A Message from Mike Birbiglia – Fundraising and New Book

I hope this email finds you healthy and well and if not, I’m so sorry. These are truly devastating times. I am hoping that any of these comedy  projects I’m working on will provide some hint of light in the darkness.

A few things:

1. Tip Your Waitstaff

In my self-isolation I have developed a series of fundraising Instagram Live episodes with comedian friends like John Mulaney and Roy Wood Jr and Maria Bamford and then my high school buddy Geordie’s company came on board for free and built up our site to have an interactive map and all this other stuff: tipyourwaitstaff.com We’ve raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from thousands of generous donors for clubs across the country. You can still give now. We hope to raise even more!

2. The Tour 

My agent Mike and my brother Joe and I get on the phone literally every day trying to understand how we can honor every date on this May/June “Mike Birbiglia Live!” tour that celebrates the book release with my new comedy hour. We are actively looking at every single city: Philadelphia, Austin, Denver, Boston, New Haven, Chicago, and Cape Cod. We have a lot of reschedule dates in pencil but nothing is firm because, well, nothing is firm right now. Everything is uncertain. Which brings me to something that is more certain: our book.

Jen and I wrote this book that merges poetry and comedy into this hybrid book called The New One and it was SUPPOSED to come out May 5th. For the last 6 weeks we get on the phone with the publisher every week and at different points they said it shouldn’t come out until the fall or the summer or Spring 2046. This week we were happy to learn that the book will come out June 16th just in time for Father’s Day!!! This was a huge sigh of relief because we have spent THOUSANDS OF HOURS on this book putting our hearts and souls and jokes and poems on the page and we so desperately wanted to deliver it to you and thought it could be uplifting in these times to read a book that is ultimately about love. So to the people who ordered ticket bundles that included a signed copy of the book: you will receive it as close to June 16th as possible and your tickets will still be valid for the show when it’s rescheduled.

June 16th ended up being the earliest we could get you the physical book HOWEVER the audiobook is digital and doesn’t have germs and doesn’t need a mask or Purell so the good folks at Audible are willing to deliver the audiobook on May 5th like originally planned! Hopefully you have a subscription and it just costs “1 credit” and then you still get the hardcover book because we are so proud of the book and the cover was designed by Crystal English Sacca and Wendy MacNaughton— which makes the hard copy of the book itself a work of art unto itself. Check it out! (Image inserted) So my dream is that you’d get both the audio AND the hard cover but that’s up to you. One good trick might be buying it for your dad for Father’s Day and then taking it for yourself, just like you’ve taken everything else from you dad, you ungrateful brat. (This sentence is only for ungrateful brats.)

And finally, THANK YOU. Thank you for containing to engage with me as I attempt to deliver you comedy in this germs haunted house we call earth.  But we will conquer this virus with love and comedy. Love without kisses and comedy without handshakes.

Love,
Mike