"Dad..." "Where were you?" "I've been outside." "I-I-I walked around the park, twice." "You went for a walk?" "Don't lie, dad." "No, I'm not lying." "I took a walk through the park and it felt great." "You know the runner's high you..." "I forget, I don't know what they call it." "Runner's high." "Yeah, lemme sit down for a sec." "Dizzy?" "Man, I gotta..." "You don't look well, dad." "Actually, you look a little peaked." "What you're seeing as peaked is just a... is a healthy glow." "I walked over 2 and a half miles, Ben, at brisk pace." " Mmm." "I'm gonna try to do this every day." "It's amazing how when you get older, walking becomes a hobby." "It's pathetic, huh?" "Yeah." "Like, you actually can take the stuff that used to be just necessities, like chewing, mm-hmm." "And swallowing." "Hobbies." "All hobbies." "Ha ha ha." "You know, while I was out walking," "I passed by the municipal gardens..." "You know, the little gardens on Jones Street?" "It was actually exciting to see what people are doing there." "You mean those little gardens." "Yeah." "I've seen people garden there." "I mean, I'm not quite sure it's exciting, but I've seen it." "Well, the idea of making something from nothing is, is what's exciting about it." "Dad, you seen those gardens a hundred times." "Why, why now?" "Six week ago, it was just dirt." "And now it's..." "You know, it's still dirt but there's things peeking their heads out." "One walk." "You know what, Ben, I think I'm gonna try that." "I think I'm gonna try and rent my own plot." "You're gonna get one of those plots and garden it." "Ben, you think I'm joking but I'm actually gonna do this." "Having some rhythm in your life and having some sense of continuity, hmm." "Is an important thing." "So, you think it'll be a healthy hobby for you, now." "I'm not just talking about what it means to me, it's also... it's for you I'm doing this, because these things are gonna grow and hopefully some day you'll take an interest in them." "Like, what do you plan on planting?" "You like veal?" " Hey, Laura?" " Yeah?" "Do you know anything about gardening?" "Um, not really." "I'll tell you why I'm asking." "Because, you know the city gardens where you can rent space?" " Yeah?" "I was actually thinking about getting a little plot and..." "Really?" "Oh yeah." "I-I... actually, I'm gonna do it, Laura." "I really, I'm looking forward to it." "Dr. Katz, I just can't imagine you, like, digging in the dirt on your hands and knees." "No shirt?" "Does that help?" "No, I really..." "Tank top?" "No." "Pasties?" "Eww." "Hi, my name is Mitch Hedberg uh, I'm comin' in to uhh see the doctor at 11 o'clock appointment." "I'm sorry, what?" "I mumble a lot." "Did you hear anything I just said?" "I don't own a cell phone or a pager." "I just hang around everyone I know all the time." "If someone needs to get a hold of me they just say "Mitch"." "And I say, "What?"" "And turn my head slightly." "I used to be a hot-tar roofer." "Mm-hmm." "Yeah, I remember that day." "Hmm." "I bought a doughnut and they..." "They gave me a receipt for the doughnut." "Right." "I don't need a receipt for a doughnut, man." "I give you the money, you give me the doughnut." "End of transaction." "We don't need to bring ink and paper into this." "I just cannot imagine a scenario where" "I would have to prove that I bought a doughnut." "Some skeptical friend," ""Don't even act like I didn't get that doughnut, man." "I got the documentation right here."" "You know on a traffic light, green means go and yellow means yield?" "Mm-hmm." "But on a banana, it's just the opposite." "Right." "Green means hold on, and yellow means go ahead." "Right." "And red means..." ""Where did you get that banana?"" "Hmm." "I opened up a yogurt and underneath the lid it said, "Please try again."" "Because they were having a contest, I was unaware of." "But I thought I might've opened the yogurt wrong." "Or maybe yoplait was trying to inspire me." ""C'mon Mitch, don't give up." "Please try again." "A message of inspiration from your friends at yoplait." "Fruit on the bottom, hope on top."" "I eat a lot of sandwiches." "And sometimes I don't want a sandwich, and that's when I realize everything's a sandwich." "Like, I ordered a salad and they brought me a plate with lettuce, cheese, bacon bits and croutons." "It's a sandwich..." "Some assembly required." "You know when you go to a restaurant on the weekends, it gets busy, so they gotta start a waiting list?" "Mm-hmm." "They start callin' out names?" "They say, like, "Dufrain, party of two." "Table ready for Dufrain, party of two."" "Right." "And if no one answers, they'll say the name again," ""Dufrain, party of two."" "But then if no one answers, they'll just go right on to the next name." ""Bush, party of three."" "Yeah, but what happened to the Dufrains?" "No one seems to care." "Who can eat at a time like this?" "People are missing." "You people are selfish." "The dufrains are in someone's trunk right now with duct tape over their mouths and they're hungry." "Hey, Ben, guess what?" "Umm..." "I'll give you a hint." "Ok." "I'm on the waiting list." "You're on the waiting list." "For the gardens, Ben." "You're on the waiting list!" "Yeah." "Congratulations." "How long did they say you might have to wait?" "Well... it could be anywhere from six weeks to three years." "Well, I'm very happy, actually, that you're on because I have some good news, too." "Now what's that?" "Well, I bought you a whole bunch of gardening equipment at the garden supply shop." "Oh, great, great." "What d'ya get?" "I just got ya, you know, sorta the standard stuff." "I got you a garden bag..." "Mm-hmm." "I got you some small garden shovels, of different sizes" "I got you one of those like, it's like a fork, a huge fork." "Oh, I know what you mean." "It's like um..." " That tears up the..." " The dirt." " The dirt." " Yeah." "You didn't get me any dirt, did you?" "I got you, uh, fertilizer." "I tell ya, fertilizer stinks." "Doesn't it say that right on the bag?" "I was wondering if you do get a garden plot, whether I can be the guy who flies by and sprays the insecticide?" "You could be if you had a plane..." "Well, we'll rent one." "And a pilot's license, and some insecticide." "Well, that's easy enough." "Well, I'll make some calls." "Uh, Matt Seigel here to see Dr. Katz." "Could you have a seat, please?" "Ok." "Y'know, I'm recently divorced and I'm in a lot of pain." "Yeah, I heard." "What do you mean you heard?" "!" "Well, you talked about it on the air." "I did?" "Yeah." "Oh, god." "But have you been in therapy before?" "There was a time in my life when I was self-medicating, doctor." "Right." "Does that count?" "No." "Matt, what is the name of your radio show, by the way?" "Well, we call it "Matty in the morning."" "It sounds infantile, doesn't it?" "Well..." "It really does." "It sounds like a show, a baby show." "It's awful." "I'm guessing you were probably the guy who picked that name." "This isn't good." "Am I right?" "Do you ever help any of your patients?" "You know, it's okay to take a swipe at yourself without taking one at me." "I know, I'm sorry." "That's another problem I have." "I find that I'm spiteful and vengeful." "You wanna bring everyone down with you." "Can I?" "Dr. Katz's office." "It's Ben, Laura." "I know." "Laura?" "Yeah?" "Have you uh talked to my dad today?" "Well, yeah." "You know his new thing, that he has a new hobby, which is... he wants to get a plot at the common gardens and..." "Right." "And like, you know..." "Right, gardening." "What's wrong with that?" "Well, I just think it's a dumb thing and I told him..." "It's not a typical hobby for an older man, you know?" "Well, actually, it is." "It is?" "It's probably the most typical hobby for an older man." "Gardening is." "Well, yeah." " You're serious." " Yeah." "I think it's more of an older woman's hobby." "Oh, well..." "If you wanna go see older men, you go to the turkish baths." "That's more of a hobby for older men." "Hmm, I'll try to remember that." "Matt, last week you were telling me how you feel somehow that your connection with your listening audience has deteriorated over the years." "Is that correct?" "Well..." "It seems as though the people that I meet that are bright and insightful don't care for me very much." "Right." "And yet I'm very popular with the dullards." "Hmm..." "let's try an experiment here, Matt." "This might help, I don't know." "It seems to me like you're holding so much in right now, so much anger." "This is sorta the psychotherapy equivalent to the Heimlich maneuver." "If you stand up for one second, lemme just push on this area of you, right here." "Mmm." "I guess it did seem a little odd, all of the sudden gardening." "Exactly." "I mean, how did he come up with gardening all of the sudden?" "I'm thinking, something odd, something curious." "Hmm." "So then, I go down to the plot to check it out, right?" "Yeah?" "And ah-ha!" "What?" "Ah-ha, Laura." "Watson, I can hear you." "What, Ben?" "Ah-ha." "Spill it." "Livingston, I presume, huh?" "Ben?" "Yes, Laura?" "What?" "All right, well I go down there, right?" "Yeah?" "And shazam!" "But I go down to the plot, right?" "Yes, and?" "To the public gardens by Jones Street..." "And?" "And I go check out the plot he was looking at." "Right?" "And right at the plot next to the one he's looking at, Gretta." "Who's Gretta?" "An older, very distinguished- looking Scandinavian woman." "Yeah?" "Apparently divorced." "Blonde hair." "Very attractive, leggy." "Ohhh." "So I realized it had nothing to do with gardening." "My dad just wants to meet a woman." "Well, I mean, what's wrong with that?" "That's kind of sweet." "I mean..." "That's ridiculous, Laura." "You don't go to a public garden to meet a woman." "Well, where else are you gonna go?" "Well, you don't know where she's been." "Well, she's been in the garden." "Look, it's just no way to meet somebody." "I would've done it differently." "Well, Ben, I don't really think that you're one to be giving advice on how to meet women." "In fact, I think that it's a great idea." "I mean, kind of sweet and romantic for somebody to be willing to look foolish just to get to know a woman that they might be interested in." "So, you'd be charmed by like if somebody, you know..." "You know the people who tuck in their shirt and then zip up after and has a little bit of shirt hanging out of the zipper." "That's charming, right?" "Well, it can be." "Really?" "Yeah." "Oh, so, uh, flatulence..." "Also charming, right?" "Ugh." "Matt, I think your perception of your listening audience is skewed towards the people who actually call." "So, you're telling me that the people who don't even have the strength or the where-with-all to dial the phone are the actual core audience?" "I think somebody who calls in to talk to a radio personality is somebody who is very needy and somebody who wants to be the show, they don't want to hear the show." "Why are you fixated on who calls radio stations?" "I come here in personal pain." "I mean, are you fascinated with my profession, doctor?" "Not fascinated." "It's an interesting choice you've made." "It's a lonely life, you know." "You sit in a little room, and you talk to no one." "You're talking about now?" "They're parallels I have to say." "Yes, it's true." "Dad, where you been?" "I was at the garden." "I figured." "Were you in somebody else's garden?" "Well, some of the people there..." "It's actually a really nice group of people and some of them are showing me a couple gardening tricks." " Really?" " Yup." "And uh..." "Wait, a whole bunch of people showing you or just one person in particular?" "Well, no one in particular." "You know, it's a community of gardeners." " Right." " Yeah." " Was Gretta there?" " Yeah, she was there." "Really?" "How do you know Gretta?" "Ah-ha-ha!" "Well, let's just say I was at the gardens today, too, dad, and I met Gretta." "Why were you snooping around the gardens?" "I wasn't snooping." "What did she say about me?" "What do you mean?" "Why're you so interested?" "Well, because, you know..." "I don't know." "Dad." "No, you said you..." "You said you met Gretta." "Dad, the gig is up." "I know what's going on." "I know you like Gretta." "She's a perfectly nice person." "Why shouldn't I like her?" "Dad, I guess I'm just proud of the old man, you know?" "You're going outta your way to, uh, to meet a woman." "It's very chivalrous." "I'm not going out of my w..." "I-I-I am gardening and among my friends at the gardens is a woman named Gretta who I find very good company." " That's all." " Mmm." "These people are very genuine, very warm and uh..." "So, how did it go with Gretta today?" " Did you..." " Pretty damn good." "There's gotta be an easier way to meet women." "I think I'm onto something with this gardening." "I mean, it's not, not why I'm doing it." "I'm not doing it to meet women." "But..." "I mean, it's just so silly." "It makes everything look so silly." "Like you're actually..." "Going to go gardening just to meet that woman Gretta." "Yeah." "It's funny." "Well, have you ever seen a square dance?" "That's crazy, too." "You're not gonna do that, are you?" "No." "People in a parade are cocky, you know?" "They think that they uh, they've attracted an audience but really it's just people waiting to cross the street." "Right." "I could attract a crowd, too, if I stood in everybody's way." "Hmm." "I got into an argument with a girlfriend inside of a tent." "That's a bad place for an argument." "Because then I tried to walk out and slam the flap..." "That's tough." "How are you supposed to express your anger in this situation?" "Zipper it up really quick?" "I was standing by a door and a security guard came over..." "He said, "You're gonna have to move." "You're blocking the fire exit."" "As if there was a fire, I wasn't gonna run." "If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit." "Right." "I like an escalator, man, because an escalator can never break down." "It can only become stairs." "Right." "There'd be no sign that says," ""Escalator temporarily out of order", just a sign that said, "Escalator temporarily stairs."" "I was working at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas and there was four comedians on the bill and we all had similar hair because we were all using the Riviera in-house shampoo." "Right." "It's 2-in-1 shampoo and 2-in-1 is a bad term because 1 is not big enough to hold 2." "That's why 2 was created." "If it was 2-in-1, it would be overflowing." "I think foosball is a combination of..." "Soccer and shish-kebabs." "Hmm." "Foosball ruined my perception of soccer." "I thought you had to kick the ball and then spin round and round." "I can't do a back flip, much less several..." "Simultaneously with two other guys that look just like me." "There's something about planting seeds and coming back everyday and seeing how they're doing..." "Hmm." " Nurturing..." " Mm-hmm." "It's the getting out of the house..." " The sunshine..." " Mm-hmm." "The sense of community..." "C'mon, c'mon, Katz, Katz, what's the catch here?" "What do you mean "catch"?" "Why are you so suspicious all the time?" "You know, maybe Jonathan is just looking for a nice hobby." "Thank you, Julie." "Gardening is definitely something that can relieve stress, rejuvenate the soul." "Right, Jonathan?" "No, no, I mean, sorta." "I mean, I'm doing it for relieving stress." "See?" "But, I also enjoy watching this particular woman digging up the dirt." "Hubba hubba." "Jonathan!" "In fact, I think that's the part that rejuvenates my soul." "I knew it, I knew it." "You're doing it for a woman." "Alright, so it's not about growing anything." "You're just trying to get close to this woman..." "Well... and she has a gardening plot there." "Yeah, she has a plot and um, she's been showing me a couple a tricks." "She takes the seeds, she goes like this," ""Baby wants a new pair of shoes."" "Then, she puts them on the ground." "She said a lot of it is just luck." "Dad, I can't even believe that you got one so soon." "Yeah, Ben, I feel like I just won the lottery." "They called this afternoon and my number came up." "Well, I thought you said it was going to be six months to a year." "Not..." "Well, you know, I guess uh, something happens to open up a plot, you know?" "Somebody leaves or dies and then one opens up." "It's like an apartment." "I guess, I guess." "Or other people drop off the list." "You know, they just don't have the patience that I have." "So where is um..." " It's plot number 16, isn't it?" " 16." "Is that what it says?" "It's right over here." "Wait a second." "This is your plot?" "!" "No, that can't be that plot 'cause that's Gretta's plot." "That's right." "I remember." "It's gotta be some kind of mistake, Ben, because this is uh..." "This is 16." "So, Gretta's apparently gone." "Yeah." "She must have left or moved out, or..." "Well, she wouldn't have just moved out without saying goodbye." "Are you hurt by it?" "Of course I'm hurt, Ben." "I'm devastated." "Well, dad, you know what?" "You could've..." "It might as well have happened this way." "I think it was easier on you." "Number 1, you don't have to garden now..." "True." "And 2, you saved yourself from getting hurt later." "Well, you can't go through life afraid of being hurt because that way, you won't know love." "You know, these relationships have a cumulative value." "A little bit of love here, caring here..." "It adds up... to nothin'." "Ha ha..." "At the end of the day, you're home alone." "These are tough times for you." "Oh man." "I don't know what you're gonna do without all the walking and the gardening." "I was thinking about getting a um... a cactus." "What do you think about that idea?" "Well, we certainly have the fertilizer." "Are you familiar with the Rorschach test?" "I've never taken one." "I know I'm familiar with the test." "Well, the idea is," "I'm just gonna show you an image and you tell me whatever pops into your head and there's no right or wrong." "Mm-hmm." "So, I'm gonna show you this and tell me what's the first thing that pops into your head." "The Harvard-Yale game." "Huh." " Now, this one." "Harvard-Princeton." "Um, what does this remind you of?" "Well, it's..." "It's like a cave." "Some kind of a cave." "The batcave." "That's right!" "Are you an only child?" "No." "Although..." "I don't really have much contact with my brothers and sisters." "But as a child, were you competing with them for the attention of your parents?" "Well, I like to feel as though we all lost." "How many of you were there?" "Three." "A brother and a sister." "Right." "Isn't it always like this?" "Mmm." "Did you have a lot of friends when you were a kid?" "Yeah." "Interestingly I'm friendly with a lot of my childhood friends." "You still maintain relationships with them?" "Well, that's the good news." "The bad news, I don't seem to have made a new friend since I was seven or eight years old." "See, I don't know why that's bad news." "It just says that you are a guy who's loyal..." "Right." "Who likes to take things as far as they can go." "Mm-hmm." "And who can't make new friends." "I can't wait till this session is over because I have a roll of lifesavers in my pocket, and pineapple is next." "That's great, Mitch." "This shirt is dry clean only." "Mm-hmm." "Which means it's dirty." "Hmm." "I wrote a script and I gave it to a guy who reads scripts and he read it and he said he really likes it but he thinks I need to rewrite it." "I said, "Forget that, I'll just make a copy."" "I go to kinkos, because Kinkos is my favorite copy center, if I had to pick one." "Mm-hmm." "Because they're open 24 hours." "Right." "That's great." "Like if it's 5 A.M." "And then I decide I need two of something..." "Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat," ""Oh, man!" "Oh yeah, Kinkos." "No problem."" "See, I'm a dreamer, man." "And when I was a cook," "I always worked with people who weren't dreamers..." "Like, I was cookin' at this restaurant and I put a hot dog on the grill and my kitchen manager came over, he said," ""Mitch, put the hot dog up here, in the right-hand corner of the grill." "So, in case you get a whole bunch of orders at once, you have all this space available."" "See, that's how I knew he wasn't a dreamer, 'cause the day I give up my dreams, is the day I have strategic grill locations." "Hmm." "A dreamer has a philosophy." "The entire grill is hot." "Oops." "You know what the music means, Mitch." "We're gonna have to stop." "Our time is up." "Well, okay, that's cool." "I got that lifesaver waitin' for me, man, you know." "You want one, you want..." "You can have the one after the pineapple." "Which will probably be cherry." "Which is everybody's favorite." "Well, I don't know if it's everybody's favorite." "Aw, see man, you look at things too deeply." "C'mon." "Cherry's good."