As a comedian, Gary Gulman has been making audiences laugh for more than two decades. He has been a guest on all the major late-night comedy shows.
But things have not always been a laugh riot. There have been some tough times along the way.
In 2016, Gulman moved back into his mother’s home in suburban Boston in an effort to recover his mental health. He’s turned his life around since then.
Gulman is the author of the hilarious and moving memoir, "Misfit: Growing Up Awkward in the '80s." He talked all about it recently with Wisconsin Public Radio's "BETA."
Every chapter of "Misfit" covers one year of his childhood, from kindergarten to 12th grade. Gulman also includes some poignant writing about his battles with depression.
And Gulman being Gulman, he also had some fun with the book. For example, he wrote an "Introduction to the Introduction."
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Doug Gordon: Gary, why did you decide to write an "Introduction to the Introduction" for your memoir, "Misfit"?
Gary Gulman: I have sort of a compulsion or a ritual of reading the intro, the preface or the foreword, and that I will not start after it. I will not do anything before it.
And I've gotten a lot out of reading, though, as I read kind of a new foreword or a preface to an edition of 'The Grapes of Wrath.' And reading it is just as important as reading the body of the book, the actual book and was really helpful.
So I've always been insistent on this. And I wanted to call out people who don't read the intros and then tell you that they read the book. So it was sort of a thing where I was teasing people about not reading the intro and skipping forward and cutting corners. But also I wanted to reinforce how important it was in my case to read the introduction.
DG: I think it is important to read the introduction. And I have OCD, so I when I read something, I insist that I have to read the introduction. And I'm wondering, did you ever consider writing an epilogue and an epilogue to the epilogue?
GG: I didn't consider that. But now I wish I had, because that is a really great idea. I remember early in my life, people would write letters to each other and they would put 'PS' and then 'PSS' and 'PSSS.' And I always found that really funny and clever.
It's a missed opportunity, but you're a very clever person.
DG: Well, thank you. That means a lot coming from such a clever, funny person. I've got to get that tattooed on my arm. But you could still do it for when the paperback comes out.
GG: That's a great idea, because there are adjustments made to paperbacks, and I will definitely partake in that.
DG: Excellent. You devote entire chapters to each year of your education all the way from kindergarten to the 12th grade. And I'm just astonished at all the details you remembered. How were you able to remember all these details?
GG: It was a combination of things. One thing was that I have this habit that probably started as soon as I became conscious. It was knowing there were things and events that I would never forget and frequently commented on them. Either in my head or aloud, I would say, 'I will never forget this.'
And it was either a great thing or in some cases a negative, sad or traumatic thing. And I was true to my word. I never forgot so many of these things.
The other thing is that I always admired my dad's ability to tell compelling stories from his youth. And we had heard them over and over again over the years and knew them and requested them and could repeat them and still sometimes think about them. But I knew early on that remembering what happened to you as a kid was going to be a positive thing and a helpful thing in terms of being a compelling storyteller.
DG: You had one enemy in Jewish summer camp, a boy you referred to as Kapler. Can you tell us about him?
GG: Yes. He was my enemy because he was no more athletic than me or really charming or interesting than me. He was just a regular kid. But he had enormous confidence. And he made the softball team and he starred in the camp play and he won the sandcastle building contest.
I just I could not understand why this kid who really did not have so much more going for him than I did was so confident. And I was so shy and sad and felt anxious all the time. And so I just felt — although he had no idea that I was resenting him — I had built up so much resentment because I was losing all these things to this kid who I couldn't figure out why he felt so good about himself when I felt so lousy about myself.
DG: You had this great opportunity to publicly display your resentment during the experience the day you guys went to a zip line in the woods. Can you tell us that story?
GG: Yes. I didn't go on the zip line because I was too afraid. And Kapler, of course, was the first to go on. He was so energetic and was not afraid. He believed in himself. He went on there and he zipped down and he came down and he returned a hero. And everybody was so impressed by him. They surrounded him and they said, 'What was it like? And did you have a good time?'
And I'll never forget what he said. He said, 'Well, you learn so much about yourself.'
He was 9 or 10 years old. And I just remember thinking, well, he copied that. He heard that on a commercial for Outward Bound or from an astronaut or something.
And he decided to say this and everybody oohed and aahed, and I said to him, 'Kapler, why do you have to be so preachy? You sound like a commercial.' And he was not fazed by being called out by that. He didn't really care.
People looked at me like I was an ogre and a jerk. And I just, it blew up in my face, but I couldn't resist. I was so turned off by his bravado and his false confidence. Well, maybe it wasn't false, but also his pretentiousness, I guess.
DG: Besides writing about your childhood, you also wrote some very powerful passages about your battles with depression and anxiety in 2017. You were very honest about these feelings in your compelling HBO special, "The Great Depresh." Why did you choose to revisit these dark days?
GG: It was just this hurricane of nostalgia and reminiscing. It brought back a lot of the things that I feared but was now overcoming. And a lot of my trauma and a lot of my worldview had been developed when I was young.
So I felt early on it needed to be clear why this 46-year-old man was spending so much time analyzing kindergarten through 12th grade. And I thought this was a really good device to make sense of that.