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

This episode of Better in Person is presented by ChatGPT. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Download the new ChatGPT desktop app today. Hey there. Steven Dubner. This is the third episode of a new video interview show we're making called Better In Person. Today's guest is the comedian Gary Goleman. You are going to love him. I guarantee. If you want the full video experience, go to the Freakonomics YouTube channel. It looks good on your phone, but it looks great on a bigger screen. You can also watch it on Apple Podcasts. Just search for better in person, but we also made this audio version for the Freakonomics feed in case you don't wanna be distracted by the video. We aim to please. As always, thanks for listening, and now thanks for watching too. What do you have to understand about show business is the hyperbole is at such a high level that if they love you, it means they don't wanna work with you, but but they think you're pretty good. If they're obsessed with you, then they'd like to work with you, but if this fails, it's all over. You'll never hear from them again. And then I don't know what the next level will be. I want to I want to chop you up in a Cuisinart and drink you like a smoothie, and that will mean that that they would like to make your project. This is Better in Person with Stephen Dubner and Gary Goleman. You gotta choose one word to describe the comedian Gary Goldman. It might be kind, which is not a word you associate with comedians very often. He's also tall, six foot six, which helps make him good at basketball. Back. He's also smart. He enunciates beautifully. He's got an amazing vocabulary, and he wrote a really nice memoir called Misfit, Growing Up Awkward in the eighties. And, yes, he is wickedly funny. Consider his first HBO special, The Great Depression. I still see a therapist. I I believe I broke him on Monday. Yeah. I was leaving his office, and I was shutting the door, and I heard him go A show about one man's depression should not be funny, but this one is, and it's also deeply human. Goldman's honesty makes his fans love him even more, and now I also love Gary Gullman. I mean it. That's not hyperbole. So I make this, podcast, Freakonomics Radio, which is very research intensive. And my producers for this show have been telling me that I need to back off, that I get over prepared, and I get a little paralyzed. So for you, I've done zero. Okay. I know your first name is Gary. No. It's not like you're an accountant, understand. I I was I was an accountant. That was what I studied in in college, so my profession is accountant. But then but then I've I've taken this this side gig …