Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Coming up on tomorrow's show, we'll speak with Chicago based rapper Saba, whose work with the famed hip hop producer No I.D. is featured on an upcoming album. Plus, Jesse Eisenberg will be here to discuss his film A Real Pain. That's in the future. Now let's get this started with Gary Gulman.

[music]

Alison Stewart: When Gary Gulman takes the stage at the Lucille Lortel Theater, he looks professorial, glasses, a goatee, a tweed jacket. He is on stage to share the lessons of his childhood through books and authors. Some memories are hilarious, some are hurtful. Some require a dictionary, like the title of the show, Grandiloquent, meaning "pompous or extravagant in language, style or manner, especially in a way that is intended to impress". We find out why the show is called that along the way.

Grandiloquent is a New York Times critics pick. The paper said Gary Gulman takes it to another level with an acuity that few other standups can match. The show is running at Lucille Lortel through February 8th, and Gary Gulman joins me now. It's so nice to meet you.

Gary Gulman: It's an honor. I'm a fan of all NPR, but I'm not yet a friend of the show, but the show is a friend of mine.

Alison Stewart: Okay. Well, you can become a friend of the show. You can.

Gary Gulman: Okay. Okay. I feel like one more visit and then I'll be a friend of the show. Welcome back, friend of the show Gary Gulman.

Alison Stewart: This show is very different than your other televised show, Born on 3rd Base, the Great Depresh. It has much more of a show feel to it.

Gary Gulman: Yes.

Alison Stewart: When did you start to work on it, and what did you want the show to look like?

Gary Gulman: I had a friend in LA who came to see me do a standup version of this show at Largo in Los Angeles. His name is Neal Marshall, and he produced The Great Depresh, and also he wrote the film The Flamingo kid from the '80s-

Alison Stewart: Oh my-- [crosstalk]

Gary Gulman: - which I love.

Alison Stewart: [unintelligible 00:02:04] as a sundial?

[laughter]

Gary Gulman: Yes. He came to the show at Largo and he was enthusiastic and said this should be a one-person show. I had aspired to that, but I did not have the confidence. Then, I spoke with my manager, Brian Stern, and he called Carly and Mike, who produce the show, and they produce Mike Birbiglia's shows and also Colin Quinn's. Colin Quinn is a friend, and Mike is a friend, so I felt in good hands. From the very beginning when they offered it to me, and I was telling you off the air, my big concern was that nobody would show up.

That was my only reluctance, because it's a 300-seat theater, which doesn't sound like a lot to a famous person, but to me, that's a good show. To fill it for over a month, it was daunting to me. We've been able to do that, so I'm very grateful. That's where it started, is just I knew that this would stretch my abilities in terms of writing, but also acting and performing. The great thing about working in collaboration is they bring so many different ideas.

My director brought so many ideas to the writing, and then Mike and Carly suggested people in terms of lighting and audio design and the set design, which is done by Beowulf, who is extraordinary. I was just blown away because I never would have thought of the set, which I think is so striking. They show you in a very small dollhouse form, and it was so exciting. I'm just really grateful for all the people who came together to make this really special project.

Alison Stewart: Yes. Beowulf Boritt does the set. Tony Award winning designer. It's bookshelves, some are standing, some are knocked over. You can't tell you're in a library or somebody's house. What conversations did you have with him about what you wanted the look to convey?

Gary Gulman: Well, I think that he read my book Misfit and also saw some video that I had made of me doing the standup version of this show, which is very different, and was able to figure out what I was getting at. I could have never thought of it myself. It's ambitious, and I would have said, well, this would be nice to draw, but how are we going to make this work? Because it's enormous. The bookshelves are so enormous. They're much bigger than me. I'm blown away every time I look at it. It's really exciting.

Alison Stewart: Did you get to talk to either Mike or Colin about doing a one-person show?

Gary Gulman: I did. I talked to Mike off the air, but also on his show called Working It Out, and so we discussed that and he was very encouraging. I guess I didn't talk to Colin about this, but I watched some of Colin's work to prepare. I had seen it live, but then to see how it turned out in the end was very informative. I guess the thing is you try to watch people that you admire and then try not to be too influenced so that people don't see it as a ripoff, but it's humbling because they are the best at it and I'm watching the best to do it.

I think, well, let me just do my version of this as best as I can and also not be too tied to the outcome in terms of whether I sell tickets or whether it gets good reviews. Just do my best, because that's really the only thing I can control, is to try to be myself and not compare. Compare and despair, they say, in 12-step meetings.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] When you enter the theater, there's a '70s music soundtrack that's playing. Did you pick that?

Gary Gulman: Yes. Yes.

Alison Stewart: Oh, you did.

Gary Gulman: The great thing if you come to the standup show is that if you get there really early, the doors open an hour and a half before the show, so they cut it down to about 35 minutes, I think, of disco and '70s music, and it gets me so excited to listen to it because there's something about the music from when you're about 5 to about 18 or 19 that really just resonates and there's so much memory tied up in it. It energizes me and makes me feel wistful, which I think is a good headspace to be in before a performance like that.

Alison Stewart: What did you want the music to give to the audience?

Gary Gulman: Oh, immersion. I really imagined, and it's probably ambitious, but that they would feel like, "Oh, this reminds me of the time when I was listening to this music at that age," and so for me, it's music and smells. I really wanted to be able to burn incense that smelled like September of 1977, which would be a combination of fireplace smoke and rotting leaves, and everybody smoked cigarettes back then.

Alison Stewart: Yes, a little ashtray.

Gary Gulman: [laughs] Yes, a little ashtray. Exactly. Exactly. A filthy ashtray.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: My guest is Gary Gulman. His show is called Grandiloquent. I'm going to play a little bit of something from that last special, the Great Depresh, because you write about mental health, you talk about it in the show as well. This is from your HBO special, The Great Depresh. It's a quick run through of drugs. Let's take a listen.

Gary Gulman: Because of the nature of antidepressants, sometimes they don't work and you have to try something else. Sometimes they work and then they stop working and you have to try something else. Sometimes they work but they're not good enough. You need to augment them with something. Over the years, I have tried Pamelor, Nortriptyline, Wellbutrin, Zoloft, Paxil, Abilify, Adderall, Ativan, Klonopin, Duloxetine, Mirtazapine, Sertraline, Effexor, Celexa, Zyprexa. At one point, my doctor said, let's just try drugs that rhyme.

[laughter]

Gary Gulman: Thank you, Dr. Seuss.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Perfect for your show. Two point. It's so funny because you kind of hear people laugh a little bit, but they're not sure if they should laugh, and that's a little bit of your show as well. What do you take of that when you hear one woman sort of laugh but she's not really sure if she should?

Gary Gulman: Yes, that's such a great question, because sometimes there'll be no laughter and I'll address it and I'll say something to the effect of, "No, it's okay. I'm on the other side of it and it's fun now." To be on the other side of this depression that lasted for two and a half years and to have seven years of recovery and feeling like myself, I feel an obligation to share that to give some people hope, and so I want you to laugh about it, but I understand because some of these things are a little bit heavy.

I think that's also an interesting type of laugh and also an interesting type of feeling that I can give the people and share with the people on the stage. I grew up listening to comedians like Richard Lewis and Joan and Garry Shandling who are very open about their struggles and the craziness in their lives. I laughed, so I feel safe sharing this with people. If they don't find it funny, I understand that too, but my intention is to give it some distance and express my relief to being on the other side of it.

Alison Stewart: Was anything off limits as you were writing the show?

Gary Gulman: Well, I don't like to involve my wife's life in it, so I only speak of the things that clearly could be with anybody's wife. I don't want to get too specific about my wife because she's entitled to her privacy, and she's much more private than me. I'm an open book. That doesn't mean she has to be an open book, so I'm very careful about that. I said her first name in The Great Depresh, and it's interesting because people will ask about her by name and it's confusing to me.

Alison Stewart: A little weird, right?

Gary Gulman: I feel a little bit concerned for her privacy, but her name is Sade, which is so beautiful, and so I just love to say it. Anyhow, that is sort of off limits. Everything else, I feel like it's healthiest for me to be an open book.

Alison Stewart: Books. Let's talk about it.

Gary Gulman: Yes.

Alison Stewart: There's a book you present to the audience, The Monster at the End of This Book.

Gary Gulman: Yes.

Alison Stewarta: I looked up its little slugline on Amazon. It says, lovable, furry Grover is distressed to learn there's a monster at the end of this book. He begs readers not to turn the pages, but of course, kids feel they just to see this monster for themselves. Do you remember when you first read it?

Gary Gulman: Yes. Yes. It was either August or early September of 1976, so I was going into the first grade. I had finished kindergarten, and it was in the living room of my mom's house at 2 [unintelligible 00:11:44] Road in Peabody, Mass. The living room should have been in quotes because we didn't do much living in there. You weren't supposed to be caught in the living room because there were, I guess, antiques or something like that, but there was punishment involved for acting up in the living room.

I was reading in the living room. It had the best light. All of a sudden, this thing started happening where I was able to sound out words and then they just were coming to me. I was euphoric. It was an ecstasy that I have not-- I guess getting my driver's license and falling in love were similar type of chemical feelings, but it was just such a revelation to me. I just after that, started going around the house reading.

Then, my brother and I had a parlor trick where he would point to a word in his college textbook and I would read it, although we would do that in the living room because we didn't have a parlor because we weren't characters in a Tennessee Williams play.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] When did you realize that The Monster at the End of the Book had significant meaning in your adult life?

Gary Gulman: Oh, this is a great question. I guess when my friends started having kids and I knew exactly what I was going to get them. For either their first birthday or at some birthday, I would give them The Monster at the End of This Book with a plush Grover doll. I don't know how often I had reread it over the years. I probably took a glance at it when I was giving it to people. Then, I reread it when I was writing my book because I wanted to reference it, and it took on a completely different meaning, which just about every book will do if you read it a second time.

I reread One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest recently, and I can't recommend it to anybody because it's--[ crosstalk]

Alison Stewart: Dark.

Gary Gulman: It's dark, and also the misogyny is gooey. I got different things out of it this time through, and it was very enlightening. I like to recommend people reread something that they loved, even four or five years apart can really be a big difference.

Alison Stewart: We learn a lot about you as a kid in Peabody, Massachusetts, your accent, the whole thing. When you were a kid, did you know you were funny?

Gary Gulman: Yes.

Alison Stewart: You did?

Gary Gulman: Yes. I've always known that was my bread and butter, and just also the fact that I got such pleasure out of being funny and telling jokes and doing impressions of people from TV and movies and in my life, and just the reaction it got. It was a great way to get attention. It was a great way to raise my mood later in life, which is seven and eight and after that when I started to feel depressive symptoms. I've always known I was funny, and I've always known the value of being funny. It was really prized in my house. Along with athletic excellence, being funny was the most important thing in my house.

Alison Stewart: We learn a lot about your family, about how they get along. You're the youngest by a lot.

Gary Gulman: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Did your brothers have a different version of how things were around your house?

Gary Gulman: Well, I'm sure. I'm sure. It's the old Rashomon story where people have different views of it, but I have the best memory of anybody in my family, and I've always known I was going to write all this down someday. I don't know how or why, but early on in my life, I kept telling myself, you need to remember this for a book. I think it started because I thought I was going to be a basketball star, and I read a lot of biographies of Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor.

Bill Russell, I remember, was a great writer of his life, and I thought, I'm going to need to remember things like this like Bill Russell has, so I need to remember these things. I've been taking notes for longer, and I've been trading in these stories for a really long time because it was always part of my personality, was to be funny and tell stories I've sort of reinforced the contents of them.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Gary Gulman. We're talking about Grandiloquent, which is at the Lucille Lortel Theater until February 8th. This is about how you grew up. It's about the way you grew up. It's why you grew up a certain way. You tell one story, we're not going to give it away, but I am going to tell you that you had a teacher who wasn't so great, and you call her [unintelligible 00:16:38].

Gary Gulman: [laughs] Yes.

Alison Stewart: You just keep calling her that.

Gary Gulman: Yes.

Alison Stewart: She has the class vote on whether or not you should stay after school.

Gary Gulman: Yes.

Alison Stewart: What did you think when that happened, when this was happening to you?

Gary Gulman: Initially, I thought, "Well, maybe I'll get out of staying after school." I really held out hope, even though I knew I was not very popular. Then, when it came down, I was like, "Oh, this is the worst humiliation of my life," but also, this was weird. I remember thinking, "Yes, kids, I get it. I'm not the best kid in this class. I misbehaved and I didn't return-- It was over a library book, and I didn't return the library book. I know there are consequences to my actions, and I kind of understood.

I remember people telling me that they had voted against me, and I probably wasn't capable of much rage back then because I didn't become angry, I was like, "Ah, I get it, I get it. I'm going to stay." Yes, it's worth keeping part of it so that they can-- If they come to the show, and please come to the show, then you can see how that resolves.

Alison Stewart: It made me think, this woman should have known better. She should have known better-

Gary Gulman: I know.

Alison Stewart: - than to put kids against kids.

Gary Gulman: No, I know.

Alison Stewart: Thinking back, what could adults do in kids' lives to make their lives better? I know that's a big question,-

Gary Gulman: Sure.

Alison Stewart: - but when you really get down to the base of it, what can adults do so that they can make kids' lives better so they don't have the reactions 10, 20 years down the road?

Gary Gulman: What a wonderful question. This has been a great interview. You ask such excellent questions, and I have an answer to that. I also think we've come so far in what I'm going to say, which is growing up, I felt like I knew my parents better than they knew me because there was always the potential you could get hit or you could be punished severely, or there was also this fear that they could withdraw their love. I'll never forgive you was something my Mother would say, "If you break this stupid tchotchke from the house," which means knickknack in Yiddish, "I'll never forgive you for that."

There was always this fear, and so we had to know what would get us in trouble. I think nowadays, for instance, my friend Jimmy from college, he knows his daughter so well. He knows their favorite books and he knows all their friends and their favorite basketball player on the Celtics, and they know them so well. I think that's really important so that it wouldn't be such a big leap for you to notice that your kid is not behaving the same way they do and to ask some follow-up questions or to have your kid feel comfortable enough to say, "Hey, is this weird that my teacher had the class vote on whether I should stay after school?"

I never thought to bring that up with my family because also, I was afraid of getting in trouble for the thing that caused me to be held after school. I mean, when I think about it now, it's nuts, but it made perfect sense back then.

Alison Stewart: You discover your need to prove yourself to people, even those that love you, by proving that you are on top of a situation, that you have the grandiloquence, or you did, at the bottom of every situation. You do this thing that is so funny where you give us an over-analytical answer to the history of grunge-

Gary Gulman: Yes.

Alison Stewart: With specificity.

Gary Gulman: [laughs] Yes.

Alison Stewart: Did this really happen? Did your wife float something that had you go into quite a long-- [crosstalk]

Gary Gulman: Oh, Alison, the question is not how many times, how often do you do this? Because that is the exact song she asked about. She said, who sings this? It was Show Me How to Live by Audioslave. I know everything about that period of music, and I proceeded to tell her. I mean, it didn't go on for hours, but it went on longer than it does in my show. I brought in everything I knew about every aspect because I've seen every documentary, I've read every book, and I've listened to every album, and I know all the lyrics. I mean, it's heartbreaking for her, but she is so patient. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: It's funny. She just listens through it.

Gary Gulman: [laughs] Yes.

Alison Stewart: Oh my.

Gary Gulman: Yes, but here's the thing. She's an intellectual and very knowledgeable about her subjects, feminism and African American history, and so I get a lot from her. I'll say, have you ever heard of, say, the dozens? She knows, right? She knows the origin of that expression, and it's just riveting.

Alison Stewart: That's very cool. By the way, Kurt Loder and Tabitha Soren, they get a shout out in the show. I appreciate it. I was [unintelligible 00:21:44].

Gary Gulman: Yes. There was a version where I digressed into talking about Tabitha Soren being married to-

Alison Stewart: Michael Lewis.

Gary Gulman: - Michael Lewis. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: This could go on and on.

Gary Gulman: Yes, but that's another nine hours of Moneyball, right?

Alison Stewart: You also mentioned that you go to a therapist, or you did,-

Gary Gulman: I do.

Alison Stewart: Oh, that deals with comedians.

Gary Gulman: I had him this morning.

Alison Stewart: Oh, okay.

Gary Gulman: Yes. Well, not only comedians, but I always either-- not always, but frequently a comedian is coming out, or as I'm leaving, a comedian is coming in.

Alison Stewart: Is he different from other therapists?

Gary Gulman: Yes, because you don't have to explain to him the toxic nature of the comedy scene. You don't have to say, "Oh, this booker at this club," he knows that person and is familiar and has insights that it would probably take months for your regular therapist. I had a great therapist in college and after, but I had to explain to him the entire world that was new to me of standup comedy and show business, where Alan Lefkowitz knows these situations that I'm talking about.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Gary Gulman. The name of the show is Grandiloquent. It's the Lucille Lortel Theater until February 8th. Let me talk to you about the show a little bit, because the show I went to, somebody's phone went off.

Gary Gulman: Oh, right, and it played a guitar riff, like a blues guitar riff. Yes.

Alison Stewart: You took a moment and you did a bit on it.

Gary Gulman: Yes.

Alison Stewart: I wondered why you did a bit on it. You-

Gary Gulman: Because I'm crazy.

Alison Stewart: - could have just let it go.

Gary Gulman: I should have just let it go, but I couldn't get it out of my head that it-- but also, I did it one time at a play, and it wasn't a guitar riff, it was the Peanuts theme. I was mortified. I tried to give the person grace. Then, I thought of the aspect of blues that I find very interesting, which is that in at least two cases, George Thorogood's Bad to the Bone and then Seventh Son by Willie Dixon, they talk about nurses gathering around and condemning an infant to a life of misery and blues and crime in Bad to the Bone, and I'm like, these nurses should not be gathering around and fading these kids.

I talked about that and then I got back to my ac, but I guess it would have been more disciplined and maybe kept us into the show better if I had not gone off on that. Also, it's a little bit of a showing off. If my mother was-- she would say, "Oh, look at him. He's showing off his knowledge of the blues. He couldn't let that opportunity pass by."

Alison Stewart: You get emotional during the show.

Gary Gulman: Sure.

Alison Stewart: Is it hard to do it each night? Does it happen at the same place each night?

Gary Gulman: No, it doesn't happen in the same place each night. As an actor, I know that you build in attachments within the script, which, even though I wrote it, it's still a script that I had to memorize, and certain things will pop up and certain people or certain events will pop up and you'll get emotional, and that's good. It's just a matter of getting it out without breaking up the-- because you want the words to be heard, which is essential. Also, my director was just saying that that's what you want to get out. They don't mind experiencing this with you, but get the words out, and so that's such a great note.

It's been really interesting because I performed that show in front of just the director and our stage manager, Madison, and I didn't get emotional during it, but then-

Alison Stewart: Oh, interesting.

Gary Gulman: - in front of an audience and I guess the stakes and the situation, it became more than just an exercise in technique, and I felt a lot of those moments.

Alison Stewart: You have so many good bookish jokes. Pynchon, Philip Roth, [unintelligible 00:26:02], as we talked about. Who's your favorite author or a book you really like right now?

Gary Gulman: Well, I think the best author, American author, because I don't read in any other language but English, I think the best one was Toni Morrison, but the author I've read all of is Kurt Vonnegut. I haven't yet read all of Toni Morrison, but the author I've read all of is Kurt Vonnegut and Philip Roth. I guess I would have to say they're my favorite, but I'm in awe of every sentence Toni Morrison writes. I just can't get over the depth and just the beauty of the words. I mean, it's really humbling to read her and some of the other authors that I love almost to the point where, well, why bother? Then, you-- [crosstalk]

Alison Stewart: Well, everyone should bother, [inaudible 00:27:01] [crosstalk]

Gary Gulman: Right. You get feedback from people who say, well, that speaks to a uniqueness in me, and so I think it's really important. Kurt Vonnegut always says, even if you just put it into a drawer, write, and I think that's such great advice, and I'm so glad I took it.

Alison Stewart: Gary Gulman, Grandiloquent will be at the Lucille Lortel Theater until February 8th. It's really nice to meet you.

Gary Gulman: It was an honor and a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me, Alison.