Sleepwalk With Me

by Mike Birbiglia

  Simon & Schuster

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  Copyright © 2010 by Mike Birbiglia

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  Designed by Nancy Singer

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Birbiglia, Mike.

  Sleepwalk with me and other painfully true stories / Mike Birbiglia.

  p. cm.

  1. Birbiglia, Mike. 2. Comedians—United States—Biography. I. Title.

  PN2287.B45463A3 2010

  792.7'6028092—dc22 2010018393

  ISBN 978-1-4391-5799-2

  ISBN 978-1-4391-7565-1 (ebook)

  To my parents, Vincent and Mary Jean.

  If it weren’t for your support of my many delusions, I

  would not have been able to write this book.

  Also, don’t read the chapters about yourselves.

  Also, I love you.

  CONTENTS

  Don’t Tell Anyone

  I Have Something to Say!

  Delusional

  Please Stop the Ride

  Goddammit

  Like Hell

  Patti and the Bear

  Going Places

  The Deal

  I Can’t Stop!

  My Hero

  Something in My Bladder

  The Promise of Sleep

  Sleepwalk with Me

  One More Thing

  Thank-Yous

  It’s January 20, 2005, and I’ve just performed at a college in Walla Walla, Washington. Now I’m staying at a hotel called La Quinta Inn. Some people correct me when I say that. They’re like, “No, it’s La Keeen-tah.” I’m like, “That’s not fair. You can’t force me to speak Spanish. I didn’t press 2.”

  I’m asleep, and I have a dream that there’s a guided missile headed toward my room and there are all these military personnel in the room with me. And I jump out of bed and I say, “What’s the plan?” And the soldiers say, “The missile coordinates are set specifically on you.” And I say, “That seems very bad.”

  Well, the only difference between this dream and any other is that I literally leapt out of my bed, because a few years before that I had started walking in my sleep.

  SLEEPWALK

  WITH

  ME

  DON’T TELL ANYONE

  I’m sitting at a Starbucks in Manhattan. Starbucks is the last public space with chairs. It’s a shower for homeless people. And it’s a place you can write all day. The baristas don’t glare at you. They don’t even look at you. Every once in a while they walk around with free samples of banana-chocolate something. “No thanks. Just the two-dollar coffee”—cheapest rent in New York. Plus, they sell CDs and even Christmas gifts. If this place sold toilet paper, I probably wouldn’t have to shop anywhere else.

  Well, the reason I’m writing is that I want to tell you some stories. And they’re true. I always have to point this out because whenever I tell stories, people ask me, “Was that true?”

  And I say, “Yeah.”

  And they say, “Was it?”

  And I don’t know how to respond to that. I guess I could say it louder. “Yeah!”

  “It’s probably true. He said it louder.”

  Growing up, I was discouraged from telling personal stories. My dad often used the phrase “Don’t tell anyone.” But not about creepy things. I don’t want to lead you down the wrong path. It would be about insignificant things. Like I wouldn’t make the soccer team and my father would say, “Don’t tell anyone.” And I would say, “They’re gonna know when they show up to the games and I’m not on the team and I’m crying.”

  One time I built up the courage to ask him about this, which was tough because my dad is a very serious man. He’s a doctor—a neurologist. When he’s home, he spends most of his time in this one armchair reading these thick war novels. My dad goes through war novels like I go through boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

  So I built up the courage to ask, “How come you play everything so close to the vest?”

  My dad said, “The more people know about you, the more they can use it against you.”

  This sent shivers down my spine because it had that kind of open-ended fear to it—like that feeling you get when you’re driving and you see a cop. And you’re not speeding. You don’t have drugs. But you’re just thinking, I hope he doesn’t notice I’m driving.

  Once in a while I told personal stories at the dinner table and my father would say, “Hush!” I’ll give you an example. In grade school, I was a terrible reader. We used to do these things at school called Student Reading Assignments, and the teacher would post on the wall a list of how many everyone had done—which is a great way to squash a child’s self-esteem. I remember there was this girl in my class named Jamie Burson who finished 146 of these things before I finished 2. And I distinctly remember thinking, I might be retarded. And then I looked at the wall and thought, Oh yeah, I am.

  So one night, I sat at the dinner table and said to my dad, “I think I might be retarded.” And he said, “Hush!” Which is one way to address a problem—just keep it under wraps.

  That’s what my father would say whenever anyone told uncomfortable stories. So I developed this habit of telling uncomfortable stories.

  So here goes . . .

  I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY!

  The earliest memory I have of getting widespread attention was at age five when I was shitting in my backyard. I don’t want to set a dirty tone for this book, but it’s precisely what I was doing. Shitting, that is. The logic at the time made perfect sense. Our dog Duffer shat in the yard. Duffer and I were friends. We were also treated with roughly the same amount of respect. I had the urge. So I just pulled down my pants on the periphery of the woods (which is where Duffer did it too!) and laid one down. About four seconds into it I hear “Michael!”

  That was my mother.

  Then I heard laughter. That was my brother Joe and our neighbor Leslie. The thing about shitting in the backyard is that word travels fast. That’s a quick, easy story to tell: “Mike Birbiglia shat in his own backyard. Yes, like a dog.”

  JD Howarth lived across the street to our left. Mean, dangerous, and my brother Joe’s age (four and a half years older than me), JD had nicknames for everyone in the neighborhood. He called my sister Patti “Pat Pat Patterson.” He called my brother Joe “Jew-sef” (we’re Catholic). He called Gina “First Class Weiner-Burger” (not that similar to her name or persona, but catchy). He called our neighbor Amy Wall “Small Wall” (clever). He had a special name for me.

  In addition to shitting in the backyard, I had peed on Mrs. Jarvis’s lawn on several occasions. Mrs. Jarvis lived across the street from us and she didn’t want us an
ywhere near her house. As a matter of fact when we rode our bikes and big wheels on the sidewalk in front of her house, she came out and shouted at us, “Get off my lawn!” She must have had motion sensors on and around her lawn, because the moment you entered that space, Mrs. Jarvis was there.

  When my mother came out and explained that we weren’t on her lawn, Mrs. Jarvis explained that she owned the sidewalk. She owned the sidewalk? That was a strange claim: owning a public sidewalk.

  Well, I’m not sure what happened next, but I ended up peeing on Mrs. Jarvis’s lawn. I think I knew the response peeing would garner and was using it as a weapon. Well, Mrs. Jarvis was not happy about this. I mean, she thought she owned the sidewalk. My attack did not go unpunished, however. Mrs. Jarvis got a spotted lawn, but I got a nickname from JD: “Tinkles.”

  The summer after eighth grade, my friends Pat, Nick, and Eric invited me to Old Mill Pond to jump out of a tree into water. This is something they had been doing for a long time on their own. They had never invited me because they didn’t see me as a jump-out-of-a-tree guy. They did not think this was in my wheelhouse of skills. And they were right. My skills, at that point, included making English muffin pizzas, microwaving hot chocolate, and dipping English muffin pizzas in hot chocolate.

  So I’m standing in a tree thirty feet above the pond with my three friends and my friend Pat says, “Dude, jump!” And I look down at the water, which is so far away, and I say, “That doesn’t seem like a good plan.” And they said, “Dude, we already jumped, it’s no biggie. What’s the worst thing that could happen? It’s only watah” (that’s “water” with a Boston accent), which is really flawed logic, that watah logic. I learn later that many bad things historically have happened in water. Shark attacks. Drowning. Bad sex. But my friend Nick makes an argument that in Massachusetts is irrefutable. He’s like, “Do it.” So I do.

  And at first it’s going pretty well. And I start thinking, Hey, maybe I am a jump-out-of-a-tree guy!

  And then two things happen. The first is that my back lands flat on the water and it makes a gunshot noise. The second is that about nine gallons of water rush so far up my ass that it feels like it’s coming out of my mouth. It’s like a back alley colonoscopy from Dr. Old Mill, whose instruments had been sterilized in frog piss and pond scum.

  Underwater, I can hear laughter coming from above the surface and I think, I can hear that. It must be loud. I get out of the water and roll around on the ground, trying not to cry while explaining to my friends how much pain I have just experienced. But they won’t stop laughing. This is the funniest thing they have ever seen.

  I enjoyed the laughs, but I knew there had to be an easier way to get them.

  • • •

  So I knew I wanted attention, but I didn’t have any skills. At our family dinner table, it was difficult to get in a word edgewise. Every once in a while I’d shout, “I have something to say!” And everyone would look over. But I didn’t have anything to say.

  I didn’t fare any better at school. I wasn’t the “class clown.” The class clown was always the mean guy who walked into class and said, “You’re fat! You’re gay! I’m outta here!” Our class clown was Eric Smart. He’d pull his dick out in gym class and whack people with it like it was a wet towel. And those kids would cheer. They’d be like, “Yeah! He hit me! Eric’s hilarious!” And I’d be like, “He’s not hilarious. He’s elastic. That’s not a skill. That’s an attribute.”

  Since I wasn’t as freewheeling with my anatomy, I needed to develop my own act.

  In eighth grade I took Mr. Bobbin’s science class. Mr. Bobbin was in his second year of teaching, and the word on the street was that his first year hadn’t gone so well. According to one story, one day when Mr. Bobbin was writing on the board, everyone in the class threw pennies at his head in a vicious premeditated attack. One of Mr. Bobbin’s problems was that he wasn’t great at expressing anger. So he turned around and said, calmly, in his strangely high-pitched voice, “Could you please stop throwing pennies at my head?” He should have been like, “What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re throwing pennies at my head? Are you serious?” Then he should have flipped over a few desks, ripped open his shirt, pounded his chest, and shouted, “Don’t fuck with Mr. Bobbin!” That would’ve shaken everybody up. Like, “Mr. Bobbin’s crazy. I think he might murder us!” His milquetoast response, however, made the kids want to torture him even more.

  Mr. Bobbin’s class was divided by tables. My tablemates included Alison Dibuono, who was adorable, and Andy McGreevey, who was this musclehead who wore the same pair of Toughskins every day and mentally didn’t seem all there. Sometimes he would look off into the distance and chuckle like a character out of Apocalypse Now. And with his personal hygiene, no one liked the smell of Andy McGreevey in the morning, or in the afternoon. Andy was known for his ability to start little fires in the woods, and had parents who would give him large outdoor knives on his birthday. He put them to use, carving his initials into high school property, and turning sharp sticks into even sharper spears.

  I had a crush on Alison but really had no chance. The juniors and seniors had swept up Alison immediately upon her entry into Shrewsbury High School. High school is not unlike a Mormon fundamentalist cult where the women are claimed by the older and more powerful. Alison would say things to me like “You know who Joe Barrett is? He’s on the varsity baseball team. Isn’t he cute?” And I’d have to swallow my pride and say, “Yeah, he’s cute!” This was the best I could do. I concealed my heterosexual impulses and played the role of gay best friend.

  I could make Alison laugh, however. And that was exciting. After we got the word that Mr. Bobbin couldn’t handle his students, we did whatever we wanted to. We wouldn’t listen. We would carry on full conversations during lectures. I had this completely pointless bit where I would crawl on the floor when Mr. Bobbin was looking away and hide in different parts of the room. Eventually Mr. Bobbin would say, “Has anyone seen Michael?” And Alison would play along. She’d say, “I think he’s in the bathroom, Mr. Bobbin.” And then when he wasn’t looking, I’d pop back into my seat, and he’d turn around and say, “Michael, where were you?” and I’d say, “I think I was in the bathroom.” This killed with Alison. And made me want to push the envelope further.

  Taunting Andy McGreevey made Alison laugh a lot. Although because he was something of a live wire, I never knew what his response would be if I made fun of him. He might laugh a little. He might flip out and then shout something at me really loud, which would get him in trouble with Mr. Bobbin, which was again funny because Mr. Bobbin’s nonthreatening high-pitched admonitions were hilarious. Around this time, I started watching Saturday Night Live religiously and doing terrible impressions of Dana Carvey’s impressions of George Bush. Another popular character at the time was Jon Lovitz’s “Annoying Man.” Annoying Man would come on Weekend Update and make excessively irritating nasal sounds and stick his fingers near Dennis Miller’s face until finally Miller would say, “Annoying Man—please!” and then Annoying Man would exit. It was hilarious. And my impression of it was terrible. Regardless, I used to do that impression in Mr. Bobbin’s class. I didn’t have a Dennis Miller, so I used Andy McGreevey, not as well known for his straight man work but frankly, I didn’t have a lot of options.

  So one day in the middle of a lecture, I’m sticking my fingers in Andy’s face and ears and making these awful nasal sounds and Alison is laughing, hard. So I just keep doing it. “I’m Annoying Man and I like to touch your ears and they’re all filled with wax and your hair has all this grease . . . ” And then Andy punches me in the face—hard!

  My nose starts bleeding.

  And it fits in perfectly with the anarchy that is Mr. Bobbin’s science class. Mr. Bobbin turns around and with utter passivity squeaks, “Michael? Why is your nose bleeding? You’d better go to the nurse.” At this point, my face is a bloody mess; Mr. Bobbin is confused; Andy is pretty happy with himself. And the whole class
is laughing.

  All was well in the world.

  My quest for attention ran into a serious snag when, at thirteen, I decided to go to St. John’s—an all-boys Catholic school.

  The first few weeks overwhelmed me because there were all these kids from different towns: Shrewsbury, Worcester, Sutton, Oxford, Milford, and Leominster. (Or as we say in Boston, “Shrooz-bray, Wuh-stah, Suh-ehn, Ocks-fuhd, Mil-fuhd, and Le-min-stuh”). It was my first taste of the real world, and the real world didn’t like me.

  Overall, I’m not sure that my sense of humor translated at St. John’s. I had a few small victories early on. I took a French class taught by a great teacher, Monsieur Girard, and his only rule was that you had to speak French. So as long as you spoke French, you could get away with just about anything. One day he asked me to read a passage aloud where one of the characters shouts at another character, “Dansez!” (Which means “Dance!”) And the other character has no choice but to start dancing. This struck me as very funny, so in the middle of reading this, I had the impulse to look up at Monsieur Girard and say to him, “Dansez! Dansez!” to which he had no choice but to start dancing. And then I got up and started dancing. It was an artistic atrocity but a funny breather in the middle of a boring day.

  I started to shout “Dansez!” regularly in the middle of class, and Monsieur Girard, a good sport about this, indulged me for a while. At a certain point, however, it became not funny anymore. But that didn’t stop me. I carried on. And I noticed that sometimes it would be funny again. I began to experiment with David Letterman’s rhythm of saying something so many times that it’s funny, then not funny, then funnier because of the shared experience of its not being funny. Ultimately, I did okay in French. My comedy, that is.

  I quickly discovered, however, that in the athletic community, absurdist comedy didn’t really fly. Generally the “You’re fat! You’re gay!” oeuvre of humor prevailed. And instead of fighting it, after a while I gave in and tried my hand at it.