Gary Gulman

Gary quit the team.

He did keep the scholarship.

The counselor went to bat for him and convinced the school to let him keep it for four years.

And that same year, the year he quit football, Gary took the first real steps towards a different vision of who he'd be as an adult.

A vision that was not handed to him by any of the grown-ups in his life.

Not his coaches, or his parents, or his teachers.

It was something he invented for himself.

That's the year he started writing jokes.

Do you know that I listen to your show and I've heard people reveal things about themselves that I wouldn't reveal?

Yeah.

And...

I never thought that the blankie would be one of those things, that there could be somebody being like, oh, I never tell anybody about a blankie.

I could care less that everybody knows now.

So you feel no self-consciousness about it at all?

Not anymore.

I did for 47 years, though.

I only mentioned it on stage this year.

People laughed, and it redeemed everything.

Now you say that, I feel like I don't want to make you feel weird about it.

No, no, I think it's healthy.