By RODNEY HO/ rho@ajc.com, originally filed April 20, 2015
Jeff Garlin's best-known major TV roles are stylistically very different. On "Curb Your Enthusiasm," he plays an amoral jerk on a paid-cable show. On ABC's "The Goldbergs," he is a more traditional, well-meaning sitcom dad.
"Two totally different experiences," Garlin said. "And I love them both. 'Curb' is really loose. "The Goldbergs' is very specific. It's crazy enjoyable."
He just wrapped season two with "The Goldbergs" and hits the road for a month to do stand up, including the Atlanta Improv April 23 to 25. (Tickets are available here for $20 to $25.)
"I want to sort of get back into shape, as they say, which really makes no sense," Garlin said. "I don't really have an act. I'm literally doing it because I have a great time doing it."
He's right. Garlin mostly wings it on stage. He'll talk to the crowd, muse about whatever's on his mind. He likes to fly without a net. Last year, when he came to Atlanta for intimate shows at the Laughing Skull Lounge, he said he was thinking of putting together a more scripted show. That never came to pass, he said.
"I don't know if that's ever in my future," Garlin said. "All I do is go up... I don't have a big ego but I'm very confident. And humble. I've been doing this for 32 years."
How long has he felt this level of humble confidence? Twenty years.
"When I first started, I improvised from an outline. I do have some material I've written down I'm really excited to do. I don't remember a time I've been more excited about my standup than now."
Garlin has no complaints about having a regular gig on broadcast TV: "We're a hit show. We get good ratings. The stories have been really really good. I'm thrilled with it. Everything is clicking. Hopefully that will keep going into next season."
Though he spent his 20s in the decade of the 1980s, he has no sentimentality about it.
"It's important viewers associate with the characters and the stories were good for me," Garlin said. "But people really react to the 1980s."
Though Rubik's Cubes and acid-washed jeans don't jazz him, he misses independent record stores and the original MTV. "I go to indie record stores," he said. "I like to go and actually hold something in my hand. My kids download everything."
To him, "there's all this noise that wasn't there in the 1980s."
But Garlin quickly checked himself from slipping into curmudgeon mode. "I try to stay relevant," he said. "I don't complain on stage about those darn kids!"
Garlin, 52, ultimately stays busy doing stuff he loves.
"I’m at a point in my career, if I don't have fun, if it doesn't accomplish a lot, I won't do it. I won't waste my time."
He plans to do Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" before he leaves. He worked the Vince Vaughn Wild West Comedy Festival in Nashville last weekend and is scheduled to perform at Caroline's in New York next month along with catching Larry David's play. He plans to see the NFL draft in person later this month.
And as a die-hard Cubbies fan, he always goes back to Wrigley Field each year.
While there are some years, he said, where the Cubs are painfully hopeless, this year "I think we'll be a good baseball team. I don't think we'll make the playoffs. We'll be better than the Braves."
COMEDY PREVIEW
Jeff Garlin
Thursday April 23, 7:45 p.m. $20
Friday, April 24, 7:45 p.m., 10:15 p.m. $25
Saturday April 25, 7:45 p.m., 10:15 p.m. $25
Atlanta Improv
56 E Andrews Dr NW Atlanta
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