Healing Through Humor: Greg Fitzsimmons Shares Personal Stories of Comedy and the Power of Laughter-Encore Episode

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Comedy saved me. 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. Yeah. Greg Fitzsimmons is 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 devoted following. He's also a cool, I didn't know this, a pioneer in comedy podcasting launching Fitzdog Radio way back in 2009. So beyond the laughs, Greg's journey is one of resilience using comedy, not just as a career, but as a lifeline during his darkest moments. And lucky me, he is here to talk to us all about it. Greg Fitzsimmons, welcome to Comedy Saved Me. It's such a pleasure to have you here and a fellow Boston native too. So that makes me happy. 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, I guess I'll jump in. I guess I'll join in on it. I love it. 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, 35 years. Sure. That's huge. 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 feat in and of itself. Well, thank you. Yeah, it was a decision that I made. Well, first of all, though, I slipped once in 35 years for one night and it was the night that it was Kevin Meany's funeral, who I'm sure you knew. He was around Boston when you were there. I thank you. I've interviewed him, one of my all time favorite comedians of all time. Yeah. Yeah. Just a lovely humor. It's 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 friends' parents were alcoholics. It's like, it's almost like you find each other, like adult children or children of alcoholics, I should say. We were broken toys and we find each other like through the anger, through the, um, maybe there's something in your eyes. And so I never thought it was unusual that there was this much drinking. All my, not all my relatives, a lot of my relatives also were alcoholics. And so 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, oh my God, this is, I didn't feel alone. And that led me to quit drinking probably about a year later. And, um, I feel like I owe a lot of the positive things of my life to stopping. I bet. 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. Did that come into play? Well, the first time I did it, I 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, and I went up on stage and I started roasting the teachers. And so the principal unplugged my microphone. So I was talking about how the Westin Civ teacher was having an affair with the art teacher and, uh, and they plugged 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. Everybody else was singing songs and whatever. And I got up and did stand up comedy, which, you know, in 1984, there wasn't that much stand up around. No, what made you decide to do, to roast them? Was it a last minute decision or did you know what you were going to do? 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, I love connections to him. He was, he was only 53 when he died. And, uh, I know and I'm 59. So it's weird. It's weird to 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 a tuxedo and he bring me with him when I was like, you know, I'd be like 10 years old and I would watch him go up there. And he had joke jokes, you know, like street jokes. He had, he would roast, you know, whoever was running the event. He went right after them because he knew that that was going to get the biggest laughs and, uh, and he told stories about his life a little bit, but he was like, essentially he was doing standup comedy. I mean, you wouldn't have called it that then you would have called it emceeing a dinner. Yeah. But I think I learned a lot of my style. I have old, uh, audio tapes of 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. Lead by example, uh, certain, I mean, he probably didn't even realize he was leading you by example at that point. I don't, I don't think so, but, um, we went to the clubs in New York City. My, my whole teen years, we used to sneak into the clubs when I was like 16, 17, I'd be at the comedy cellar watching Seinfeld and Paul Reiser and Richard Belzer and, uh, we, you know, we used to heckle them. We were like little drunk teenagers, heckling, like comedians. I'm like, I'm embarrassed when I think back to, we were those guys. And, uh, so. What would you do to heckle them? Like we, we went to heckle them, but like if they did a joke, we would add like a tagline to their joke. That was nice of you. Well, we thought, well, we thought, we thought we were helping them and we thought we're part of the show and, and then they'd make fun of us and they'd get big laughs. We felt like we were helping them there too. And, um, but I realized looking back that we were probably just really annoying to them. Wow. That's amazing. And your dad also was the host of, I believe, Good Day New York 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 I, I, I, 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, um, but yeah, he launched it and then, but he mostly did radio and then he hosted the Jerry Lewis telethon for like 15 years. I remember that was your dad. That's amazing. Yeah. So people don't always realize that like Jerry Lewis would host 45 minutes and then 15 minutes would be the local stations, whether it was Chicago or Boston and so he was the New York guy and he did it with Tony Orlando for years. And then he did it with Patty Duke Aston for a long time. And, uh, and we used to go down every year and we'd volunteer, we'd help out and, uh, it was 36 hours long and he would go straight through. It was crazy. I bet. Yeah. I'm from my kid childhood. I would just remember the yelling like, Tim, buddy, he would scream and they would do the big roll out. 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 know? Oh my God. Right. Right. Yeah. Growing up in, uh, Tarrytown, did humor play a role in your family dynamics? Like was comedy sort of like a shield or maybe a bonding tool or maybe a little bit of both for you? Yeah. I mean, it's very much part of the Irish, um, 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 rip them down again. So our 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, um, my father was this bigger than life guy. You know, he really had more charisma, I think than anybody I've ever met in my life. He was just phenomenal guy. And, you know, he had issues, but at the end of the day, like, uh, we wanted his approval, uh, 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 then my sister was the great laugh for a long time. And my brother just kind of listened and smiled. And he didn't, he didn't usually add that much. He just took it all. Was he the youngest? No, he was the year older. Older. Wow. What, what's your earliest memory of maybe using humor to get out of trouble? Did you ever do that? Well, I wrote a book called Dear Mrs. 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 got sent home from school when I was in trouble. The funniest stories, like each one of them, you read it and you'd 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 with a classroom wearing a cape during French class. And, um, and so it was kind of showing 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 it or I would get a huge laugh out 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 it, no, it was, it was a good story at Thanksgiving. You were redeemed. Yes. That's hilarious. Yes. Yeah. It was, um, you know, one of them was about, um, Greg was in geometry class and we were teaching positions on fractions. Greg then yelled out, are there any other positions? Is there a 69 position? She literally wrote that out and sent it home. And my parents were dying. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. My God. Well, the premise of this show is called comedy saved me. Oh, here we go. Now we're going to get all serious. I'm going to get a little serious. 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. Yeah. I remember, um, 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. 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 he was, it was so tragic, but like my friend, Jared Wilson died and he was a fellow comic and we were probably about 29 or something. And he was a school future from Queens, grew up or and and stumbled into standup. And he was just like Jackie Gleason. He was just like this, you know, presidents in the room. And he just immediately had 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 5.0. He had just been brought back and he was doing an episode and he caught Spinal meningitis and went into a coma and died. And he and my wife and 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 Queens at a restaurant and Jerry Fowler 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 10 or 15 minutes of great Jerry Redd stories. And the whole everybody at the gathering was Irish Catholic New Yorkers. And I'm Talens 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 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 are wiping tears. And the father said, we need to do this every year. So I started a foundation called the Jerry Redd Wilson Foundation with his fiance. And we held a show a year later at Caroline's Comedy Club and all the family, all the friends came out. It sold out so fast that the next year we did it at Town Hall, which holds like 1600 people. And we invited all his friends and family. And then we had some of the biggest comedians around. John Stuart did it and Jay Leno did it and everybody knew Jerry and loved him. So they were they were willing to come on and do the show. And we did it for like 10 years every year at Town Hall. And we raised hundreds of thousands of dollars that we gave to the meningitis foundation. And it was just a way we put together a video compilation reel that we would show at the beginning of the show. Because some people there didn't know who Jerry was and wanted to keep that keep his spirit alive. And yeah, that was that was something where laughter did a lot of healing. 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. Yeah. Yeah. I think you should videotape them. And then you have that to look back on for for years. That to me is the ultimate scrapbook is the. And now that's my thing is that no matter what funeral I go to, people ask me to get up and speak like my friend Dave Howlin. And like I play poker with a bunch of guys here and I live in Venice Beach. And we played for 20 years. And it was one guy in the group, Dave Howlin, 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 from poker night. But the wife came up and said, we want you to speak in the funeral. And I was like, what? In no way. So I had like a couple days. So what I always do is I just talk to the loved ones and the family. I go, what was your favorite Dave story? And I just collect them and I tell them four of them because they don't they are afraid to get up and do it. Yeah. 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. 60 second hug like thank you for doing that for all of us. Greg Fitzsimmons funeral roaster. I could see it's a whole business now. You could you could see that. I could see that, you know, Yuri's looking for an angle in this world. Yeah. But that's the best angle of all. Right. And when people have just lost somebody, I've seen this from funeral homes. You can gouge them on the money. I could I could charge a tremendous amount. Yeah. Oh, I wasn't even thinking of the money part of it. Oh, no, I'll do I'll have a website. You can book me online. Just give me give me a couple of details and I'll fly into St. Louis. Some bullet points of your loved one and I am there. Wow. You know, I'm not so shocked and don't send bullet points. That would be too dark. Yeah. We'll be right back with more of the Comedy Saved Me podcast. Welcome back to the Comedy Saved Me podcast. Did to getting laughs throughout your career sort of give you a sense of control or empowerment? Maybe when things felt overwhelming, what did that feel like to you when you sort of really were winning them over like that outside of the funerals, of course, I mean, on the in the comedy show? Like on stage? Yeah. Like what was the feeling like when you were in the funeral home? Like on stage? Yeah. Like what was it that kept you going back to doing it? 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 get up on stage, I can conquer that and it makes me feel more in control of my life. And it's very funny because like, like this past weekend I was in San Diego and my friend texted 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 like people coming to my shows that I 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 like 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. 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 don't want my friends to, oh, you know me, my friend is a great guy. You love, I will 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 on that guy, they think I'm the guy that's, hey, you know, like, and I'm not that guy at all. 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. I understand. 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, standard comedy is a very alpha kind of experience. 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 of my life is my son came and saw me for the first time when he was probably about maybe 16 or so. And we were in Denver and they came out because we're going to go skiing after my shows. 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 out there and I wanted to do well. And I mean, it was just applause breaks throughout and 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 laughed 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 me questions the way 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 my son. I wanted to be on the guy that played catch 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 I could do. It was like we shattered something. You really think so? I didn't want shattered. Little bit. I mean, that just, first of all, the fact that you felt that way is amazing. Most people would say, 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. That's what I do for work. Well, yeah, because- But also, how could you not quell a little bit that he laughs so hard, never laughs so hard in his life and you're his dad? Because he already loves me. He already loves me. I don't want to be that controlling guy. When I'm on stage, I'm controlling the crowd. 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 come to me do stand-up. Give me one reason. For that same reason, just that. I don't want to feel better than them. 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 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, I always feel for big celebrities, because they don't 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. 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 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... They keep you grounded. They treat you like a normal human being, not some famous person. And I do think that's kind of... People will say, 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 heads of company. He goes, everybody ends up where they want to be. 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. I've got a wife who I'm not away from 52 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 it's a battle to not make it all about myself, but it's a battle that I show up for. And I don't want to be... I go on the road sometimes, and I'll open for Bert Kreischer in an arena with 15,000 people. And he's got a staff of 50 people on the road with him. And like, that's a nightmare to me. I go down to La Jolla with my wife and we stay in a hotel and we go to the beach during the day. And I show up to the show with no baggage, no assistant. 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 my following. And I kind of ignore social media. And I just do the things that I enjoy doing. And I've been lucky enough that it's all worked out. And 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 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. Yeah, I think respect is something that you earn 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. Yeah, Greg, I wanted to take everybody with me when I moved to New York to work in television. 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. Lynn needs 16 tickets for all of her friends and their husbands and kids. I didn't want to experience it alone. I wanted them to have that same experience, but it got real fast though because I couldn't take everyone with me. Yeah, well, yeah, I know. And it's hard too because if you really want to do your best, you know, I'll get a text. If somebody's on my guest list, I'll get a text 10 minutes before I'm about to go on, hey, my name's not on the list or hey, I bought somebody extra. Can you, no, that's not where my head is at 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 and the world I'm in is extremely competitive. And if you're not giving it 100%, you're not going to make it. You're not going to keep going. 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 flat line. They never get better. And you guys that show up late for auditions and they just like, okay, so you, you 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 standup where my workplace is a bar 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, so true. And a lot of people would never know that. 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, which you've been open about and you've talked about mental health, as you've done, like even on this podcast. And I'm curious how humor intersects with that journey of yours. I mean, do you, do you ever use comedy as therapy in and of itself or do you keep the two of them completely separate? So yeah, so I had this amazing therapist and sometimes I would come in with a full head of steam 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. And I knew that meant that I wasn't, I had the mask 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, was it nerves too? Yeah, 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 a 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, he's a huge comedy writer. We were best friends since college and we both went in different directions than 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 35 years of knowing each other. And he can mask anything with comedy. And I have 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 I went on stage. People laugh right off the... Oh yeah. I walked on stage and I said I was in the middle of sex 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 do... Get out of here. You don't even know where you're going to stay next? Nope. No. Whoa. That is risky. Yep. 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 of like you germinate off stage 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 abortion or 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. Things like that. But as far as therapy, I think that that can be a 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. Yeah, and vulnerable is definitely the word and that is dangerous. 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 massage it. Well, I videotape everything. I audio tape everything and I listen to... Every day I listen to my show the next day and I write down notes on what I did. Wow, that's helpful. I keep going back to the anxiety part because how many times did you do Joe Rogan, how many times were you on Howard Stern? It's like you're a glutton for punishment then if you have such anxiety, but yet you keep going back to all of these incredibly huge shows with massive audiences and put yourself out there. Yeah, which is amazing to me. Yeah, I did Stern like 50 times and I've been on Rogan like 25 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 newsbiz before the internet when I started and I would just get the New York Post and USA Today and the Daily News and I would just sit there and I would write jokes out of the news. I would write out stories from 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 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 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 your show is, but... Wait, first of all, I'm from Boston so I'm trying to figure out where this was. The Fenway. Oh, okay, okay, yeah, yeah. I'm thinking woods, like you went into the forest? Well, every city has a small wooded area that they grow just for gay guys to have anonymous sex in and that's the Fenway, right behind Fenway Park and my apartment was across the street from there 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 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. Hey, well you tested it out, that's awesome. I think 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. Wow, you were on Howard 101 as well, I do recall. I was there for two weeks, they put me with Scott Ferrell for two weeks. Oh yeah. And I need a defibrillator in the room. I said, you don't need me, you are like a show unto yourself. Yeah, yeah, you're right, another funny thing that you mentioned, Rogan. I would never be nervous with Rogan because I went to high school with him. You did in Newton? I did and I worked with his sister, she and I were waitresses at Super Salad in Newton. No way, really? Yes, I watched him flip his car in the front of the high school with my friends in it and everyone survived. Like that's how, what? Yeah, he flipped his car? Yeah, he had a really bad accident and like all four wheels were on front of different houses and the engine came out of the car. No shit. Yeah, and everyone was fine. Oh, really? Yeah, not crazy. Oh my God, that's crazy. Yeah, I'm so happy for all of his 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, I know him. Yeah, that's crazy. 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? 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 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 Dunces again. Things that just are going to make you laugh and take your mind out of it are, it's very healing. It certainly is. Do you remember Bob and Doug McKenzie? Of course, yeah. That was my album that I, in junior high school, I could not get enough of. That and I think, yeah, I think Cheech and Chong. The Great White North, I think was their big album. Yeah, Cheech and Chong. I still have their album Up and Smoke that has the rolling papers on the front of the album cover. I wasn't even allowed to listen to that. I got caught listening to that album and I got in trouble. Yeah, yeah, of course. We've come a long way. Do you think that comedy has the power to heal just anyone or is it more sort of a personal thing or does something have to be wired properly to connect with comedy? 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 they're 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 process comedy on different ways physically. They just don't have it in them to laugh out loud. But that doesn't mean 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 and I'm thinking in my head, maybe she's like Uber, Catholic or whatever. And then she came out after the show and she goes, I'm so sorry. She goes, I love the show. I have resting bitch face. I was just going to ask you. She was either constipated or had resting bitch face. 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. Can you please tell our audience, our amazing audience, where people can find you, where you're going to be after your online presence? Like you, I'm not on social media really at all, but is there a place that people can find? Greg Fitzsimons. Yeah. Yeah. If you go to Fitzdogg, FITZdog.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. So come on out, say hi. All right. And then the podcast is called Fitzdogg Radio. Yeah. Congratulations on that. You have like 2009. Like you were definitely a pioneer in podcasting. Yeah. I mean, because radio, I come from radio and nobody in radio wanted to believe podcasting was going to be anything. Yeah. And you saw the future of it. And so congratulations on that. That's like what over a thousand people you've interviewed so far, which blows me away. Yeah. I know. And all the biggest and best. And they live forever. So you can check them out anytime. 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, by kids will be able to listen to me again. I hope so. I definitely hope. And you won't be upset about it if they laugh. No, but then I'm gone. They can do whatever they want. Greg Fitzsimmons, thank you so much for coming on Comedy Save Me and keep killing it on stage and making people laugh and doing what you're doing and enjoy your life. And I'm so happy to have had the chance to talk to you. Thank you so much for having me. Had a great time.