September 15, 2025 • 42 mins
Join Lynn Hoffman for this new episode of Comedy Saved Me with Greg Fitzsimmons. Greg has built a career balancing sharp wit with raw honesty. Greg opens up about how humor helped him navigate life's toughest blows, why pain can fuel some of the most memorable material, and how the comedy stage became both his battleground and sanctuary.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Comedy Saved Me.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to Comedy Saved Me, a podcast where comedians and
entertainers reveal how humor carried them through life's toughest moments
and also share profound ways that they've even witnessed comedy
bringing healing to others. I'm your host, Lynn Hoffman, and
today's guest needs little introduction, but I'm going to give
him one anyway, because you've worked hard. Greg Fitzsimmons is
(00:25):
a beloved Emmy Award winning comedian, writer, actor, podcast host,
and prolific guest on shows like Howard Stern, Joe Rogan,
Adam Carolla. The list just is almost too long to mention,
and his sharp wit and honest, self deprecating storytelling has
earned him a huge.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Devoted following.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
He's also a cool I didn't know this, a pioneer
in comedy podcasting, launching Fitzdog Radio way back in two
thousand and nine. So beyond the laughs, Greg's journey is
one of resilience, using comedy not just as a career,
as a lifeline during his darkest moments, and lucky me,
he is here to talk to us all about it.
(01:05):
Greg Fitzsimmons, Welcome to comedy save me. It's such a
pleasure to have you here and a fellow Boston native too,
so that makes me happy.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Well, thank you for the warm intro. I do have
to correct one thing you said self deprecating, but I
would also throw in like a lot of other people
deprecate me as well, so it's not it's not just
me they I take my cue from them. When you've
been deprecated by enough people, you go like a right,
I guess I'll jump in. I guess I'll let join
in on it. I love it.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
And also I want to start off by congratulating you
on something that maybe people probably know who have seen you,
but if they're just tuning in now and meeting you
for the first time, something that blew me away was
that you have been sober for I want to say
more than three decades, thirty.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Five few years. Sure, that's huge.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
That's I learned this early on with my dad that
most people don't make it past five years without going
back and relapsing, and so that's like a massive feet
in and of itself.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Well, thank you. Yeah, it was a decision that I made. Well,
first of all, I slipped once in thirty five years
for one night, and it was the night that was
Kevin Meanie's funeral. Who I'm sure you knew he was
around Boston when you were there, I sank, I've interviewed him.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
One of my all time favorite Commadians of all time.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah, yeah, he's lovely, just one of the greatest. So
that was the moment. But I quit my father. It's
funny my father was an alcoholic. But I grew up
in New York in an area where all my friend's
parents were alcoholics. It's like it's almost like you find
each other like adult children or children of alcoholics. I
(02:46):
should say, we were broken toys and we find each
other like through the anger, through the maybe there's something
in your eyes. And so I never thought it was
unusual that there was this much drinking. Not all my reals,
A lot of my relatives also were alcoholics. And so
(03:07):
when I got to Boston, somebody brought me to an
adult child of alcoholics meeting and I sat there and
I heard people qualify about their lives and the dynamics
of what it's like to be, you know, codependent, and
the guilt and the shame and the control, and I
just burst out crying. The first time, I was like,
(03:28):
oh my god, this is I didn't feel alone. And
that led me to quit drinking probably about a year later.
And I feel like I owe a lot of the
positive things of my life to stopping I bet.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Well, can you take us back a little bit, sort
of paint a picture around the first time you realized
that comedy would be more than just something that you
consumed and more something that you could use to navigate
the world.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Did that come into play? Well, the first time I
did it, it was actually it was it was my
senior year of high school, and I was I was
all coped up and I'd been drinking, so that kind
of didn't count. That was just pure euphoria. I got
off stage. I was chopping up lines on the on
the slide at the playground at the school, and uh,
(04:18):
and I went up on stage and I started roasting
the teachers, and so the principal unplugged my micro Folks.
I was talking about how the Western cief teacher was
having an affair with the art teacher and uh, and
they unplugged my mic and so I just yelled out
the rest of my act without a microphone to the auditorium.
Because it was like it was like a talent night.
(04:38):
Everybody else was singing songs and whatever, and I got
up and did stand up comedy, which you know, in
nineteen eighty four there wasn't that much stand up around.
No there was decided to do to roast them.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Was it a last minute decision or did you know
what you were going to do.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I think it's what my father was in radio, as
Buzz was just talking about, which is very thrilling to
hear that. I love when anybody knew my dad because
it's he died so young that I just I miss
him and I love connections to him. He was he
was only fifty three when he died, and I know,
and I'm fifty nine, So it's weird. It's weird to
(05:18):
live past your parents, that's for sure. And so he
was a master of ceremonies for a lot of benefits.
He would do beauty contests, award shows, and so he
put on his tuxedo and he'd bring me with him
when I was like, you know, i'd be like ten
years old and I would watch him go up there,
(05:40):
and he had joke jokes, you know, like street jokes.
He had. He would roast, you know, whoever was running
the event, and he went right after them because he
knew that that was going to get the biggest laughs.
And he told stories about his life a little bit,
but it was like, essentially he was doing stand up comedy.
I mean, you wouldn't have called it that then, you
would have called it, I'm seeing a dinner. But I
(06:02):
think I learned a lot of my style. I have
old audio tapes with my dad's radio shows, and I
have a video of him hosting one of these dinners,
and I go back and I go, holy shit, that's me,
that's my I so much of my voice is influenced
by how he did it, you know. Yeah, yeah, certainly
(06:23):
lead by example.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Certain he probably didn't even realize he was leading you
by example at that point.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Don't I don't think so. But we went to the
clubs in New York City my whole teen years. We
used to sneak into the clubs. When I was like
sixteen seventeen, I'd be at the Comedy Seller watching Seinfeld
and Paul Riiser and Richard Belzer, and we, you know,
we used to heckle them. We were like little drunk teenagers,
(06:51):
the comedians I'm like, I'm embarrassed when I think back
that we were those guys and the like we went
hackle it but like if they did a joke, we
would add like a tagline to their joke. We thought, well,
that's what we thought. We thought we were helping them,
and we thought we're part of the show, and then
(07:11):
they'd make fun of us and they'd get big laughs.
We felt like we were helping them there too, and
but I realized looking back and we were probably just
really annoying to them.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Wow, that's amazing. And your dad also was the host
of I believe Good Day in New York.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
For a while. Yeah, he was the first host of
Good Day New York and he was there for not
very long because there was there was some politics involved,
and my mom will tell me a lot of stories
about it, but my mom is a storyteller, and I
never know what's true and what's not. But but yeah,
(07:47):
he launched it and then but he mostly did radio
and then he hosted the Jerry Lewis Telethon for last
fifteen years. I remember that. That's amazing. Yeah, so people
don't always really that, Like Jerry Lewis would host forty
five minutes and then fifteen minutes would be the local stations,
whether it was Chicago or Boston. And so he was
(08:08):
the New York guy. And he did it with Tony
Orlando for years wow. And then he did it with
Patty Duke Aston for a long time. Wow. And and
we used to go down every year. We'd volunteer, we'd
help out, and it was thirty six hours long and
he would go straight through. It was crazy.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I bet yeah, I'm from my kid childhood. I would
just remember the yelling like Timbudy.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
He would scream and they would do the big rollout.
It was amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And then Jerry would always
sing You'll never walk alone again at the end, which
was always funny because these kids can walk. I know,
everyone's crying, like does he not? Oh my right right? Well?
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Growing up in Terrytown, did humor play a role in
your family dynamics, like with comedy, sort of like a
shield or maybe a bonding tool or maybe a little
bit both.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
For you, Yeah, I mean it's very much. Part of
the Irish culture is the storytelling. We famously are just
great storytellers. And there's also this we keep each other
in check if somebody starts to get any kind of
an ego, you immediately ripped them down again. So our
(09:21):
dinner table was a lot of that. It was a
lot of you know, we just roasted each other and
we told stories from our day. And my father was
this bigger than life guy. You know, he really had
more charisma, I think than anybody I've ever met my life.
He was just phenomenal guy. And you know, he had issues,
(09:44):
but at the end of the day, like we wanted
his approval. Making him laugh was a big deal. And
my mom had a great sense of humor. So the
dinner table felt like the first stage for me. I
think that I performed at and I kind of shined.
I was kind of the funny one at the table.
It was like me and my dad kind of and
(10:05):
then my sister was the great laugh of all time.
And my brother just kind of listened and smiled, and
he didn't he didn't usually add that much.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
He just took it all. It was he the youngest, No,
he was a year older older. Wow, what's your earliest
memory of maybe using humor to get out of trouble?
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Did you ever do that? Well? I wrote a book
called Dear Missus Fitzsimmons Tales of Redemption from an Irish
Mailbox and it's I found this, uh, this box in
my We were going through my aunt's basement in the
Bronx and we found this box that my mom had saved,
and it was a collection of all the letters that
(10:43):
got sent home from school when I was in trouble,
the funniest stories, like each one of them. You read
it and you can be like, I can't believe a
teacher would write this and then send it home. It
would be telling stories about, you know, how I jumped
out of the window of the classroom wearing a cape
during French class, and so it was kind of showing
(11:03):
how the Irish will always buck up against authority. And
it was this whole pattern of me acting up in
school and so I and I would get away with
it because my parents would sit at the dinner table
and they'd read the letter and I would sit there
not going because I could get hit, I could get
slapped for or I would get a huge laugh out
(11:25):
of it, and it would become like a legendary story
they would tell over and over again because they thought
it was funny. If you got in trouble, but it
was funny. Then they were behind it, so.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
It was so if it was a good story at Thanksgiving,
you were redeemed.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yes, that's hilarious. Yeah it was. You know. One of
them was about Greg was in geometry class and we
were teaching positions on fractions. Greg then yelled at are
there any other positions? Is there a sixty nine position?
She literally wrote that out and sent it home and
(12:03):
my parents were dying. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, my god. Well,
the premise of this show is called Comedy Saved Me.
Here we go. Now we're gonna get all serious. I'm
gonna get a little serious.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Can you Is there a moment in your life where
you can truly say you know that without comedy you
might have been stuck in a darker place in life.
I mean that's not too serious, but just sort of
in retrospect.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yeah, I remember. I mean I've had a lot of
friends die, I've had an unbelievably like death filled life,
and the Irish Wake was always something that put things
in perspective and made you think about how life shouldn't
be defined by your death. It should be defined by
the people you touched and the laughter that you gave.
(12:52):
And so the Irish wake is just your close friends
and family getting up and regaling everybody with the great
stories of your life and including roasting you, you know,
making fun of you and the things that were ridiculous
about you. You know. I don't remember that with my
father very much because it was so tragic. But like
(13:17):
my friend Jerror ed Wilson died and he was a
fellow comic and we were probably about twenty nine or something,
and he was a school future from Queen's grew up
or and stumbled into stand up and he was just
like Jackie Gleeson. He was just like this, you know,
presence in the room and he just immediately just had
(13:38):
star power. And he got signed to a deal and
he had his own sitcom on CBS, and he was
he flew over to Hawaii to do an episode of
Hawaii five. Oho had just been brought back and he
was doing an episode and he caught spinal meningitis and
went into a coma and died. And my wife and
(13:59):
I were like, you know, closest friends with him and
his wife. It was awful, and we had the funeral
and then we were out in Queen's at a restaurant
and Jerry's father said to me, would you mind getting
it up and saying a few words, And he goes
and invite any of the other comedians to get up
to speak. So I got up and I did ten
(14:20):
of fifteen minutes of great Jerry Red stories. And the
whole everybody at the gathering was Irish Catholic New Yorkers
and I'm talented and I am people are just exploding.
They needed to laugh so bad. He had just gotten
engaged on the Tonight Show. He asked Kathleen to marry
(14:41):
him on the Tonight Show like a month before and
so and then I brought up I brought up David Tell,
I brought up Colin Quinn, I brought up I want
to say, Jeff Ross was there, and everybody, everybody just
told funny stories and it went on for like an hour,
over an hour, and at the end of it, people
(15:03):
are wiping tears. And the father said, we need to
do this every year. So I started a foundation called
the Jerry Red Wilson Foundation with his fiance, and we
held a show a year later at Carolines Comedy Club
and all the family, all the friends, came out, it
sold out so fast that the next year we did
(15:25):
it at town Hall, which holds like sixteen hundred people,
and we invited all his friends and family, and then
we had some of the biggest comedians around. John Stewart
did it and Jay Leno did it, and everybody knew
Jerry and loved him, so they were willing to come
on and do the show. And we did it for
like ten years every year at town Hall, and we
(15:48):
raised hundreds of thousand of dollars that we gave to
the Meningitis Foundation. And it was just a when we
put together a video compilation reel that we would show
at the beginning of the show because some people there
did know who Jerry was and wanted to keep that
keep his spirit alive. And uh yeah, that was That
was something where a laughter did a lot of healing.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, And I have been to a few Irish wakes,
so I know exactly what you're talking about. And I
think I think all all funerals should be like that,
you know, celebrations of life.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah. Yeah, I think you should videotape them and then
you have that to look back on for for years.
That that to me is the ultimate scrap book is
the and now that's my thing is then no matter
what funeral I go to, people asked me to get
up and speak like my friend Dave Hallana, like I
played poker with a bunch of guys here and I
(16:42):
live in Venice Beach and we played for twenty years.
And there was one guy in the group, Dave Halenan,
who died tragically young as well. He was probably not
much older than my dad and with two young kids.
And it was the kind of thing where we went
to the funeral and Dave was not one of my
best friends. He was like a guy that I knew
(17:03):
from poker night. But the wife came up and said,
we want you to speak in the funeral, and I
was like what. So I had like a couple of days.
So what I always do is I just talked to
the loved ones and the family. I go, what was
your favorite Dave story? And I just collect them and
I tell them for them, because they don't they are
(17:24):
afraid to get up and do it. And so I
told my own stories that I had about them, and
then and then I told other people's and then afterwards.
People just give you this sixty second hug like, thank
you for doing that for all of us.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Greg Fitzsimmons's funeral Roaster. I could see it's a whole
business now, you could you.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Could, you could see that. I could see that. You know,
you're always looking for an angle in this world, but
that's the best angle of all right, Right, And when
people just lost somebody, I've seen this from funeral homes,
you can gouge them on the money. I could, I
could a tremendous amount. Oh I wasn't even thinking of
the money part of it. Oh No, I'll do. I'll
(18:08):
have a website. You can book me online. Just give me,
give me a couple of details, and I'll fly into
Saint Louis. Some bullet points of your loved one and
I am there. Wow, you know I'm not. They were shocked,
and don't send bullet points. That would be too dark. Yeah,
we'll be right back with more of the comedy Save
Me Podcast. Welcome back to the Comedy Save Me Podcast.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Did getting laughs throughout your career sort of give you
a sense of control or empowerment maybe when things felt overwhelming?
Speaker 1 (18:49):
What did that feel like to you when you sort.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Of really were winning them over, like that outside of
the funerals, of course, I mean on the in the comedy.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Show, like on stage.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, Like, what was it that kept you going to
doing it?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
That feeling? Yeah, I think it is. It is. I
think a lot of comedians have social anxiety, and I
think it's one of those things where you sometimes you
take your worst fear and you throw yourself straight at
it to prove that you can conquer it. And I mean,
I don't think many people would think of me as
having social anxiety, but I really do. And when I
(19:24):
get up on stage, I can I can conquer that
and it makes me feel more in control of my life.
It's very funny because I like this past weekend, I
was in San Diego and my friend text me. He's like, Hey,
can you get my friends on the guest list? And
I said, I don't really do that. I said, I don't.
I don't like people coming to my shows that I
(19:46):
know or even know, because I just like a crowd
of people that are strangers and if there's somebody out
there that I know, it makes me very uncomfortable. I mean,
I can do it, but what I'll do is I'll
do two shows a year in La where I invite
all my friends and family to come out, get it
over with, and I get it out of the way,
(20:07):
get it over with. They're all there at once, and
I can deal with it, but I don't like it
trickling in constantly because I'm really nervous before I go on,
and when I get off, I don't want to talk
to anybody like I want to talk to the other
comedians because like they're my brethren and they're like, they
know what I just went through on stage, and I'm not.
(20:29):
I don't want my friend said, oh, you know me,
my friend, he's a great guy you love. I won't
love him. I will not love somebody that just came
out of the crowd, because it's not like what I
just did with them is a trick. And now they
think I'm that guy. They think I'm the guy that's hey,
you know, like, and I'm not that guy at all,
(20:50):
And I never want to be that guy when I'm
not on stage, Like I've grown past that. I'm no
longer like the funny guy off stage understood. I'm kind
of serious and that's the place where I can control
my situation. I don't want to control my life like
stand up comedy is a very alpha kind of experience,
(21:13):
and it forces you to wear a mask as much
as you don't want to. I mean, I think the
journey of doing stand up is to not wear a mask,
but you always are, you know, anybody is. I don't
like like like One of the kind of oddest sad
moments in my life is my son came and saw
(21:34):
me for the first time when he was probably about
maybe sixteen or so, and we were in Denver and
they came out because we're going to go skiing after
my show. So I said to my son, why do
you come see me do a show? Finally it's time.
So my daughter took my wife out to dinner and
my son came to the show and I went up
and it's one of my favorite clubs and it was
sold out, and I just crushed, you know, he was
(21:57):
out there and I wanted to do well, and I
mean it was just applause breaks throughout it, standing ovation.
And then we walked out and we went to get
a slice of pizza and he's like he's looking at
me and he's like, Dad, that's the hardest I've ever
left in my life. He's like that was amazing, like
how do you think of that stuff? And all of
a sudden he was asking men, he questions the way
(22:19):
a fan would after a show. It made me feel
like it was corrupting my relationship with him, because there's
a power dynamic when somebody sees you do stand up
comedy at a high level and they suddenly put you
up on a pedestal and they suddenly don't really understand you.
And I never wanted that dynamic in my relationship with
(22:41):
my son. I wanted to be I'm the guy that
played cats with you. I'm the guy that made go
karts with you. I'm the guy that you come to
and tell me when you're sad, if you're looking up
to me. It's creating a real distance between us. So
what did you tell him? I just was weirded out,
you know. I answered the questions, but there was nothing
(23:02):
I could do. It was like we'd shattered something you
really I didn't want shattered a little bit.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
I mean that just first of all, the fact that
you felt that way is amazing. Most people would say,
don't don't, don't give away the secret that you're not
on this pedestal. But it's such a smart thing to
want to instill in your kid that you know, dad's dad.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That's what I do for work. Well, yeah, because but
also how could you not.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Quell a little bit that he'd laughed so hard, never
laughed so hard in his life, and you're his dad because.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
He already loves me. He already loves me. I don't.
I don't want to be that controlling guy when I'm
on stage, I'm controlling the crowd. I'm I'm establishing a
power relationship between us that I don't want with him,
and I don't like it with my friends. I hate
when my friends comes to him. You do stand up
(23:54):
give me one reason for that same reason, just that
I don't want to feel better than that. And when
I come off stage, I feel better than every single
person in the audience because they did not speak one
word for an hour, and I talked NonStop and they
did nothing but give me adulation and acceptance. And I
(24:17):
then walk out and now I'm going to talk to
one of these people like we're equals. And so I
don't like that feeling because it's not unique to me.
I'm just saying that's the experience of being a stand
up comic. If being any kind of a celebrity, you know,
like I always feel for big celebrities because they don't
(24:38):
ever know who wants something from them or who is
just so blown away that they're famous that they're never
going to have an equal kind of an exchange anymore.
Like I have friends that get famous and I feel
it go away, Like I feel myself getting a little
bit different around them than I was before. So you know,
(25:01):
I have friends that I grew up with that don't
think of me that way at all, because they just don't.
The ones that stay my friends are the ones that
don't think of me different, not that I'm a celebrity,
but like I keep you grounded.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
They treat you like a normal human being, not some
famous person.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, and I do think that's kind of people will say,
like I always make a joke like I crawled my
way to the middle and I'm staying right there. This
is the sweet spot. And I really do feel like that.
I feel like, like my father said to me when
I was young, we were talking about why are some
people garbage men and some people are head of company?
He goes, everybody ends up where they want to be,
(25:44):
And I think that's a truism. I think that I
got to a certain level in this business and I
kind of went I'm comfortable. You know, I've got a
wife who I am not away from fifty two weeks
a year, which I would be if I was going
after this more. I'm not overly obsessed. I've gone to
therapy and worked on any narcissistic impulses I have. And
(26:07):
it's a battle to not make it all about myself.
But it's a battle that I show up for, you know,
and I don't want to be I go on the
road sometimes and I'll open for Bert Kreischer in an
arena with fifteen thousand people and he's got a staff
of fifty people on the road with him, and like,
that's a nightmare to me. I go down to Lahoy
(26:29):
with my wife and we stay in a hotel and
you know, we go to the beach during the day,
and you know, I show up to the show with
no baggage, no assistant, and you know, and I make
a very nice living and I don't really want for anything.
I'm able to be creative without having to deal with
being on social media seven hours a day building up
(26:51):
my following, and like I kind of ignore social media
and I just do the things that I enjoy doing.
And I've been lucky enough to this all worked out.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Yeah, you are, And it's amazing to me because, first
of all, the fact that you suffer from anxiety just
blows me away. But yet I understand it because every
time I'm about to talk to somebody new, I have
a little bit of anxiety as well. I also totally
relate to you when you're talking about your friends and
people that you know, because you don't want to seem
(27:24):
like you're better than them just because you're doing something
that you love and you're getting the adoration of other people.
I totally get where you're coming from.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah, I think respect is something that you earned through
your character and your loyalty and your generosity, and not
through how a bunch of other people are seeing me
and you go like and you see that dynamic, and
somehow it affects how you respect that. That's not respect,
that's just like a curiosity.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Yeah, Greg, I wanted to take everybody with me when
I moved to New York to work in television, and
I wanted to take everybody with me when I got
to the radio station. When celebrities would come in, or
we'd go to concerts. You know, oh Lynn needs sixteen
tickets for all of her friends and their husbands and kids,
because I didn't want to experience it alone. I wanted
(28:17):
them to have that same experience. But it got a
lot fast though, because I couldn't take everyone with me.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, well, yeah, I know. And it's it's hard too,
because like, if you really want to do your best,
you know, I'll get a text, I I if somebody's
on my guest list, I'll get a text ten minutes
before I'm about to go on, Hey my name's not
on the list, or hey I bought somebody extra can
you add? No, That's not where my head is at
(28:44):
right now. I'm trying to get focused. I'm nervous, and
you know, it's just you're trying to be a pro
and you're trying to do you know, the world that
you're in, in the world I'm in, is extremely competitive,
and if you're not giving it one hundred percent, you're
not going to make it. You're not going to keep going.
(29:04):
And I see comics that always have friends at their
shows and they're drinking during the show, and they don't
progress I see a lot of comics that get high
before they go on stage and they just slatline. They
never get better. And you guys that show up late
for auditions and they just like, hey, so you you
(29:27):
just didn't get it because you didn't show up on time.
And I think I learned that from my dad, who
was in radio, was like, show up on time, be
a pro. You know, remember people's names, just basics that
you would need in any business, just because it's show business,
especially in stand up where my workplace is a bar
(29:47):
where everybody's drinking at night, so it's very easy to
slip into being a part of that instead of realizing, no,
I'm an employee at this place. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
So true, and a lot of people would never know.
And it's so nice to hear you say it because
you know it's important. I don't know, I think in
general for just understanding people, and especially people who've been
through therapy, of which you've been open about, and you've
talked about mental health as you've done even on this podcast,
(30:18):
And I'm curious how humor intersects with that journey of yours.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
I mean, do you.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Ever use comedy as therapy in and of itself or
do you keep the two of them completely separate.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
So yeah, so I had this amazing therapists and sometimes
I would come in with a full head of esteem
and I would have my anecdotes from the week that
I wanted to talk about, like something that happened, and
she would go, you're performing right now, ooh, And I
knew that meant that I wasn't. I had the mask
(30:51):
on a little bit, you know. I was controlling my
emotions and our interaction by being funny. So not that
there's not a place for humor in therapy, but it
was a little too pat She'd call me when it
was a little too pat like to tie down, and
so that was very helpful. Was it nerves too, Yeah,
(31:16):
I think it was nerves, and yeah, the fear of
having to go to the actual emotions. I mean, I
think that My best friend is the guy who is
very Irish Catholic. His father and my father grew up
in the Bronx together, and our daughters are best friends.
So it's three generations of dysfunction and he laughs through.
(31:39):
He's a huge comedy writer. We were best friends since
college and we both went in different directions and now
we're both like we end up working on TV shows together.
So we've written on TV shows together, and we didn't
help each other get the job. We just ended up
on them after thirty five years of knowing each other. Wow.
And he can mask anything with comedy and I have
(32:02):
to call him on it sometimes. I think there is
a way to use it productively. If it's organic and
if it's a moment of discovery and you laugh, that's great,
But if it's a moment of presentation, then that's like.
I think that a lot of my jokes start with
something like I had a rectile dysfunction. I did, and
(32:27):
I went to laugh right off the Oh yeah, I
won't go on stage, and I said, I was in
Middlesex and I had my first bout of a rectile dysfunction.
And there's nervous laughter. And sometimes I don't even know
what I'm going to say next, but I know that
if I say it on stage and all these people
are looking at me, I'm going to come up with
something that's going to relieve the tension. And then I
(32:47):
do get out in there.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
You don't even know where you're going to say next, No, WHOA,
that is risky yep.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
But it brings me back to the kitchen table as
a kid, where in the moment I have to think
of something funny and if I do, I get a reward,
I get my parents acceptance. And so I've created that
dynamic on stage, and then the joke will kind of
build from there, and then I'll start writing out the
joke once I'm off stage, and then I'll it's kind
(33:19):
of like you germinate off stage, you know, writing and
then you bring it on stage, and it's sort of
like you cook it and it goes back and forth
that process. And so a lot of my jokes are
very personal, and a lot of them do make people
uncomfortable when I first talk about them. I'll talk about
(33:40):
abortion or you know, a racist thought that I had,
I'll say it out loud, but then I'll make a
joke about it in a way that makes people realize
I'm not a racist, but that I had a racist thought,
you know, things like that. So as but as far
as like therapy, I think that that can be a
(34:03):
place that jokes start because it's a place where you
are maybe having epiphanies about yourself you wouldn't have had
in a place that's not as vulnerable.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Yeah, and vulnerable is definitely the world and that is dangerous. Like,
I give you so much credit that you would actually
start a joke on stage that you didn't even work out,
and that you would remember it after the show to
go back and make it even like massage it.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Well. I videotape everything, I audio tape everything, and I
listened to every day. I listened to my show the
next day, and I write down notes on what I did. Wow,
that's helpful.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
I keep going back to the anxiety part because how
many times did you do Joe Rogan?
Speaker 1 (34:43):
How many times? When you're on.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Howard Stern, it's like you're a glutton for punishment. Then
if you're have such anxiety, but yet you keep going
back to all of these incredibly huge shows with massive audiences.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
And put yourself out there. Yeah, which just amazing to me.
Yeah I did. I did Stern like fifty times, and
I've been on Rogan like twenty five times. And it's
always like jumping out of a plane. Wow, it's like
you show up sometimes you get really nervous, Like Stern,
I could never sleep the night before and I would
stay up with all the news bizz before the Internet
(35:15):
when I started, and I would just get the New
York Post in USA Today and the daily News, and
I would just sit there and I would write jokes
out of the news I would show. I write out
stories for my life, stuff that I talked to. I
went on Howard Stern one time. I literally, for the
first time in my life, I shared something with my
(35:35):
wife and our good friends at a dinner that I
had kept inside that I was embarrassed about and couldn't
talk about. And I shared it with them, and then
five days later I was on Howard Stern and I
said it to the world, and it was that when
I was in college, I thought about being gay, and
(35:56):
so I went into this area of Boston that's it's
the woods, and it's a gay woods, and I went
in there to I don't know how dirty or show is,
but we first.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Of all, I'm from Boston, so I'm trying to figure
out where this was. Fay oh okay, okay, yeah, yeah,
I'm thinking woods like you went into the forest.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Well, every city has a small wooded area that they
grow just for gay guys to have anonymous sex. Okay,
And that's the fan right behind Fenway Park and my
apartment was across the street from there. Yeah, and uh,
and I told that story about going in there and
I ended up not doing it, but that I went
in to do it just to see and then just
to see. And then I met a guy and he
(36:39):
pulled his penis out and I looked at it, and
I was like, Nope, not interested. And I knew I
wasn't gay check please, I just came out of the woods. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Hey, well you tested it out. That's awesome. I think
that that was pretty smart. Actually, yeah, it's the thing
that I was most remembered for from the Stern Show.
Every time I went on the show after that, they
would tease me about it and they would bring it up. Well,
you were on Howard one oh one as well. I
do recall I was there for two weeks. They put
me with Scott Farrell for two weeks.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Oh yeah, and I need.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
A defribrillator in the room. I said, you don't need me.
You are like a show on to yourself. Another funny
thing that you mentioned Rogan. I would never be nervous
with Rogan because I went to high school with him.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
You did in Newton, I did, and.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
I worked with his sister. She and I were waitresses
at Super Salad in.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Newton No Way, Yes, really, yes.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
I watched him flip his car in the front of
the high school with my friends in it and everyone survived.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Like that's how what Yeah, I flipped his car.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Yeah, I had a really bad accident and like all
four wheels were in front of different houses and the
engine came out of the car.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Yeah, and everyone was fine. Oh yeah really yeah, not crazy,
My gosh, that's crazy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I'm so happy for his all of is incredible success. Yeah, yeah,
that's pretty amazing stuff. Every time I hear people talk
about him, I always get like this goofy smile, like.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
I know it. Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Let me ask you, if someone is listening right now
that's going through like sort of a tough time, what
is one piece of advice that you would give them
about using humor as sort of a coping tool that
you would want them to know.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Well, I used to, like, I've had friends going through cancer,
and you know, before there was Spotify, I would burn CDs.
I collect comedy albums. I've collected them since I was
a kid, and I would always put together based on
who they were and what their sense of humor was.
I would put a playlist together on a CD and
burn it to them and send it to them. I
(38:46):
think that listening to stand up is incredibly therapeutic. Watching
funny movies, you know, reading a funny book, read something
by Carl Hyacin or Kurt Vonnegut, and read Confederacy, Gun
Dunce is again things that just are going to make
you laugh and take your mind out of it, or
(39:06):
it's very healing. It certainly is.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Do you remember Bob and Doug McKenzie. Of course, that
was my album that I in junior high school. I
could not get enough of that. And I think, yeah,
Teach and Chong, The Great White North, I think was
their their big album.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Yeah, Teach and Chong. I have. I still have their
album up in Smoke that has this the rolling papers
on the front of the.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
I wasn't even allowed to listen to that, but I
got caught listening to that album and I got in trouble.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Yeah, yeah, of course we've come a long way.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Do you think that comedy has the power to heal
just anyone or is it more sort of a personal thing,
or or does something have to be wired properly to
connect with comedy.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
I mean, I think, you know, sometimes I see people
at comedy shows and I'll stand in the back when
the opener is on, and the opener might be killing,
and there's still going to be maybe a third of
the room is not laughing and a tenth of the
room isn't even smiling, And you just realize that people
(40:10):
process comedy on different ways. Physically, they just don't have
it in them to laugh out loud. But that doesn't
mean like those same people will walk out. I was
making fun of a lady because I was like, you
really don't like me, do you, because she was sitting
right up front. I go, you're just nodding it. And
I'm thinking in my head maybe she's like uber catholic
(40:30):
or whatever. And then she came out after show and
she goes, I'm so sorry. She goes, I love the show.
I have resting bitch face. It's just good to ask you.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Yeah, she was either constipated or had resting bitch yes.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
And so I think that like people can ingest comedy
and just not have the same physiological reaction, but it
still does something. It still reframes things and sad things
in a way that can relieve some pressure from it,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Can you please tell our audience, our amazing audience, where
people can find you where you're going to be out
there your online presence, like you, I'm not on social
media really at all, but is there a place that
people can find Greg Fitzsimmons.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah, yeah, if you go to Fitzdog fitzdog dot com.
I've got dates coming up in Denver, Colorado, and Connecticut
and Alaska, Vegas, New Orleans, San Francisco. That's all before
the end of the year. Wo So come on out
say hi, all right, and then the podcast is called
(41:40):
Fitzdog Radio.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Yeah, congratulations on that. You have like two thousand and nine,
like you were definitely a pioneer in podcasting.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yeah, I mean because radio.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
I come from radio, and nobody in radio wanted to
believe podcasting was going to be anything, and you saw
the future of it. And so congratulations on that. That's
like what over a thousand and people you've interviewed so far, which.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Blows me away.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Yeah, all the biggest and best and they live forever
so you can check them out anytime.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Yeah. No, it's nice that I have that behind me,
and I like to think the way I listen to
my dad's tapes. Someday my kids will be able to
listen to me again.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
I hope so I definitely won't and you won't be
upset about it if they laugh.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
No, but then I'm gone. They can do whatever they
want to God.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Greg Fitzimmons, thank you so much for coming on Comedy
Save Me, and keep killing it on stage and making
people laugh and and doing what you're doing and enjoy
your life. And I'm so happy to have had the
chance to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Thank you so much for having me. I had a
great time.
Comedy Saved Me.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to Comedy Saved Me, a podcast where comedians and
entertainers reveal how humor carried them through life's toughest moments
and also share profound ways that they've even witnessed comedy
bringing healing to others. I'm your host, Lynn Hoffman, and
today's guest needs little introduction, but I'm going to give
him one anyway, because you've worked hard. Greg Fitzsimmons is
(00:25):
a beloved Emmy Award winning comedian, writer, actor, podcast host,
and prolific guest on shows like Howard Stern, Joe Rogan,
Adam Carolla. The list just is almost too long to mention,
and his sharp wit and honest, self deprecating storytelling has
earned him a huge.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Devoted following.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
He's also a cool I didn't know this, a pioneer
in comedy podcasting, launching Fitzdog Radio way back in two
thousand and nine. So beyond the laughs, Greg's journey is
one of resilience, using comedy not just as a career,
as a lifeline during his darkest moments, and lucky me,
he is here to talk to us all about it.
(01:05):
Greg Fitzsimmons, Welcome to comedy save me. It's such a
pleasure to have you here and a fellow Boston native too,
so that makes me happy.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Well, thank you for the warm intro. I do have
to correct one thing you said self deprecating, but I
would also throw in like a lot of other people
deprecate me as well, so it's not it's not just
me they I take my cue from them. When you've
been deprecated by enough people, you go like a right,
I guess I'll jump in. I guess I'll let join
in on it. I love it.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
And also I want to start off by congratulating you
on something that maybe people probably know who have seen you,
but if they're just tuning in now and meeting you
for the first time, something that blew me away was
that you have been sober for I want to say
more than three decades, thirty.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Five few years. Sure, that's huge.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
That's I learned this early on with my dad that
most people don't make it past five years without going
back and relapsing, and so that's like a massive feet
in and of itself.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Well, thank you. Yeah, it was a decision that I made. Well,
first of all, I slipped once in thirty five years
for one night, and it was the night that was
Kevin Meanie's funeral. Who I'm sure you knew he was
around Boston when you were there, I sank, I've interviewed him.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
One of my all time favorite Commadians of all time.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah, yeah, he's lovely, just one of the greatest. So
that was the moment. But I quit my father. It's
funny my father was an alcoholic. But I grew up
in New York in an area where all my friend's
parents were alcoholics. It's like it's almost like you find
each other like adult children or children of alcoholics. I
(02:46):
should say, we were broken toys and we find each
other like through the anger, through the maybe there's something
in your eyes. And so I never thought it was
unusual that there was this much drinking. Not all my reals,
A lot of my relatives also were alcoholics. And so
(03:07):
when I got to Boston, somebody brought me to an
adult child of alcoholics meeting and I sat there and
I heard people qualify about their lives and the dynamics
of what it's like to be, you know, codependent, and
the guilt and the shame and the control, and I
just burst out crying. The first time, I was like,
(03:28):
oh my god, this is I didn't feel alone. And
that led me to quit drinking probably about a year later.
And I feel like I owe a lot of the
positive things of my life to stopping I bet.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Well, can you take us back a little bit, sort
of paint a picture around the first time you realized
that comedy would be more than just something that you
consumed and more something that you could use to navigate
the world.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Did that come into play? Well, the first time I
did it, it was actually it was it was my
senior year of high school, and I was I was
all coped up and I'd been drinking, so that kind
of didn't count. That was just pure euphoria. I got
off stage. I was chopping up lines on the on
the slide at the playground at the school, and uh,
(04:18):
and I went up on stage and I started roasting
the teachers, and so the principal unplugged my micro Folks.
I was talking about how the Western cief teacher was
having an affair with the art teacher and uh, and
they unplugged my mic and so I just yelled out
the rest of my act without a microphone to the auditorium.
Because it was like it was like a talent night.
(04:38):
Everybody else was singing songs and whatever, and I got
up and did stand up comedy, which you know, in
nineteen eighty four there wasn't that much stand up around.
No there was decided to do to roast them.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Was it a last minute decision or did you know
what you were going to do.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I think it's what my father was in radio, as
Buzz was just talking about, which is very thrilling to
hear that. I love when anybody knew my dad because
it's he died so young that I just I miss
him and I love connections to him. He was he
was only fifty three when he died, and I know,
and I'm fifty nine, So it's weird. It's weird to
(05:18):
live past your parents, that's for sure. And so he
was a master of ceremonies for a lot of benefits.
He would do beauty contests, award shows, and so he
put on his tuxedo and he'd bring me with him
when I was like, you know, i'd be like ten
years old and I would watch him go up there,
(05:40):
and he had joke jokes, you know, like street jokes.
He had. He would roast, you know, whoever was running
the event, and he went right after them because he
knew that that was going to get the biggest laughs.
And he told stories about his life a little bit,
but it was like, essentially he was doing stand up comedy.
I mean, you wouldn't have called it that then, you
would have called it, I'm seeing a dinner. But I
(06:02):
think I learned a lot of my style. I have
old audio tapes with my dad's radio shows, and I
have a video of him hosting one of these dinners,
and I go back and I go, holy shit, that's me,
that's my I so much of my voice is influenced
by how he did it, you know. Yeah, yeah, certainly
(06:23):
lead by example.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Certain he probably didn't even realize he was leading you
by example at that point.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Don't I don't think so. But we went to the
clubs in New York City my whole teen years. We
used to sneak into the clubs. When I was like
sixteen seventeen, I'd be at the Comedy Seller watching Seinfeld
and Paul Riiser and Richard Belzer, and we, you know,
we used to heckle them. We were like little drunk teenagers,
(06:51):
the comedians I'm like, I'm embarrassed when I think back
that we were those guys and the like we went
hackle it but like if they did a joke, we
would add like a tagline to their joke. We thought, well,
that's what we thought. We thought we were helping them,
and we thought we're part of the show, and then
(07:11):
they'd make fun of us and they'd get big laughs.
We felt like we were helping them there too, and
but I realized looking back and we were probably just
really annoying to them.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Wow, that's amazing. And your dad also was the host
of I believe Good Day in New York.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
For a while. Yeah, he was the first host of
Good Day New York and he was there for not
very long because there was there was some politics involved,
and my mom will tell me a lot of stories
about it, but my mom is a storyteller, and I
never know what's true and what's not. But but yeah,
(07:47):
he launched it and then but he mostly did radio
and then he hosted the Jerry Lewis Telethon for last
fifteen years. I remember that. That's amazing. Yeah, so people
don't always really that, Like Jerry Lewis would host forty
five minutes and then fifteen minutes would be the local stations,
whether it was Chicago or Boston. And so he was
(08:08):
the New York guy. And he did it with Tony
Orlando for years wow. And then he did it with
Patty Duke Aston for a long time. Wow. And and
we used to go down every year. We'd volunteer, we'd
help out, and it was thirty six hours long and
he would go straight through. It was crazy.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I bet yeah, I'm from my kid childhood. I would
just remember the yelling like Timbudy.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
He would scream and they would do the big rollout.
It was amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And then Jerry would always
sing You'll never walk alone again at the end, which
was always funny because these kids can walk. I know,
everyone's crying, like does he not? Oh my right right? Well?
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Growing up in Terrytown, did humor play a role in
your family dynamics, like with comedy, sort of like a
shield or maybe a bonding tool or maybe a little
bit both.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
For you, Yeah, I mean it's very much. Part of
the Irish culture is the storytelling. We famously are just
great storytellers. And there's also this we keep each other
in check if somebody starts to get any kind of
an ego, you immediately ripped them down again. So our
(09:21):
dinner table was a lot of that. It was a
lot of you know, we just roasted each other and
we told stories from our day. And my father was
this bigger than life guy. You know, he really had
more charisma, I think than anybody I've ever met my life.
He was just phenomenal guy. And you know, he had issues,
(09:44):
but at the end of the day, like we wanted
his approval. Making him laugh was a big deal. And
my mom had a great sense of humor. So the
dinner table felt like the first stage for me. I
think that I performed at and I kind of shined.
I was kind of the funny one at the table.
It was like me and my dad kind of and
(10:05):
then my sister was the great laugh of all time.
And my brother just kind of listened and smiled, and
he didn't he didn't usually add that much.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
He just took it all. It was he the youngest, No,
he was a year older older. Wow, what's your earliest
memory of maybe using humor to get out of trouble?
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Did you ever do that? Well? I wrote a book
called Dear Missus Fitzsimmons Tales of Redemption from an Irish
Mailbox and it's I found this, uh, this box in
my We were going through my aunt's basement in the
Bronx and we found this box that my mom had saved,
and it was a collection of all the letters that
(10:43):
got sent home from school when I was in trouble,
the funniest stories, like each one of them. You read
it and you can be like, I can't believe a
teacher would write this and then send it home. It
would be telling stories about, you know, how I jumped
out of the window of the classroom wearing a cape
during French class, and so it was kind of showing
(11:03):
how the Irish will always buck up against authority. And
it was this whole pattern of me acting up in
school and so I and I would get away with
it because my parents would sit at the dinner table
and they'd read the letter and I would sit there
not going because I could get hit, I could get
slapped for or I would get a huge laugh out
(11:25):
of it, and it would become like a legendary story
they would tell over and over again because they thought
it was funny. If you got in trouble, but it
was funny. Then they were behind it, so.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
It was so if it was a good story at Thanksgiving,
you were redeemed.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yes, that's hilarious. Yeah it was. You know. One of
them was about Greg was in geometry class and we
were teaching positions on fractions. Greg then yelled at are
there any other positions? Is there a sixty nine position?
She literally wrote that out and sent it home and
(12:03):
my parents were dying. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, my god. Well,
the premise of this show is called Comedy Saved Me.
Here we go. Now we're gonna get all serious. I'm
gonna get a little serious.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Can you Is there a moment in your life where
you can truly say you know that without comedy you
might have been stuck in a darker place in life.
I mean that's not too serious, but just sort of
in retrospect.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yeah, I remember. I mean I've had a lot of
friends die, I've had an unbelievably like death filled life,
and the Irish Wake was always something that put things
in perspective and made you think about how life shouldn't
be defined by your death. It should be defined by
the people you touched and the laughter that you gave.
(12:52):
And so the Irish wake is just your close friends
and family getting up and regaling everybody with the great
stories of your life and including roasting you, you know,
making fun of you and the things that were ridiculous
about you. You know. I don't remember that with my
father very much because it was so tragic. But like
(13:17):
my friend Jerror ed Wilson died and he was a
fellow comic and we were probably about twenty nine or something,
and he was a school future from Queen's grew up
or and stumbled into stand up and he was just
like Jackie Gleeson. He was just like this, you know,
presence in the room and he just immediately just had
(13:38):
star power. And he got signed to a deal and
he had his own sitcom on CBS, and he was
he flew over to Hawaii to do an episode of
Hawaii five. Oho had just been brought back and he
was doing an episode and he caught spinal meningitis and
went into a coma and died. And my wife and
(13:59):
I were like, you know, closest friends with him and
his wife. It was awful, and we had the funeral
and then we were out in Queen's at a restaurant
and Jerry's father said to me, would you mind getting
it up and saying a few words, And he goes
and invite any of the other comedians to get up
to speak. So I got up and I did ten
(14:20):
of fifteen minutes of great Jerry Red stories. And the
whole everybody at the gathering was Irish Catholic New Yorkers
and I'm talented and I am people are just exploding.
They needed to laugh so bad. He had just gotten
engaged on the Tonight Show. He asked Kathleen to marry
(14:41):
him on the Tonight Show like a month before and
so and then I brought up I brought up David Tell,
I brought up Colin Quinn, I brought up I want
to say, Jeff Ross was there, and everybody, everybody just
told funny stories and it went on for like an hour,
over an hour, and at the end of it, people
(15:03):
are wiping tears. And the father said, we need to
do this every year. So I started a foundation called
the Jerry Red Wilson Foundation with his fiance, and we
held a show a year later at Carolines Comedy Club
and all the family, all the friends, came out, it
sold out so fast that the next year we did
(15:25):
it at town Hall, which holds like sixteen hundred people,
and we invited all his friends and family, and then
we had some of the biggest comedians around. John Stewart
did it and Jay Leno did it, and everybody knew
Jerry and loved him, so they were willing to come
on and do the show. And we did it for
like ten years every year at town Hall, and we
(15:48):
raised hundreds of thousand of dollars that we gave to
the Meningitis Foundation. And it was just a when we
put together a video compilation reel that we would show
at the beginning of the show because some people there
did know who Jerry was and wanted to keep that
keep his spirit alive. And uh yeah, that was That
was something where a laughter did a lot of healing.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, And I have been to a few Irish wakes,
so I know exactly what you're talking about. And I
think I think all all funerals should be like that,
you know, celebrations of life.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah. Yeah, I think you should videotape them and then
you have that to look back on for for years.
That that to me is the ultimate scrap book is
the and now that's my thing is then no matter
what funeral I go to, people asked me to get
up and speak like my friend Dave Hallana, like I
played poker with a bunch of guys here and I
(16:42):
live in Venice Beach and we played for twenty years.
And there was one guy in the group, Dave Halenan,
who died tragically young as well. He was probably not
much older than my dad and with two young kids.
And it was the kind of thing where we went
to the funeral and Dave was not one of my
best friends. He was like a guy that I knew
(17:03):
from poker night. But the wife came up and said,
we want you to speak in the funeral, and I
was like what. So I had like a couple of days.
So what I always do is I just talked to
the loved ones and the family. I go, what was
your favorite Dave story? And I just collect them and
I tell them for them, because they don't they are
(17:24):
afraid to get up and do it. And so I
told my own stories that I had about them, and
then and then I told other people's and then afterwards.
People just give you this sixty second hug like, thank
you for doing that for all of us.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Greg Fitzsimmons's funeral Roaster. I could see it's a whole
business now, you could you.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Could, you could see that. I could see that. You know,
you're always looking for an angle in this world, but
that's the best angle of all right, Right, And when
people just lost somebody, I've seen this from funeral homes,
you can gouge them on the money. I could, I
could a tremendous amount. Oh I wasn't even thinking of
the money part of it. Oh No, I'll do. I'll
(18:08):
have a website. You can book me online. Just give me,
give me a couple of details, and I'll fly into
Saint Louis. Some bullet points of your loved one and
I am there. Wow, you know I'm not. They were shocked,
and don't send bullet points. That would be too dark. Yeah,
we'll be right back with more of the comedy Save
Me Podcast. Welcome back to the Comedy Save Me Podcast.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Did getting laughs throughout your career sort of give you
a sense of control or empowerment maybe when things felt overwhelming?
Speaker 1 (18:49):
What did that feel like to you when you sort.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Of really were winning them over, like that outside of
the funerals, of course, I mean on the in the comedy.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Show, like on stage.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, Like, what was it that kept you going to
doing it?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
That feeling? Yeah, I think it is. It is. I
think a lot of comedians have social anxiety, and I
think it's one of those things where you sometimes you
take your worst fear and you throw yourself straight at
it to prove that you can conquer it. And I mean,
I don't think many people would think of me as
having social anxiety, but I really do. And when I
(19:24):
get up on stage, I can I can conquer that
and it makes me feel more in control of my life.
It's very funny because I like this past weekend, I
was in San Diego and my friend text me. He's like, Hey,
can you get my friends on the guest list? And
I said, I don't really do that. I said, I don't.
I don't like people coming to my shows that I
(19:46):
know or even know, because I just like a crowd
of people that are strangers and if there's somebody out
there that I know, it makes me very uncomfortable. I mean,
I can do it, but what I'll do is I'll
do two shows a year in La where I invite
all my friends and family to come out, get it
over with, and I get it out of the way,
(20:07):
get it over with. They're all there at once, and
I can deal with it, but I don't like it
trickling in constantly because I'm really nervous before I go on,
and when I get off, I don't want to talk
to anybody like I want to talk to the other
comedians because like they're my brethren and they're like, they
know what I just went through on stage, and I'm not.
(20:29):
I don't want my friend said, oh, you know me,
my friend, he's a great guy you love. I won't
love him. I will not love somebody that just came
out of the crowd, because it's not like what I
just did with them is a trick. And now they
think I'm that guy. They think I'm the guy that's hey,
you know, like, and I'm not that guy at all,
(20:50):
And I never want to be that guy when I'm
not on stage, Like I've grown past that. I'm no
longer like the funny guy off stage understood. I'm kind
of serious and that's the place where I can control
my situation. I don't want to control my life like
stand up comedy is a very alpha kind of experience,
(21:13):
and it forces you to wear a mask as much
as you don't want to. I mean, I think the
journey of doing stand up is to not wear a mask,
but you always are, you know, anybody is. I don't
like like like One of the kind of oddest sad
moments in my life is my son came and saw
(21:34):
me for the first time when he was probably about
maybe sixteen or so, and we were in Denver and
they came out because we're going to go skiing after
my show. So I said to my son, why do
you come see me do a show? Finally it's time.
So my daughter took my wife out to dinner and
my son came to the show and I went up
and it's one of my favorite clubs and it was
sold out, and I just crushed, you know, he was
(21:57):
out there and I wanted to do well, and I
mean it was just applause breaks throughout it, standing ovation.
And then we walked out and we went to get
a slice of pizza and he's like he's looking at
me and he's like, Dad, that's the hardest I've ever
left in my life. He's like that was amazing, like
how do you think of that stuff? And all of
a sudden he was asking men, he questions the way
(22:19):
a fan would after a show. It made me feel
like it was corrupting my relationship with him, because there's
a power dynamic when somebody sees you do stand up
comedy at a high level and they suddenly put you
up on a pedestal and they suddenly don't really understand you.
And I never wanted that dynamic in my relationship with
(22:41):
my son. I wanted to be I'm the guy that
played cats with you. I'm the guy that made go
karts with you. I'm the guy that you come to
and tell me when you're sad, if you're looking up
to me. It's creating a real distance between us. So
what did you tell him? I just was weirded out,
you know. I answered the questions, but there was nothing
(23:02):
I could do. It was like we'd shattered something you
really I didn't want shattered a little bit.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
I mean that just first of all, the fact that
you felt that way is amazing. Most people would say,
don't don't, don't give away the secret that you're not
on this pedestal. But it's such a smart thing to
want to instill in your kid that you know, dad's dad.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That's what I do for work. Well, yeah, because but
also how could you not.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Quell a little bit that he'd laughed so hard, never
laughed so hard in his life, and you're his dad because.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
He already loves me. He already loves me. I don't.
I don't want to be that controlling guy when I'm
on stage, I'm controlling the crowd. I'm I'm establishing a
power relationship between us that I don't want with him,
and I don't like it with my friends. I hate
when my friends comes to him. You do stand up
(23:54):
give me one reason for that same reason, just that
I don't want to feel better than that. And when
I come off stage, I feel better than every single
person in the audience because they did not speak one
word for an hour, and I talked NonStop and they
did nothing but give me adulation and acceptance. And I
(24:17):
then walk out and now I'm going to talk to
one of these people like we're equals. And so I
don't like that feeling because it's not unique to me.
I'm just saying that's the experience of being a stand
up comic. If being any kind of a celebrity, you know,
like I always feel for big celebrities because they don't
(24:38):
ever know who wants something from them or who is
just so blown away that they're famous that they're never
going to have an equal kind of an exchange anymore.
Like I have friends that get famous and I feel
it go away, Like I feel myself getting a little
bit different around them than I was before. So you know,
(25:01):
I have friends that I grew up with that don't
think of me that way at all, because they just don't.
The ones that stay my friends are the ones that
don't think of me different, not that I'm a celebrity,
but like I keep you grounded.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
They treat you like a normal human being, not some
famous person.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, and I do think that's kind of people will say,
like I always make a joke like I crawled my
way to the middle and I'm staying right there. This
is the sweet spot. And I really do feel like that.
I feel like, like my father said to me when
I was young, we were talking about why are some
people garbage men and some people are head of company?
He goes, everybody ends up where they want to be,
(25:44):
And I think that's a truism. I think that I
got to a certain level in this business and I
kind of went I'm comfortable. You know, I've got a
wife who I am not away from fifty two weeks
a year, which I would be if I was going
after this more. I'm not overly obsessed. I've gone to
therapy and worked on any narcissistic impulses I have. And
(26:07):
it's a battle to not make it all about myself.
But it's a battle that I show up for, you know,
and I don't want to be I go on the
road sometimes and I'll open for Bert Kreischer in an
arena with fifteen thousand people and he's got a staff
of fifty people on the road with him, and like,
that's a nightmare to me. I go down to Lahoy
(26:29):
with my wife and we stay in a hotel and
you know, we go to the beach during the day,
and you know, I show up to the show with
no baggage, no assistant, and you know, and I make
a very nice living and I don't really want for anything.
I'm able to be creative without having to deal with
being on social media seven hours a day building up
(26:51):
my following, and like I kind of ignore social media
and I just do the things that I enjoy doing.
And I've been lucky enough to this all worked out.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Yeah, you are, And it's amazing to me because, first
of all, the fact that you suffer from anxiety just
blows me away. But yet I understand it because every
time I'm about to talk to somebody new, I have
a little bit of anxiety as well. I also totally
relate to you when you're talking about your friends and
people that you know, because you don't want to seem
(27:24):
like you're better than them just because you're doing something
that you love and you're getting the adoration of other people.
I totally get where you're coming from.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah, I think respect is something that you earned through
your character and your loyalty and your generosity, and not
through how a bunch of other people are seeing me
and you go like and you see that dynamic, and
somehow it affects how you respect that. That's not respect,
that's just like a curiosity.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Yeah, Greg, I wanted to take everybody with me when
I moved to New York to work in television, and
I wanted to take everybody with me when I got
to the radio station. When celebrities would come in, or
we'd go to concerts. You know, oh Lynn needs sixteen
tickets for all of her friends and their husbands and kids,
because I didn't want to experience it alone. I wanted
(28:17):
them to have that same experience. But it got a
lot fast though, because I couldn't take everyone with me.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, well, yeah, I know. And it's it's hard too,
because like, if you really want to do your best,
you know, I'll get a text, I I if somebody's
on my guest list, I'll get a text ten minutes
before I'm about to go on, Hey my name's not
on the list, or hey I bought somebody extra can
you add? No, That's not where my head is at
(28:44):
right now. I'm trying to get focused. I'm nervous, and
you know, it's just you're trying to be a pro
and you're trying to do you know, the world that
you're in, in the world I'm in, is extremely competitive,
and if you're not giving it one hundred percent, you're
not going to make it. You're not going to keep going.
(29:04):
And I see comics that always have friends at their
shows and they're drinking during the show, and they don't
progress I see a lot of comics that get high
before they go on stage and they just slatline. They
never get better. And you guys that show up late
for auditions and they just like, hey, so you you
(29:27):
just didn't get it because you didn't show up on time.
And I think I learned that from my dad, who
was in radio, was like, show up on time, be
a pro. You know, remember people's names, just basics that
you would need in any business, just because it's show business,
especially in stand up where my workplace is a bar
(29:47):
where everybody's drinking at night, so it's very easy to
slip into being a part of that instead of realizing, no,
I'm an employee at this place. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
So true, and a lot of people would never know.
And it's so nice to hear you say it because
you know it's important. I don't know, I think in
general for just understanding people, and especially people who've been
through therapy, of which you've been open about, and you've
talked about mental health as you've done even on this podcast,
(30:18):
And I'm curious how humor intersects with that journey of yours.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
I mean, do you.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Ever use comedy as therapy in and of itself or
do you keep the two of them completely separate.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
So yeah, so I had this amazing therapists and sometimes
I would come in with a full head of esteem
and I would have my anecdotes from the week that
I wanted to talk about, like something that happened, and
she would go, you're performing right now, ooh, And I
knew that meant that I wasn't. I had the mask
(30:51):
on a little bit, you know. I was controlling my
emotions and our interaction by being funny. So not that
there's not a place for humor in therapy, but it
was a little too pat She'd call me when it
was a little too pat like to tie down, and
so that was very helpful. Was it nerves too, Yeah,
(31:16):
I think it was nerves, and yeah, the fear of
having to go to the actual emotions. I mean, I
think that My best friend is the guy who is
very Irish Catholic. His father and my father grew up
in the Bronx together, and our daughters are best friends.
So it's three generations of dysfunction and he laughs through.
(31:39):
He's a huge comedy writer. We were best friends since
college and we both went in different directions and now
we're both like we end up working on TV shows together.
So we've written on TV shows together, and we didn't
help each other get the job. We just ended up
on them after thirty five years of knowing each other. Wow.
And he can mask anything with comedy and I have
(32:02):
to call him on it sometimes. I think there is
a way to use it productively. If it's organic and
if it's a moment of discovery and you laugh, that's great,
But if it's a moment of presentation, then that's like.
I think that a lot of my jokes start with
something like I had a rectile dysfunction. I did, and
(32:27):
I went to laugh right off the Oh yeah, I
won't go on stage, and I said, I was in
Middlesex and I had my first bout of a rectile dysfunction.
And there's nervous laughter. And sometimes I don't even know
what I'm going to say next, but I know that
if I say it on stage and all these people
are looking at me, I'm going to come up with
something that's going to relieve the tension. And then I
(32:47):
do get out in there.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
You don't even know where you're going to say next, No, WHOA,
that is risky yep.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
But it brings me back to the kitchen table as
a kid, where in the moment I have to think
of something funny and if I do, I get a reward,
I get my parents acceptance. And so I've created that
dynamic on stage, and then the joke will kind of
build from there, and then I'll start writing out the
joke once I'm off stage, and then I'll it's kind
(33:19):
of like you germinate off stage, you know, writing and
then you bring it on stage, and it's sort of
like you cook it and it goes back and forth
that process. And so a lot of my jokes are
very personal, and a lot of them do make people
uncomfortable when I first talk about them. I'll talk about
(33:40):
abortion or you know, a racist thought that I had,
I'll say it out loud, but then I'll make a
joke about it in a way that makes people realize
I'm not a racist, but that I had a racist thought,
you know, things like that. So as but as far
as like therapy, I think that that can be a
(34:03):
place that jokes start because it's a place where you
are maybe having epiphanies about yourself you wouldn't have had
in a place that's not as vulnerable.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Yeah, and vulnerable is definitely the world and that is dangerous. Like,
I give you so much credit that you would actually
start a joke on stage that you didn't even work out,
and that you would remember it after the show to
go back and make it even like massage it.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Well. I videotape everything, I audio tape everything, and I
listened to every day. I listened to my show the
next day, and I write down notes on what I did. Wow,
that's helpful.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
I keep going back to the anxiety part because how
many times did you do Joe Rogan?
Speaker 1 (34:43):
How many times? When you're on.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Howard Stern, it's like you're a glutton for punishment. Then
if you're have such anxiety, but yet you keep going
back to all of these incredibly huge shows with massive audiences.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
And put yourself out there. Yeah, which just amazing to me.
Yeah I did. I did Stern like fifty times, and
I've been on Rogan like twenty five times. And it's
always like jumping out of a plane. Wow, it's like
you show up sometimes you get really nervous, Like Stern,
I could never sleep the night before and I would
stay up with all the news bizz before the Internet
(35:15):
when I started, and I would just get the New
York Post in USA Today and the daily News, and
I would just sit there and I would write jokes
out of the news I would show. I write out
stories for my life, stuff that I talked to. I
went on Howard Stern one time. I literally, for the
first time in my life, I shared something with my
(35:35):
wife and our good friends at a dinner that I
had kept inside that I was embarrassed about and couldn't
talk about. And I shared it with them, and then
five days later I was on Howard Stern and I
said it to the world, and it was that when
I was in college, I thought about being gay, and
(35:56):
so I went into this area of Boston that's it's
the woods, and it's a gay woods, and I went
in there to I don't know how dirty or show is,
but we first.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Of all, I'm from Boston, so I'm trying to figure
out where this was. Fay oh okay, okay, yeah, yeah,
I'm thinking woods like you went into the forest.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Well, every city has a small wooded area that they
grow just for gay guys to have anonymous sex. Okay,
And that's the fan right behind Fenway Park and my
apartment was across the street from there. Yeah, and uh,
and I told that story about going in there and
I ended up not doing it, but that I went
in to do it just to see and then just
to see. And then I met a guy and he
(36:39):
pulled his penis out and I looked at it, and
I was like, Nope, not interested. And I knew I
wasn't gay check please, I just came out of the woods. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Hey, well you tested it out. That's awesome. I think
that that was pretty smart. Actually, yeah, it's the thing
that I was most remembered for from the Stern Show.
Every time I went on the show after that, they
would tease me about it and they would bring it up. Well,
you were on Howard one oh one as well. I
do recall I was there for two weeks. They put
me with Scott Farrell for two weeks.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Oh yeah, and I need.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
A defribrillator in the room. I said, you don't need me.
You are like a show on to yourself. Another funny
thing that you mentioned Rogan. I would never be nervous
with Rogan because I went to high school with him.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
You did in Newton, I did, and.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
I worked with his sister. She and I were waitresses
at Super Salad in.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Newton No Way, Yes, really, yes.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
I watched him flip his car in the front of
the high school with my friends in it and everyone survived.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Like that's how what Yeah, I flipped his car.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Yeah, I had a really bad accident and like all
four wheels were in front of different houses and the
engine came out of the car.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Yeah, and everyone was fine. Oh yeah really yeah, not crazy,
My gosh, that's crazy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I'm so happy for his all of is incredible success. Yeah, yeah,
that's pretty amazing stuff. Every time I hear people talk
about him, I always get like this goofy smile, like.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
I know it. Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Let me ask you, if someone is listening right now
that's going through like sort of a tough time, what
is one piece of advice that you would give them
about using humor as sort of a coping tool that
you would want them to know.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Well, I used to, like, I've had friends going through cancer,
and you know, before there was Spotify, I would burn CDs.
I collect comedy albums. I've collected them since I was
a kid, and I would always put together based on
who they were and what their sense of humor was.
I would put a playlist together on a CD and
burn it to them and send it to them. I
(38:46):
think that listening to stand up is incredibly therapeutic. Watching
funny movies, you know, reading a funny book, read something
by Carl Hyacin or Kurt Vonnegut, and read Confederacy, Gun
Dunce is again things that just are going to make
you laugh and take your mind out of it, or
(39:06):
it's very healing. It certainly is.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Do you remember Bob and Doug McKenzie. Of course, that
was my album that I in junior high school. I
could not get enough of that. And I think, yeah,
Teach and Chong, The Great White North, I think was
their their big album.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Yeah, Teach and Chong. I have. I still have their
album up in Smoke that has this the rolling papers
on the front of the.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
I wasn't even allowed to listen to that, but I
got caught listening to that album and I got in trouble.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Yeah, yeah, of course we've come a long way.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Do you think that comedy has the power to heal
just anyone or is it more sort of a personal thing,
or or does something have to be wired properly to
connect with comedy.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
I mean, I think, you know, sometimes I see people
at comedy shows and I'll stand in the back when
the opener is on, and the opener might be killing,
and there's still going to be maybe a third of
the room is not laughing and a tenth of the
room isn't even smiling, And you just realize that people
(40:10):
process comedy on different ways. Physically, they just don't have
it in them to laugh out loud. But that doesn't
mean like those same people will walk out. I was
making fun of a lady because I was like, you
really don't like me, do you, because she was sitting
right up front. I go, you're just nodding it. And
I'm thinking in my head maybe she's like uber catholic
(40:30):
or whatever. And then she came out after show and
she goes, I'm so sorry. She goes, I love the show.
I have resting bitch face. It's just good to ask you.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Yeah, she was either constipated or had resting bitch yes.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
And so I think that like people can ingest comedy
and just not have the same physiological reaction, but it
still does something. It still reframes things and sad things
in a way that can relieve some pressure from it,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Can you please tell our audience, our amazing audience, where
people can find you where you're going to be out
there your online presence, like you, I'm not on social
media really at all, but is there a place that
people can find Greg Fitzsimmons.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah, yeah, if you go to Fitzdog fitzdog dot com.
I've got dates coming up in Denver, Colorado, and Connecticut
and Alaska, Vegas, New Orleans, San Francisco. That's all before
the end of the year. Wo So come on out
say hi, all right, and then the podcast is called
(41:40):
Fitzdog Radio.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Yeah, congratulations on that. You have like two thousand and nine,
like you were definitely a pioneer in podcasting.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yeah, I mean because radio.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
I come from radio, and nobody in radio wanted to
believe podcasting was going to be anything, and you saw
the future of it. And so congratulations on that. That's
like what over a thousand and people you've interviewed so far, which.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Blows me away.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Yeah, all the biggest and best and they live forever
so you can check them out anytime.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Yeah. No, it's nice that I have that behind me,
and I like to think the way I listen to
my dad's tapes. Someday my kids will be able to
listen to me again.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
I hope so I definitely won't and you won't be
upset about it if they laugh.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
No, but then I'm gone. They can do whatever they
want to God.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Greg Fitzimmons, thank you so much for coming on Comedy
Save Me, and keep killing it on stage and making
people laugh and and doing what you're doing and enjoy
your life. And I'm so happy to have had the
chance to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Thank you so much for having me. I had a
great time.
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