and fall to its knees.

There's so much more.

There's so much more here.

I just, it's tough.

And I went back to my hotel room and I called Meg and I said, oh, my gosh, I botched the mission.

I didn't finish the poem.

I started crying.

So, how has Andrea's story changed how you love the people in your life?

And that season of your life.

Oh yeah, sure.

That whole, it was a four month period of time that everything happened.

And essentially, I had pneumonia.

I thought I just had a cold and I couldn't shake it and I didn't know what was going on and I I'm just not somebody that out and about like I don't I don't really even take naps.

You know what I mean? And I just I could not shake this.

And so I went to urgent care and they gave me antibiotics.

It also sounds like thinking about the future was really important to you as you're like, okay, do I want to be a mom? Do I want to, what do I want my future to be like?

[laughs]

And I...

We were just stunned.

We were like, "I, I'm the mayor of gay town.

I invented it." So it was just really confusing, but, um, it made me realize how much you take for granted or you...

that you assume that they're processing correctly.

And then I heard-

I don't need a book."

Uh, but I, but maybe that's worse.

Well, I was, that's why I got off, because I was never familiar with the Met Gala.

I had heard of it, and then I was on Instagram, and I was getting all of this information about the Met Gala, and I was like, "Oh, it's..." I truly, I didn't know if it was awards.

I, I didn't know what this thing was, and then I was like, "Okay, so fashion," then I, you know, Bezos, all of these things and then the politics of who went and who-And then I found myself mad at Bad Bunny.

For sure

... not much grabs my attention, um, with television.

But one time Stephanie and I were in a hotel room, and she said, "Let's watch something," and she was flipping through, and the one thing I s- I chimed in about, I said, "Wait, wait, wait.

Go back, go back.

[laughs]

And I, we were just stunned.

We were like, I, I'm the mayor of gay town.

I invented it.

So it was just really confusing, but, um, it made me realize how much you take for granted or you, that you assume that they're processing correctly.

And then I heard-

[laughs]

And then they arrived.

Like, th-

Can you still sing any of that song, and do you have the rights to sing it on this podcast? Sacre bleu! What is this? How on earth could I miss such a sweet little succulent crab?

Oh, yes.

There are so many more useful things that should be lodged up in there, but I will forever [laughs] remember all the lyrics to that song.

Well, it's all that matters, right? I mean, like if you-

It really is.

And the experience of making the documentary about my friend, um, uh, the documentary Come See Me in the Good Light, that experience was solely driven by love and passion.

Not just me, but the director, the crew, Andrea, Andrea's spouse Meg, the financiers.

Everybody was driving this project with love, and it was true art.

It was...

Every production I've ever been on, there's a weirdo rattling around, and there was not on this production.

You, you become a f- vastly less selfish person.

[laughs]

The soul misses every single day the body was sick.

The now it forced.

The here it built from the fever.

The fever is how the body prays, how it burns and begs for another average day.

The soul misses what the body could not let go.

What else could hold on that tightly to everything? What else could hear the chain of a swing set and fall to its knees? [sighs] [audience applauds] Um, [laughs] there's so much more.

What is the film that means the most to you? Not necessarily the film itself is good, but the experience you had seeing the film will always make it meaningful to you, Tig Notaro?

Mm-hmm.

But when it's that vulnerable, it's, it's, it's something.

And I think being in that theater with...

It was a sold-out Sundance premiere, [lips smack] and, I mean, within minutes you could feel the audience holding all of the devastation, all of the comedy, everything, just they were in.

And I remember...

Yeah, you, you could, you could see Andrea settle in, and right after the, the movie, it was, it was clear.

Uh, Andrea w- loved this movie, and, and, um, and Ryan always said, says, like, "Andrea and Meg are the only subjects that have never-- that never asked, 'What story are we trying to tell?' Or, 'Can I see the camera angle?'"

Yeah

Can you walk us through, though, uh, not performing for a while and now coming back and the hunger, uh, the hunger about it, and specifically, I'm guessing, the material that the last two and a half years or the last four years have provided for you?

Well, um, you know, I work out my material in Los Angeles at, there's a couple of venues that I'm a regular at, so I go there and I work out the material until I feel like it's at a comfortable place to take it on the road, and then, um, the thrill of it is, um, getting out of Los Angeles because sometimes you don't really know if, what the gauge is there.

If you're only doing New York or LA, it's really nice to go-... into the heart of the country and, uh, get everybody else's response.

So that's a thrill too, because I think it's good in Los Angeles, let's see what, uh, Fort Lauderdale has to say.

Why? What is it that drew you to, dre- drew you to Handsome?

Um, well, I, uh, I wanted to kind of push out even more of the noise in the news and the politics, everything that was going on, and I wanted to, um, put together a group of comedians that I had met and very surfacely hung out with in the scene who I enjoyed talking to, and that's where I came ...... uh, across, um, the idea of doing this show with Fortune Feimster and Mae Martin, and every week we have a celebrity or public figure, um, send us a question, and we answer their question, and then they also answer their own questions.

So, like, Sarah Paulson asks us, "Can you ever truly forgive anyone?" And then, um, uh, gosh.

I won't tell you what Sarah Silverman asked us.

Like all of those tropes.

I really don't.

I think that when people like to put that on comedians or musicians or artists or whatever, I really, all I can think about is everybody's dealing with that stuff.

Everybody's g- got cuckoo parents or, um, anxiety or depression.

We're the ones with the microphone, and so it's easy to blame us.

Like, oh, they're going through a lot, and they're...

You know, people can look at artists and, and, um, and just kind of be like, "Wow, they're miserable.

But you don't have control over that.

Oh, really?

And I'm very like, um, (sighs) I, listen, I'm not like pumping iron or anything, but, um, it feels so good.

I, I'm sorry.

I'm 54.

This is a new thing where doctors are like, "You gotta, you gotta start doing this, and bone density and whatever." And I was like, "I'm not gonna," and now I am, and I love it.

I love it.

I love you too.

You know what I actually also started? And, and I'll s- stick this in.

Did you think about that moment during Andrea's show?

Um, I actually didn't, oddly, and nobody's asked me that until just now.

I mean, I don't know.

I ...

Maybe in the deep, deep corners of my mind I did, but I think that I was ...

I realize now I was in deep denial when Andrea was ill because Andrea seemed so okay and because I had heard so many stories of, of people kinda beating the odds and living longer, living 10 to 15 years, and I kept thinking, like, "I think that's what's gonna happen with Andrea." And so I think there was maybe a level of disassociation in certain times where I just thought, "Okay, I know we're, we're doing supposedly Andrea's final show here.

We're filming this," but I didn't believe that that was gonna be Andrea's final show, even though it very unfortunately ended up being, but-

Um, can you talk about that? Do you think having kids changed things for you, what you were just talking about? Like, this, this, this idea that, you know, "I don't have time for this shit," kind of thing? I suppose that's the headline version of it.

Mm.

Not holding on to anything that's not real.

I don't know if it's right to say make friends with that idea of dying, but it really should be more in conversation.

I don't want my death to sneak up on my kids.

Although I've had a lot of health issues, so I don't know if it's gonna sneak up on anyone.

But I really have such a new...

Not that I'm gonna abandon comedy and become a death doula.

Yeah, yeah.

Also, a new episode of my podcast, All There Is, out tonight, a conversation with comedian and actress Tig Notaro, who was recently at the deathbed of a good friend, poet Andrea Gibson.

(instrumental music) You know how tricky it is.

You go about your day, and you're doing all right, and then all of a sudden a truck parks itself on your chest and you can't (breathing heavily) do anything.

Andrea's presence still.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I mean, I've lost my mother, my father, my stepfather, uh, my cousin.

I've lost many friends and colleagues.

... still.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I've lost my mother, my father, my stepfather, my cousin.

I've lost many friends and colleagues.

I have to say, it's really the first time I've experienced a death in the way that I have where I really feel Andrea, and I don't know what that is.

But the grief I feel, you know how tricky it is.

Yeah.

That was in January of this year.

What was that like to be together? Oh, my gosh.

It wasn't even just the film.

The whole weekend.

I think I've been to Sundance four or five times for different projects.

And Andrea was going through another level of struggle, like with breathing.

And they drove out with Meg.

How did you think about the role you wanted to have in Andrea's final days or when to be there or how to be there?

... concentrated arc, um-

Yeah.

It, it, it, it's...

I wasn't expecting it because it, I saw the movie so many times when Andrea was alive.

I've seen the movie with Andrea, um, a few times and then, then it was a whole other experience seeing the movie without Andrea.

And Meg, who is Andrea's wife, was- Saying how much she just doesn't want the movie to ever end, and wants to just pluck Andrea out of the film, and, um, and it's not anything that Meg doesn't wanna see, you know? She wants to see- Mm-hmm ...

she said she just wants the movie to never end.

Because you did that, you have to play your reply.

Mm-hmm

... that she would want to be a part of that.

And then she said, "I've always wanted kids," she said, "but I-She said, "I actually want five kids." Mm-hmm.

And I was like, "Five kids?" I had only thought of one.

[laughs] But because I felt I had found such a great partner, I was like, "Well, I'm open to doing that." Mm-hmm.

"I'd have five kids with you." And then once we had twins, we were both like, "We're good." "We're good.

Shut that down." [laughs] "We don't need three more." Yeah, yeah.

[laughs] Uh, just to pivot back to dating, do you have any dating advice for single people?

Mm-hmm.

It's a intestinal disease that is very deadly, and when I had it, he had never heard of it, and most people hadn't at that time.

It's, it's becoming more prevalent.

It's a superbug.

But anyway, when he was on his deathbed three years ago, I was with him, and my brother was trying to get there in time, and so I had this concentrated time with...

He was, he was on a respirator.

He couldn't talk.

Uh-huh.

Yeah

...

while I'm working on this new show, and I don't have a primary relationship, and I just, I was so lost and confused, but I, I was, it took me a while to really catch up with what was going on with my body and my mind.

And I remember I moved back to LA after working on that job, and I sat on my couch, and I felt like I was gonna fall off of the planet.

I don't know if it was a panic attack, but I didn't feel stable on the couch.

And you know what's crazy? This is also very odd to tie it all back.

March 1st, I am confident, is when my episode of The Office aired, and that was the first time I got any symptom.

[laughs]

Tig's close friend, poet Andrea Gibson, recently died, and Tig was at Andrea's bedside.

I have to say it's really the first time I've experienced a death in the way that I have, where I really feel Andrea, and I don't know what that is.

But-

Mm

...

the grief leading up and the grief I feel, you know how tricky it is.

You go about your day, and you're doing all right, and then all of a sudden a truck parks itself on your chest.

Yes.

And I want to be fully submerged in the podcasting world with you, Monica.

So I will quickly go through this.

I ran into this, the '80s pop singer Taylor Dayne multiple times, and the first time I ran into her, I, I am a fan and I genuinely went up to her at an intimate dinner party, and s-... we had a mutual friend, and I said, "Oh my gosh, sorry to enbo-... to bother you.

I just have to tell you, I love your voice." And she just turned and said, "Yeah, I don't do that anymore."

(laughs)

I immediately got on the phone, started calling all of my friends that I knew were fans of, um, Andrea and Meg's, and, um, was just like, "Hey, you wanna kick down some cash?" And, and they did, just, like, left and right.

Pe- and, and other people reached out to their friends and people they knew, and we just started, um, really raising some money.

your groove.

Yeah, it's my groove.

But I did, you know, somebody else, I didn't make the movie about myself.

I didn't know I had my CBS readers on.

But, yeah, I didn't make the documentary Tig.

Somebody else made that.

And then with Andrea, Andrea and I have been friends for 25 years and is one of the greatest poets that you could possibly hear.

What made you think this was something you needed to share?

Mm-hmm

... than, um, being confined with those private thoughts or concerns.

And I assumed that if we w- were together, that no matter if it was a woman, a man, a, a tree, a, a non-binary person, h- trans, whoever it was that, um, Stephanie or even myself, that anybody could potentially think, "Oh, is that person attractive?" Or, "How do I feel about this?" Or, "How..." I know that Stephanie is a human being.

[laughs] And, um, and so it's, it's complex.

But I also know so deeply that we love each other so, so much, and we enjoy each other, and we, um, we have so much together.

We also have a lot of [laughs] problems and issues.

Yeah

... for the world- Mm ... and the greater good.