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Neal Brennan: Crazy Good (2024) | Transcript

After exploring his mental health struggles in previous specials, comedian Neal Brennan looks at the "upside" of bad mental health.
Neal Brennan: Crazy Good

[dark music playing]

[Neal] So if you’re watching this ’cause you saw my other Netflix specials and I talked about having depression and you wanted to support a fellow traveler, I have some terrible news.

I feel pretty great.

[audience cheering]

It’s hard to know how to start these specials, so I’ve been trying to incorporate AI.

[audience laughing]

So… So every day, I go on that ChatGPT and I type in, “opening line for a comedy show.” Anyhow, tonight’s opening line is… “Good evening, pussies.”

[audience laughing]

Isn’t that weird? That’s a trillion dollars in deep learning. It’s every book ever published, every speech. That’s what they gave me. I was like, “Are you sure?” “Say it, pussy.” I was like, “Okay.”

[audience laughing]

So what kind of people are you? Are you crypto people? Yeah, I’m sitting crypto out, and maybe I’m blowing it. People go, “Where are you putting your money?” The bank. Shut up.

[audience laughing]

I’ve just… I’ve never rooted against a currency before, you know what I mean? I’ve never been like, “Fuck pesos!” I don’t… [audience laughing]

My issue with crypto is everyone who told me about crypto had never spoken about finances before, ever. It’s like, “Weren’t you a DJ three weeks ago?” “Why are you telling me?” I was talking to my buddy. He’s like, “Bro, you’ll make sick returns.” I was like, “Never speak to me this way about money.” Social media makes everybody think they have to be cool. Certain people, I don’t want cool. I don’t want a cool finance guy, I don’t want a cool lawyer, I don’t want a cool doctor. I don’t want my doctor to be like, “Bro, I saw your X-rays.” “They were so sketch.”

Like, I don’t want…

[audience laughing]

I have important things in my life. You know who I want in charge of ’em? Dorks. Here’s who I want in charge of my important things. Oily skin, bad clothing, no eye contact. Just a touch of Asperger’s. Just a touch.

[audience laughing]

Salt Bae, but it’s Asperger’s.

[audience laughing]

But I get why… why guys fell for crypto. And let’s be clear, it was all guys.

[audience laughing]

Women don’t take financial risks, women take emotional risks. Women will be like, “No, I didn’t invest in Bitcoin, but I am dating a drummer.”

[audience laughing]

“He’s basically separated.”

[audience laughing]

[scoffs] Yeah, the guys fell for crypto on social media, ’cause there are these dudes on the guys’ algorithm, uh, that are like hustle-preneurs. They’re all about grinding and hustling, and they’re, like, personal trainers. I call ’em “the clappers” ’cause they start all their posts like this. [claps] ‘Sup, guys?

[audience laughing]

Hey, if you’re under 30, I just have to let you know, no one’s ever clapped and said anything great in the history of the Earth. JFK wasn’t like… “Ask not what your country can do for you.” Martin Luther King wasn’t like… “I had a dream, my guy.”

[audience laughing]

“Please like and subscribe.”

[audience laughing]

“To hear more about my dreams, support my Patreon.” I was following one of these clapper dudes, right? I was hate-following. It doesn’t make a difference, but, uh… They all think they’re like werewolves. They’re like, “I guess I’m just built different.”

Um…

[audience laughing]

They always have, like, this special system that doesn’t even make sense, where they’ll be like, “See, I got a millionaire mindset.” “I’ll let you in on something I’m doing. I just bought five used cars.” “I’m gassing them up myself, leasing them out to Uber drivers…” “I can’t lose money on this.” Then of course gas prices skyrocket. Next time I see the guy, he’s making a video from the gas station, “This system sucks.” Yeah, dumbass, ’cause ExxonMobil been on that… millionaire mindset…

[audience laughing]

…since 1881. So that’s… that’s guys’ social media. And then women’s social media, it’s just a lot of beautiful underdogs… [audience laughing]

[scoffs] …that’s a part of something very dramatic. The entire world’s against them. They’ll be like, “When I began my journey…” They’re all on journeys. All of them are on journeys. They’re like, “When I began my journey, no one believed in me.” That’s what these girls don’t understand. It’s not that no one believes in you. No one gives a shit about anything anyone is doing but themselves. No one’s thinking about you, no one’s going to bed at night like, “You know who’ll never open a business? That bitch Jessica. Goodnight.”

[snores]

[audience laughing]

Yeah. I’m on social media a lot, unfortunately. And I was dating a model. I was fo… I was following a model. And, uh… [audience laughing]

Models love trying to normalize themselves. They’re like, “I know what it’s like to be a regular person, ’cause I went through an awkward phase in grade school.” So condescending. “I know what it’s like to be a regular person.” “I went through an awkward phase…” That’d be like me going up to an amputee and being like, “I know what you’re going through, pal, ’cause my foot falls asleep sometimes.” [audience laughing]

“So I get it. Same-same, same-same, same-same.” Yeah, it’s all very pseudo-spiritual. A lot of talking about the ancestors. “We need to pray to the ancestors.” “We need to ask the ancestors for guidance.” If you’re Black, or Brown, or Indigenous, go ahead and pray to your ancestors. White people, do not pray to your ancestors under any circumstances. [audience laughing]

All of my ancestors were toothless, Irish, illiterate alcoholic maniacs from a very different time who I cannot rely on for any guidance whatsoever. I could say, “I’m having a hard time with my girlfriend. What do I do?” Just be like, “Lock her in the shed!” [audience laughing]

“Push her off a cliff and blame it on the wind.” [audience laughing]

“It works every time.” “Boy-o.” Yeah, they love talking about the ancestors on the girls’ algorithm. And you know what word they love using?

The T-word.

[woman] Ugh. You know… Oh, she gets it. [audience laughing]

You know what T-word I’m talking about. Trauma… [audience laughing]

Aaah… I know you may be thinking, “Neal, it’s hypocritical of you to criticize women talking about trauma in public.” Yeah, good point. But when I talk about trauma, it’s different. It’s on Netflix, goddamn it. [audience laughing]

Yeah, but again, some of these girls are full of shit. You know they are. This can’t all be trauma. Everything’s trauma to them. They’ll be like, “I had so much trauma today at Starbucks.” “I was literally shaking.” Well, you’re addicted to Adderall, so that checks out. [audience laughing]

Also, ladies, if you can talk about it on social media, probably not trauma! Just letting you know. Trauma’s a physical thing. Physical thing. Not a vibe, a physical thing that happened to you that’s so jarring to your body and spirit that you don’t know how to process it, let alone post about it on social media with captions and music. [audience laughing]

Like, a good example of trauma would be, uh… World War II. [audience laughing]

Our great-grandfathers fought in World War II, never mentioned it once. They didn’t come back and be like, “So I was just in Germany.” [audience laughing]

“It was not okay.” [audience laughing]

“I stormed the beaches at Normandy, I literally died.” [audience laughing]

“You guys, turns out, one of my triggers?” “Triggers.” [audience laughing]

“Also, can I just say, kind of a controversial opinion, but Hitler? Toxic.” [audience laughing]

It’s surprising, ’cause I did not see the trauma flexing coming. What’s even more surprising to me is that the culture of social media spread to people that aren’t even on it. I was talking to my buddy, he said, “You need to focus on gratitude.” I was like, “Goodbye.” [audience laughing]

Another buddy was like, “You need to check your entitlement.” I was like, “I’m gonna call you right back.” You’re blocked forever. I’m not talking like this. I’m not doing this with my friends. He goes, “That’s what friends are for.” I was like, “No, that’s what grandparents are for.” I was talking to somebody today, and she’s like, “I think my kids are dumb, ’cause my husband’s dumb.” I was like, “Now, this is a friendship right here.” [audience laughing]

You’re not really friends with somebody unless you’re both worried that if your text messages went public, you’d both lose your jobs. That is a friendship, and you cherish it and you nurture it, and you should encrypt it, probably. [audience laughing]

By the way, don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those people who’s like, “This country’s going to hell in a handbasket.” “Things used to be better.” No, a lot of stuff is better now than it was before. My brothers and sisters, I’m the youngest of ten, they would always bring up TV ratings as like a barometer of how well the country was doing. They’d be like, “You know, 50 million people used to watch <i>Cheers</i> or <i>M*A*S*H</i> or <i>All in the Family.”</i> Yet the reason 50 million people watched <i>All in the Family</i> is ’cause there was nothing else to do. You’d either watch <i>All In the Family</i> or go stand in the yard.

There was nothing you could do.

[audience laughing]

Also, TV used… Are you out of your mind? TV’s never been better. It never will be better. Like, you know it’s good TV because we binge-watch. That’s like a junkie word, you know what I mean? I didn’t even realize I was a binger till fairly recently. Like, I was watching <i>Stranger Things</i> and I’d watch, like, a bunch of episodes in a row, and then after the third one, like, that little pop-up window came on. Like “New episode in five, four, three…” And I was like, “Let’s go! I don’t have that kind of time.”

“Let’s go, motherfucker!”

[audience laughing]

Skip intro! I don’t fucking need a recap. I just watched three episodes! Dude, you know who the fuck I am! [audience laughing]

Things are better. We can solve murders now. They used to not be able to… All they had was just the fingerprint dust and they were stumped. All you had to do was wear gloves and you could murder three or four nights a week, if you wanted to. Here’s how easy it was to murder. Murderers used to write letters to the newspaper for fun! [audience laughing]

Like, “Dear Paper, it’s me, the murderer.” “Things are getting a little boring, so here’s a clue.” “What has four legs and loves dinner? A table. See you at the next murder.” [audience laughing]

And they’d still get away with it! The Zodiac wrote a dozen letters to the paper, and they were just like, “This guy is some kind of mastermind.” “He must have worn mittens or something. I don’t know how he’s doing this.” Things are better now. People over 40, back me up on this. Back me up on how sloppy and disorganized the world used to be. Remember when sunblock began? [audience laughing]

Young people, there was no sunblock. There was suntan oil, and then the next week, they were like, “Hey, that was lube for cancer.” [audience laughing]

“Block your whole thing.” White people were getting scorched, is my point. We were getting scorched. As a white person, you’d go outside. It was time to come back in when you were like, “Do you smell meat?” It was you. [audience laughing]

And you know who doesn’t care? My Black friends. I try to tell my Black friends. I’m like, “Dude, I’ve gotten second-degree, bubbly burns.” White people get skin cancer 30 times more than Black people. My Black friends are like, “Neal, I’m having a hard time finding my passion for this.” [audience laughing]

You know what I’m starting to realize? This is going to sound crazy. But if you think about it, the sun is basically the cops for white people. [audience laughing]

Think about it. Following us around everywhere we go, fucking with us ’cause of the color of our skin, killing our cousins for no reason. And when I tell my Black friends the sun killed my cousin, they’re like, “What was he wearing?” I’m like, “Goddamn!” [applause and laughter] [Neal] Things are better. Depression and anxiety are worse, I’ll say that. And, uh, people blame social media, or at least try to. I don’t blame social media for anxiety and depression. You know what I blame? Documentaries. [audience laughing]

Yeah, there’s too… We used to not know anything. It was great. Once documentaries came out, we started knowing shit, our lives got worse. Before documentaries, we’d say shit like, “Yeah, the whale wants to be at SeaWorld. Yeah!” [audience laughing]

The five scariest words in the English language are, “Did you see that documentary?” [audience laughing]

Whatever you’re doing is about to be ruined. I was eating with chopsticks. My buddy’s like, “Did you see the chopsticks documentary?” I’m like, “Why? Are they bad for the environment?” “Worse than we thought, pandas are using them to stab each other.” I’m like, “Goddamn it.” Gotta be careful which ones you watch. I’m vegan ’cause I watched the wrong goddamn documentary. A buddy of mine sent me a trailer, like, “You gotta watch this.” I go, “What’s it about?” He goes, “It’s a documentary about how all toothpaste is toxic.”

Like, “Fuck that. I’m not watching that.”

[audience laughing]

I just spent $180 at Costco to get enough toothpaste to last five generations of my family. I’m not throwing it away ’cause some dickhead’s like, “My toothpaste journey will shock you.” [audience laughing]

I was watching a documentary recently about advertising. Do you know that they can’t advertise religion in a lot of countries? I don’t know, we’re saturated in them. I don’t think they work. I’ve never been like, “Latter-day Saints, tell me more.” Like… I don’t think they <i>couldn’t</i> work. I just think they don’t work as currently constructed. All right, here’s how I think they should make religious commercials that’d work. You know those… those, uh, political campaign attack ads, right? During election season, there’ll be those commercials, it’s like black-and-white footage and an ominous voice-over. Like, “Steve Jones is a total piece of shit.” [audience laughing]

But for LA, last election for mayor, it got insane. They were like, “Rick Caruso wants to make homeless people sex workers.” “What?!” [audience laughing]

“I’m listening, go on.” [audience laughing]

Here’s what I think they should do. I think that’s what religions should do. Make attack ads on each other for like a month, and then we vote. [audience laughing]

And again, this is… We’re not in the best, you know, climate for religious stuff, but I think we can… we can get through this joke. [audience laughing]

You know what I mean? Week one, Jewish people make an attack ad on Christians. Wait for it. [in upbeat voice] Christianity only has two holidays a year. Judaism has tons of holidays. Sometimes we make them up the day before. If anyone questions us, we’ll just say they’re being anti-Semitic. [audience laughing]

Plus, the god at the center of Christianity, Jesus Christ, was Jewish! Why pray to a Jew when you can be one? [audience laughing]

This message was paid for by Judaism but honestly we didn’t pay, because we run the network. [audience laughing]

[audience clapping] It’s not a huge applause break, but you know. [audience laughing]

[chuckles] Also, if you’re mad that Jewish people run TV networks, they invented them. They started the movie business, then the radio business, then the TV business. It’s kinda theirs to run. That would be like complaining, “The Italians run salami!” [audience laughing]

Week two… Catholics make an attack ad on Muslims. Hear me out. I wrote this joke three months ago, different world.

[audience laughing]

[chuckles] [in upbeat voice] Muslims have to pray five times a day. Catholics only have to pray when it’s super important. [audience laughing]

Like when they take an STD test. [audience laughing]

Plus, Muslims make women wear burkas that cover up their whole bodies. Catholicism would never do that. We teach women shame the old-fashioned way, psychologically. [audience laughing]

Plus, Islam forbids alcohol. Catholicism serves that shit at mass. Catholicism, we’ll bring a little booze, you bring the little boys. [audience laughing]

[chuckles] [chuckling] Here we go. Yeah. Atheism could win, right? The election. A lot of atheists here, right? Like, you know, I used to be an atheist, and then I kept drinking ayahuasca, and that changed. God came and got me. Uh… I could make a hot-ass atheism commercial. I just need like 15 seconds. Black screen, white type. You’re liberal. You’re vegan. You recycle. You believe in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Come on! You already think you’re better than everyone. Finish the job! Atheism. [audience laughing]

Speaking of religion, did you see the Dalai Lama got in trouble a few months ago? If you don’t know the story, the Dalai Lama, like, made out with, like, an eight-year-old. I didn’t know he was Catholic. Did you know he was Catholic? [audience laughing]

People get upset when an important religious figure falls like that. I didn’t feel upset at all. I felt, like, liberated. I feel like if the Dalai Lama’s a pedophile, we can probably litter. You know what I mean? [audience laughing]

But I get why people are upset about the Dalai Lama. People need leaders, and a lot of leaders are just worse than they’ve ever been. You know, religious leaders are bad, corporate leaders are bad, political leaders seem pretty bad. Doesn’t 91 indictments seem like a lot? Just hypothetically. Trump got found guilty of sexual assault. Basically rape. We’re all so numb to it that we’re just like, “Put it on our tab.” “We don’t understand what’s happening to our country.” I’ve totally accepted that Trump may still win, right? Totally accepted. As far as I’m concerned, the next president is either gonna be Trump from prison or Biden from hospice. That’s just what it’s gonna be. He’s found guilty of rape, basically. Isn’t that insane? And I know rape’s a tough thing to bring up at a comedy show. It’s like the Holocaust or slavery. If you bring it up, do you trivialize it in a bad way, or do you reduce it in a good way? Let’s try to reduce rape in a good way. Ready? I think we can do it. We never joke about rape ’cause it’s the worst thing you can do to somebody except murder, and we joke about murder constantly. Dude, if you come to my show and sit in the front row with your girl, I’m gonna kill you. If you wear a beanie to my show, I’m gonna murder you on sight. I couldn’t have substituted “rape” in either one of those. [audience laughing]

Your dad is never gonna call you and be like, “If you’re late for Mom’s birthday, I’m gonna rape you.” It’s never gonna happen. [audience laughing]

Every movie’s got kill, death, murder in the title, in the plot. You’re never going to see a trailer for <i>John Wick 5,</i> like, “They raped his dog.” [audience laughing]

“And now one by one, he has to rape them back.” I loved <i>Kill Bill.</i> Did anybody see <i>Rape Bill?</i> I don’t remember. James Bond, <i>License to Rape.</i> Who was that? Was that Daniel Craig? Remember that great song “Raping Them Softly”? My friend said I probably shouldn’t do that joke. Eh. I was like, “How come?” She goes, “‘Cause I think rape is worse than murder.” I was like, “I know a lot of people that are recovering from rape.” “I don’t know anyone who’s recovered from murder.” All right, one guy, 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ, and people will not shut the fuck up about it. He was dead, then he was like, “Psych! Look familiar, motherfucker? Yeah!” “Should have raped me.” [audience laughing]

Look, I probably shouldn’t do that joke, but unfortunately, it rapes. [audience laughing and clapping] I may have lost you on that. That’s a new thing where, because so many political and religious and corporate leaders and journalists have all sort of fallen, so now, comedians are held to this incredibly high standard. It’s so weird. It’s so weird! Like, remember when everybody was walking around going, “Is Ellen nice?” Is Ellen DeGeneres nice? Ellen’s one of the funniest people alive. That’s A. B, she’s a gay rights icon. Came out on TV in the ’90s, got kicked off TV for being gay, comes back six years later, dominates. It’s an amazing story, but it’s not enough for people. They’re like, “Yeah, but is she nice?” It’s so childish. It’s like being like, “Is my car also a boat?” Just appreciate that you have a car, you baby. Also, “Is Ellen nice?” How many nice lesbians have you ever met in your entire life? [audience laughing]

They’re never mean, but they’re never bubbly. They’re like public defenders. Like, “We’re going to get you out of here.” [audience laughing]

[chuckles] I had a handyman doing work at my house. Not like he was “my handyman,” I got him off Craigslist, and he just wasn’t that handy. After a few times coming to my house, he was like, “You know Kevin Hart?” I was like, “I know Kevin a little bit.” He goes, “Is he humble?” [audience laughing]

I was like, “Jeremy, you’re a handyman, you’re not humble.” [audience laughing]

Why does Kevin have to be? What you’re asking is, “Hey, Neal, is that 5’3″ billionaire humble?” “What do you think, Jeremy?” How humble do you think Kevin Hart is on a scale from Napoleon to Tom Cruise? [audience laughing]

“Where do you put little Kevin there in terms of raw humility?” Comedians get in trouble all the time for talking about transgender rights. How corrupt is the rest of society that we’re talking about a serious issue, people go, “What do the clowns think?” Why are you bringing this up? “Has anyone asked the clowns about it?” [audience laughing]

I will say, I have a pretty controversial, uh, transgender opinion. You ready? I don’t think about them that much.

[audience laughing]

[man hooting] “Neal, are you a bigot?” Nope, just busy. [audience laughing]

I think about transgender people about as much as I think about left-handed Filipino people. [audience laughing]

I’m not mad at them. I hope they get everything they need. If I meet one and they want to shake with their left hand, I won’t say, “Right hands only! I don’t recognize that hand as a hand.” [audience laughing]

Joe Rogan gets in trouble all the time. Joe Rogan, known him 30 years. Great dude, nice dude, funny dude, always been nice to me. He got in trouble during COVID because he had on anti-vax people, and when you’re talking in public about medicine and science, you should hit them back with facts, whereas Joe was just like, [in dizzy voice] “That’s interesting.” Um… He got in trouble and then people were boycotting Spotify, and then Spotify didn’t promote him or demote him. They were just like, “Ah…” That was their official corporate statement. Like, “Ah…” Be funny if a corporation really stood by one of their controversial artists or spokesmen, like, uh… Like when Jared from Subway… [audience laughing]

…got popped. You know what I mean? If Subway’d been like, “Yeah, he’s a pedophile but he lost the fucking weight.” [audience laughing]

“We don’t know how he burned calories, that’s none of our business.”

[audience laughing in disbelief]

[scoffs] I’m a bad boy.

[audience laughing]

[scoffs] The problem with Joe’s podcast is it’s too long. The worst I’ve ever had to piss is every time I’ve done that podcast. Like, it’s amazing. It’s just insanely long. Of course he’s gonna say stuff incorrectly once in a while. You ever drive, like, a fouror five-hour drive, like Vegas? And by the third hour, you’re just grasping at straws. Like, “Would you have sex with Judge Judy? Be honest.” [audience laughing]

“Like, for charity?” [audience laughing]

I gotta say, it’s a weird time to be a comedian. Every time I pick my phone up, it’s like your friend’s in trouble. Like, “Did Joe Rogan abdicate his responsibility as a broadcaster?” “Did Dave Chappelle bring the tackling on himself with transgender talk?” I don’t know. This shit’s all so heavy. Like, I didn’t get into comedy to make grand moral judgments about my friends. Got into comedy to jerk off in front of unsuspecting women. [audience laughing]

Now are you going to support me or not? [short-lived laughter] Did everyone get that one? [audience laughing]

Another issue is, Joe just kept getting more and more mainstream. Like, if you had asked me in the year 2004 who the most consequential political figures in America would be in 2024, I would not have said the host of <i>The Apprentice</i> and the host of <i>Fear Factor.</i> Would not have said it. [audience laughing]

But everything gets more mainstream. Mental health got way more mainstream. Very few people used to talk about it, and now it’s a true movement. ESPN’s always carrying on about how athletes need to have good mental health. And I want everyone to have great mental health. But, um… but not athletes. [audience laughing]

Guys, we need our athletes to be total psychos. You don’t understand that? You know what I call an athlete with good mental health? An assistant coach is what I call them. [audience laughing]

What documentary did we all watch about basketball during COVID? <i>Last Dance,</i> correct. Did Michael Jordan seem mentally healthy to you in the slightest? Giant mansion, one chair. [audience laughing]

Here’s what we learned during <i>The Last Dance.</i> We learned that Michael Jordan’s hobby was basketball, but his passion was revenge. [audience laughing]

It’s what fueled him. It’s what fuels all the greats. Settling scores and holding grudges. I was at a restaurant recently, and some little kid was crying. His dad was like, “Son, remember, the most important thing in life is to never take anything personally.” I slid in and said, “Unless you want to be the greatest basketball player ever.” [audience laughing]

“So do you want to make $150 million every year in passive income off a picture of you jumping from 1985, and even just based on the silhouette of you jumping, we can tell what an absolute sociopath you are, and we want that shit on our shirt and our shoes, and Mexican dudes want it on the back of their pickup trucks for some reason.” [audience laughing]

No one knows why. Right side of the glass, white Jordan logo. Let the anthropologists figure it out, guys. No one knows. Yeah, if they’re great at sports, they’re out of their minds. Tom Brady, not well. [audience laughing]

Did you see him try to play toward the end? Whenever he’d try to run, he looked like he was on the toilet and he left his phone in the other room. [audience laughing]

Tom Brady tried to retire, made it like ten days. Finally, he was like… [in raspy voice] “I don’t know these fucking kids.” [audience laughing]

They were like, “Dad, come outside and throw the ball?” He was like, “With you guys? No.” [audience laughing]

The greatest athlete in any sport is the craziest. Michael Phelps. Michael Phelps has 23 gold medals in the Olympics. You know what second place of all time is? Eight. He should be in a padded cell. He’s always been pretty open about having depression, right? Which didn’t surprise me at all ’cause when he first came back from the Olympics, he had, like, a few gold medals, and then someone took a picture of him smoking weed, and then he got busted for a DUI. People were like, “I’m worried about Phelps.” I was like, “I’m not. This maniac’s right on time.” [audience laughing]

“That’s just a boy who loves his country.” [audience laughing]

By the way, it’s not just male athletes. It’s female too. Like those little gymnastics girls? That shit should be against the law. The events are insane! It’s like, “All right, you’re going to come charging down this runway, you have bare feet, and then wear, like, a bathing suit with, like, bedazzled.” “And, uh… And then you’re going to get to the end of the runway.” “We put a trampoline down there, right?” “And then someone left a table. So, you gotta…” “By the way, you’re 11, right?” [audience laughing]

“You better stick the landing, you little bitch.”

[audience laughing]

[chuckles] They don’t even sound like sporting events. They sound like <i>Jackass</i> stunts that they let them practice in advance. Like, “I’m Johnny Knoxville. This is a balance beam.” [vocalizes] Do those figure skater girls look like they’re having a good time? Not to me. They look like they’re struggling, right? Whenever they do those figure skating events, it looks like it’s the first day the girls have been allowed to wear makeup, and they have no idea what they’re doing. Where they’re like, “Okay, doll, doll, doll.” “Doll, doll, doll.” “Shock, horror.” [audience laughing]

And the events, again, are insane. They’re spinning, and then they start spinning so fast that they turn into a hologram of themselves. Like… [audience laughing]

They have to stick the landing and act like they didn’t just travel through time. [audience laughing]

And then they finish, and they have to go sit in the booth with their kidnappers. Where they… [audience laughing]

Holding flowers that someone picked up from the freeway. “I go now? Yes, I’m free to go?” Last Olympics, I… I just called the FBI. Like, “Are you missing any girls?” “‘Cause they’re ice skating.” The best athlete is generally the craziest athlete. Kyrie Irving. One of the best guards ever, right? And then about five years ago, he said the Earth was flat. Then he wouldn’t take the vaccine, so he couldn’t play, and then he promoted an anti-Semitic video. Like, “I knew he was good. I didn’t know he was this good! My God.” [audience laughing]

“This kid’s fucking around with GOAT status. Shit.” Every sport, the best person in it is the craziest. Oscar Pistorius. Remember Oscar Pistorius? Paralympian. Then someone said, “Can you believe Oscar Pistorius murdered his girlfriend?” I was like, “He’s a sprinter with no legs.” [audience laughing]

“I believe he can do anything.” [audience laughing]

Dennis Rodman. One of the greatest rebounders, then he retired. Someone’s like, “You want to be friends with Kim Jong-un?” He’s like, “You know I do.” [audience laughing]

Lance Armstrong. I don’t even consider Lance Armstrong an athlete. I consider Lance Armstrong a criminal who found a bike. [audience laughing]

Imagine the worst lie you’ve ever told, now imagine selling bracelets about it. [audience laughing]

Respect, sir. Respect. And then of course the biggest maniac any of us have ever seen in our entire lives, Tiger Woods. Did you see that documentary? It was called <i>Tiger,</i> but they should have called it <i>Golfin’ and Fuckin’.</i> [audience laughing]

‘Cause that’s all that kid was doing was golfin’ and fuckin’, golfin’ and fuckin’. They caught him fuckin’ and were like, “You gotta stop fucking.” He’s like, “All right, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to be worse at golf.” [audience laughing]

And he was! [audience laughing]

He knew the formula. It’s golfin’ and fuckin’. It’s not golfin’ and raising a family. Ugh! Ugh! Literally, ugh! I knew Tiger was a real one. Twenty years ago, I saw him at some event. And he’s walking along with bodyguards. Not big bodyguards either. Not burly dudes, like little white dudes with black turtlenecks on, like real… real dangerous people. So they’re walking along, and some little British guy comes running out from nowhere, and he goes, “Tiger!” And, uh, the security guards just immediately put the clamps on him. This is how I knew Tiger was a real one, ’cause the guy went, “Tiger, help.” [audience laughing]

Tiger didn’t even break stride. He was like, “That’s neither golfing nor fucking.” [audience laughing]

“So I should keep it moving.” Do your best with the mental health stuff. Therapy, medication, whatever. Just know that if you don’t get there, some of the greatest things that have ever happened on Earth were created by psychopaths and drug addicts. Like every invention, psychopaths and drug addicts. Like Sigmund Freud, the guy invented therapy, right? Open cokehead. Would write about it in his books. Most of Freud’s books should be called <i>This May Be the Cocaine Talking.</i> Like… [audience laughing]

They’re insanely cokey ideas. You can hear it. Like… [sniffs] “Okay. What else?”

Uh…

[audience laughing]

“Okay, come on, what are we doing? I… think women are jealous of our dicks.” “Yeah, they are. That’s good. Yep, yep, yep!”

[knocking]

“Yep, yep, yep, yep.” “What else? What else? Uh… I think every guy wants to fuck his mom.” “Oh, yeah, he does.” “That might be the hottest shit you ever wrote, boy.” [audience laughing]

Listen to me. No cocaine, no therapy. The guy popularized therapy because of coke! And it makes sense, ’cause therapy is an extremely cokey idea. Like, “Just come into the office and fucking just tell me everything.” “Tell me about your mom and your dad and your dreams at night.” After an hour, he’s like, “Hey, get the fuck outta here!”

[audience laughing]

[whooping] [inaudible] “Come back in exactly a week.” [audience laughing]

I’m telling you, psychopaths and drug addicts. Thomas Edison did coke. The Wright brothers worked in a bike shop. I don’t know about you, but anyone I’ve ever met who worked in a bike shop could get me meth <i>today.</i> [audience laughing]

I don’t know if they really did meth, but I will say they had the methiest idea ever, like, “Hey, do you fucking feel like you can fly?” And they go, “Meet me at the beach.” [mimics airplane engine] Psychopaths and drug addicts, even the… even the modern inventors. Elon Musk. People don’t like Elon Musk. The guy founded PayPal and Tesla. People are like, “But he’s a troll and a bad dad.” I’m like, “So is mine. He did nothing to fight climate change.” [audience laughing]

Also, have you been in a Tesla? Have you been in a Tesla? My buddy let me drive his Tesla. I laughed out loud at how fast it went. Been clinically depressed my entire life, on dozens of medications. In a Tesla for 13 seconds, cured forever. [audience laughing]

He’s another one who I knew he was a real one, a long time ago. He came to the Comedy Store one night, right? And, uh… there was… You know, room shaped like this. He sat in the corner, never faced the stage once. Live your life, you fucking maniac. Just getting his Amadeus on in the corner, like, “Aah.” Fantastic. Just a touch of Asperger’s, guys. Just a touch. [audience laughing]

Bill Gates got caught cheating on his wife via email. [audience laughing]

Dude, you invented email! [audience laughing]

Psychopaths and drug addicts. Most culture is from psychopaths and drug addicts. Music, there’s a zillion stories from rock and roll about drugs, right? I read Keith Richards’ autobiography. This is how drugged out they were. So the Stones had so many drug charges, that in order to tour in America, they had to hire a doctor to travel with them and test them for drugs every day. The doctor lasted six weeks before, you guessed it, he got hooked on cocaine. Whoops! [audience laughing]

The vampire hunter got bit. [audience laughing]

Rock’s insane like that, psychopaths and drug addicts. Hip-hop. [makes parrot-like sound] [audience laughing]

[parrot-like sound] You ever know a not-fucked-up person make either one of those noises? You ever call your mom, like, “Happy Sunday, Mom.” She’s like…

[makes parrot-like sound]

[audience laughing]

Snoop Dogg, one of the greatest entertainers of all time, a hip-hop legend, and he’s so fucked up, that at a certain point, he just started talking in fizzle-jizzle language. We all accepted it. Like, “Should we get him to hospital?” “No, let’s go to the studio. See what he can do.” [audience laughing]

Snoop may have no idea what’s happening. Like, “Fizzle jizzle wizzle bizzle.” “Bow wow wow, fizzle jizzle bizzle wizzle.” “Skechers, I’d love to endorse Skechers. Bow wow wow fizzle.” “Martha Stewart! I should do several shows with her.” Meanwhile, he thinks it’s <i>Ellen.</i> He’s gone. [audience laughing]

Kendrick Lamar. True genius, right? Sing along if you know the words where he says… <i>♪ If Pirus and Crips all got along ♪</i> <i>♪ They’d probably gun me down By the end of this song ♪</i> <i>♪ Feels like the whole city go against me Every time I’m in the street, I hear… ♪</i> <i>♪ Yawk, yawk, yawk, yawk ♪</i> <i>♪ Yawk, yawk, yawk, yawk ♪</i> You can’t get to<i>, “</i>Yawk, yawk, yawk, yawk” sober. You cannot get there, guys. You could be in a marina, walk past four yachts, and you’re not gonna think, “Yawk, yawk, yawk, yawk.” [audience laughing]

And he has a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize. [audience laughing]

[parrot-like sound] You may be thinking, “Neal, psychopaths and drug addicts?” “Are all comedians psychopaths and drug addicts?” So far, yep. [audience laughing]

Let’s go down the list. George Carlin, drug addict. Richard Pryor, drug addict. Bill Cosby, choose-your-own-adventure. [audience laughing]

Lenny Bruce, drug addict. Mitch Hedberg, drug addict. John Belushi, drug addict. John Mulaney told me to remind you he’s a drug addict. [audience laughing]

Those are just the drug addicts that you know about. Then there’s the alcoholics we don’t have time for. So let’s do mental illness. Mark Twain, bipolar. Taylor Tomlinson, bipolar too. I’m depressed, Sarah’s depressed. Rodney Dangerfield was depressed. Joan Rivers was depressed. Howie Mandel has the worst case of OCD I’ve ever heard of. Chris Rock’s got nonverbal learning disability. Jim Jefferies…

Um…

[audience laughing and whooping] I don’t know what Bill Burr’s issue is, but he’s yelled at me every time I’ve seen him for 20 years straight. [audience laughing]

It’s ’cause people that are good at something are optimized for that thing, and pretty much nothing else, right? You ever play a video game where you make the character and you have 100 points, and you gotta distribute it between dexterity and marksmanship and speed? That’s what God does, and sometimes he fucks up. Like when God was making Woody Allen… [audience] Whoa… …they were like, “God, how many points should we give him for comedy and filmmaking?” God’s like, “Fuck it, give him 100.” They were like, “That doesn’t leave any points for not fucking his family.” [audience laughing]

And God was like, “How bad can it be?” Then 70 years later, an angel was like, “Did you see that documentary?” God was like, “Fuck!” [audience laughing]

[audience cheering] Yeah, like I’m good at this, and I’m not good at relationships. And I just realized why. I just realized why, like, recently. I’m not that good at relationships ’cause I’m preoccupied with this! I’ll be in a relationship with a woman, we’ll be having, like, normal relationship conversations. She’s being like, “Hey, I think this weekend we should go see my mom.” I’m like, “Religions should make attack ads on each other.” She’s like, “After that, we can go antiquing.” I’m like, “The sun is like the cops for white people.” She’ll say, “You’re not listening.” “Of course I’m listening.” “Yawk, yawk, yawk, yawk.” Also, have you been in a relationship? They’re very difficult. Who’s in their twenties, by round of applause? [audience clapping] All right, so let me explain to you how your dating life’s gonna go. So you’re in your twenties, and you’re gonna start dating seriously, and you’re going to realize, like, “Oh, I have emotional problems.” In your thirties, you’re gonna be like, “I’m gonna solve my emotional problems.” In your forties, you’re gonna be like, “It’s a shame I never did solve… [audience laughing]

…those emotional problems.” Don’t you wish we had more in common, men and women? I like those couples with one thing in common, and they’re seeing how far they can take it. Know what I mean? Like going into Comic-Con dressed as his-and-her orcs. I like the weightlifting couple walking around like spray-tanned apes everywhere they go. Like, “Come on, babe.” “Let’s go home and talk about chicken breast and broccoli again.” I want us to have more in common, I really do. Sometimes I’ll be on dating apps and I’ll cover up women’s photos to see what their personality’s like. One girl’s bio, recently, was like, “I love SoulCycle and red wine and sunsets and rockin’ playlists.” And I thought, “If this was a guy, I would run him over with my car.” [audience laughing]

Then I see it’s a beautiful woman, I’m like, “She may be the one.” [audience laughing]

It’s just hard. Relationships are just hard. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m too preoccupied with this and it makes me petty. Let’s see. Uh, so I was in love with a woman and, uh, we were together for a while. We were in love, it was amazing. She had a trip planned to Singapore, and then Putin invades Ukraine. My girl calls me. “I’m really afraid this will affect my trip to Singapore.” And I was like, “It’s not gonna.” She was like, “No, everyone in Malibu is saying it’s gonna affect it.” I was like, “Babe, I think living near the beach like slows down your brain or something.” “Unless your flight is connecting through Kiev, like, I think you’re straight.” She was like, “I have to get off the phone now.” I go, “Why?” She goes, “Because you’re not supporting my fear.” Like, “I’ve never even heard of that.” She’s like, “I need you to support my fear.” I was like, “Okay, from here on out, I’ll try to support your fear.” So anyway, about eight days later, we’re in bed, and there’s a noise downstairs. My girl looks at me and goes, “I’m scared.” And I looked at her and I said, “You should be.” [audience laughing]

“‘Cause he sounds big, and I bet he doesn’t want to have sex with me at all.” [audience laughing]

“Do you feel the support? There’s so much support.” [chuckles] There’s just a lot of obstacles to relationships. Like, we can’t talk directly about sex. We can’t be like, “Sex? Sex? Sex?” You just have to get together and hint at it for like six hours. You’re just like… [giggles maliciously] “I just like paying for stuff. I don’t know what it is.”

[giggles]

[audience laughing]

It’s so dumb that we can’t talk about the most important thing to our species. If I’m with my buddy and I want to eat, I go, “Hey, you want to go to lunch?” I don’t take a spoon out of my pocket and be like… [audience laughing]

“What’s it remind you of?” [audience laughing]

And then we have sex, and we understand that your orgasms are a little nonlinear, right? But fellas, I’ve… I’ve figured something out about women. Trying to make a woman have an orgasm is like ordering an Uber, right? ‘Cause you open the app, and you hit the button, and you go, “All right, it’s coming in seven minutes.” [audience laughing]

A couple minutes pass, “Great, it’s coming in two minutes.” “I can see the little car. That’s good.” Some more time passes, you’re like, “It’s coming in five minutes?” [audience laughing]

“Why is that car spinning around like that?” [audience laughing]

“Wait a minute. Ride canceled?” [audience laughing]

“I hope this doesn’t affect my rating.” [audience laughing]

But it will. [chuckles] Yeah. I don’t want to complain about women’s orgasms. I mean, women are so empathetic, it’s incredible. It’s incredible. Like, women are so empathetic that they’ll be empathetic when we’re orgasming. Like, guys’ll be having our, like, “Don’t tase me, bro.” [audience laughing]

“I’m not resisting,” like… And women are so empathetic that they’ll shake along with us. Where they’re like, “I don’t want you to be alone during your time of seizure.” [audience laughing]

Whereas I’m the total opposite. If a woman’s on top having an orgasm, I’m like, “Neal, don’t you fucking move a muscle.” [audience laughing]

Like there’s a grizzly bear in the room. “Don’t even make eye contact.” “Let her take what she needs to take.” [audience laughing]

It’s my… my turn? “Aah…”

[audience laughing]

[chuckles] All right, we gotta get out of here. Think of the best sex compliment you’ve ever gotten. I’m pretty sure I can beat it. This is the best compliment I’ve ever gotten about anything, just FYI. A woman said, “Neal, you fuck like you’re poor.” [audience laughing and clapping] The problem was, after that, whenever she would text me to come over, I’d have to get in, like, a poor mindset. So I’d, like, take the bus to her house. I’d do scratch-offs the whole way there. Calling my friends on Cricket Wireless. You get it. I’d also like to say it’s sex, so I’m not consistent, right? Sometimes I fuck like I’m poor, and other times, I fuck like my grandfather left me quite a bit of money.

[audience laughing]

[chuckles] That’s… And I also I get another sex compliment. And ladies, let’s turn this into a teaching opportunity. A woman said, “Neal, you know what’s great about you?” “When I tell you I’m gonna have an orgasm, you keep on doing what you were doing.” [women cheering and applauding] A lot of the guys have no idea why you’re applauding. [audience laughing]

Fellas, keep on doing what you were doing. Same angle, same rhythm, same force. [women cheering] Keep on doing what you were doing. Same angle, same rhythm, same force. Women will say, “I’m gonna have an orgasm,” and the guy will say, “Now’s a good time for the corkscrew.” Dummy! [audience laughing]

Keep on doing what you were doing! Same angle, same rhythm, same force. “Neal, how am I gonna remember that?” ARF.

[audience laughing]

Do you guys want to fuck poor or not?

[audience laughing]

‘Sup, guys. Want to learn how to fuck poor?

[audience laughing]

All right, I gotta go. Thank you so much, you guys.

[closing music playing]

[audience cheering]

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