I was not a fan of Mike Birbiglia. ‘Was’ is the operative word in there. For the uninitiated that would imply that either my mind has changed or that he has died. Well, he definitely isn’t dead. No, somehow he’s won me over.
I first saw Mike Birbiglia do stand up at my college in our basement cafeteria up in Riverdale. At this point in my life I loved stand up comedy and figured why not. Why not go see some free comedy. But in retrospect as much as loved stand up comedy, I didn’t fully understand it. Which looking back might be why I didn’t fully sign off on Mike Birbiglia just yet. See, growing up I saw all the big stand up specials, from Eddie Murphy–’Raw’, to Dave Chappelle–’Killing Them Softly’, to even Dane Cook (and I won’t cop out, I was definitely a fan back then). I knew the greats, like Richard Pryor and Chris Rock, but what I knew of all these stand ups and their specials were only the finished products. I was completely unaware of how they made the sausage. I’ve since dug deeper and been to open mics and seen comedians early on in their tours and realized this one thing. Mike Birbiglia in my alma mater’s basement cafeteria was just the beginning of something much bigger that yet again in retrospect I should’ve appreciated. For a long time I refused to listen to people when after seeing his special would tell me he was funny. I refused to believe I was wrong. Now here’s the point where I should explain why I’ve taken the first paragraph and a half in an article about Mike Birbiglia and more accurately his new special ‘My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend’, and spent it talking about me. Because whether Mike Birbiglia knows it or not or even cares, I’d like to openly admit I was wrong, and since we both live in Brooklyn if he ever sees me, or more likely if I ever see him I’ll be sure to buy him a beer. And if he some how were to read this (he wont) I think he would appreciate my concession as he admittedly is very caught up in being right.
Mike Birbiglia is right. Which could easily be an alternate title for the special. He’s right, for right now. Comedy has hit that part in existence where we’re all a bit more intelligent of spectators. We’re in on the joke so to speak, pardon the incidental pun. Much in the way that the debate of wrestling being fake or not is actually no longer a debate so to is the debate of whether a certain comedian has told a certain joke before. The internet has pulled back the curtains. And that’s a good thing. We all understand the art more. It’s no longer about how loud and how big you can be, it’s just about how good. I don’t think Mike Birbiglia would work on a large rotating circular stage in Madison Square Garden, but I do think he works. His movie ‘Sleep Walk With Me’, which predates this special, was funny in the way that a smart independent film is funny. It’s clever, it’s intriguing and almost most importantly it’s insightful. It’s not riotously funny, but it is funny. Not being a fan of his I was unaware of the fact that this is how his stand up comedy worked. Furthermore his stand up wouldn’t translate into a TV show very well but it would make a great movie; case in point, ‘Sleep Walk With Me’. When you listen and watch you can almost see the movie that’s playing in his head, and it’s a wonderful ride. He’s an extremely interesting person and I now regret not taking the opportunity back in my school to possibly chat him up.
As far as stand up specials go, I’m not sure if this is a really good stand up special, but it is just simply really good. What I mean by that is if one liner comics are on one end of the spectrum of comedy acts, then Mike Birbiglia is on the exact polar opposite side. And if I’m being honest this isn’t the world’s funniest special ever(it’s still very funny), but it is probably the most moving. Which is an adjective not normally attributed to a stand up show. Mike Birbiglia isn’t telling you a bunch of jokes that you can later build episodes of a show around, as I stated already. No, instead he’s telling you an engaging story that he’s carefully built some jokes around. This is going to sound like the weirdest endorsement ever, and obviously you can’t do this, but if you could and if you had to pick a stand up special to be your wedding song, then I would have to pick this one. Which I hate to continue to make qualifications for it, but admittedly it isn’t my favorite “stand up” special ever, but that’s only because I’m not sure I would designate this as purely a stand up routine. But it is my favorite something. I’m not sure what that means or if that makes sense, but “…it’s just how I feel”, and I think you’ll understand once you see it too.
About Matt Cargile
Matt Cargile is the Editor in Chief of rookerville.com. He also works in finance, but refuses to read any news printed on pink paper. He is a child at heart with adult means. His childhood dream was to either become a magician or the leader of the next great empire and somehow both these things make complete sense. He's contradictory in nature, but is always consistent.
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