Born on 3rd Base

Gary Gulman wants to talk about money, specifically how much of it he does not have compared to the ultra-wealthy, and he does so with a meticulous, exasperated style that turns class resentment into a spectator sport. It is a rare hour of stand-up dedicated almost entirely to socio-economic disparity. Rather than preaching, he frames the wealth gap through the lens of a childhood spent on welfare, free school lunches, and questionable municipal dental care. He is a comedian who obsesses over the minutiae of language, using his distinctive, literary style to pick apart everything from pretentious vocabulary to the zero-sum math of a working-class household budget.

The show was taped at Toronto’s Great Hall in 2023, arriving at a busy moment for Gulman. He was coming off the success of his memoir, Misfit: Growing Up Awkward in the ‘80s, and his previous mental-health-focused hour, The Great Depresh. Executive produced by Conan O’Brien, this set leans heavily into his talent for long-form, highly detailed storytelling.

The most memorable sequences involve his lingering bitterness over economic divides. He spends a significant chunk of time comparing his own modest net worth to Jerry Seinfeld’s billions, arguing with mathematical precision that two guys in the exact same line of work should not have such a cartoonish disparity in their bank accounts. He also mocks the high-brow use of the word ‘Kafkaesque,’ suggesting the working-class alternative ‘Kafkish,’ which has the benefit of sounding like a kosher pastry you would order by the pound. Throughout the set, Gulman manages to be intensely opinionated without turning the show into a lecture, grounding his irritation in the lived reality of a kid from Peabody, Massachusetts, whose father once had to scramble to afford hockey gear.