029 Zen Comedian Transcript (Garry Shandling)

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Amit: This is famous and gravy, a podcast about quality of life. As we see it, one dead celebrity at a time also, you can play our game dead or aliv at deadorliveapp.com.

Michael: This person died 2016, age 66. He studied electrical engineering at the university of Arizona.

Friend: Ah, he must not have been good at it. I have no idea.

Michael: That's actually that one's really meant to throw you off. He began his comedy career as a writer and went on to become one of the most successful standup comics of the 1980s.

Friend: Ooh, George Carlin,

Michael: not George car. His comedy was dry self-deprecating and sometimes a bit absurd. A frequent subject was his sexual prowess or lack thereof.

Friend: Hmm. And he was funny.

Michael: He was funny.

Friend: I, I don't know. Okay. Okay.

Michael: He had frequently substituted for Johnny Carson as the tonight show host

Friend: Jay Leno,

Michael: not Jay Leno. I believe Jay Leno is still with us, although we should verify

Friend: he's still alive.

Michael: His show was often cited as a groundbreaking precursor to shows like curb, your enthusiasm and 30 rock we

Friend: Larry Sanders,

Michael: not quite his stage name was Larry Sanders.

That's why you're like, you're like right there. Oh, He was best known for the Larry Sanders show a dark look at life behind the scenes of late night talk show.

Friend: I have no idea who that actually is said.

Michael: today's dead. Celebrity is Garry Shandling

Friend: Garry Shandling. I do know who that is. His voice. Oh my gosh. Okay.

Michael: That's great. I love that you guessed Larry Sanders. That's so perfect. So yeah.

Garry: See, you're too hot. You're too hot. You're great. Well, let's start with this now. How many people have seen me before? Just applaud people who have seen me before. All right. There goes that material. Great. Uh, no. Now I write every day. Those of you who know me, I write new material every day and I keep it fresh.

And we're all right. So what do you think about this Watergate thing?

Michael: welcome to famous and greatly. I'm Michael Osborne.

Amit: My name is Amit Kapoor

Michael: and on this show, we choose a celebrity who died in the last 10 years and review their quality of life. We go through a series of categories to figure out the things in life that we would actually desire and ultimately answer a big question.

Would I want that life today? Gary Shandling died 2016, age 66. Category one grading the first line of their obituary, Gary Shandling, a comedian who definitely walked a tight rope between comic fiction and show business reality on two critically praised cable shows died on Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 66.

So they just highlighted the TV career. They had a little bit of Kenny Rogers, that's it? Yeah. Like I was looking for more here, correct? It's not that I don't, like what's said here, deathly walked a tight rope between comic fiction and show business reality. And he did that twice on two shows. Yes. And that is like what he's known for.

I mean, this isn't totally wrong, but boy, it felt like it totally missed. It just feels like

such an excerpt from his life. Not even, I think from our point of view, I just think from what the public might know him, as

I wonder about that, it's kind of fascinating how important and impactful he was. And how many people I think really struggled to like recall his name today.

You know, you really had to be a fan of, one of these two shows to remember him, even though he guest hosted for Johnny Carson, even though there's an army of modern comics who point to him as one of the greats,

Amit: he hosted the Grammys four

Michael: times. Right? I don't know how, how bad is it? Because you know, the obituary is there to say, here's what we are going to remember him for.

And these are probably the top two items he's likely to be remembered for by the, the grand population by the grand population, outside of, you know, the entertainment industry. So is it just, you mean, is it a, just OIT? Yes. In other words, are you saying this obituary does not do him justice?

Amit: Or is it doing I justice, right?

Because it is telling the world, reminding the world what he was known for. I

Michael: mean, I don't think it does. I think it absolutely doesn't do him justice. Think about the Maurice Sineck obituary, right. Where people really struggle to remember his name. He's kind of known for one thing. Yes. Where the wild things are yet that obituary puts him at, you know, one of the greatest children's artists and illustrators of the 20th century.

You could easily have said that about Gary Shannon.

Amit: What's missing is how much he actually ushered in yeah. That he created this entire new genre of not only cable television, but of types of sitcoms and comedy and types of

Michael: standup, a hundred percent. I mean, the rest of the Obi points to, you know, entourage and curb, your enthusiasm and 30 rock as sort of like having a relationship to the Larry Sanders show.

But the Larry Sanders show, I mean, other people will make the argument that this is the show that ushered in prestige television, that HBO, if you look at their programming before 1992, it was like first than 10 and dream on. And not necessarily the news, like they didn't know what they were doing. Yes.

And then Larry Sanders comes along and is really groundbreaking, really deep, really story rich, you know, becomes this, you know, one of these institutions that is like churn. Talent, both on the writing side and on the acting side. And then after that, you know, a few years later you get the Sopranos, right.

And the wire and everything else that has made television. So great that HBO pioneered that, and it starts with Larry Sanders, all they say here is critically praised cable shows that totally under sills it's impact. Right. And you

Amit: said, you know, it's, it's alluded to later in the obituary, but I think what we are saying is that the first line is missing a nod to the groundbreaking yeah.

That he did. And it's also missing to me a character trait. He's very, oftenly known as like the Buddhist comic. Right, right. The one who meditated there needs to either be some nod to the kindness or to that side of him. Yeah.

Michael: I think you and I are both trending towards a low score here. I think. I kind of think I wanna

Amit: give it a five.

I was going five also. Were

Michael: you really? Yeah. I also think it's sort of hard. Some of the things we pointed to a second ago, the Buddhist comic, the great impact. I mean, I think there's a way of doing it, but I think it is harder. You know what? I'm going, four man. I'm going for taking it down. Yeah. I'm taking it down.

The more I talk this out, like this was knowable, you know, and it's it, wasn't that hard to see the outpouring to sort of read the tea leaves. You had to kind of sort of know what a big goddamn deal this show was. Yeah. I'm going for, you're a dream juror,

Amit: Michael. Hmm. You're often persuaded. You can start one way and then you hear the lawyer's argument or your own argument and then you'll change.

You're like

Michael: not guilty. I do like the movie 12 angry men. Quite a bit. That is a wonderful movie. Yeah. Uh, well, thanks. Okay. I'll take that as a compliment five and a four, five and a four. You'll take it as a compliment. That you're a good juror. Yeah, I think so. I like to think I'm weighing out lines of evidence and I'm talking a thing out.

I mean, Jesus, what the fuck is this show about? If not that category two mm-hmm category two, five things I love about you here. Amit and I work together to come up with five reasons why we should be talking about this person, why we might love them. I wanted to give you the opportunity to start this

Amit: time.

I'll start with number one, the Sunday basketball game. Ah, so Gary Shandling built this house in the early nineties. It included a half court basketball court. That sounds very strange, but that's yeah. How you describe it. And he hosted a Sunday basketball game, basically all throughout the nineties and even two thousands.

I think, I think even

Michael: in 20 teens, I think it went on up until his death more or

Amit: less. So during the filming of the Larry Sanders show, primarily a lot of the cast and crew would come play, but a lot of the people just in the LA comedy entertainment community would just come by Shandling's house and play Sunday, pick

Michael: up basketball.

Cause the invite only

Amit: thing. Yes, definitely. It was the thing that you wanted to be invited to as being part of a club sort of, but his idea of it was recreating childhood playing on the streets. Yeah. So what I love about it is his attempt to create community. Yes. And to create acts

Michael: of togetherness. I think that's very well said.

Mark Barron asked him about it on his show. And Maron was always like insecure, cuz he kind of wanted to be invited, but he didn't know how to play basketball. And Gary Shandling's like, well, I'm glad you didn't because with that attitude, it wouldn't have been a fit and you would've made it awkward because it was, it was pretty, pretty good basketball.

Yes. I mean, de Coveney was a regular and he played at Princeton. I mean I think Sasha Baracoa and Jim Carey, like Kevin Neland like, I mean the, the list of who played there is yeah. Jed

Amit: AAU talked about playing there. Sarah Silverman played there. Apparently she's not a bad

Michael: baller. Yeah. That's what I heard.

I mean, I think it was a thing of curiosity to people like who's on Gary Shandling's basketball court, but I also think you're very right in that it had that singular purpose of let's just play basketball. This isn't about climbing the ladder or trying to get ahead in Hollywood or anything like that.

And if you make it about that, you probably won't be invited again. Yeah. It's just play.

Amit: Yeah. And to me it was ritual. It was community and that's what I love about it.

Michael: All right. That is a soft intro into Gary Shandling. I'm gonna go bigger. I gotta get the thing off my chest. That's really stands above anything else I might put.

So I'm gonna take number two. Yes. Lifelong commitment to meditation and spirituality. Okay. He was into Zen and meditation and wellness and, and vegetarianism even. Way before it was in Vogue. Like he found meditation at a very early phase of his life and his commitment to, it looks to be serious if not like a, a, a full body and full life dedication to it that he had, you know, Buddhist monks speaking at his funeral, the Judd AAU documentary was called the Zen diaries of Gary Shandling, but it looks very sincere and very committed and very real.

And I think maybe the single most important thing about him really. He once said all of his comedy Springs from his meditation practice. I think that's really cool. There's a story. In 2003, he traveled to DC to introduce this Buddhist monk to congressional members. There's a good joke. I like here, he said referring to Faye, who's one of the monks he was traveling with.

He joked, he's a special man who has helped millions with their suffering through teaching them mindfulness, but he doesn't know real suffering because he hasn't dated as much as I have, which I think is great. Okay. Okay. What am I trying to say with all of this? I think that the discipline to do it and the anchor to return back to it and to have it as something you're doing really for your whole life, that doesn't seem to wax and wane that much.

I love that about him more than anything else. Am I capturing the like gravity of that enough

Amit: you are, what I'm not hearing is why you love that about Gary. Chaning like, I could tell you that I meditate. Yeah. Uh, daily

Michael: and it's something I admire about you and have for a long time. Well, thank you,

Amit: Michael.

Yeah. But why do you love it about Gary?

Michael: Chaning because I think he's caught up in, in insane world in Hollywood that the entertainment industry is a beast and it chews people up and it often produces unsavory characters and there's all kinds of ego on display. The whole thing is about performing and performance.

And who are you? And are you bringing your most quote unquote likable self to the television cameras or the movie cameras day in, day out. I think that messes with your head. And I think that well before anybody else saw how important it was to remain grounded and to check in on your ego and to try and let go of, you know, material attachments and all the other stuff that comes with Buddhist thought.

I think he locked in on that and like doubled down on it. As time went on. That's an answer,

Amit: my friend. Okay. That's a good answer. Okay. Yeah. And I think this is gonna come up in later categories. I see it as so need based. I see it as a man that just suffers and that it was required more than it was discipline.

No question. And this will

Michael: come up. Sarah Silverman, I think said as much, he committed to Zen. Not because he wants to be Zen, but because he had to have it or something like that, I'm screwing up the quote. But yes, I agree with that. It's being best. Okay.

Amit: I like your work there at the end. You really captured it.

Well, all right. What have you got? Number three. So I've still got a lot, but you're on a roll. I want you to go number three. He's

Michael: a great reactor. I think a reactor like his reactions, like I think his whole comedy is actually reactive. So the way his face transforms with a smile is great. He goes from, you know, sort of looking concerned, neurotic, confused to like smiling and neurotic and confused.

And there's just this whole face transformation. When he smiles, I saw somebody describe his whole comedy as reacting to people with a, eh, look on his face, which I think actually captures a lot. And I think it actually plays into his standup that I tend to think of standup comedy. As you prepare some jokes, you go out.

On stage, you offer those jokes up and you hope they get a reaction and then you move on to the next joke. But I think that actually, what makes a lot of great comics great is how they react to the laughter. It's not just are these jokes coming through, but how do I make them even funnier based on the audience response to the humor.

So who do we have here? How many people now let's get to know each other. How many people from out of town applaud? All right. Lot of, lot of people visiting who's winning money, winning,

losing.

Yeah. I'm the worst. I start throwing my money out the car window. About an hour before I get here, just to get warmed up, take quarters, throw 'em out the window, pull the gear shift on the car. It's the same damn thing.

have you gone up to the all you can eat buffet yet to try to win it. Have you seen those people up there going, I'll eat $700 worth of food. If it kills me, put some chicken in your purse, honey, when we go. But I just feel like his ability to react to the moment with humor was his genius. Yes. And it was

Amit: also with body language.

Yeah, too. Like he would totally, you could see when he lightened up, when he was proud of a joke that he told. Yeah. Or he was proud of how like shameful and corny it was. I know you

Michael: didn't get a chance to do a deep, deep dive on Larry Sanders. No, I did watch a few episodes. Did you see the one where David de Coney has a crush on him?

Amit: That one was highlighted in the documentary. So I did see that part of it.

Michael: There's a scene where like deco reaches out his hands and starts like stroking. Yes. Chan's cheek his face in that like, oh my God, what's happening. That encompasses what I'm talking about. Yeah. Like that reaction was so fricking priceless.

Yeah. Oh, so good. And I can I,

Amit: can we something in here cuz this was on my five things, but I think it fits perfectly well with what you just said is the man learned to act and a lot of standout comedians that are given sitcoms, they do a terrible job of acting. Mm. Seinfeld was notorious for this. They're not great actors.

Yeah. But a guy like Gary Shandling had the natural ability to react, but he also learned to act. Yeah. So that he was combining both the discipline of acting with his natural ability and it just ended up in perfection like that duke Ney scene.

Michael: Yeah. Well let's leave it at that for number three. Great reactor.

Okay.

Amit: So number four, I'm gonna I'm I'm stealing one from the Michael Osborne playbook. Oh, wow. You said this. I think about Maurice CDAC and I'm gonna say this about Gary Shandling is relation to myself. Oh

Michael: my God. I'm so glad you brought this up. I, I made a list. So did you I mean, we'll get there with some of this, but

Amit: it's a lot.

Yeah, God, the more I read and the more I saw, I was like, that's me. That's me. Can we talk about this for

Michael: a minute? Tell me about like where you found points of comparison. Okay. Biography

Amit: point number one, his dad owned a fucking print shop. I had that. Yeah, my God. . Yeah. So that is what my parents did their entire career.

Secondly, uh, we talked about the commitment to meditation. Yeah. Which I have, and mine is need based, which is why I suspect that of Shandling. But I also, in the flirtation I did with standup comedy, I had a lot of meditation jokes, which really like no one really got, but I had a lot of fun telling them.

Yeah. And Shandling did the exact same thing. The third thing is this obsessive commitment to originality. Really anything that he did performance wise or Lifewise had to be original. It had to have been not done before and it's damaging, but he had it. And I don't think he knew how to shed it. And I don't think I know how to shed it.

Oh, that's interesting. Uh, and it's a tough thing to shed Conan said this about Gary chaning that Gary chaning was poised to basically take over Letterman in 93 when coan first appeared on late night and they actually offered it to Chandling yes. Before coan took it. That's right. And when coan was interviewed, he said, you know, it was never right for Gary, cuz he's far too committed to the originality of the art.

Yeah. If he has to go up there and host a talk show and do a set every night, he is going to hate it, cuz that is not origin.

Michael: You know, what, as you were talking about that, I feel like that quality is very easily misunderstood as perfectionism, cuz it sounds like perfectionism and, and it's neurosis now.

Well, commitment to originality I think is actually the best way you put it, stubborn commitment to originality. And like if it's not original, it's sort of not worth it. That's different from perfectionism. It's just

Amit: wanting to create what hasn't been created before and whether that's an act or an art or if it's just a life to make sure that your life has not been the same as anybody else's.

But

Michael: tell me why that's also neurosis or

neurotic.

Amit: There is an absence of letting go and there's nothing more freeing than just letting go and accepting every now and then. Yeah. What did I miss in the parallels between Gary and omit?

Michael: I hope this comes out the right way. Unconventionally attractive.

Really? I think so. Okay. I think you're an attractive man. And I think Gary Shandling was an unconventionally attractive man. Have you

Amit: validated this with women? Did you like

Michael: take a, I'm not gonna tell you survey. I'm not, I'm gonna get them to pass you notes in class. Okay. All right. I did wanna say one thing about meditation humor.

Did you see that the exchange he had with rom dos? I did. There was a joke. He says I've been meditating for 35 years, so I can meditate until my mind is pretty empty, pretty blank, but then there's no one to blame. Yes. And he says the first time anybody laughed at that was when Ron Doss and Ron Doss cracked up.

Yeah, totally cracked up. And he said, now I have an audience for my meditation material. And RO dos replied. Humor is great. And spiritual work. It gets you there. Put a pin in that idea. I'm gonna come back to that one. Okay. So that's number four. Uh, so I got number five. The parallel journey with Seinfeld is actually quite fascinating to me.

I will say this. Go ahead. No, you will say this. I will say this. You're always putting these things in front of their statements. I'll say this. I'll tell you one thing. Okay. Let me be honest question. May I say something? I'll tell you what I think here's a thought that crossed my mind. Let me bounce something off you.

there's good. Little chunk. Yeah, that's a good little that's. That's a good chunk. I don't want that's for the doubles act. When we go out, they're both neurotic single Jewish men with an eye towards situations where the social norms are not apparent. You know, I've heard Seinfeld describe his show as like, we were always attracted to situations where it was just not clear.

What you're supposed to be doing there and how you're supposed to be reacting. One of the last things Gary Shandling did that was public facing before he died, was comedians and cars getting coffee. Yes. And it had that unfortunate title. The name of the episode was it's great that Gary Shandling is still alive.

Then he died like two months later. Oh, wow. Yeah. But I also feel like the way those two guys were friends, I love, but also how important they were for nineties comedy. And I really just feel like there's a great compare and contrast. Story to be told with them in terms of where the similarities and where the differences and how did they impact the industry and what did they mean to other comics?

And also what did they do that led them up to the shows that were perfect for them? And then what did they do after that? Yeah, I guess all of this kind of gets back to groundbreaking humorists, but I feel like if you couple him with Seinfeld in a way, it begins to reveal a lot of things about the world that are really funny

Amit: because Seinfeld is so relat.

To everybody. Yeah. Seinfeld is so huge. Yeah. What it really says too, is that Shandling was just barely not Seinfeld. Right. You know, like without these like hangups and neurosis, perhaps he would be the most famous richest comedian of

Michael: all time. Yeah. I there's actually, one other thing I wanna point to with the comparison that gets back to the first line of the obituary, the tight rope between comic fiction and show business reality, Jerry Seinfeld, as the

Amit: description of the Seinfeld

Michael: show, right?

They're both really playing with this idea. That's sort of surrealist of playing a version of themselves on television. I mean, there was even somebody in the quiz who guessed Larry Sanders as if that was a real person. It was so close to Gary chaning that Larry Sanders feels like a real person. Yes. But even more than that, I think that the Seinfeld comparison is interesting because people are gonna remember his name long after he's dead.

I think. And already people are like, wait, who's Gary chaning. If you had said who's gonna be the bigger, more famous person for time in Memorial, back in 1985 or 86. I think they would've said Gary Shandling hands down. Yes. These star just seemed to be going rocketing up so much faster. Yeah.

Amit: You know, I think he was just a few neuros away from being

Michael: Seinfeld.

I agree. I think that's a really good way of putting

Amit: it. Yeah. I, I think a good way to wrap up this point, which I almost had as my Milkovich moment was the opening of that comedians and cars getting coffee where, uh, you know, a Chan link opens the door and walks out. The very first thing he says is to Jerry is I love you.

And Jerry just says, I love you. And they embrace. Yeah. I, I sense so much authenticity in that

Michael: moment. I agree. I did too. Let's recap the five things. So number one, we had basketball as ritual and community basketball as ritual and community. I had lifelong commitment to Buddhism. Number three, I had great reactor, uh, and reactions, number four, we had Gary and omit Gary and OIT and, uh, number five, we had Gary and Jerry.

Okay. Category three. Malcovich Malcovich. This category is named after the movie. Bing John Malcovich in which people take a little portal into John Mavis mind where they can have a front row seat to his experiences. Would you mind going first? Okay.

Amit: Yeah, I don't mind going first. Okay. So in the late seventies he was arising standup comic.

And back then, the way you know that you made it, or what launched your career is once you make it on the tonight show. So he finally made it on the tonight show with Johnny Carson. He did a set and he knocked outta the park. Yeah, he killed it. Yeah. Did he did a perfect set? He knew he did a perfect set.

Michael: I was camping up in Sequoia national park and, uh, I'm Jewish, you know, and my friend said, Hey, Jewish people don't camp

And, uh, we do, we just have it catered that's all. And, um, so I'm out in the country, you know, I'm driving my car and there's a cow on the side of the road now. We've all done this cuz we're mature adults. When you see a cow on the side of the road, you stick your head out the car window and go,

like, we expect that cow to be thinking, Hey, there's a cow driving that cow.

How can he afford that?

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I wrote some of these jokes. The, uh,

Amit: the story that was told is that he went backstage and he brought Bob Saggot along with him. Cause they were such close friends. The story that I heard is that there wasn't really words exchange, you know, like chaning goes back and smiles and Saggot is expressing compliments and chaning just collapses into Bob sag.

It's arms and starts

Michael: crying.

Amit: because he achieved exactly what he wanted to achieve.

Michael: Is that what's going on

Amit: with that? Well, there was two things, there was that. And it was also what happens now. Yeah. Like I've reached my own Nirvana and there's the elation of that, of climbing the highest mountain and the fear that also goes with climbing the highest mountain.

Yeah. And I don't think many people have those experiences.

Michael: That's interesting. It's sort of like winning the super bowl or something.

Amit: Yeah. It's like this moment is so perfect. But what if this is the most perfect moment I ever have?

Michael: Have you had moments like that? Not necessarily if Corona, your best friend's arms, but of achieving something that felt like perfection and then being left with the thought of what could possibly like top.

Amit: Yeah. I don't know if I've had exact moments, but I've, I've had prolonged experiences that have been so good and I felt so lucky. And then I'm like, well, shit, what's the rest of life gonna be like,

Michael: do you have an answer for that? I

Amit: have a little bit of an answer that I'm not completely comfortable with.

And that answer is in not knowing nothing is written and nothing is prescribed and you have no idea what the greatest feeling you'll ever feel is. And the whole idea of it being the greatest feeling you've ever felt is that you can't imagine it.

Michael: I had a different answer for what you do with that. Okay.

Give it away, tell somebody else about it and help somebody else get there

Amit: and just build up. So everybody has not everybody, but as many people as possible can reach a higher plane.

Michael: I think that's what it means to be of service. I only bring that up because I hope this comes up again with Gary Shandling is that I see his.

Life in, in many ways as increasingly devoted to acts of service. Yeah. I mean, if you

Amit: just look simply at the careers he launched

Michael: and actually that might segue into my Malkovich moment, let me ask this question. The Kona O'Brien's story of when Conan got ousted, I think there is a really important data point for the idea that Gary Shandling learned what to do with that feeling, which is when con O'Brien got ousted from network television and lost his show.

Con O'Brien is all distraught, goes to Hawaii with his family while he's there. And suddenly the phone rang and I heard a voice and it's an unmistakable voice. And it said counting, it's Gary,

Amit: I'm staying three doors down. We're on an island.

Michael: There's no avoiding

Amit: me.

Michael: and Conan tells this great story about how he spent the week with Gary Shandling talking about like Buddhism talking about Ecker tole, talking about, you know, what to do, because I mean, at that point, like Gary Shandling knew like nobody else in the world can help Conan, but me, like who else knows what it means to like lose a show you love and what it means to be a talk show host I'm three doors down.

And even though once upon a time I was offered this job, I'm here to help you Conan. And then Conan tells this hilarious story, how they go on a hike and watch this sunset. And we're both watching the sun go down and I turned to Gary and I said, Gary, this is the most romantic moment of my life. And it's with

Amit: you.

Michael: I think that speaks to me. Of what you do without feeling of what it means to feel like what could possibly be next. Yeah. That is mentorship. That is wisdom. And it's a, who can I uniquely help? And I see that in Gary chaning a lot. Let me

Amit: ask you something about this, give it away concept, which I agree with.

I mean, I, I, I wholly agree and a commitment to service, a commitment to service wonderfully put. So the idea is feeling right that you've had this elation coming in Chan's case after he performed and killed it at the tonight show. So my question is the actual feeling is the giving feel as positive as the

Michael: renewing?

I think so, because I think it is a vicarious reliving of the attaining of the feeling. Every time you give it, you re attain. You remember what it was like to have been there, but it is also. Because it is an egoless gesture. It's infused with depth and with richness and with a deeper meaning. Yeah. It means even more than to have attained it yourself.

My Mavi moment, your Maich moment. He told a story on Letterman once where he's at home and he's watching Letterman and he's kind of drifting off and he didn't realize it was a rerun and he's sort of like fallen asleep and he comes on on a previous guest spot on Letterman and he hears this voice as he's nodding off.

And doesn't immediately recognize it as his own. He's like, who is that whining, annoying voice. I went, oh my God, is this what the audience thinks? And I was in that, that half conscious state, you know, where you can kind of hear what's going on in the room, but your, and this guy's whining about his girlfriend and his and his hair.

And I'm going, this is a nightmare. This

Amit: is a nightmare.

Michael: And I woke up thinking, good. Oh, it was just a nightmare. And then I looked at the screen and it was real. It was me. uh, here's why I like it. I feel like this whole thread that it line tight rope between comic performance and reality behind the scenes.

Like that's a personal experience of it. He'd been on Letterman and Carson and, you know, talk shows before. So it's not the novelty of seeing oneself on TV. It's the not knowing that it's going to be you and suddenly being graced with this, like unfiltered, almost objective take on yourself. You know, sort of like the first time you hear your voice on a home answering machine.

Yes. I suppose this'll come up later, but you're like, wait, that's me. That it's that. But it's like, this is not just me talking. This is me being me on television. I wanna know what's going on in his head, in that moment. I mean, he makes light of it on the Letterman show, but yeah, I just wanna know what's going on there.

What do you suspect. Neurosis . I mean, I think this will come up in a later category, but okay, good one.

Amit: Good. I mean, we basically threw three milk of bitches in there. We kind of cheated our way into

three.

Michael: Yeah. I can't tell if this is gonna be a fast or a slow category, but let's move on. Category four, love and marriage.

How many marriages also, how many kids and is there anything public about these relationships? No marriages, no kids. There was a woman. He dated Linda douce. Yes. Former Playboy model. They started dating in 87. She was cast on Larry Sanders show. They break up in 94. She's fired from the Larry Sanders show.

She files a lawsuit, claiming sexual discrimination. They settle outta court. I tried to get a little bit more information from her, cuz she goes on to marry somebody else and have has a kid. She says they broke up because she wanted to have children and Larry didn. She certainly like in the Judd avatar documentary, you get the sense that she's describing Larry as a soulmate.

Yes. And you get a sort of feeling from her, like we were ultimately meant to be together. So she looks like closer than anybody else that Gary Chanley came to marrying

Amit: anybody. Yeah. I mean, it was a seven year relationship, which does surpass many Hollywood marriages and they did get engaged. At some point they did build a house together.

That's right. She knew it was her destiny to be a mom and he could never make up his mind on it. And I should

Michael: say, and I think this is maybe important, at least on the question of children. What he told her was that his brother died at a very young age of cystic fibrosis, which is a genetic disease. And that he, he has a fear of having kids.

It's a possibility he carries it on. Correct. Which makes sense. I mean, that, that is certainly described as like the original trauma of his life is closeness with his older brother who died at a very young age. And he, he had known with her siblings and it certainly sounds like it created a really complicated relationship with his mother because she had a child die.

And then she just, you know, felt maybe in an unhealthy way, committed to her son, Gary. In his comedy a lot. I mean, this is even in the obituary, he's, self-facing about his dating life and his anxieties to some extent around children and, and being a dad and not wanting to do it, you know, and I'm trying to make this relationship work because, you know, I, I think that's the key to the whole, whole thing.

You know, I think you date for a while, you're in a relationship eventually in your life, you have to get married cuz you just have to that's how I feel. That's probably what I'll say at the ceremony. I'll probably go. I have to no, it's I do Gary. No, I have to trust me. It's an internal pressure. I'll I'll explain it to you at the reception.

I, a friend of mine said you should get married. Gary, you'll get a lot of new comedy material out of it, which that's a huge risk. What if I don't . Do you think it's a problem that he never got

Amit: married? No, I don't think that's a problem. I think there was a lot of evident loneliness in him. Yeah. Uh, marriage is not the only solution to that.

Michael: There is no question that there is an expectation of what you're supposed to do in culture. Yes. You're supposed to get married. They're supposed to have kids. And I've said before on the kid question, I don't feel like we should have that expectation when it comes to children. I would double down on that here.

What I, I can't totally figure out. And I don't think it's an either or thing with Gary Shandling, whether his decision not to get married to Linda or anybody else was fear based or was, I don't know, self affirmative, but I feel like whatever is true, like it needs to be possible for people to say. , I'm not meant to be married and

Amit: I am still fulfilled

Michael: and I'm still fulfilled.

Exactly. And I don't know what's true here. The man is obviously neurotic and he's working out his demons on stage and in his TV shows and through his art. And so there's clearly fear and discomfort around the idea. It's one key area of, uh, my material in my life, any struggle of the human spirit and any struggle to find oneself.

And I think that's what it's about is my life about getting married. Is it about continuing to work? Is it about getting approval from the audience? Is it about, and those are the areas that I explore. Mm-hmm , I've certainly heard you express at times, like I'm 44 and not married. I suspect there are moments where you feel like that is a quote unquote problem.

Sure. But do you also ask the question, maybe this isn't a problem.

Amit: I do, but I'm looking for examples to where it's

Michael: not. And do you see that here? That's the question? Do you see that with Gary? Shaler

Amit: I don't cuz I still see loneliness in him. Yeah. But

Michael: there's loneliness in everybody. I don't know that. As you said a second ago, I'm not sure marriage answers, loneliness.

Like if he had a, a loving wife at his side with, you know, smiling pictures and people magazine or whatever, you know, all the way up until 2016 when he died, it might look like it's not lonely, but I don't know how seriously to take, you know, that alternative universe and those that imagery.

Amit: Okay. So take it a different way.

What you said about doing with the joy and the elation is to give it away. Yeah. And he never found somebody to give it away. To a singular

Michael: person. He never found a soulmate, or if he did in her, it, it chose not to port his energies in that direction.

Amit: Correct. But if good fortune and ecstasy are things that build up inside you and the way to deal with them is to give them away and share them.

Yeah. The most direct channel is with probably a single companion.

Michael: But I guess that's the point I'm trying to make is maybe the most direct channel, but what does that mean? Why not have it be the people on the basketball court? You know, why not have it be the people backstage at the comedy store or wherever it may be?

Amit: I just think that's where we are in modern

Michael: times. It is, but I just wish, I don't know that that expectation sometimes. I mean, I think it's a kind of a question of whether or not you believe monogamy is like sort of the natural order or something, right? Like it's supposed to be that way. I believe in monogamy and I respect it.

It's important. And, and I'm not even talking about sexual promiscuity, I'm just talking about the assumption that there's supposed to be one other out there for whom is your fate and destiny. I think maybe we take that story a little too

Amit: seriously. I think without a doubt we don't, but we are, we're living not in the right time for those people that aren't constructed that way.

Because, especially you take a guy like Gary Chandling living in LA. To me, the alternative to a single companion in marriage is a great built in nearby approximate community. Yeah. We just don't have that structure. Yes. Perhaps if he moved

Michael: into a hundred's percent true though, we have churches, we have support groups.

We have, uh, book clubs. I mean, we have places where there are communities, you

Amit: I'm talking about constant surrounding community. I'm talking about a circle of tiny homes sitting around a common fire.

Michael: You're talking about family, I'm

Amit: talking about family. That's not blood, but family that acts like family in the consistency with which you see them, which you share with them in which you actually do somewhat unconditionally love them.

I

Michael: agree that there's not a pre-established alternative to it, but I disagree that it cannot be built, that you can say my tribe is that of comedians and can have an equally meaningful. Level of intimacy. The fact that it's not poured into a single individual, I'm just trying to say, I'm not convinced the absence of that is a major deficit in somebody's life, but

Amit: you need a tribe to be of like-minded your tribe of comedians who are all married and all have kids.

It's not reciprocated. Yeah. Right. Your love is not reciprocated in the same way. You know, I experienced that a lot right now. Is that more or less with one or two, maybe exceptions. Everybody is coupled or married with kids and this might be my support network. And this might be with the exception of my parents and my brother, my love network, but it's not equally reciprocated.

Yeah.

Michael: Because theirs is going in other directions. I see reciprocation, you're talking about love, but love from an individual in a way that is at the part that you're giving it away. Okay. That makes sense. I mean, I think what you're describing is the experience of loneliness. It sort of feels weird if that's dispersed, right?

Yes. And I think that's what you're talking about. Yes. What more is there to say about Gary Shandling's love life?

Amit: Well, he had hopes for it. You know, you see the interviews in the eighties and I think even after Linda, you know, he did say there's a woman out there,

Michael: you know, I think I would say here, this show is always heading towards the Vander beak.

Do I want your life or not? Thus far, we've made a very strong case for this is easily the category where there's the largest case against. Yes. Okay.

Amit: And there's very few. If you just do a Google search for

Michael: single celebrities, celebrities who

Amit: never married. Right. They never married. Yeah. It's a pretty small list and he is on that

Michael: list.

Should we move on? Yeah. Okay. Category five networth. What'd you find

Amit: there was some trick

Michael: math. Yeah. So I saw 20 million, but I don't think that's the whole story. What did you see? Well, I

Amit: think he left behind about 700 grand actually in the bank liquid cash. Yes. But he established this trust, which may have had around 19 to 20 million in it.

Yeah. There was a gift after death of around 16 million that he gave to various medical causes. Yeah. But the 700,000 was all that was left, quote unquote, to his name, which he gave to essentially his lawyer and longtime

Michael: friend. I gotta say, when I saw that number, my, I had two rapid fire reactions. The first was, wow.

That's lower than I thought. And then as I sat with it, I loved it more. And. Yeah. I don't know where the extra money would've come from. Right. I don't think the Larry Sanders show was a windfall and, you know, he had a sort of in and out relationship with working the comedy clubs and so forth. But I liked that it wasn't a whole hell of a lot more.

And maybe this is the story I want to tell about him being a, a sort of committed Buddhist and not, you know, clinging to material things and attachments and so forth. So I loved this number.

Yeah.

Amit: I gotta say it's higher than I thought. Really? Yeah. In the last 16 years of his life, he didn't have a big money maker.

Michael: Yeah. Had he wanted more money that was available to him? He could have showed himself out easily. Yes. After Larry Sanders show and he didn't. So it looks to me like a number he chose. Yes. I think that's why I liked it. Uh, category six Simpsons, Sarah night live are halls of fame. This category is a measure of how famous a person is.

We include both guest appearances on SNL or the Simpsons. As well as impersonations. Okay. Let's start with SNL. He hosted in 1987. You don't get to be a host unless you're a pretty top shelf. Yep. With the Simpsons, there's almost no mention or guest appearances. There's one throwaway line in an episode in season 13, however, five of the original Simpsons writers started with Gary Shandling and went on to write for the Simpsons.

Yes. It's kind of baffling in a way that he never voiced himself on the Simpsons. I assume he was just too busy. Uh,

Amit: or it was almost just like sacred ground, I think, to those writers. Yeah. They didn't need to bestow that on him.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, I will say like, uh, I forget what his name is, Mike, something who was a Simpson show runner for a long time.

One of the head writers after Gary chaning died, he was saying things like Gary shaming is not Tom Hanks. He is not like the nicest guy in Hollywood. Right. I don't think he was a Dick, but I do think that he was a nightmare to work for because this commitment to originality, which I think drove people crazy.

I, I bet he could drive you up a fucking wall. Yeah. And so maybe the invitation was never extended, who knows for this Simpsons, but for whatever reason, we have almost no mention of him. And then just to round out the category, he does have a Hollywood star and he did appear on Arsen hall. So

Amit: what to make of this like confusing accolades that he's so high on some of them.

Yeah. He's reached them all yet. Like he kind of lacks the name recognition.

Michael: I mean, I see some real similarities with John Prine. You know, if John Prine is a singer songwriter, singer songwriter, Gary chaning is certainly a comedian's comedian. What to make of it. This looks somewhat deliberate to me, whether or not he's in full control over just how famous he is.

He had opportunities to be more famous and to hog the limelight. And I think he didn't because he is at least for a time in the center of the Hollywood machinery and the fact that he has a contentious relationship with his manager who goes on to be the CEO of paramount, Brad gray. You can kind of see him being chewed up by the machine.

Yeah. category seven. Over, under, in this category, we look at the generalized life expectancy for the year. They were born to see if they beat the house odds. And as a measure of grace, Life expectancy for a man born in the us in 1949 was 65.2. So pretty

Amit: much right there. He was 66, 66 when he died. Okay.

Even money. Yeah.

Michael: Yeah. But tragic. I mean he basically just dropped dead. There was some knowledge that he had a health condition that could lead to, you know, real problems and crap.

Amit: He had hyperthyroidism. Yeah. Eventually died of a heart attack.

Michael: It's funny. It feels premature. It feels young. It was shocking.

It remains shocking. So it's interesting that he's right at the middle of the distribution, but it was it's

Amit: tragic. It seemed tragic. And not just the age of 66 being too young, but you said this with Tom petty, that just, you, you wanted another chapter. You didn't see the closure of final chapters.

Michael: I'm not sure.

I agree with that. You don't Tom petty. I could have seen doing a kind of Johnny cash-like thing where he finds the right producer and totally reimagines what he's doing. I don't totally see that with Gary Chanley as a possibility, I don't see him getting paired up with the right

Amit: director. Yeah. My imagined fourth chapter for him is something completely different

Michael: off the grid.

Interesting. Like a book or

Amit: no? No. Like outside of entertainment. Hmm. Is that he's teaching meditation to depress college

Michael: students. I don't know. I, I, to me. The 21st century, Gary Shandling is a little bit of a question, mark. There's not too much out there. I do think that his commitment to Buddhism and meditation amplified as time went on, would you call it spiritual?

Spiritual? Yeah. It's, it's, it's pronounced

Amit: spiritual. It's uh,

Michael: you know, you know, I've been meditating far too long to be, uh, uh, happy about anything.

Amit: The, um, I wanna know

Michael: if you've attained anything through your study of Buddhism. I, I don't know if attained is the right word. So with the whole thing's a mess.

I mean, uh, you get closer to just

Amit: being, what exactly does that mean? All, all

Michael: my journey is, is to be authentically who I am not trying to be somebody else under all circumstances. Have you found confusing and takes sure the whole world is confused. Because they're trying to be somebody else to be your true self.

It takes enormous work. Then we could start to look at the problems in the world, but instead ego drives it. Ego drives the world. Ego drives the problems, this egolessness, which, um, is the key to being authentic is a, a battle. But I don't know, 16 years, 17 years between the end of Larry Sanders and his death is a long time.

It's funny when I look at clips of him in that period, I see sometimes I see pain and trauma and sometimes I see peace. I mean, that thing with rom dos, I see a real like presence and awareness and you know, and that was in the 20 teens.

Amit: So we're a little bit divided on this. We agree. We died young. I feel like there was more to be done.

You feel like fairly

Michael: sufficient, fairly being the operative word, but yes, let's pause for a break.

Amit: Michael. I want to talk to you about avoid

Michael: in my life. Uh, this is very famous and gravy. What's missing it's in my liquor

Amit: cabinet, Michael. I have lots of great whiskeys things that I stand behind. Very flavorful ones. Yeah. I don't have that in gin. Um, I have good gins. Yeah. I have nice labels, but they all sort of taste the same.

There's not the, oh my God. Gin.

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Amit: not, but I think I know how to spell it. I'm pretty certain it's L I N D E N. Correct.

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Michael: Michaelle Gobi off,

Amit: uh, Gobi

Michael: off is dead

Amit: alive soccer, great pale

uh,

Michael: the rules are simple. Pale dead are alive. I'll go dead. He's alive. Test your knowledge dead or alive app.com. Category eight ma'am in the mirror. What did this person think about their own reflection before you answer? I have a quote and this is from a new Yorker article. Young Shandling was handsome, odd telegenic, intriguing with a crown of fluffy hair eyes that squinted in contemplation and bemused and rather puffy lips.

When he smiled, he revealed a surprisingly dazzling set of teeth. He looked as if his natural expression was thoughtfulness. The smile seemed to indicate the joy of finding the humor, amid the introspection. I loved that description of the young shambling. Yeah.

Amit: So my answer for man in the mirror, I'm gonna go to unchartered territory.

I'm gonna say he didn't know. He flip flopped so much as to whether he was the best looking person amongst all his contemporaries or whether he was an ugly duckling. God, I'm better looking in person.

Michael: I wasn't looking for a response. A self-help tape just says, I should say it as often as I can.

don't we have to

Amit: decide not if you're a neurotic, you can change. You can flip Flo every time you look and you can never quite God

Michael: damn it. There's no there's so nobody we've done on this show who didn't flip flop on their, the, you know, their own appearance. I'm

Amit: saying he did it so frequently. And so neurotically that he had to do all these self deprecating jokes in order to like, get an opposite response for validation.

I just, I think this was a major

Michael: neurosis of his, I agree with that, but I still think that we have to lay on somewhere on this man in the merit question, it is framed in our show as a simple binary.

Amit: And obviously it is not okay. So if it, if it has to be binary, then it's no did not like it. Cuz didn't know what

Michael: to make of it.

I'm going. Yes. He dated Sharon Stone. I don't even think it's about his own attractive desk. There's an attention to body in his life too. I mean, he boxed in later years. Right. And he was doing yoga. He was playing basketball. I mean, he, you know, he's, he's a fairly fit

Amit: guy. So what, what do you make of my argument that all of his self deprecating, standup and of talking about all dating and all on stage is just seeking validation.

Michael: I a hundred percent agree with that. There's nothing you've said that I actually disagree with. All I'm saying is that we're supposed to make a decision in this category. I'm gonna go, yes. He liked the way he looked more than he didn't like the way he looked, even though I think it is pretty extreme in both directions for him.

All right. Split ballot again. I like this. Yeah, no shit. There's a lot of conflict there. Category nine outgoing message, like man, in the mirror, how did they feel about the sound of their own voice? Would they have left it on an answering machine themselves?

Amit: I think he liked that it was obnoxious and nasally.

So by your Milkovich. Uh, the, the intro to your Mavi story. I think he liked that because it was uniquely original and that's what he was

Michael: seeking. This is so great. I wouldn't, no, when I'm I'm no, because I think it's one of, I actually wrote, I think it's one of the many things I think he was probably most neurotic about.

There's a joke on Larry Sanders, where he is. I think it's in the Dana Carvey episode where he is talking about like, he's imitating me. I don't sound that whiny and nasally and rip torn is, you know, producers, like, yeah. Not, not like that, but like clearly like a sound whiny and nasally, there is a whiny tone to it and it could so easily tip over into annoying one more dial and it's Gilbert God bridge.

Right. Totally. But somehow it's not quite, but I do think that he felt insecure about it. That's my suspicion.

Amit: Yeah. I, I think he was insecure about it, but the originality of it

Michael: triumphed, this is so funny that we're, I wait, that was the last time you and I had this many

Amit: disagreements. This is great. Well we'll okay.

So the other half of outgoing message is the type of guy that would. The message and I think, absolutely. I agree with that. And that goes back to originality. I think he would have some

Michael: phenomenal ones. Yeah. I think you would call him up just to hear his voicemail is my, I bet he'd have great one line jokes on it.

Correct.

Amit: But I don't even think it would be him. It would be, he'd be like describing the technology. Yeah. By which like a voicemail is

Michael: recorded. Yeah, totally. All right. Category 10 regrets, public or private. What we really wanna know is what, if anything kept this person awake at night? I'm gonna hit just a few real quick.

A lot of 'em we've already covered, we mentioned Brad gray, his manager,

Amit: and I mean to recap, cause I don't think we've done what actually happened. Yeah. Is that Brad became an agent, almost a super agent, but also an

Michael: executive producer on Larry Sanders.

Amit: Correct. And owned. I believe 50% of the rights to the show, but basically was casting out all the writers and people in different gigs.

Right. And. Fitting out. What was the core of the Larry Sanders show for what Gary Shandling perceived was to

Michael: better his own career. And so there was a lawsuit against Brad gray and then a counter lawsuit against Gary Shandling and then crazy part of the story. Then there was wire tapping. Yeah. 10 years later, you find out that some lawyers hired this guy.

What was his name? Sorry,

Amit: Anthony. It was like a real wire tapping name. Yeah. It was like Anthony wire Tapper or

Michael: something. think that might have been his name. Anthony wire Tapper anyway, trusting Brad gray as a, as a public regret. I think that's probably the trusting. Is the regret not going after him?

That's correct. He felt, at least as he said, like, I'm doing the right thing here by bringing this lawsuit against this guy. And then again, Brad gray goes on to have this incredible career as a Hollywood executive becoming CEO of paramount. Yes. And then died in 2017. Uh, but I mean, you see pictures of those guys, like young horsing around and like motel rooms and stuff.

Like they were clearly close. Yes. Yeah. Um, I wrote marriage with a question, mark. I don't think we need to revisit this. I

Amit: don't think we to revisit it, but it's certainly a question specifically about Linda and the dissolution

Michael: of their relationship. Yeah. The last regret I have, and I think this is more on the private side, cuz I didn't hear him see him talk about this a lot.

The movie he did with Mike Nichols after the Larry Sanders show called, what planet are you from? Which was a flop and really looked like a misalignment in terms of expectations. And I think going into it, Gary, Chandling had high expectations because Mike Nichols is this renowned director, you know, the graduate and so on.

So it looked like he sort of hopped onto the next thing after Larry Sanders, a little. So I had that as a regret. Okay. Do you have anything else?

Amit: I just wanted to note that I don't think it was regret that he passed to be Letterman's successor. It would seem so obvious over regret, but I really don't think it was.

I agree. The private one I have, I hinted to in over, under, but it's not taking a big risk and completely changing his life, always hanging around LA and he may have been doing the private things, but I don't know, maybe just toiling away in Indonesia for a few years could have been something for him.

Michael: Interesting. What you're pointing to here is perhaps he didn't go far enough. Yes. And I don't know. That seems like kind of a crazy, I don't know. I'm

Amit: not saying he should have done three years of cave meditation. I'm just saying he should have maybe done some completely off grid time to get the piece that I didn't see in

Michael: him.

I can't figure out if this guy had a largely great last 17 years. Or not, or a miserable

Amit: one. And Jud ow said that as much is that, uh, he said either Gary chaning is the happiest guy that he knows or he's somebody that's completely lost his mind.

Michael: I mean, you and I are always guessing at these things, but what's so interesting is how hard this one is

Amit: to guess.

Yes, Gary, chaning more so than anybody else feels like. It adds a lot of, I'm not sure how much of the story is even

Michael: out there. It's just amazing. The people who talk about him and how they talk about him. I mean, Jim Carey, Sasha bar Cohen, Kevin Neland, Sarah and Silverman. Chris rock. I mean, you know, Jerry Seinfeld, he was so generous.

Like everything he learned, the hard way he gave to us on a silver platter. Yeah. And I remember at his Memorial, a friend was. Who's gonna be our Gary now. And I was like, we have to be the Garys now, you know? Oh, when they asked me, I said, Steven

Amit: Saal oh God,

Michael: I think your answer's better. Your answer's more Zen.

I specifically thought we need a new Gary and quickly said Steven Saal I, yeah, you can see that now in your comedy. okay. Next category. Good dreams are bad dreams. Fuck me. This is a hard one. This is not about personal perception, but rather, does this person look haunted? Do they have something in the eye that suggests inner turmoil, inner demons, unresolved trauma.

I'll just read what I wrote down. Very tough one. I had like at least nine E in caps. I'll let Amit go first. because I lean towards haunted, but then I swing back. I went

Amit: bad dreams. The shoulders are the tail to me. Wow. He's got these, the hunched up shoulders, which never, ever eased in him, the original trauma of his, um, brother's death, his brother's death, which was of cystic fibrosis.

But he also wasn't informed at the time of death. There was a story there that he didn't find out for like days. Yeah. And you know, he had this near death accident in the late seventies. Yeah. The car accident. Yeah. Yeah. Which she claimed to have gotten so close to dying that he actually like heard a voice saying, do you want to return to life as Gary chaning?

And he had to say yes, in order for him to like wake up and be conscious again, I think this unrelenting quest for originality is something that keeps you up at night. It's torture, torture, sleep, bad dreams, torture.

Michael: I want to not agree with you cuz I see it in the eye too. But then in the next moment, after a good joke, you know, I see brightness.

I mean it goes back and forth with him. I'm a late, no too. I agree. Second to last category cocktail, coffee or cannabis, which one would we most want to do with our dead guest? So maybe a question of what kind of drug sounds like the most fun to partake with this person or another point of view is that a particular kind of drug might allow access to part of them that you're most curious about?

I want coffee. I often go coffee when I sense deep and elect and wisdom. Mm-hmm and honestly I'm not even sure how much more I need to say. I just want to have a cup of coffee with Gary Shandling and I want to ask him what he's learned. I want to ask him for, uh, life advice.

Amit: I'm gonna need a full day on this, cuz I want all three and perhaps this is the parallels that we've pointed out between how much I see myself.

So I, I don't know that I wanna learn that much from him because I don't see great resolution, but I do want to have the coffee because he could, you know, just bestow life experience, having lived longer than me and the things that he's seen. I want to bond with him over a cocktail because I think we have a similar rhythm.

I think we have a similar style of humor and then I wanna do the cannabis to see if we can get somewhere together. Yeah. You know, to take just this weird combination of loving comedy and commitment to meditation and inner peace and see if we can just find a few answers together.

Michael: I wanna go back to something you said a second ago, cuz it surprised me to hear you say I'm not sure he ever got to the resolution and I'm not sure he has much to teach me.

Really, uh,

Amit: it's I don't think I want to end up like him and that's why I don't necessarily want all his advice. And so should we, should we just take it, are we going next category

Michael: now? Yeah, I wanna say something though. Before we go to the final category, the VanDerBeek named after James VanDerBeek, who famously said and varsity blues.

I don't want your life. I just wanna remind myself and maybe the audience while we make this show out to be all about the VanDerBeek, whatever answer you or I give next. I learned a lot here, whether it's things he did that I want or things that he did that I don't want. I'm totally 50, 50. Mm-hmm leading into this.

I don't think you are.

Amit: I can go. Cause I think I already started. Okay. And I swear I started was, I don't want too much advice from him cuz I don't want. To end like him in every phase of his life. I could just sense the suffering. I really could. And maybe this goes back to Euro number four and how you see our similarities is I just, I sensed the suffering and I I've had a lot of suffering.

I think I, I suffer existentially in the same way that maybe gray chaning did I jump around from careers and don't put enough things out there, but I, I wanted to stop, you know, I really wanted to turn it around and, and find real peace where people look at me and it's like, that's not just an interesting guy or a funny guy or an original guy.

Is that that's somebody that I, I really think is, is happy and that's where I want it to turn. And I think all the chaning ingredients are there. I mean, I think he's, he, he is a genius. Like the two shows that he put out there and those big shows of the eighties and nineties are. Just brilliant. There's there's no other way to put it.

They're brilliant. His comic mind, his storytelling, mind his ability to be so far outside of the box. I think he's a once in a lifetime creator. Yeah. And I think that's admirable and that's desirable, but there's just this palpable sense of suffering that I think was what drew him to meditation. I think it's what led him to eventually be indecisive about the type of relationship that he wanted.

It's him needing more from other people than they give, cuz he gives so much and he don't think he receives as much in return. I mean, Sarah Silverman said that he was everything he needed, but was never given. And I don't want anyone to say that about me. So essentially I love the guy I really do, but I don't want his life.

Michael: That makes sense. And Bravo. I'm proud of you, man, for how much you took a look at this one and, and how you're taking a look at it. I think this is maybe not an easy episode to do in way. And, uh, I know what you mean. Like it's sort of easy and really possible here to look at all the tools he tried to assemble to solve the problem of Gary Shandling and it's not conclusive.

And it does feel like he threw the arsenal and you know, at himself , and, and there is a question of what's left, right? I think I'm a yes. And it really does boil down to one very simple thing here, because my wife's gonna fucking kill me for going yes. On this. Maybe this is coming from a privileged place.

I've got a soulmate, I've got a family. I've satisfied that criteria of expectation that society has thrust on all of us. Right. And so it's easy for me to say yes, maybe, but what I see so thoroughly in him is the thing we pointed to earlier, the giving it away a spiritual pursuit. As I understand it is about ego deflation and acts of service and being there for God, if you want to use that term and your fellow human beings, and when all other signs fail.

With any other neurosis or inner pain or whatever. I do see him returning to that over and over again. And I just think that that is the ultimate life lesson. And I see it as not just a thing he did, but as the thing he did as the accomplishment of his life, whether or not that delivered him inner peace or not on his deathbed or anywhere else, it's just so unbelievably admirable to me that it's, it's enough for me to go yes.

On the Vander big cuz I know it's something I aspire to in myself, something I know I fall short of in myself. And I think when you've got the kind of power and talent he had, it's not even easy to know where to put that, you know? And I think he put it into art. I think he put it into people who were around him and even if he never found the one individual.

he didn't keep it all up inside really tough

Amit: one all across all categories. It's not just in the

Michael: culmination, dude. I feel like I could do this whole episode again and have a whole different conversation. Yeah. Wow. I think you should do this Amit. Mm-hmm you are Gary Shandling. You've died. You've gone to the Pearl gates with St.

Peter. You have an opportunity for redemption into the afterlife. You have a chance to make a pitch. The floor is yours.

Amit: Okay. St. Peter. So everybody back down there on earth has some interpretation of how he passed through. And most of it has to do with selflessness. Just be selfless. Don't be selfish. If we're all getting the wrong message, you've played the greatest prank of all time, because that's what I think my ticket in is the selflessness and how much I gave and gave and gave and gave.

I was an artist artist. I created shows that were beloved, not by tens of millions, but by hundreds of thousands. But I mentored and I taught and I took in and I played ball with the young ones who ended up being the masters of the populist who made them laugh in the mainstream. On the edge who reached literally every corner of the globe, every corner of the heart, with the comedy and the entertainment they produced.

And I helped them do it. I gave, let me in,

Michael: thanks so much for listening to this episode of famous and gravy. If you're enjoying our show, please tell your friends about us, help spread the word. Also, if you're interested in participating in the opening segment, where we. Quiz people about who today's dead celebrity is feel free to submit your name.

You can reach us@helloatfamousandgravy.com. That's hello@famousandgravy.com. Find us on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at famous and gravy, and we also have a newsletter which you can sign up for on our website, famous and gravy.com. Famous and gravy was created by Amit Kapoor and me Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Jacob Weiss, original theme music by Kevin Strang.

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