously the topic is one of gravity. Yes, sure. And so I was like, well, how do I start this conversation? I thought I might just. Good luck. Thank you. I thought I might just ask you to do me the favor to tell you about. Sorry. I thought I might just ask the favor of you telling me about your son, Fisher. Yes, sure. So, I guess I would start with. I always wanted to have kids, like my entire life. So, that's not what you said in your special. Well, yeah, right, but it's a joke. Yes, it is a joke. And until my wife got pregnant, and then I was like, sort of overwhelmed with the enormity of like being a dad, like not really knowing what the fuck I was doing. Can I swear on here? Is this cool? We'll bleep it, don't worry about it. Right. Be you and we'll take care of the rest. Okay, fantastic. So, my wife got pregnant with twins. And I was scared when I knew that she was pregnant, and then like 10 times more scared when I found out it was twins, just like super unprepared. You were scared because of what? The responsibility of the kids. Yeah, just like. The actual prospects of having kids. I think. I don't want to universalize my own experience, but I think there is something male about being terrified of committing to anything and sort of like. So the idea of having kids is like really. I think that's highly ingrained in our DNA and in our physicality. Yeah. So then, so once it's like, oh, now it's really happening. It's like, oh shit. And like, oh, it's happening. It's actually happening double. Duh, I go. How old were you when she got pregnant? 29, maybe. You're an adult. Yeah, yeah. And so there's that. The anxiety of it has happened. We would go to ultrasounds and a thing that would happen all the time that I was doing involuntarily as my wife is like, you know, being pregnant is quite hard. And in a normal pregnancy. And like a twin pregnancy is harder and then like, we had a bunch of complications, but she's in the chair or, you know, getting the ultrasound. And I'm off on the side and I'm just like. Oh, and the tech and my wife are looking at me like, are you all right? And that would happen at every one of those appointments. Like involuntary, nervous body sounds. And then we. And one of these scans, I was always cracking jokes with the tech. It's very important to me that people find me funny all the time. And you can tell when somebody is like, I'm. I could tell that she didn't want to be funny anymore. I could like, something was happening and the tech started acting weird. And we were like, you know, did you see something? And she says, I'm not going to be the one to tell you whatever it is. I'm not really qualified to say. How far into the pregnancy is this? I want to say like 12 weeks, but I. Again, that's another. My scheduling break. I'm not going to ask you any more questions about time or. Thank you. Thank you. So the doctor comes in and he says your sons have something called twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. Which basically means that they're getting their nutrients unequally, so one's getting too much and one's getting too little. And that's bad. And if you don't intervene, mortality is 100% basically. So we went to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. They did this procedure on my wife where extremely reductive, but they shoot lasers at her placenta and it reallocates everything. And it seemed to work. So we're kind of like coasting after that. My wife is like drinking energy, not energy drinks. Protein drinks. She's trying to do as much as she can to like provide the appropriate amount of nutrition for the kids. And we kind of think we make it. Like she delivers at 32 weeks via C-section. That's early. It's definitely early, but in a complicated pregnancy, like 32 weeks is pretty good. 40 is what? A normal pregnancy. But 32 weeks is like, it's viable. You're like, we did. They're going to be born. They're going to be really small, but we'll keep them in the hospital for a while. They'll be fine. The NICU. Yeah. And the NICU. And so that's what happens. They're in the NICU for a while. Everything's kind of going as we think it should be going. And then out of no place, seemingly, we get a call that we have to come to the hospital right away because something's going on with Fisher. It turns out that he has suffered what's called a volvulus, which means that his intestines have detached from the wall of his abdomen and twisted and perforated, which means that the stuff that should be passing through his digestive system is free inside of his abdomen. And he goes into what's called sepsis. And then very quickly thereafter dies. I mean, it's kind of the speed with which we went from like joking about the twins to our son has died was, I don't know, lightning. So fast and really shocking how quickly it can go from one kind of life that you've had imagined for yourself and a totally different kind of life. So he died at 34 days old as when he died. And then because he was a twin, his twin survived, survived so this day. God bless. And that's true. Truman is his name. And we are extremely lucky to have Truman because I think in a different situation, it would have been just me and my wife, absolutely standing still in a collecting ocean of sadness. But because there's a baby that's still there, he's like, guys, you kind of slapped like white my ass. You still have to feed me. You still have to. And the practice of still having to parent, I think, really helped us move forward in our lives. And when I say move forward, I don't mean like away from the grief, like the grief is gone. But because you have to stay in motion, you're able to tolerate a certain amount of suffering because there's other things occupying your mind. Does that make sense? 100%. You know, as I'm watching your special, I was thinking, I think it was Michael Lewis. I heard say this and I don't know if he came up with it, but his daughter is adult daughter died in a car wreck, the author of Michael Lewis. And he was talking about grief being a parallel universe of people, you know, people who aren't suffering from grief, just go about their day. I'm on the subway. I don't think about what the guy next to me is going through. Totally. And here's this person next to me who just lost a child, who sees the world through a completely different set of eyes, if you can see it all. How crippling was your grief and how, and was it constant? Did Edb and Flow, how does that feel? I mean, at the moment, it was constant and that constant sort of obliterating grief. I don't know how long it lasted, but for a while. And really like the only respite you have from it are your obligations. Like the routines that you're like, I have to do this. A lot of that is, you know, are this new baby. I'm pennies and obligation. Like obviously we love Truman. It was like exciting to be with him. But it is also like, of course. Like literally you have to do this. You can't, you can't be like, you can't not do it. - Infants don't respond well to not being considered and being neglected. - Exactly. - Exactly. - So there's that. And then you know, like eventually I had to go back to work and like when you're at work, you're like, I have to make the money to pay my mortgage. I can't not do this. So those things really helped us survive. I mean in addition to like extremely loving family and like really great friends. But the thing that you're talking about in terms of parallel universe is that, it very much feels like there's a part of the world that only my wife and I understand. And nobody else knows about this. So there's no use really talking to them. Not that everyone's being super nice. Everyone's trying their best to relate or to listen to us or whatever. But it feels like when someone asks you about it, who doesn't have any frame of reference, it feels like, you know, they've asked you to read a poem to them in Chinese. And you're like, I'll read it to you, but you are not going to know what I'm saying. You know what I mean, it's not going to make any sense. And I appreciate you wanting to hear it. And part of that time also early on is a phrase I've heard used before and I may be misappropriating it is terminal uniqueness where it's like, we were not aware of the fact emotionally that if this had ever happened to anyone else. I mean like you know logically that it has. But no one had ever talked to us about it. And we very much felt like no one else would understand. Not a single other person has ever had a child die until it happened to us, right? And like when you're on the subway. - But it's like that's the thing, and I don't ever want to experience the grief that you've experienced. - Be prepared. - And that might make me a less deep human being. And I'm okay with that. Like I don't want to know what you know. - Yeah, I think that. Yes. - And so I think that we all, like it's so profoundly, I've lost both my parents, not even the same thing. - Yeah. - That's the natural order of life and my parents were great and they lived to a relatively old age and blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. But like, you know, it feels like it's an alternative universe that you either had a glimpse into it or you haven't. - Totally. - The only thing I can think of that I know has a similar, that feels analogous is people who have like been to war. Where it's like, I'm gonna come, like yes, but the only person who's really gonna get this is the other people who went. And obviously, there are a lot of dissimilarities between what happened to us and being in a war. - Sure. - The way in which they're similar is that feeling of like, when I talk to someone about their dead brother who they've never talked to anybody about, there's like a link up automatically that's like, oh, right, like we speak this in a way. And every grief, like, you know, the grief of losing your parents is like, that's very real. - It's real, but if it would have happened when I was 12, it's different than when you're 50 and there's no regrets. And you've been able to serve them. And, you know, I mean, I'm sure there's people that lose their parents at 50 and it rips them to shreds. - Yeah, absolutely. - And I don't mean to diminish or question the sincerity of their grief. I'm just saying like, the way my parents died, it was just sort of the natural order of things. And I felt very good about, I mean, it was sad. And watching my mother get sick and die was sadder than her actual death. - Yes. - If that makes sense. - Makes a ton of sense. - Sounds to callus. And so by the time she died, it was like, well, man, you know, okay. - Yeah. - But, but yeah. - I mean, just to add to that, the everybody's grief is gonna be different. Just like, you know, losing your parents when you're 12 versus losing when you're 50, losing your kid when they're 34 days old, losing your kid when they're 12, losing your kid, miscarrying. - Sure. - And I, again, having now had a decent amount of exposure to the grief world, so to speak, and having people reach out to me a lot. One thing I hear all the time is like, I know my situation's different from yours. I don't wanna insult you by comparing my thing to your thing. And for me personally, I'm not affected by that. Like, you know, whatever grief you feel, that's all you can know. All you can know is what you've experienced. I'm not in any way insulted by someone saying, the thing that happened with your son reminds me of the thing that happened to my dad who died when he was a hundred. Like, those are very different experiences, but that's the sadness that you know. - Do you, I can't even if you mention this or not, but child mortality has plummeted in the last 150 years or something like that. Do you think parents back then had a different relationship to grief than we do in modern times? - I mean, I have to assume that they did just the idea that in general, you would-- - You have 12 kids, you lose three or four of them. - I don't mean to laugh, but it's like-- - You would just expect that your kids would die. I mean, one of the things I talk about in the special is how medicine can change, how the advances in medicine can change the way that we perceive grief because it used to be like, if you got sick, like that's it, bro, you're dead. Like sick and dead were almost the same thing. And now it's like, you're expected to survive. Like we sort of assume there's a cure for everything. Like if the doctor says we got no cure, then you're like, oh, I'll just keep going until I find another doctor who has discovered this. But in 1650, if your kid gets the milk sickness or whatever the (beep) that's it, it's over, you know what I mean? So I assume that it's very different. I can only assume that people-- - Hundreds of years of-- - Hundreds of years of-- - To lower expectations. - Yes. - Keep you from being that much more profoundly. - I would assume so, but I'm sure that people are also deeply, deeply sad to lose their children in any era. But yeah, I guess if you expected it, it would change your point of view. - Sure. Your wife said, how am I ever going to be happy again? What did you say? - I mean, I think when she said it, I don't think I said anything because it's not-- - Probably the right thing to do. It's often the right, as a husband, it's often the right thing to do. - In this situation, as with many others, probably the right thing to do. - Yes, yes. - Yeah. - It was just, that's the scariest part. Well, I don't know. One of the many scary parts is the feeling that, how sad you feel right now is gonna last forever and there will be no relenting. And I think that's how she felt in that moment. I empathize with that 100%. The pregnancy had been so hard and she had done so much to do everything she could to care for these boys while they were inside of her. And then also, in the days when both of them were alive, everything she could. And I sort of thought of it as my mind. It's like my job is to take care of her here, while she's pregnant and after the boys are born. I mean, obviously I'm their father too, but I sort of felt like the amount of research and effort she was putting into doing everything exactly right. It's like she's the expert on this. And then I'll, everything that she needs, I'm gonna provide that for her. When it becomes like there's nothing that can be done, which I think is how she felt in that moment and that there is no way to improve this. I mean, it's so bad. I don't know how else to describe it. Did she feel like it was her fault on some level? I don't know that maybe I'm asking that based on what you said. Yeah, maybe on some level, there's no way for either of us not to ask each other, not to ask ourselves, what if I had come to the hospital that night, would I have noticed him not tolerating his feed 15 minutes earlier and would that have been enough time to get him down to surgery earlier and then they could have, you know, whatever. I think like your logical mind knows that bad just happens and that there isn't a way to prevent every single thing from happening. Like we had already been through so much to get to that point. like so much work had gone into it. I think think when you're able to see somewhat clearly, which was not easy then, you know, like we did everything we could. We put our kids in the best hospital in the city with the best doctors in the city. And like what more can you do? So I think that's the point of view. It doesn't mean you're not questioning it. I would like to say that we are totally clear of like the possibility of having done it better, which I guess you're never totally clear of. But I think that's just, it's just what happened. Yeah. Hey, everybody will be right back with Michael Cruz, Kane in a second, but I just wanted to share some thoughts with you guys with you all. I don't mean to gender you, you guys, you folks, you ladies and gentlemen. This is me from the home headquarters. This is the Paul Hollinger man cave office at the top of a brownstone on the Upper West side. If you're watching on my sub stack, you can see this great new redecorated office that our friend Amy Magnolia helped us with. And it's got this great collage of things that mean something to me that heater is going to be repainted tomorrow. Can't wait to have it perfect again. There's my train spotting poster. There's my Beastie Boys poster. There's the velvet Elvis that I've had with me since business school. There's a picture of Nixon and Elvis. There's the revolver cover, a mad magazine cover and a great photo of the owner of the Georgia theater, the burned out Georgia theater playing guitar and his burned out theater. There's my bookshelf and my TCB lightning thing that got ruined in a flood in Atlanta when our basement flooded one time when I was doing when I was doing comedy in Boulder, Colorado after a weekend at the Denver comedy lounge, Stacy flew home. And Sunday night I was doing a show in Boulder in 10 minutes before I went on stage the phone rings and she goes, where's the water shut off to our house? And that's not the way you want to hear conversation start. There was six inches of water in our basement. Lots of stuff was ruined. But we salvaged the TCB lighting thing. I've had that for 15 years. Got to replace some bulbs. Anyway, just want to give you a peek into Olinger home headquarters. You can see that on my sub stack words. Paul Olinger.com. There's a link to it in the show notes or on my YouTube channel YouTube.com/PaulOlingerOLLINGR. So check those two things out if you want and follow us there. I'm really starting to put my digital footprint on sub stack. That is where I'm headquartering things. I have moved my podcast there. I have all my writing there. So it's the home to all things. Paul, I'm going to share some writing with you about the manosphere that I did last week. And I kind of think of sub stack as the anti-manosphere in a world where we rely on the algorithm to surface 60 second videos of things that we might be interested in. For better or for worse, what that service is is lizard brain garbage. I see golf porn, I see big boobs, and I see bear attacks. That's what the algorithm has decided. Paul Olinger is all about. And it's kind of not wrong, but it's not necessarily helpful. And so I want to create more thoughtful dialogue and discussions on my sub stack page. So go check that out. All right. I'm deeply grateful to Michael Cruzcane for sharing such an intimate story. Take a look at the link in the bio to go see his special. He really is doing an act of service for all people who have lost a loved one. And even for those of us who have it had significant encounters with grief to be more gracious and empathetic to those who are. And many times we didn't even know who those people are as we discuss. Anyway, back to Michael Cruzcane. Being a child is one of the most brutal things that can help happen to a couple and it often ends marriages. How did you guys survive? We survived. I mean, a few things. One, we love each other. So that made it somewhat easy. Two, we had Truman. So there's like, you're immediately pulled into action together. I think those things combined ended up like it's sort of like forged us into like this, like twisted up iron thing that can I don't think ever be undone because we've been to the war. You know what I mean? The two of us, there are only two people in that trench who will ever be there. I mean, you know, other people are in their own trenches. But only two people have ever been down there and that's the two of us. So I don't, I totally understand how it would break people apart. But for whatever reason, I think it like sealed us together more than ever, which isn't to say, like, you know, we like fight about stuff. But I think there's like, yeah, it's like we're inextricable now. How long did it take until you saw the sun shining through the clouds at one day? It made you feel like you were going to be okay. I mean, I think I always felt that we were going to be okay. I mean, I felt extremely sad, but I have a sense of humor about the world where even in the bleakest environment, which is what this was, there are still things that are like make you feel good. They like, you know, they make you laugh, which I think is one of the things that is a misconception about people who are in grief, which is that like you sort of imagine that all their thoughts are like calligraphy and they whisper and there's like violin music playing, but you're still the same asshole that you were before everything happened. Feel like when we go to the funeral parlour, when we go to the funeral parlour, that the hospital is recommended and the receipt says, thank you come again. I'm immediately laughing because it's an insane thing that's happening in the world. And so like the contrast between how sad we are and how ridiculous the universe is, for me is always a little bit of light, like even when I'm feeling terrible, which is a lot of the time, like it'll still be, so it'll just still crop up and seemingly out of no place. Sometimes it's very linear, you know, like I'll see a dad pushing his twins in a stroller. And I'm like, oops, I guess I'm crying now, but sometimes I don't even understand what I'm crying about. Like you're in the, you know, you're in the whole foods and like the macarena comes on and you're like, why am I crying? What the fuck is happening? So it's not predictable. I don't have full control over it, but I feel, I feel good sometimes. And like I feel joy in spite of like however bad things have gotten. And even like when my wife is saying to me, how am I ever going to be happy again? She's so beautiful and good that like even though she's like, I don't think I'm ever going to, I'm not really worried about that. Like I know that I'm going to be for me, the question is how will I ever not feel this way, meaning like what can I do to not feel as bad as I feel right now? But I don't feel the fear of I'm ever going to be down. That's what you got to do. Exactly. Ignore them and just, you know, push, get yourself a big bottle of gin. That's one way and just stuff that down. That's one way. Drugs alcohol money. I think unfortunately, I don't like drugs or alcohol. Not even like I don't drink or do drugs really and people are always like, you know, interested in the reasoning. It's really just, it makes me feel bad and it's expensive. So I can't, there's, I have no capacity to drown my fear and my grief in those things. You pointed out some of the absurdities of the, the hallmark cards that you get that were, it wasn't quite as absurd as the thank you come again on the receipt of, of, from the funeral parlor. But it demonstrates how difficult it is for people to try to say, how sorry they are for you. Dude, I think people ask me all the time is like, when you're in this situation, right? Someone has had something horrible happen to them. What is the best thing to say? I think you're kind of like, I don't think there is, like, I don't think there is, like, You're rolling the dice on that individual person on that individual day. So like for me, I appreciate people who were like very upfront and didn't try to Make it's you know He's in a better place or like that kind of stuff is not really for me, but it's for somebody somebody you must like that I don't but maybe somebody does It takes it must take a lot of grace in that moment to allow that person to be so wrong Yeah, I mean to so to so not understand what you're going through to say something like that. I think for me I yeah, it might be grace. I just I Whatever it is. I feel like people would like people just don't know shit You know the stuff they just don't know. Yeah, so like when I'm in the elevator at the apartment building and My son has died and I'm in the elevator with another woman who lives in our building who I know and She's in the elevator crying and I'm like, hey, how are you doing? What's going on? And she knows my son has died and she's like, you know, I Have a situation and I know like what you're going through and my things kind of similar like my cats really sick I think a lot of people are like how about you and your cat But it's all she knows like she that that's That's the worst thing that could happen to her so her capacity to empathize with me only extends that far, you know what I mean like When you watch NBA basketball the only thing you can like put to you is like oh well I played JV in high school. So that's how I relate that's like an NBA player. It's like that you have no idea what it's like to be me but It's all that it's all that people have I don't remember the question was like no We were talking about the the greeting cards that you share and and and how but but I think it's when people buy a greeting card I don't I mean I guess it's because They don't want they either can't Do it themselves or can't bring themselves to try to confront the feelings they have or they're so insecure about what they might say and get it wrong that they're gonna let some Somebody who works for hallmark in Kansas totally say it for them I mean I totally get that move. I think what I was saying before is You're very unlikely to say the right thing. You know, I mean I've I've had things that I've said end up in a book In a bad way it wasn't really flattering it was an example of what you don't say Well now I want to know what it was I can't say it but I Think people are struggling so hard and maybe even hurting themselves When your good friend dies and you know, you're talking to his widow and you say something that you You're trying to make sense out of a out of the cold randomness of the universe and you say something stupid. Yeah, and I think I think you're like you got you got a hope for the best. I think that's why you just say I'm sorry for your loss I'm sorry for your loss and here's this here's here's a card that says sorry for your loss There's like some flowers on it. I love you so much your name But even that You're gonna get if something like this happens to you you're gonna get 10,000 sorry for your losses And then the first like six of them you're like oh, this is really sweet and the next 20 you're like all right And the thousandth one you're like okay does anyone thought of anything else? But the issue is there's nothing there's no good thing so I have a lot of Grace for people trying yeah, I'm trying whoever that is is trying to say something good to you right what frequently happens is What frequently happens is they'll come up to you to try and say something offer condolences in some way and They are so shaken by the idea that a child could die while they're talking to you that they just break down and start crying And now you're like all right I know that you came here to try and make me feel better But the situation we're in right now is that I have to I have to help you out. I When when I'm 56 so People are dying my people I went to high school with it's that are dying and The first thing I do is I make it about me It's hard not to I go what did that guy die from and They go, you know like he took his own life. I'm like I don't think I'm gonna do that Yeah, that's like he had a hard attack. He's like oh, that's That's in the possibility Yeah, and so you and and so death scares you and death as somebody else's child scares you even worse totally because it's like It's it breaks one of like the fundamental laws of being a human being right which is like There are a few things you know, but that I knew before my kid died Which is like well, I'm definitely gonna be dead when my before my kids for sure That's that's just an assumption that you have about how things are gonna go yeah And so once that's up ended it really is like oh is any of this shit what I thought it was How are all these rules changeable? Yeah, I think that's really scary. Yeah, when did you start writing or? Sharing publicly about I started writing about I started writing about Fisher Like I think every year pretty much I would write a little something but the audience for that was very small We had a Like a blog that we kept everybody up to date on during the pregnancy to be like here's what's happening And that blog obviously took an extremely Dark turn toward the end of it because things were just The tenor of it up until then had been like oh my god. Everything's going great things have gotten so much better And then after that maybe You know had a tumbler for a while that I would occasionally write on and you know the audio your nudes and Exactly about your the odd Facebook post that kind of stuff on the Ten-year anniversary of his death I wrote a Long thread of tweets. I don't know guess it says like 15 tweets or something about grief because What it started to happen was I was doing comedy at the time I was sort of dabbling and stand up then and I was doing great like things were going well. I was getting a little bit of recognition People were laughing when I was doing stand up which was nice But I started to feel like what the fuck am I talking about like who cares about this and I Kind of downloaded my idea of what was funny from other people's stand up You know what I mean? It's like oh well you talk about pornography you talk about your race you talk about these are the kinds of things that make up what stand up is And it got to the point where I was doing the same material and It was going well, but I had become like totally disembodied and I was like floating above myself Watching me do stand up and being like who gives a shit about this And I'm thinking about stuff like I'm thinking about really dark shit. I'm thinking about Fisher. I'm thinking about like How all these people are laughing at these pornography jokes. They don't have any idea about this thing that happened. Yeah So anyway, I started to feel compelled to talk about it or write about it. I wrote these tweets I went to bed when I woke up the next morning. There were like thousands and thousands of replies like you know somebody who was famous on Twitter retweeted it and then that led to three other people retweeting it and then it became this like huge viral thing Twitter itself mailed me a copy like a framed copy of the tweet. Wow. It was like there I don't know. I don't remember. This is right like their number one tweet of the year or something um And it was just all these people saying both offering condolences And also being like here's something terrible that happened to me And there was a lot of that. I would say most of the thread is this is something awful that also happened to me And what it confirmed was a suspicion that I had obviously That other people had bad stuff happen to them. But I didn't really know again. I didn't like know that Even though of course people You know cousins had drowned and people had been in a car accident and people had killed themselves and people had miscarried all that stuff. Yeah It wasn't no one ever wore that outside of them right like your Instagram feed is not all the most dumb things that happened to you It's a salad you ate and the time you met Oprah. So like I wasn't Aware of the darkness that was kind of traveling through every person. Yeah And once and they're dying to talk about it. Yes. People want it people want to talk about Their grief all the time not everybody and it depends on how far out you are from when it happened A lot of people do want to talk about it and they don't feel like they can because they bring it up And it's like I fucked up this whole dinner party. I talking about my dead wife But it's like you pulled a cork on on a Reservoir of of grief and people just were like dying to put their contribution in absolutely to validate to be validated to be consoled for whatever reason Yeah, and that Was an incredible gift to me like the idea that other people Wanted to talk about it was so bad validating and that's what led to me eventually being like, okay, well, I don't know how many people are interested are interested in this, but at least The thousands of people who commented on this would be interested in talking more about grief and so from there I was like I I resolved to find a way to talk about it in The medium that I had sort of chosen which was comedy What was the first way you tried that? You didn't do like six minutes at Gotham on your dead son. No, the The Tweets happened and then shortly thereafter The Asian comedy festival on half Filipino the Asian comedy festival Offered me an hour or maybe 45 minutes at the first their first festival here in town. Yeah, yeah at the The pit I think it's called I'm sure if it's still open People's improv theater they haven't called me okay, not yet Not yet my kids are a quarter-agent. Okay, because your wife is half is 50% South Asian what kind? South Asian okay, we only know she's adopted at birth So we just know south we just know south. So that's that's 23 me reporting. Okay, I thought 23 and me was like pinpointing that shit No, I'd have to go back and look at her thing. Although we we deleted our records But I did print everything out But I even have a joke about this which was that I thought she was Latino at the entire time Seriously I she she looks like she's Colombian you didn't realize what fetish you had you are it it goes directly to the fetish In fact, that is the punchline, but I but I digress so the Asian comedy festival offered me this time And I was like look I'm obsessed with talking up. I'm obsessed with this idea Do you guys mind if I try talking about it and they're like do whatever you want? So I did 45 or 60 minutes I forget Almost extemporaneously on grief How many people were in the crowd? Not a ton of people, but you know, I don't know, but I'm gonna say 40 or 50 people in the crowd Re-nervous terrified. Yeah terrified and right enough to try new material. Yes, exactly Let alone new material about this. Yes, and I mean and also new material that Forgetting even that it's about some like grief, but also that it's something that I care about which I've I had never talked up to that point I had probably never told said anything on stage that I gave one About it was really just like I think I got a pretty funny angle on pornography So I'm gonna go in there and it always worked so I always did it But to get up there and be like I this matters to me so much is very scary but now As a you know, someone's doing stand-up longer This is a digression I guess but getting up there with something that I care about is Way easier now the audience can sense that I mean they know this is real. Yeah, this isn't just some Take right but all yes, and and it It's easier to write when I care about it as it like as opposed to the other way around I used to think it was I used to think it was the reverse anyway. I do the I do the show it's bad. It's a it's bad But there's like but it's a win. There's like 10 minutes that work. Yeah My wife is there my managers there One of my agents is there and everybody's kind of like I could see this really being something And that's really all it took all I need is the tiniest amount of positive reinforcement and I'm off so then you know I Got another this venue called Kaveat downtown. Let me do it there then COVID hit And I did it over zoom Which was dreadful All comedy shows on. Yes, and imagine even this this being an exponent on top of that right when everybody's already bummed out exactly and then The thing that I think push it yet another level was that a Non-profit Forgetting the name of it and I'm also forgetting whether it was north or south Dakota Offered to pay me Kind of a lot of money To do the show over zoom for their gala And that was like oh well, they're paying me all this money. You put a tuxedo. I should make it good. No, I did For your zoom, but I went I went down to Kaveat. Yeah Rented the whole place out everyone's operating cameras remotely. Oh wow. It's just me in there and it we're live streaming it to This nonprofit. I thought you were like doing it from your from your no they like they had the money to make it like wow serious At that like stepped it up another level. How long was that? How long was the piece that you did? There's an hour Wow. Yeah, I mean in there. I probably did like 15 minutes maybe 10 of As many Dakota jokes I could come up with Just to try and lift them up a little bit first. I want to go ask chat GPT to write yeah exactly solid north versus south Dakota jokes exactly so I did that and then After that I got hired at Colbert during COVID And then once COVID ended I started doing the show in earnest like more and more and like it got to be good like at a certain point it was good I you know I went to Pittsburgh. He's got a great comedy theater called bottle rocket. I did it there. I did it in LA and One of the times I did it The woman who runs audible theater Kate and Avon came to see it That's the theater in the village where you shop around the corner from the comedy sell. Yeah, yep and she loved it and She also had a child who died and I think it resonated with her in a way that I would assume a 100% of other comedy hours do not resonate so we bonded over that and once It became like a professional situation like this is gonna be in a theater and you're gonna have a stage manager and there's gonna be a lighting designer Yeah, that took it to a completely different level the lighting thing was cool. Thank you. Yeah, that's That's Brett Banakis our set designer and go Brett and Chassi our lighting designer and and It like it changed everything that that that's what made it like so legit in a way that was really almost bizarre Because before that I'd been doing the show in spaces where like the lighting options are you could have the lights on or you have them off and to go from like I played that place. Yes exactly there so to have Someone be like so what we're gonna do is we're gonna set up you know 60 individualized light bulbs that we can program and then you got all this stuff it was It's crazy how good people are at their jobs like it's like it just what there you can have such ignorance as like As a theater goer as to like what actually is happening and then when you work with these people like a set designer and you're like Oh everything you say is so Smart yeah, and it really elevated the show it did it did and it and it tied directly into the content And I don't want to give away some of the we've already given away some of the great punch lines But I don't want to give away the sort of the conclusion, but I will ask a The very question that Colbert asks of his guess. What do you think happens after we die? I Don't Know obviously I Only know That you're not gone And that for me My son is still alive and not in the way That any of us are alive, but still in a way he is And when I say I know that it's because I Feel that way So it's real to me It might not be real to you But that doesn't matter To me he's alive in this conversation in His brother who looks exactly how he would have looked And like the stuff I do every day and the fact that I'm still out here doing this show It's hard for me to conclude That he is utterly gone so long as these things keep happening and even after they're done happening Would be my answer Tell me about your other kids Truman is 16 Truman 16 and he just I think the SAT for the first time. (laughing) He's in high school, he's a good kid, just great. One, I mean, like a thing about Truman and Fisher together, one of the things that will really get me sad is that Truman is so fucking awesome. And just like he'll go upstairs and I'll just be watching him be like, oh my God, I love this guy so much to then be like, there could have been a two of these. I could feel this way twice, which is kind of, and I do feel that way twice, but it's kind of impossible to imagine it. Like the love that I have for those boys is feels infinite to me. I don't know what that it is, but it feels that way. And so for one of them to die and to only have half of infinity now, is still kind of crazy because half of infinity is still infinity. There's still, that's half of endlessness is endlessness. So that like the feelings about Fisher live on very much in Truman, who is his own guy and it exists totally independent of whatever thoughts I have about anything. But anyway, yeah, he's great. He plays soccer, he has good grades, he's funny, he's sweet, his sister is Willa, she is 13 now. She's about to go, she's gonna go to La Guadilla High School for performing arts next year in the drama program. She's, you know, also amazing. Very like different vibe than Truman. Like he's more low key and she's a little more high key. She does gymnastics. She's also very funny and excellent student, kind of like king of wherever like or queen. Or wherever she goes, she's like sort of instantaneously the most popular kid, which is a frightening power to have. (laughing) When I was there, well at this age I was okay. Both of them have always been popular like their entire lives. I was not that. So I was, I'm always like have anxiety about them fitting in and like having friends and shit and they're both like that, we're, stop. - Loser? - Exactly. - Just 'cause you're a little bit more blue. - Exactly, my kids are bullying me. - How did Fisher's life change you? - Fisher's life. Fisher's life I would say, especially in the context of my previous answer in so far as it continues. I mean, it's opened me up to sadness that I have never could have imagined. But I think has also made me like a more full person. Like it's kind of, the sadness is part of it. And I used to feel that the grief was overwhelming even though I still had hope. It felt intolerable to feel the grief. Now, if I just like start crying thinking about him, it feels good. Like I like the feeling because now it's like a sweet remembrance of this person. Like I can handle it if I need to like, you know, lay down and cry for 10 minutes because anything who knows what has happened, it feels nice. And I'm grateful weirdly for that grief. It's like a kind of pleasure that I never could have known if my life had been easier because both my sons had survived. All that being said, I'd rather he'd lived. Right. But you'd take being more shallow person. Yes, I think I probably would would make the trade, but it hasn't been without like some really beautiful moments in spite of and sometimes because of how bad I have felt. I'll leave it there. Okay. Michael Cruz came. Kuspo had your special and where people can find it. My specials on dropout. I'm assuming when this comes out, it's probably already out. Yeah, this will be out. I think April six or something like or April 8th. My specials out right now. You got to get right now quickly on dropout. You probably already seen it. You probably have. Yeah. It's probably it's probably been on CNN at this point. That's how big of a deal it is. Specials on dropout. It's called sorry for your loss. Honestly, it's so good. It's just really good. Like I have other setups are great. Every so many setups are so incredible. I don't think there's anything like this exactly because this one, it's really sad. I've never seen anything like what this is. There's no pornography jokes in there. No, well, I did want to ask. I did want to forgot to ask you this. So the only thing I could think of that's like this is the special that Pat Noswald did. Great special. After his wife died. Yeah. And the first half hour of it is kind of him telling jokes. And then, you know, there's an inflection point. Totally. Where he's like, okay, here we go. And he somehow, and he tells the story of his wife dying and having to tell his daughter that her mom was dead and all this kind of stuff. And it's both profound and very funny at the same time. How many times did you watch that before you dove into these deep waters? I mean, I think I watched that, I watched, Marin, I had already written it by the time Marin's came out. His girlfriend died. Yeah. And I didn't see that word. It's great. Yeah. I think what I would say is different, like, necessarily so, is that those are people that those guys knew for long periods of time. They have like a whole photo album of memories that they can go back to and say, remember, when we did this and this and this. And one of the things that is unique to the loss of a child is that instead of having this album full of memories, you have an empty album. That's just like all the pages of shit that could have been filled up. Not sure that didn't happen. Exactly. And I think because of that, there's less in the way of, here's a funny story about this person who died. So there are parts of the special that are just like, really like, I'm not putting any jokes in this part. I'm just gonna, we're just gonna be sad for a little bit. And feedback that I got from people about the show when it was like, we're talking to whoever about trying to put it on their platform is like, for us, it would have to be like kind of funnier in these parts. And for me, I was like, I don't really wanna make that part funny. Like it's not, it isn't funny to me. And I don't seek the humor in it. If there, if it were, if something funny had happened, great, I wanna be myself and like, approach it with a sense of humor that I have. But if I don't see something funny in it, I'm not gonna try to put it on so that it can be on whatever, right? Like in other words, it's, which is what I mean by it's different from those other things. - It is different. - Yeah. - Those are things are great. Those are such funny people. And those are great specials. - Well, it's very well done. And I think it's gonna help a lot of people. - I hope so. - I think you're, I think you're, you're, it's an act of service which is done. - That's very nice of you to say. I mean, I'm not so ambitious as to hope it changes people too much, but I do think it's kind of, it's kind of, at the worst case, it's kind of good. It's kind of good and it's funny. - Yeah. Right on man, well thanks for sharing and thanks for being here. - Appreciate you. - Okay, I mean that when I say to Michael that he's doing an act of service. It really is something that he put his whole heart into and it comes through in his special. And yeah, sure, there's a lot of therapeutic benefit for him. I'm sure in doing it, but I really do think that, in this case, you know, sometimes I ask myself if doing comedy or producing a podcast, is this a totally self-indulgent endeavor? Am I doing this only for me? And I hope I'm doing it because I feel like it's worth doing and the conversations we're having are worth sharing. And yeah, I get a ton of benefit out of it. I mean, it's not making me rich and famous or anything, but I get a ton of benefit and that I get to meet some incredibly interesting people I never would otherwise. But hopefully there's also value in the exploration of the human condition through comedy, both for me and for the audience. And Michael certainly is an example here of taking that to a higher level. And I'm grateful to him for that. It's been about a month since we recorded the conversation. So it was interesting to go back and watch the rough footage of it yesterday as I added it, as I do a pre-edit for Mike Albany's "Exproducer Extro-Nare." And it resonated with me again. I enjoyed this conversation. So here are some takeaways that at the risk of repeating myself, not at the risk at the quite clear thing that I'm going to be doing. This is not an experience that I want. It's every parent's worst nightmare for a reason. And I'm willing to die without having that kernel of human knowledge without having lived that experience. And I wish deep strength and resilience to those who have. Secondly, I think the lessons about grace in this conversation are worth keeping in mind at all times. And I am highly, highly guilty of being frustrated and ungracious at times in my life. Sometimes in public. Sometimes on airplanes. Sometimes who knows where? I try not to be. But sometimes I get lost in selfish, self-indulgence. And I'm not as gracious as I could be to my fellow human beings. And this is a great example as to why we should give people the benefit of the doubt. It's kind of like when I talk to Fat Wrikely a couple of months ago, you may recall he's my friend who is battling stage 4 cancer in his chest cavity. I can't remember the exact diagnosis. But he tells the stories about looking normal on a plane, but going through chemo and trying to do everything he can to not die so he can be a parent for his children and a partner to his great wife Lee. And it's like, well, we don't know what other people are going through. And grace is a really great default setting to have as opposed to the defensive ones we too often get lost in. So kudos to Michael for being a gracious human being to those who are doing their best to try to say the right thing and end up saying the wrong thing. Next, I thought it was really beautiful how he described the bond that he and his wife have forged through this time. And again, I would sacrifice a less deep bond with my wife, sorry Stacy, to not have to go through this. And I'm sure he would too, but I do think that his ability, and perhaps necessity to find the beauty and the lessons and all this are inspiring. Whether you agree with him or whether you don't, you know, the resilience of the human spirit and the face of tragedy is pretty incredible. Lastly, you know, hug your kids, never take anything for granted. Be grateful every day. We're surrounded by so many good things and it's easy to let our brains focus on the wrong ones. So check out Michael's special and Carpe Diem. Oh, look, I'm wearing my Carpe Diem T-shirt. You can't see it if you're not on my sub-stack or on my YouTube channel. Check them out. Have a great day.