-I wanted to wish you a happy belated birthday.
-Thank you so much. -Yeah.
-Four days late, but nonetheless.
Thank you. -Uh, it was this past weekend?
-Yeah, it was. Yeah, it happened.
-Do you enjoy birthdays, or...
-No, no, no. -No, you don't.
-I don't enjoy mine.
-No. -No, no, no.
I enjoy other people's birthdays,
which happens every day,
but I don't enjoy my own birthday.
-No. -No.
-You never did, even as a kid? -Never did.
No, when I was a kid, I hated it even more than I do now
because, as a kid, I just remember, like,
the pressure of having a birthday party --
which I never had --
because I was too nervous about who I would choose --
which friend I would choose to sit next to me,
and I didn't want to have to be
in the position of ranking my friends like that,
so I just opted to never have a birthday party.
-Oh, my gosh. -I was so nervous
to hurt somebody's feelings. -But what about family?
Did family -- Did you have parties with family?
-No, I sequestered myself in the room and said,
"I don't want to have to choose
which one of you I like the most."
I think they knew,
but I didn't want to have to explicitly say it.
[ Laughter ]
-But we talked once.
You said your mom was a clown at kids parties.
-This is the great irony of my life.
My mom was was a bir--
The shoemaker's son goes shoeless.
The birthday party clown's kid goes birthday-less.
-Did she never entertained at your parties?
-No, she didn't entertain, you know, because of nepotism,
but, um...
[ Laughter ]
So, she would -- one time -- I did have one birthday party --
she used to barter with the local magician.
She said, "Okay, if you do my son's birthday party,
I'll perform at your kid's birthday party."
And so I had one birthday party,
and, luckily, you don't have to choose where anybody sits
'cause it's a magic -- you know, it's a magic show,
so you all just sit in a clump, so that's easy.
But, you know, because it was my birthday,
he chose me to be, like, his sexy assistant.
You know what I mean? I had to come up
and be sawed in half or pull the thing out of the hat
or whatever they're doing, and, um --
and I hated that, too, because then, you know,
you're getting the attention for that,
and then my friends know I'm better than them on that day.
-Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, no, you don't want that.
You don't want that at all.
But, now, Halloween is coming up,
and I can just assume you don't appreciate that.
-Also didn't like that holiday. -No, no, no, no, probably not.
What would you do on Halloween?
Would you, uh -- -Halloween, I just --
-Just didn't like the idea of getting candy, or...
-I hated the idea of getting candy.
I hated the idea of trick-or-treating.
I always just thought it was, like,
the least-efficient way to get food, you know?
You know, there were hunters, you know,
thousands and thousands of years
got food more quickly than I did going door to door getting,
you know, fun-sized Snickers bars. It's just --
I didn't like doing it, and, um, you know, I'm a manic person,
so that kind of thing --
this plotting thing of going door to door
to get something that's tiny is just...
-Well, I asked you to see if you can...
-Yeah.
-I asked you if you could give us a photo or have your --
ask your mom for a photo of you
in one of your Halloween costumes.
-That's right. I asked my mom.
I said, "I'm going on the Jimmy Fallon show."
She loves you, by the way.
I don't know if you've ever been told
that somebody's mother loves you,
but my mom loves you. -Oh, thank you. I love that.
-I imagine that's like -- you must -- you love that.
Um, anyway. -I love hearing that.
-"Suburban woman in New Jersey loves me?"
But anyway... -She came back.
She gave us a photo of one of your Halloween costumes.
Can you explain -- uh, what are you dressed as?
What is that? -Yeah.
-It doesn't look like much of a, uh, costume.
-Also, the van should tell you
everything you need to know about my childhood.
But, yes, I guess this was my most elaborate Halloween costume
according to my mother, which is, like,
a Dickensian hat
and a -- a de-threaded basketball, I guess.
You know, what is the basketball
where it no longer has the dots on it?
That's the one I had. But, um, yeah.
-That was your -- -...no grip.
-That was your costume. -That was my costume.
-Pretty good. -Yeah.
-Probably no one else at school was dressed like that.
-No. No, no, no. -No.
You're the only one.
-Yeah, but, after tonight, who knows?
-It could catch on. -Yeah.
-Uh, I love your acting,
but I also love your -- your writing, as well.
You write very funny -- I've seen stories in New Yorker.
-Yeah, thanks a lot.
-They're great. -Oh, yeah, right.
-Explain this. What is this -- this book?
-Yes, this is a book that
I'm just part of a compilation of,
including Nate Dern,
one of your great writers here is in it.
Probably everybody who's ever written in the language
or maybe even a different language is in this book,
'cause it's so huge.
Yeah, if you can see it on the side.
-It's a big book. -Yeah, it's biblical proportion.
-Yeah, it's a big book. I-I-I have a book out, too.
Let me see it. -This is it here.
"Baby" -- Jimmy Fallon. Yeah.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Could we -- just out of curiosity,
could we -- could we -- could we compare font size?
-Yeah, we can compare font size. -Yeah.
-Something tells me --
Something tells me yours is gonna...
Yeah, here, so, small, kind of modest 10-point.
What do you have?
These are "Baby"... -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I figure for babies it's good. -Yeah.
No zoom-in necessary. -No, no, no. You don't need --
You can see it from far away.
-Right, so, this is McSweeney's. This is started by --
-I love McSweeney's. -And, uh, yeah,
it's all the best comedy writers write for this,
and, uh, it's a wonderful book.
Probably written by 1,000 environmentalists
but wasting so much paper. -Yeah.
-You can buy it ironically.
It's a good book if you like funny.
-Yeah. -Check it out.