Dear Journal,

This week's entry is dedicated to my older brother Joe. Partly, because he is my friend and role model. And partly, because he let me crash on his air-mattress for the last week.

But for the last week, I stayed with Joe and his marvelous wife, whose name I will not disclose for her own anonymity, but if you want to guess, her last name is also Birbiglia and she lives with Joe. So really, that wouldn't be hard info to dig up. But anyway, Joe is a kind of like an older, bigger version of me. He looks like me. Talks like me. Is worse at sports than me. And used to beat the crap out of me. And he would have become a comedian because he's very funny, but he's also sensible. My whole life, I followed in his footsteps. He played soccer, so I played soccer. He wore overalls, so I wore overalls. He lit off fireworks in the attic, I was hit by the fireworks in the attic and went to the emergency room.

In high school, I was a bus boy at this restaurant that Joe had worked at. And the cooks were real ball busters and they were really tough on me cause I was like this 15 year old dweeb and they were like these tough 40 year old Boston accent tough guys. So they didn't look at me or help me out with anything. But then one day I was talking to one of them and I told him my brother had worked there too, and he said what's his name and I said "Joe"� and everyone got really excited. They were like "Joey bag of donuts?"� your brother's Joey Bag Of Donuts?"� So I was like "yea."� they were like we love Joey Bag of Donuts."� So then I went home and asked my brother I was like was your nickname at the restaurant Joey bag of donuts? And he was like "No. That was this other guy."� and i was like "oh no"� because at that point I had to stick to the lie. Every day they'd be like "how's Joe Bags?"� And I'd be like "He's great."� They'd be like "Does he still have that ant farm?"� I'd be like "of course he does. He LOVES his ant farm."� They'd be like "seriously, how much can Joe Bags drink?"� And I'd be like "So much."� But the whole summer I had this pit in my stomach that one day the actual Joe bags would show up and they'd be like "Joe bags, we've been hanging out with ya' brutha"� And he'd like "That fag's not my brother."� And then they would all take turns beating the crap out of me and then stuff me into a giant ant farm.

Luckily that never happened. But I did start calling my brother Joe Bags anyway and I still do. So I'm staying with Joe Bags and we went to the US Open. But in the middle of the match, we went and bought a pretzel. And the only problem with the pretzel was that it tasted like garbage. And this is coming from someone who will gladly eat pizza from a gas station. The pretzel literally tasted like someone had put garbage into a mold so that when I put in my mouth I immediately spit it out into my hand because I think there must be a mechanism in our bodies that doesn't allow us to eat garbage. My body was like "that is absolutely not going into the stomach."� So I spit the garbage-pretzel into my hand, but Joe Bags was furious. He was like "they should not be allowed to sell us garbage."� So we went back and asked for another pretzel. And they were like "sorry about that. It happens."� And they gave us another pretzel. And so Joe tastes it. Once again, garbage. So Joe walks up to the guy in charge and says, "I know this sounds crazy, but we'd like a refund for our pretzel because it tastes like garbage."� And the guy was like "really?"� and we were like "Yea. Why don't you try it?"� and the guy was like "nah."� So we got a refund for the pretzel and then we spent the money on ice cream at the next stand over and then we ate it in front of the people from the pretzel stand who thought we were crazy as if to say "�we do enjoy eating food. We don't enjoy eating waste."�

In addition to being a champion for pretzel justice, Joe has been an undying support in my career. Like I said earlier, he's sensible, so he has created a shirt line based on my jokes. They're called "Birbigshirts."� Because after all that's what brothers are for: making money off your younger brother's jokes. So this one's for you, Joe Bags, and you too, the guy who actually was called "Joe Bags." And that concludes this week's entry in my secret public journal.