The Healing Power of Laughter with Jeffrey Gurian

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Comedy saved me.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I guess that's why you're doing what you're doing. How
comedy saved me. It saved me so many times. It
saved me from depression. It got me through dental school.
I used to draw on my walls. They treated me
so badly that I get to talk about that now
at dental conferences. They want to hear my story because
they tortured me in dental school. I was banned from
school because I grew a mustache.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Welcome to another episode of Comedy Saved Me. I'm your host,
Lynn Hoffman, here to explore the power of laughter in
overcoming life's challenges and shining a light on the moments
when humor.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Truly saves us.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Each week, we dive into meaningful conversations with comedians, storytellers,
and creative minds who remind us that even when times
are tough, there's always something we can find to smile about. Today,
we are joined by the multifaceted comedian, author healer Jeffrey Gurian.

(00:57):
I'm so excited to even say this with a remark.
Journey from dentistry to stand up stages and decades spent
chronicling the world's funniest people, which you can see anytime
you want on his Comedy Matters TV show. Jeffrey's life
is a true testament to the healing power of humor. Together,
we'll delve into this inspiring story uncover lessons laughter has

(01:21):
taught him. No matter what we're up against, comedy can
help us all find hope.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
That is the message of this show.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
And I'm so excited to welcome doctor Jeffrey Gurian, Yes,
a real doctor and comedian to Comedy Save Me.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Jeffrey, Welcome, Thanks so much, Lyne.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
I'll tell you one thing with an introduction like that,
I better be good.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
You better be goot.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
No, Honestly, I wanted to start off by saying that
I watched this beautiful documentary. I'm in the middle of
producing a documentary with some friends of mine and so
I know what work goes into them. And your documentary
called who the Fuck Is Jeffrey Gurian? And I love

(02:05):
being able to say that because that's really the title,
although it just says f but you know, when can
you do that publicly? It was just such a beautiful documentary,
and I wanted to say congratulations on that and everything
in your life and career because it seems as though
the seeds that you planted have have come back to

(02:25):
root in all these beautiful ways. So I would like
to implore everyone listening right now, when this show is done,
just go check this show out.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
The documentary.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
It's I don't know how they did it, but in
twenty minutes ish they put quite a beautiful story together.
So thank you for that.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Thank you so much for saying that. You know, when
I watch it, it actually it brings tears to my eyes.
It's a very big honor for somebody to do something
like that about you. And how it came about. This
young filmmaker contacted me and he said, you have an
interesting story and would you be open to me doing
a doc about you? And I agreed to meet with him.

(03:07):
You know, it's a big risk when you do that.
You never know how you're going to be portrayed. People
can make you look really weird and stuff. And anyway,
I met with the guy and I had a sense
of trust, which is why I opened my life to him.
It's a very odd thing to see your whole life
unfurl in a film on the screen, you know, starting

(03:28):
from when I was a child. Footage that he had
of me playing the piano, and you know, from when
I was a kid, and it really encompassed all areas
of my life. And I was very happy with what
he did. You know, I didn't find any fault with it.
It was very heartwarming to me. And as I said,
when I watch it, it brings tears to my eyes.

(03:48):
The music, the whole thing is it was really very masterful.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
And it brought tears to my eyes too, and I
do believe it will for anyone who watch.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
It's homework.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
If you're listening to this podcast, that is homework for
you to go watch that for no other reason than
to discover a wonderful human being on this planet.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
And very funny too.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Don't find it. And it led to something possibly very
very big, even bigger than that. I'll just say that
a production company saw it contacted me and if you're
familiar with D. L. Hughley, one of the original kings
of comedy, he just signed on to produce this a
it's a progrem it's a special thing about me. As

(04:34):
a result of that documentary, it's in the process. They're
pitching it to networks. But a production company saw it
made a sizzle reel about me, which was really just
as moving, almost just as moving as that doc, and
DL came on. He's a very dear friend and when
he saw it, he said, I want to produce this.

(04:56):
His words were, I would do it for free, and
I'm like, I don't know, expect you to do it
for free. He goes, I would do it for free.
But his production company is behind it and it's going
to be Dale Hugley presents Jeffrey Gurian Wow something. But
it's as a result of that doc. So you never
know what happens in life, you know.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
No, you don't.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Can you share a little bit with our congratulations? Wow,
that is really big news, and even more on top
of the big news you shared before we even started
the show, which is equally as exciting. Well, we'll definitely
get to but before we do, can you just share
with our listeners a little bit about how you found
your way into the world of comedy, especially because, as

(05:40):
I mentioned upfront, you were going to be a dentist
or you.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Are a dentists A nasty rumor that started the day
I graduated from dental school. I Oh, people think I'm
in the music business thinks no one ever gets dentist,
and I don't know about comedy. But you know that
I was a very sat kid, and I knew I
wanted to be a doctor, but I knew I couldn't

(06:05):
handle life and death situations. I didn't know at the time.
I'm an EmPATH. I feel things more deeply than I
want to, which I had to learn. It took me
many years to learn to own it as a strength
and not as a weakness. And it's one of the
things that I lecture on and I write books about
because sensitivity is a very big part of my life.

(06:26):
And our society very often tells women that they're too sensitive,
which is a terrible message, and men don't want a
cop to being sensitive because they feel like it's not masculine.
I have no choice. I feel things so deeply. There
was a time in my life if I was with
you and you were sad, I was sad for you
than you were. I felt my feelings. I'm like an

(06:48):
antenna for feelings, and I have no choice. So I
had to learn how to own that. So at twelve
years old, I don't know what made me think. I
had to decide what I wanted to do for my
whole life. But I knew I wanted to be a doctor.
I knew I couldn't handle life and death. And I
was wearing braces and I said, you know what, I'll
be a dentist and I'll make people look beautiful, like

(07:10):
you have an amazing smile. And I have to tell
you that, so thank you. I said, all right, I'll
make people look beautiful. And I was already writing comedy.
And I remember laying awake at night thinking, you know,
I want to be a dentist, But whoever heard of
combining that with comedy. No one ever did that before,
And for some reason, that's become my whole life. I

(07:32):
never changed. Most twelve year old kids have no idea
what they want to do. They want to be a
policeman or a fireman. They changed their mind a million times.
I never changed my mind. My whole life was geared
in that direction. And so in my junior year of
dental school, I contrived the way to meet Witty Allen,
who was my comedic idol. And I didn't have a

(07:55):
lot of self esteem in those days. I was a
very poor dental student living in Philadelphia, but I had
a lot of nerve, and I never let anything stop me.
And I was determined to meet Woody Allen. So on
the rare occasions when I would come to New York,
I would go to the theater. He was in a
show called Playing Against Sam, Play It Against Sam with
Tony Roberts. And I would go to the theater and

(08:18):
I would drop off a note on the back of
my dental school card, as if I knew Woody Allen,
as if we were friends. And I said, Woody, it's Jeffrey,
and I haven't seen you in a long time, and
I'm coming to the show, and I would leave little
strange notes. I'm bringing my cardboard thumb with me. I
thought I had to impress him with insane comedy, because
I don't know if he ever saw his stand up.

(08:39):
But it was so bizarre, it was amazing. You know.
He did a joke that I'll never forget. He said
he was walking down the street and a maniac threw
a Bible out of the window, and luckily he had
a bullet in his breast pocket, and if it wasn't
for that bullet, the Bible would have pierced his heart.
And I was like, oh, my that's the essence of

(09:01):
insane kind of absurdism. So over a period of months,
I'm leaving Woody notes with the stage manager every time
I could afford to come home on the back of
my dental school card. So finally I saved up enough
money for tickets. Because I had no money, I was
a poor dental student, and I borrowed my father's car.
And because I had no self esteem, I knew that

(09:23):
there's only two ways to impress a celebrity. If you're
going to meet a star, you have to show them
that you're saying. So there's only two ways. You either
wear a tie or you bring a pretty girl with you.
And I didn't have a tie, and I only knew
one pretty girl, and she hated me because we had
just broken up. But I begged her to come with

(09:43):
me because she knew that my dream was to meet
Woody Allen, and she agreed to come with me. So
this night, I drive up to the theater and I
leave my last card Woody, I'm here and I'll be
back during intermission. I was so naive. I didn't know
that you don't go to see somebody during intimission. You
wait the end of the show. So during intermission, I'm nervous.

(10:05):
I want to back out. I'm too nervous to go,
and she goes, you have to do this. You have to.
I came with you. You can't back out. So I go backstage.
Stage manager is not in his seat. Now, in those days,
there was no terrorism. You could just walk backstage at
a Broadway show. So I opened the door. The stage
manager's not there. I take a hand, I run up

(10:25):
the stairs and I wind up on the roof. I
went the wrong way. So I come back down. The
stage manager's there and he says, can I help you?
And I said yes, Woody is expecting me, and he said,
go right in. So I go to Woody's dressing room
and it's empty. He's in Tonio Robbins dressing room with
the whole cast right And I see this, Lynn, I'm
telling you, I could see this like coz yesterday. It

(10:47):
was decades ago. Wood Are you sitting on a couch
across the room. And I go up to the door
and I go like this to him, and he goes
and I'm like, yes, you like this. I crook my
finger and he comes over and he's actually my car
and and he says to me, you must be Jeff.
And at that point I lost it. I'm meeting my idol.
I'm so excited. I'm twenty one years old. And I

(11:08):
said to him. I started saying ridiculous things like let's
open up a day camp and throw winter clothes at people,
let's walk low like we used to in Europe. And
he looks at he looks at the girl I'm with.
He goes, this guy's a fucking nut, just like that,
and I realized I was over excited. You know, I'm
a kid. I'm meeting my idol. So I said to him, listen,

(11:31):
I write comedy and everyone says that everything I write
is just like you. And he says, well, I'm in
the middle of a show. He goes, you think you
could come back tomorrow night, and I was like, no,
I'm much too busy. Now I didn't say that. I said, no,
of course, I'll come back tomorrow night. So I begged
the same girl to come with me again, and she did.
Because I had no self esteem, I thought it was

(11:52):
about who was on my arm. I didn't know in
those days that people were inviting me because they wanted
me to come, not because of who I could bring
with me. But I didn't have the confidence. So I
bring the girl. He sits with me for like an
hour in his dressing room and reads all my material.
And I didn't even have scripts. I had like scraps
of paper. My dream was that he was going to say, Jeffrey,

(12:15):
we need to make movies together. That's not what happened
he said to me. He said to me, your comedy
is very visual, and you should really think of making
films out of it, which I did a few years later.
I made a series of films on the street Well,
the Men Who series that wound up in the Toyota
Comedy Festival, and it was about It was about men

(12:36):
who do very unusual things, like men who take a
pitchfork to the movies, men who enjoy Latin dancing with tools.
I'm sure I did a lot of Latin dancing with tools.
I had a guy do the tango with a wrench
that was unbelievable. He was so good, so so years
later I became friends with Jack Rollins, who was Woody
Allen's manager, and he was managing Woody Allen, Billy Crystal,

(13:00):
and Robin Williams, which is how I met all of
them because Jack Rollins became a mentor to me, called
Saturday Night Live and asked them to meet with me.
And I wrote a movie years later called I Am Woody.
That was a short film, a forty minute long film
about a violent mob boss who was obsessed with Woody

(13:22):
Allen and he survives a mob hit and he comes
out of it with amnesia, and now he really thinks
he's Woody Allen. But he's six foot five and three
hundred pounds, so he's a huge Woody Allen. He becomes
afraid of his own men. He thinks he's small and thin,
so they want to take him to a sit down,
and they can't get him to go. They have to

(13:43):
tell him that it's a meeting to raise money for
his next movie. So I wound up being connected to
Woody Allen very strange ways, and his manager, Jack Rollins
said to me, Woody must have really seen something in you,
because it wasn't like him to invite people to come
back stage and.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Sit with him.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
It was very, very rare. And that's how I got
to meet Billy Crystal because Jack Rollins wanted Billy Crystal
to play me in a sitcom. He thought he would
be great, but Billy was doing sat in a live,
he was doing a million things and it didn't work out.
But that's how I wound up meeting Billy and Robin Williams.
And years later, when I wrote the book on the

(14:23):
comic strip with Chris Rock, there's a picture of me
and Billy Crystal in it and he's pointing to his teeth.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
Because did you work on his teeth?

Speaker 2 (14:32):
No, but he remembered that I had been a dentist.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
The concept of the sitcom that Jack Rollins wanted him
to star in was a dentist who wanted to be
in show business and he thought Billy Crystal would be
perfect to play me.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
So he brought Billy down to the office to meet me.
He took a liking to me, and again that's how
I met Billy Crystal and Robin Williams. And when I
told him my Woody Allen story, he was like, that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
It is. It's amazing.

Speaker 3 (15:00):
And Jeffrey, it is sort of that feeling you get
when you meet you. Even before I met you, I
was excited and I'm curious. You know, you said you
realized you were an EmPATH. Two side questions, One how
did you know?

Speaker 1 (15:15):
When?

Speaker 3 (15:15):
When did you know? And two if there are people
listening who have similar feelings, like when they get around
somebody and they can feel their pain even if someone
hasn't even opened their mouth, you can sort of feel
that in the room, how did you learn how to
harness that as opposed to make it? You know, take
you down, because that you can't save the world.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
No, you know. And that's a great question, and it's
an important thing for people to know, because there are
a lot of people struggling with their sensitivity. When I
was at the seven or eight years old, I already
knew that I could take away certain pain with my hands.
If my little sister had pain, I would just say
I'll take it away, and I would put my hands
on it and the pain would go away. And I did

(16:00):
all my life. My parents didn't teach it to me.
No one showed me that. It came to me intuitively
that I could do that, and in years later it's
what opened me up to the concept of past lives,
because sometimes little children have certain gifts that there's no
explanation for. I was just reading about a five year
old piano prodigy who's going to be playing at Carnegie Hall,

(16:22):
And it just makes sense. I opened my mind to
all positive things. I don't want negative thoughts, but all
positive things, because it's arrogant to say that you know
what's true and what's not true when it comes to
things like that. How can it diminish you in any
way to open your mind to the concept that there's
a possibility of past lives. You know, you can't kill energy.

(16:44):
When people pass on, their body stops moving, but the
spirit has to go someplace. You can't kill energy, you know.
So growing up I always use that. I would always
just touch people and take away their pain. When I
went into practice, there's a concept the universe puts people
in your life that you're supposed to know. And I

(17:05):
would get a lot of patients that came to me
that had very bad headaches and physical symptoms of stress
from clenching and grinding their teeth. It's called bruxism. A
lot of people do that, millions of people in this
country alone. There's more than one hundred and fifty million people.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
See my little tiny teeth back there, that's me.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
There's more than one hundred and fifty million people who
suffer with what they think on migraine headaches that are
really what we call musculoskeletal headaches from clenching and grinding.
The tmj which is the jaw in front of your
not jo, the joint that you can feel in front
of your ear when it allows you to open and
close your mouth, and that joint is considered a master joint,

(17:48):
which means that it controls not only how your head feels,
but how your whole body feels. What that joint is
out of whack, you get many different physical symptoms. So
I had to learn. I started studying spirituality about thirty
years ago. I wanted to know what it was that
I was given, what this gift was that I was given.
It's helped me in many different ways, and I had

(18:08):
to learn that people will try to manipulate you because
of it. A lot of people take kindness for weakness,
and people who are sensitive need to know that you
need to censor your life. When you have that kind
of energy, you draw a lot of people into your life,
but not everyone deserves to be there. And it's not
an easy thing to do, but you have to eliminate

(18:30):
people that will drain you, because there are some people
that will only call you when they're in crisis, and
then you help them. You stay on the phone with
them for an hour. By the end of the conversation,
they feel great and you feel suicidal because you allow
them to drain you. You know, there's so look, I
write books about that.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
My first happiness book, I don't know if you saw it.
It's called Healing your Heart by Changing your Mind, a
spiritual and humorous approach to achieving happiness. I want to
get a dog to sit and look.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
I was gonna ask you, do you think can I
ask you before we get too far? Do you think
Woody Allen was an EmPATH and that's why he allowed
you that day to come in there.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
That's an interesting question as well. You have great questions.
I don't know that he was an EmPATH, but I
think he missed the felt energy from me.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
Had to write.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
I don't mean that in an egotistical way, but people
have told me, Like on my comedy Matters you YouTube channel,
they say, everybody steps off to talk to me on
the red carpet, even if they're publicists are pulling them away,
like Kevin Harritt you know, his publicis like, we have
to go. He's like, I got to talk to Jeffrey
and he came over, and you know, I never try

(19:43):
and trap people into saying something awkward. I only want
to put out positive energy to the universe. Jerry Seinfeld
once asked me to keep it a secret that he
was doing his Netflix special. It's the comic strip, and
it would have been a great scoop for me to
put it in my column, but I would never he did.
I would never do that, you know. I would never

(20:03):
risk a friendship to try to get something better for myself.
And he really respected that. I kept it a secret
for three months. He was getting paid like one hundred
million dollars to do a Netflix special and he didn't
want people to know that he was doing it in
the club where he started, and at the time that
was my home club. That's the club I did the
book on that with Chris Rock, and I kept it

(20:27):
a secret. So my feeling is that maybe Wood he
felt that he could trust me in some way. I
don't know. I can't speak for what people feel, but
people have said to me that when I'm on the
red carpet, they come over and they give me a
hug because I make them feel safe, because they know
that they can trust me that I'm not going to
I'm not going to put something up on the internet

(20:48):
that makes them look bad. Let's put it that way.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
You're not going to sabotage them.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
Yeah, I only want to support people. That's what I
want to do. I love to support talented people. When
people have a gift, I want to help them put
it out there.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
Such a beautiful thing.

Speaker 3 (21:03):
What I mean, what was the first moment that you
realized that comedy and humor could be a force not
just for healing you personally, but you know, but also
for others.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Well, I'm on the bord of this group called Laugh
MD that comes out of California, and it's we bring
comedy to people in hospitals and people in recovery. I
performed at Sloan Kettering Ones for cancer patients. They wheeled
them out with ivs in their arm. You know, when
people are very sick, other people feel very awkward around

(21:37):
them because you don't know what to say, what to do,
you know, And as an EmPATH, it was very hard
for me to see people that were so ill. And
I performed and I made them laugh, and it was
a great feeling. It was a wonderful gift that you
can you know, laughter, it's not just the cliche that
laughter is the best medicine. It's so important. It releases endorphins,

(21:58):
it changes your whole moved, you know. I realized that
when I got started from Saturday Night Live. Can I
tell you that story, because that's a crazy story.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
Please tell me about that story, and then I'm gonna
I'm gonna tell you my notes that I got from
your from Just go ahead, tell me the story.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
I'll tell you Saturday Night Live comes out. I'm making
films on the street, you know, super eight with my
super eight camera, and they're like kind of crazy kind
of films, like false news items like several men were arrested,
the smearing cream cheese on the ankles of elderly women
who were their stockings rolled down like bagels. You ever

(22:35):
see the old women with the stockings around their act.
It looked like bagels to me. So I went to
my dear grandmother. I had two grandmothers. One had a
great sense of humor. She and her husband owned a
nightclub growing up, and she had a great sense of humor,
and she made believe she had a Jewish accent. I
was so sick. She let me put cream cheese on
her ankles on my own grandmother, I put cream chrees
on her angle, and she says, you know, in the

(22:56):
Jewish religion, we have two kinds of stockings, one for
milk and one for me. She goes, and this crazy
man he smears cream cheese on my meat stockings and
I can't get it off, and I hit the camera
on the ankles with cream cheese. And I was doing
like stories, like like two master criminals who disguise themselves

(23:17):
as inanimate objects to commit their crimes. So it starts
with two men disguised as coats rob a hat store.
They come over too. They cut in over the arms
of two other men and they say, just that natural,
like where your coats and nobody will get hurt, right,
I love it. Two men disguise a pair of eyeglasses
rob a local optometrist. They come in on another man's

(23:38):
face and I had to beat the guy. I interview
the victim of the crime and he says, I don't
know what's going on here. I'm walking into this aptometrist
to get my glasses adjusted, another pair of glasses jumps
onto my face and whispers into my ear just that natural,
like where your glasses and nobody will get hurt. What's
the city coming to? So I make these films and

(23:59):
I say, I got to get up to Saturday Night Live.
So the same way I met Woody Allen. I had
a lot of balls in those days. I couldn't do
it now what I did then. I'm driving a pimpmobile
in I had met a pimp from Maryland and his
name was Benny, and I was very impressed with his lifestyle,
and he drove old Cadillac El Dorado with a clear
bubble over the driver's seat and a clear bubble over

(24:21):
the passenger seat. I'm like, this is the car that
I need. So I went to a place in the
Bronx and I bought a Manda at Orange Cadillac El
Dorado that had been made for one of the Isley brothers.
True scurry. I found out later it was really for
one of the Isley brothers. And I put a Rolls
Royce grill on it because that's what the pimps drove
in the seventies. But mine had doctor's plates on a

(24:44):
DDS plates on the front, so it was very confusing
to people. Hookers would check out the car, drug dealers,
cops would follow me. I was married at the time,
and my wife was like, we're Jewish and we live
in Scarsdale. Why am I driving an orange Cadillac.

Speaker 4 (24:58):
You know?

Speaker 2 (25:00):
No one got it but me. I totally got it.
It made perfect sense to me. So I drive up
to thirty Rock with my films. I throw the doorman
a few bucks, because in those days you could drive
right up to the front of the building. There was
no terrorism. I threw the dormant a few bucks, and
I said, watch my car. Lorne Michaels is expecting me.
Lord Michael's the producer of Satay n He had never

(25:22):
heard of me. Lord Michaels was not expecting me. So
I snuck into the I snuck past security. I got
up to Saturday Night Live. Alan's why Belle. I don't
know if you know the name, but he's become an
award winning writer, producer, director. In those days, he was
the main writer for Saturday Night Live. He was playing
handball on the wall with a guy named Neil Levy,
who is Lorne Michael's cousin and I interrupted them playing handball,

(25:46):
and I introduced myself and I say, I have these films,
and Alan sits and watches the films. To this day,
decades later, he says he can't get the image of
cream cheese on the ankles out of his I spoke
to him this past week. You know, he did the
kindest thing for me. He didn't just give me the
phone number of his manager. He called him on my

(26:06):
behalf wow and he said to it. And his manager's
name was David Jonas, and who left us in recent
years at one hundred years old, and at the time
he was managing Freddie Prinz, who was the star of
the show Chico and the Man.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
I love that show.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
So he set me up to meet with David Jonas.
And David took about a year trying to talk me
out of it. He goes, you're a doctor. You don't
need this business. It's a crazy business. You don't want
to be in the comedy world. You're a doctor. Said.
I wouldn't take no for an answer, And it took
me about a year to learn how to write jokes
because I'm thinking cream cheese on the ankles, which you

(26:42):
can't do on stage. It's a visual right. So I
started writing jokes for his comedians Dick Capri and Freddie Roman,
the guys who did the show Catskills on Broadway, and
through them I got to meet Rodney Dangerfield, and Rodney
started doing my jokes on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carr.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
Amazing.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
That's really what started my career. But it was because
I had the nerve to drive up in a pitmobile
a Saturday night love and they and they actually did
that in the documentary. They did it in an animated version.
If you remember of me fiving this orange cattle, I would.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
Love to have seen that though in real life.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
I'll send you pictures of the car.

Speaker 3 (27:19):
I have pictures of your Jeffrey, can you just tell
me where the hootspa. I hope I said that correctly,
because if I don't spray it, then I didn't say
it correctly.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
But what what gave you that I'm not going to
take no for an answer.

Speaker 3 (27:35):
That creative thinking to just act like you already knew
these people just to get you know, because that has
to come from somewhere, Someone instilled this in you, or
you just naturally knew.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
I wish I had a great answer to that. I
was just I was so determined. I felt like people
needed to know who I was. That the only reason
I wasn't best friends with Mick Jagger was he didn't
meet me yet.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
Like I finally met Mick one night, and I recently
met Melanie Hambroke, his girlfriend. I told the other story
because when my kids were little, they would say, how
come you're not like the other dads And I'd be like,
you don't understand if I was Mick Jaguar and they'd
be like, yeah, dad, but you're not. And I told
Mick that story the night I met her. He didn't

(28:22):
think it was that funny. I thought it was hilarious,
But Melanie thought it was funny, you know. But I
don't know so where it came from. I was just determined.
I felt like I was given this gift of comedy.
My parents had great sense of humor. My dad used
to take me to comedy films when I was a
little kid. He was always laughing. Oh, he was such

(28:44):
a wonderful person. Man had a great sense of humor.
And maybe that's where I got it from. But I
was determined because I didn't know one person in show business.
I didn't know anybody. So I'm like, how am I
going to do this? How am I gonna get to
meet all these people? But that I needed to know? Yeah, yeah,
I don't know where I got the courage from. Like
I said, I don't think I could do it now.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
No, I mean you could in any way, and just a.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
Different world I could. They would shoot at me if
I if I tried to meak at this headday night live,
now you'd.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
See me on the news and handcuffs.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
You know. It was a much safer world in those days.
It was people were being set on fire on the subway.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
It was you know, no, but but still very important
just to know for anyone who may want to get,
you know, into comedy or whatever they want to be.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Do what I did. Don't do what Jeffrey did.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
No, But I had a lot of nerve, is what
I'm saying. I really had a lot of courage to
go out and do that. Because these people could have
said to me, who the heck are you get out
of here? They could have, but for some reason they
accepted there was only three people that ever wanted to
meet Woody Allen, Salvador Dally, and the Beach Boys, and
I met them all. I got to meet them all

(29:56):
and spend an evening. I spent an evening with Salvador Dally.
You know, well, that's another crazy story. But I don't
want you to run out of time on your podcast.
But I have a lot of stories.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
You do, and that's why I was saying that the
documentary to sum it up as quickly as it was,
who the f is Jeffrey gurian Is, I said, my goodness,
I would have gone down each one of the segments
of that documentary. I could have spent hours discussing each
element of them alone.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
But it was so nicely done.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
It got me so excited to talk to you.

Speaker 4 (30:31):
You will be right back with more of the Comedy
Save Me Podcast. Welcome back to the Comedy Save Me Podcast.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
Some of the things that I meet no doubt, and
I have to share this with you because it's so huge,
and I want you to explain if you could be
very careful what you spend your time being afraid of,
because we tend to manifest our biggest fears. Is that
sort of like people getting in our own way of
success or those old sayings, be careful what you wish for,

(31:04):
you know, Can you explain that, because that's really huge,
just that sentence.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
I'm say that you said that. It's one of the things.
You know. Stuttering was a very big part of my story,
and it had to do with thear For some reason,
I've been leaving a fear based existence for my whole life,
and I never let it stop me. As a kid,
I had a lot of fears. I was afraid of
the dark, and I made myself go in the dark.
I started stuttering when I was about seven years old,

(31:30):
and I stuttered through my twenties and beyond. Even after
I was a doctor, I was still blocking on certain words.
When I went to college, I made myself run for
the president of the freshman class. I was only sixteen
years old. I didn't feel part of I couldn't say
my name. I could never say Gurian. Most stutters can't
say their own name. As you can see, not only

(31:50):
don't I stutter anymore, but you can't even shut me up.
I have a lot to say. I always taught I
have a lot to say. But as an avocation, I
work with stutter as old over the world to teach them,
I'm not to stutter. When I went to college, as
I said, I ran for president, telling myself, if I
could win, I wouldn't have to stutter anymore. And to
make a long story short, I won. I was the

(32:11):
president of the whole freshman class of Hunter College, and
I still stuttered. And it was a great lesson because
it taught me that outside validation in life doesn't work.
It doesn't matter how many people tell you that you're
wonderful and talented and fantastic. It matters what you think
of yourself. And that started my journey on learning about
who I was and what thoughts I was holding that

(32:32):
were not valid for me. It's a very big topic.
I do a talk called don't Believe your Thoughts. We're
all holding thoughts that are not valid for us, that
usually negative that work against us. I created a false
disability for myself. As you can see, I no longer stutter.
It's not a genetic problem, and the stuttering community doesn't

(32:54):
tell people that they can get better. It's a very
big frustration for me, so I worked very hard to
cure myself, and it took me years to undo the
unhealthy thoughts that I was holding. And it's what led
I hope you don't mind, but it's what led to
me writing my second book, Fight the Fear, Overcoming Obstacles
that stand in your way, because I've been battling fear

(33:17):
for so many years, and other people do too when
I speak to them. So I started studying spirituality about
thirty years ago and learned how to process the events
in my life. Fear is a bully. Fear is the
thoughts in your head that tell you that you'll never
be successful, that you're not enough, you're too old, you're
too young, you're too thin, you're too heavy, whatever, you're

(33:39):
just not right. It always tells you these things and
they're not true, and you have to fight against it.
And what I teach people is you have to make
that voice or whisper. If you were in a crowd
of people and somebody was whispering to you, there's a
good chance you wouldn't hear what they were saying. That's
how you have to make that part of your mind.
It's your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is your enemy.

(34:02):
And it's very strange to think that I'm battling with
my own mind. So I have fears of traveling. I
have fears of getting lost. So in twenty nineteen, I
made myself go to Japan all by myself as a challenge.
I performed in two shows while I was lost every
single day. Because they say that the Japanese subway system

(34:25):
is the most difficult in the world. I was lost
every day, but I never let it stop me. I
figured out where to go. You know, I have fears
of getting caught in the rain without an umbrella, probably
because of my hair. I don't like to get my
edit it. So I'm walking down the street in Japan
and it starts to rain out of nowhere. So I
found the story and I bought an umbrella. I solved

(34:45):
the problem. You know, I spoke Japanese. Things that other
people can do comfortably, I must be able to do.
When I go to the airport. I'm not alone. It's
filled with millions of people who are traveling. If they're traveling,
I have to be able to do it as well.
So I challenge myself on a daily basis. And again

(35:06):
it's one of the things that I lecture on. I
have had so many fears, fears of performing, fears of
getting on stage, fear of having a practice, fear of
having a family, fear of being a dad. I conquered
every one of those fears. Not to say that they're gone,
but I can battle fear on a daily basis. So
many things can make me uncomfortable. I'll never figure out

(35:28):
exactly why, and it's not important to figure out exactly why,
but it is important to look at all the possibilities.
So I'm always grateful to get an opportunity to talk
about stuttering, because if anybody out there knows somebody who
has that problem, just tell them that they can get better.
That's the message. You don't have to tell people that
they could be cured. For some reason. The stuttering community

(35:49):
doesn't like it if you tell them you have a cure,
but they should know that you can get better, that
the problem is in here. I realized I'll end it
on this. I realized one day I didn't stutter when
I was alone. I only started when I was trying
to talk to somebody else, which is very common in
the stuttering community. And I was given the grace to
figure out you can't have a disability based on your

(36:11):
location or on who is in the room with you.
A man with a limp limps in every room of
his house. He can't go into a room alone and
walk perfectly. But if I could speak fine when I'm alone,
then theoretically it means there's nothing wrong with me. And
I had to confront the fear and undo the negative
thoughts in my mind to allow myself to free myself

(36:33):
from the bondage of stuttering. That's a very long answer
to your question.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
That's incredible, though, because what you were saying in essence is,
first of all, you have to train your brain to
think optimistically and look at every challenge in life or
anything that you're afraid of as just an obstacle you
have to overcome. There's so many people that when you
get stuck in the you get stuck in a rhythm
on the fear just guides you constantly. And I don't

(37:01):
know if you or even myself sometimes, I mean, yeah,
I've been afraid of things in the past, but for
some weird reason, I have this. I always thought it
was a problem that I was overly optimistic. I was
too optimistic, I was too happy, I was too excited,
just the opposite of almost all my friends, who promptly

(37:22):
didn't want to be friends with me anymore because they
didn't know how to be happy. And I learned that
when I was teenagers. So when I talk to someone
like you who's done all this research and written books,
and you know, it just it all makes so much
sense that there's so much we just do to ourselves
that we need to learn.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
It's very hard to objectively look at your own thoughts.
You know. I have a healing center for a while
called the Happiness Center, and I teach people to create
their own happiness center. If you come to my house,
it's filled with balloons and crayons and toys, and you
would think that little children lived here. And I do
it for me. It's very important. My inner child is
my best friend. When you were a little girl and

(38:02):
people would come to you ass and say, can Lynn
come out to play? And you were so happy. That's
not supposed to stop just because you grow up and
do serious things. You're supposed to stay connected to that.
And so when I teach people to create their own
happiness center, every place where you live, every place you look,
should be something that makes you feel good inside. Like

(38:22):
my whole apartment is white, my carpeting is white, my
piano is white, my car is white. I need brightness
because as an EmPATH, I'm affected by color, by music,
by the people I'm with, by the room that I'm in.
I'm sensitive to everything around me. So I have to
center my life and make sure that everything there is
something that makes me happy, and it does. I don't

(38:45):
keep things around that bring back bad memories. I only
surround myself. That's my own personal happiness center. And that's
what I teach people to do.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
Oh my gosh, now it explains everything about all. Everything
is so neutral in my life and people make fun.
Could you put a little something of color around here
or something? You know, everything's just so and there's no
yeah there.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
It's interesting how you go into someone's home and it
can explain a lot about what's going on in their head.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
People live in dark places and they wonder why they're depressed.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah, what on?

Speaker 2 (39:16):
Like a plant? I need lots of light, sunlight and water. Happiness, Happiness,
that's that's the thing. That's what I lecture on. You know.
In the past few months, I've been a keynote speaker
at major dental conferences, and the topic they gave me
was how to survive a career in dentistry using positive
thinking and humor because dentists have the highest rate of

(39:40):
suicide and the highest rate of divorce.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
You're kidding.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
I did the divorce. I'm trying to put off the suicide.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
Please, no, we need you.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yeah, no, that's just their joke. I'm kidding. I feel good,
I feel wonderful. You know, my ADHD kicks my butt.
It creates a lot of confusion. I talk about that
also so many people. You know, it's very fashionable these
days for people that say they have ADHD. I was
actually tested by a neurologist and he said to me,
you must have had to work ten times as hard

(40:11):
as everyone else, And it's true I did. In twenty fifteen,
I had a heart attack, came out of it aware it
was one of those they called it a widow maker
heart attack. I guess it was lucky. I wasn't still married, right,
there was no widow But I was lucky enough to survive.
And I was back on stage five days later and
the owner of the comedy clip said to me, what

(40:32):
are you crazy? You just had a heart attack. I
was like, yeah, but it's hard to get a spot here.
I didn't want to lose five. Only a comedian would
say something like that, Only a true comedian. Because when
I left the hospital, they said to me, try and
make believe this didn't happen, And I'm like, how do
you make you didn't have a heart attack? It really

(40:53):
put me in touch with my mortality because it was
the major artery to the left side of my heart.
They said it was about ninety five percent blocked. I
had never been sick a day in the night before
I was out with the serious XM people because I
had been a regular and serious exam for a couple
of years, bringing on special guests. And I was on
air and we were partying for the holiday. And the

(41:14):
next day this thing happens to me. And then and
then March eleventh of twenty twenty, the day they declared
it a pandemic, That's the day I came down with it. Well,
as you can tell, I'm a trendsetter, I went right.
I got COVID immediately. I don't want to wait. Well,
COVID double pneumonia, right.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
So, oh my god, the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
I'm laughing now, but it was really very serious. The
ambulance had to take me away I waited two weeks
to call an ambulance because they were wanting people if
you had any kind of heart condition, trying not to
go to the emergency room because the germs were so strong.
It was when New York was the epicenter of the virus.
And when the ambulance finally came, I couldn't take the
pain anymore. I was I never was so sick in

(41:58):
my life. And when the ambulance came to get me,
two men in hazmat suits came to my door and
one of them took my hand. I couldn't believe this
to this day, and he said to me, don't worry,
You're gonna make it. That small act of kindness meant
so much to me because I had been alone and
so sick for two weeks. And he was amazed that

(42:19):
I could get on the stretcher myself. He said most
people needed to be carried. And when I laying there
in the hospital, I was trying to make myself laugh
because my life is so bizarre. The first two days
they put me in isolation. The third day they put
me in a room with three other very sick men,
and they tell me the guy in the bed next
to me is from Wuhan, China. I'm like, what like

(42:40):
that can't even have it.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
But that's impossible the kind of things that happened to me.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
I'm laying there next to patient zero, right, I'm god
guys coughing and choking into the air with no mask on.
So when I expressed my concern to the nurse, she
told me not to worry, and she pointed to a
thin curtain that was hanging between us, and I'm like,
excuse me for being so concerned. I said, you know,
everyone knows if you want to protect yourself from a

(43:05):
deadly virus, you hang a thin curtain around you. Too
bad doctor Fauci didn't know about that. I mean, it
was ridiculous. So I turned. I turned my hospitalization into
like ten minutes in my act. Wow, that was lucky
that I survived. As I said, I joke about it now.
They saved me with hydroxy chloroquin before they politicized it.

(43:25):
I put myself on zpak, which I like to tell
people always keep z pack in the house. Yeah, it's
an antibiotic that's specific for your breathing.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
Yeah, especially if you end up getting pneumonia because you
wait too long, like most.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
Yeah, exactly, and you're supposed to take it for five
days and I took it for ten days and that
and the hydroxy saved me.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
So well, thank goodness, you're still with.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Us, Thank you. But humor is very, very powerful. It
could change people's lives. And I guess that's why you're
doing what you're doing. How comedy saved me. It saved
me so many times. It saved me from the ran.
It got me through dental school. I used to draw
on my walls. They treated me so badly that I
get to talk about that now at dental conferences. They

(44:09):
want to hear my story because they tortured me in
dental school. I was banned from school because I grew
a mustache, and the dean of the school these days
told me it was because they were racist and anti Semites.
I didn't know that in those days, but I was
tortured in dental school. So I've been through a lot
of difficult times and comedy always saved me being able

(44:30):
to think differently. You know. Comedy is taking things that
you see every day and pointing out what's funny about them.
That's why the audience laughs that we have the ability
to see things that you take for granted. Like now
I'm talking about rip jens. Rip jens drive me insand
because the truth is rip jens are just torn pants.

(44:51):
That's what we all man, just torn pants. If you
went into a store you saw a sign a sale,
a big table filled with pants and it said sale
torn pants, there's a good chance you wouldn't buy them.
You'd probably I'm good, I'm good, you know. But people
are wearing torn and it's so stupid because the more
torn they are, the more expensive. There I saw a

(45:12):
girl withsleek just wearing pockets. That's all that was left.
Both flags were completely gone, just pockets one thousand dollars.
Poor people can never wear ripped jeans. They can't afford there.
It's like, so it's so silly. Everybody wears riped jeans,
but to me, I'm seeing torn pants.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
It's funny how your mind works.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
Like that's what comedians do. We take the things that
you see every day and we see the humor in them.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
You know, something you said to me, or maybe it
was during the one of the things that I've watched
of you or read that there are still mornings even
today that you will wake up and feel a little
Maybe I don't want to know if depression is the word,
but you just don't feel right and you can't get
out of your own head.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
Well, how do you do that?

Speaker 3 (46:01):
I mean, for example, I am the happiest person that
I know, but I still wake up Like just the
other morning, I woke up and I had this sense
of gloom and doom and I couldn't shake it, and
I didn't know how to shake it. And you really
have to work hard with your own mind to fix that,
and sometimes it's really hard.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
There's a possibility that you're an mpath. Look, we're surrounded
by stress every day. Every place you look TV, you
read the newspaper, horrible things. They're such evil in the world.
It's possible not to internalize some of it. I find
that I wake up in a positive mood, but if
I wake look, you may be internalizing stuff. Maybe you're

(46:39):
an mpath as well, and you're internalizing something from someone else.
It's confusing to people until they learn about their sensitivity.
What am I feeling and what am I feeling that
someone else that I picked up from someone else. When
I do healing work, I have to protect my heart chakra,
that I don't internalize someone else's negativity. Very easy to

(47:00):
do that. What I do is I make a gratitude
list all the things that I'm grateful for. It's very
important to be grateful for things. Self pity is one
of the worst things that a human being can do
for themselves, to feel sorry for yourself. Anytime I've ever
done that, I walk out in the street and God
puts some unfortunate person in front of me to show

(47:23):
me how lucky that I am. I have a very,
very long gratitude list. There are things that I've wanted
in my life that I don't have for a long
time now. But what I've learned is that I'm not
the ultimate victim of the universe. If I don't get
what I think I'm supposed to have, it's not because
I'm being punished. It's because I'm supposed to have something
better than that. And if I got what I thought

(47:45):
I wanted, I wouldn't be available for the really good
thing that's coming to me. The problem is I have
to have patience, and as human beings, we have no patience.
We want everything right now. So I've come to understand that,
like I said, I'm studying spirituality for thirty years and
it's taught me how to process the events in my life.
And I understand the path that I've been on. I

(48:08):
understand it much better than I used to. You get
what you get. You get what you're supposed to get,
not necessarily what you want, but what you're supposed to have.
And you don't lose anything you're supposed to have either,
you know, on a very personal note, divorce is very painful.
But my ex wife is a wonderful person, and she

(48:28):
adopted two other children. She remarried and adopted two other
children and had another daughter of her own, and those
two children needed to be adopted, and that little girl
needed to be born. That little girl recently had twins
of her own. All those things couldn't have happened had
I stayed, And sometimes you only see that in retrospect. Well,
we're all friends. Hollidays come and we celebrate everything together

(48:52):
with my kids, my ex wife and her husband and
their kids, and I have a very big extended family
because of the print that I've spoken to you about,
not necessarily comedic principles, but spiritual principles. And I try
and lead my life that way. And when you do that,
you wind up with a much bigger life than you
thought you'd have, because people very often hate each other

(49:16):
when they break up. And for me, like she's the
mother of my children, there's no greater gift. No one
else ever gave me any kind of gift that even
comes close to that, And so I value that and
so I honor her. You know, I tell her. I
don't know if she likes to hear it when, but
I tell her. I tell her all the time that

(49:37):
I'm very grateful for her because she gave me that
amazing opportunity, and not everybody has that opportunity. And you know,
so being grateful is a key to getting out of
that gloomy state. If you wind up waking up like that,
sometimes could just be a bad dream too. You know,
you can pick up something that you heard or so

(49:58):
it's why when you dream, there are people in your
dream that you never met before. They're probably people you
passed on the street that you don't know.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
Oh how interesting.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
Our minds are like video recorders. They record everything. I'm
very big talking about cellular memory, every single thing that's
happened to you since your born Lynn is still inside
of you. It's the reason why you could hear a
song you like and you remember the boy you liked
in the third grade, or you spell a perfume and
you like my kindergarten teacher wore that perfume. You know,

(50:27):
it's sensory dejavus. There's no thought involved. It happens automatically. Yeah,
And so we get triggers all day long, and you
never know what triggers a weird thought, And subtly you
can be happy and suddenly you could feel sad and
you won't even know why, and it could be a
bit of a song. Somebody walks by that reminds you
of somebody you used to know. You walk by thirteenth

(50:49):
Street and you had a relationship on thirteenth Street, and
just seeing that sign bring something back to you. We're
very delicate instruments.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
We sure are.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
Oh my goodness, I feel like you should be sending
me an invoice at the end of this podcast.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
Well, I have a feeling that you are an EmPATH.
When I read about you, you do so many interesting things.
I wouldn't be surprised because it seems that what I'm
saying resonates with you that you get it. I'm not
saying stuff that you don't understand.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
No, I get it.

Speaker 3 (51:21):
I think the one thing where I realized that something
was going on was I don't I can't handle large crowds.
Not because I'm afraid of anything. Current day. You know,
large crowds of people and.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
An energy can be overwhelming, but I.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
Never knew that.

Speaker 3 (51:36):
And someone told me that, and I was like, that
makes so much sense. I'm feeling all of everybody else's
energy and I don't. I'm like, my brain is going
crazy because I don't know which way to turn.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
So maybe maybe there, maybe you're.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
Just the signs of an EmPATH that you feel too much.
You take in. I'm like an antenna for people's feelings.
I still I feel more than I want to. So
I've had to learn to censor my life. If I
encounter someone who I get a negative vibe from, I
eliminate that. I don't allow them in anymore wherever I can. Sometimes,

(52:10):
if you're doing a big project, some of them slip in.
You can't quit everything you're doing just because somebody is negative.
But when there's a choice, you have to try and
protect yourself.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
You are so right about that that that's what makes
work work sometimes instead of fun. Now you've interviewed and written,
and thank you so much for all that. I know
you're also on a time schedule too, so I want
to I have so many more.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
Quotable Please, I'm not in a hurry. This is very
lucky to me. Take as much time as you need.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
Well, thank you, You're so generous. You've interviewed and written
for legendary comedians. Can you tell us maybe about a
particularly memorable encounter that may have deeply impacted you, maybe
somebody like you know who may have gotten in your
way with SNL or have you ever confronted that? But

(53:04):
do you know or any even anecdotal you know something.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
I've been given the gift and to meet all the
people that I've been inspired by in the comedy world,
written for them, worked with them. You know Milton Burle.
A lot of people who were listening to this may
not even know who Milton Burle was. Mister Television. Yeah,
greatest entertainers of all time. The reason he was called
mister the Television was because people bought TVs to watch

(53:29):
his show in the nineteen forties, before there was TV.
He had one of the first big shows the Texico
Star Theater, and he was my sponsor in the Friars Club.
As a little kid, i'd watch him on the Ed
Sullivan Show, and Milton Burrell became a friend of mine.
He saved my life once. I was very depressed and
he I'll never forget. I was get home on a

(53:50):
very cold winter day and my phone was ringing. This
was before cell phones. I got home from teaching and
I was feeling really sad, and as I was opening
my door, my phone was ringing already and I was
trying to get to it before it stopped ringing. And
I picked it up and it was Milton Borough and
he said to me he was being honored and he
wanted me to come as his guest. I think it

(54:10):
was an honor from the Friars Club Man of the
Year or something like that. And it was so amazing
to me that I went from being so sad and
depressed to being so happy that a man like that
would think to call me. We actually became friends, you know,
and I got to write for him, and I got
to write for Woody Allen. I'm not Woody Allen, for

(54:32):
Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers and Gilbert Gottfried and Richard
Belzer and Andrew Dice Clay and one of the few
people that ever got to write for Dice, And he
says that openly there was a time I wouldn't say
who I wrote for, because it's not to take anything
away from them. They did most of their own material.
But they worked with me, you know. And I got
to work with Nicroll and John Mulaney. Oh yes, they

(54:54):
had me open their Broadway show and they made me
this jacket which, oh my gosh, an exact replica of
the Guardian Angels jacket that Curtis Sleewer wears. Who's running back,
But my jacket says Gurian Angels. And Nick Roll and
John Mulaney made this for me, see on the front,
the exact replica of the Guardian Angels. So they didn't

(55:17):
know that I was friends with Curtis Sleewer. They mentioned
him in their Broadway show. I used to be Curtis's dentist,
and he says it, so it doesn't matter that I
say that, get out of He's my friend for thirty
years and he's got to win for mayor. By the way,
So as a surprize to Nick and John. I brought
Curtis to the Broadway show and he wore his Guardian
Angels jacket and I wore my Gurian Angels jacket.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
Guryan Angels.

Speaker 3 (55:40):
I almost feel like you should have some hot chicks
and Gurian Angels jackets too, like Charlie's.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
They made up Gurian Angels t shirts and they got
two models to wear them to the opening night. I've
had a lot of amazing experiences, and we did the
show in Montreal and they had me they do too
much tuna? Were they prank?

Speaker 3 (55:58):
I was just gonna say, this is more homework for
those listening to the show. Besides who the f is
John gury and you have to look up Nick Croll
and John Malaney doing too much Tuna with you because
that is so funny the.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Person to be pranked, it's a strange thing to put
on your resume. But I'm the very first person to
be pranked with too much tuna. Nick and John think
it's very funny to give people the tuna sandwich. That's
about this toll. And I'm the first. They brought me
out to La to do it. On Comedy Central. It
went viral, and then we did it in Montreal at
the Just Pha Laffs Festival, which is the biggest comedy

(56:33):
festival in the world, and they had me give the
tuna sandwich to Jet Appatow, the King of Hollywood.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
I'll get out of the King of Hollywood Movies.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
When they were ready to give in this sandworis, they said, Jeffrey,
come out and I was wearing my Gury and Angels
jacket with the big tuna sandwich to give it to
Jet Appatow.

Speaker 3 (56:49):
Did you know what you were going to say? Or
was it totally outlived?

Speaker 2 (56:53):
Totally odlived? And I thought I did something wrong.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
You were so funny.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
They stopped shooting after this. That can take and they
were doing other sketches and they did a lot of
takes and I'm like, did I do something wrong? And
They're like, no, we love what you did. We don't
want to change it because I refuse to be praank. Yeah,
you were franking you And I'm like, no, you're not.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
This is good.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
Yeah, I love it this way, this is a perfect
tune to say it. I'm like, no, this cameras all around,
I'm like, I'm not looking. I'm not looking you know, Oh.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
My god, you were amazing. I had to know.

Speaker 3 (57:24):
I mean, it seemed like it was it was impossible
that it could be that funny without being scripted, but
it really is.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
It just happened. And like I said, I was worried
that I did something wrong, and they had me back
a couple of times. I wound up doing a thing
with Laura dern Andy, Amy Poehler and Seth Rogen and
Katy Perry. It was Katy Perry's comedy debut and I'm
on the red carpet doing crazy stuff with him.

Speaker 3 (57:50):
For those listening who might be in pain or pursuing
a dream that seems impossible, what message do you hope
that they would take away from from your journey in life.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
I know that's a big question.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
But I have an answer. I have an answer to everything, Okay.
Perseverance is very important. If you believe in yourself, if
you truly think that you have a gift, then you
owe it to yourself to persevere. The entertainment business is very, very,
very difficult. You have to be able to handle rejection.
Not everyone is good for whatever they think they're going

(58:23):
out for. At some point you have to have a
clear picture of yourself and realize that maybe you're not
what you think you are. But if you really believe
that you have talent, then you have to take it
as far as you can take it without driving yourself crazy.
You have to have balance in your life, you know.
I was lucky. I couldn't get a job as a waiter,

(58:45):
so I went to dental school. It's important to have
a second career, something to fall back on if you're
only looking at getting into show business. It's a very
very hard feel to break into and make a name
for yourself, and you have to be really tough and creative.
People are very sensitive, so it makes it very very hard.
I was lucky that I had two careers, you know,

(59:07):
as hard as it was for me to do both
at the same time, it gave me balance, very left brain,
very right brain, and when the comedy thing wasn't working,
I always had a career to fall back on. I
was always doing things, whether I was making people laugh
or making them look pretty, I was always doing something
to put out positive energy to the universe. So perseverance

(59:30):
is key up to a certain point. Then you have
to be realistic and you have to say maybe I'm
not as talented as I think I am.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
Good advice from a man who knows one of they
call you one of the most connected people in comedy
they do. Let me ask you, how do you use
that platform, you know to inspire joy and kindness?

Speaker 2 (59:55):
How I use that platform is when people approach me
and people do they say, can you help me get
a big store for this show or this whatever? To
produce shows. Because once in a while I produce shows,
I'm able to call the talent directly without going through
their manager or agent. I call them first and present
it to them and see if they're even interested in it,

(01:00:18):
and then if they are, then I go through a
manager or agent because you have to do that out
of respect. But it gives me the option of talking
directly to the big star themselves. Because fortunately, and again
I don't even have an answer how this happened. Nikroll
said it in that video. He said, you know more
people in comedy than anybody I know, and I'm not

(01:00:38):
even sure how that happened. I was in the right
place at the right time, you know. I go through life.
My motto is I love everyone until they teach me
not to. I embrace people you know, and so maybe
they feel that I don't know. I've just been lucky.
I've been able to meet every better that I wanted
to meet in comedy, and I don't know out of

(01:01:00):
the real newcomers, you know, they say, I know all
the YouTubers. I knew the comics from the Golden Age
and the YouTubers from today. There are people that I
read about that I haven't met yet. But there are
some people that I met that I didn't even know
they knew me. There's one who's so bad. I don't
know why I'm blacking on his name. Oh, Troy Bond.

(01:01:22):
So I was. I was performing at the Sunshine Festival
in Florida, and everybody was talking about Troy Bond, this
new big star, and I was so excited. I was
going to go meet him and do an interview with him,
because aside from performing, I was interviewing people for the
festival and I heard he was in this room, and
so I went into the room and as I approached him,

(01:01:42):
he said, Jeffrey Gerkhead, I can't believe that you're here.
And when I interviewed him, he said, I can't believe
I'm going to be on comedy Matters TV. I've been
watching it for years. I didn't even know. I was
excited to meet him and he was excited to meet me.
So we took some great pictures together, and he's in
this little sizzle reel that they made about me. So

(01:02:03):
it's just funny. I don't have a good answer for it,
but I just I love meeting people that are successful,
people that are doing things to put positive energy out
to the world. That's the best answer I can give you.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
Well, it's a fantastic one. Used to add it to
perseverance and gratitude. And you've got a book. Oh, but
you already wrote that, so we'll have to check out.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
I wound up with eight books. The last book that
I'll want to show you is the book that I
wrote after I recovered from COVID, and it's called Facing Adversity,
Stories of Courage and Inspiration, and it's true stories of
people who overcame tremendous difficulties. We all think we have problems.
These people a man born with no arms and legs,

(01:02:49):
who is going to commit suicide at ten years old,
and today he's an internationally known motivational speaker married to
a beautiful woman and he has four children, and I
think I have a rough day sometimes. And this man
Nick Voojisitch is his name, No arms and legs. And
my whole book is those stories that I collected over
a period of twenty years. And while I was recovering

(01:03:12):
from COVID, I was in the house for months, and
I said, what can I do? I don't want to
waste this time. Time is too precious. How can I
turn a negative into a positive? And I took this
folded down from my closet that's packed with these stories,
and I wrote Facing Adversity and it's part of my
Happiness series. Those three books that I showed you what

(01:03:33):
I call my Happiness series, and they've all become bestsellers
on Amazon. They seem to resonate with people. They inspire people.
That's my thing. I want to motivate people and inspire
people that no matter what's going on in your life,
is a possibility that tomorrow is going to be better.
You know that we're not mind readers. Every single person

(01:03:54):
in your life that you know, there was a day
before you met them and you had no idea you
were going to meet them, and then you met them
and something is different in your life, you know, And
so it's important for people to hold on to those
thoughts so that when things are rough, when you're having
a rough day, that you can shift your consciousness and

(01:04:14):
think of something different and be grateful for the things
that you do have and realize that tomorrow can be
much better. You know. As an EmPATH, I used to think,
if I was sad today, I'm going to be sad
for the rest of my life. There's no hope for me.
I'm just going to be sad and depressed. And I
didn't know how to shift my thinking in those days
and had to change of thought. And that's what I've

(01:04:36):
learned that thoughts are not facts. Feelings are not facts,
and thoughts are not facts, and thoughts our thoughts are
not necessarily based on our experience. They're based on our
interpretation of our experience. Which is why you can have
siblings that are completely different people, and if you ask
them about their childhood, you'd think they had different parents.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
Wow, that's a whole that's the next podcast. You have
to come back. We need to talk about that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
Come back anytime you want, Liddy, Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
Jeffrey Gurian just write this name down, just google him
and watch everything he's involved in because you will feel
better after, I promise. Jeffrey Gurian, thank you so much
for your time today and coming on comedy saved me
and I really do truly hope that you come back
and best wishes, good luck with everything you do in
the future.

Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
And thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
Thanks so much, Lynn, It's been very special spending this
hour with you, and I hope you do ask me
to come back. I'd love to come back again. Thank
you so much.

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