David Cross: Making America Great Again! is a stand-up comedy special by American comedian and actor David Cross.
It was filmed live at the Paramount Theatre in Austin, Texas on June 11, 2016, and premiered on Netflix on August 5, 2016.
In the special, Cross takes aim at Donald Trump, religious taboos, and American swagger.
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Ask me a question. Do you have a dog? Oh, I had to have him removed years ago. It was benign, but it still didn’t prevent it from being adopted. And now it’s in a loving, caring home. How’re you liking Austin? This is where the toaster was invented. That’s a good contribution, right? Where do you get your glasses? Uh… a guy named Klaus Nomi. What subjects will you be talking about tonight? I will be doing a chunk of time on next year’s CMAs. Swiss muesli, what’s all that about? How did they get their own weird… And chain wallets, inner-lip tattoos, chlorinated vaginas. How do you maintain your facial hair?
Fuck you, dude! That’s fucking rude! That’s so cool. There will be some nudity. So you should know that. Quite a lot of nudity. Some mildly tasteful, some outrageously offensive. Personally, I find the human body a thing of beauty. Um… depending on breast size, I suppose. Uh… and less so for women. How are you? I… I get these a lot. They get sent to my Facebook page. So, in no particular order, uh… What Beatle am I? Ringo. Friends, I’m Ross. Uh… what apostle? I’m Luke.
♪ Shut up Now listen to David Cross ♪
♪ There’s so much you could learn But you don’t want to know ♪
♪ And now I got some good news for you ♪
♪ It’s about time for the show ♪
Uh, what percent milk? I’m 2% milk. What Jonestown massacre victim am I? Yenetta McCree. What’s the meaning of life? I don’t know. God, I don’t know!
♪ Yes, it’s time for the show ♪
♪ So go get in your seats now ♪
♪ Are you ready to laugh again? ♪
♪ Like it was 2010 ♪
♪ It’s time to hear from the messenger ♪
♪ Let’s hear some jokes About America, guns and TV ♪
♪ Turn off your goddamn cell phones now ♪
♪ Or you’ll get punched in the dick ♪
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome David Cross!
Austin, Texas! Rootin’ tootin’, shootin’, scoot bootin’, flutin’. God bless us. All right. Hello. All right, so I got a lot of show. I want to jump into it, but first, I’m gonna tell you a little anecdote of… so many of the things that have occurred on this long tour I’ve done all across this great land of ours. One of the best things I’ve seen so far… I was in Santa Rosa, California. No. Absolutely not. Absolutely… I don’t… There’s two of you. There’s a dude up there and a woman here. When was the last time you were in Santa Rosa? It’s been a while. It’s been a while. Yeah, yeah. It’s… Trust me, I don’t know what’s so great about Santa… I mean, if you… do you collect dirt and boarded-up windows? Then… then, yes, it’s great. So you might know of this place. There is a tattoo parlor there called Tattoos, and, you know, written in this beautiful, golden calligraphy on the front door, big, beautiful letters, “home of the Get What You Get tattoo.” “The Get What You Get tattoo.”
I can’t think of a worse slogan for a tattoo parlor. And, I mean, how does that work?
“Hi, yes… I’m a little nervous. I’ve never gotten a tattoo before. But… this is a photo of my daughter Angel. She would have been six today. I’m wonderin’ if you could tattoo her likeness, and then, above it, a ribbon that says, ‘Rest in peace.’ You know the famous painting of the cherubs looking down from heaven? Can they be holding the ribbon? Underneath, it would say, ‘Bye-bye, sweetheart. Mommy misses you very much.’ And if I could get that, and… Well, is it gonna hurt? I don’t know. Should I take a shot? Okay, just do it.”
You know, and then… and then cut to three hours later. “All right, all done. Take a look.” “Oh, my God! What is this? This isn’t what I asked for. This is a naked female devil with big tits that’s spreading her legs and flipping the bird. It says, ‘Yo, nigga, where my paper be at?’ What? That’s not what I asked for at all.” “Hey, you get what you get. That’s why I put it on the door, lady. Sign’s on the door. Free to walk in. Don’t tell me you didn’t see it, all right? I’m an artist. Okay? I wasn’t feeling your dead kid thing. It was bumming me out, to be honest.” And they… This is for real. After I did that set, the tattoo parlor found out that I had talked about them. I mentioned it in the set that night. No idea what the context was. And they got in touch with me on my Facebook page, and they’re like, “Heard you mentioned the shop. I don’t know if you’re in town, but if you wanna come and get a Get-What-You-Get tattoo, we’ll waive the $40 fee.” Like, “No! Thank you. I don’t roll the dice on a tattoo. All right? If I get a burrito at a food truck, sure, but not a… not a tattoo.” “All right, let’s see what we got! I hope it’s a good one! Ah, fuck! An Iron Cross. God damn it! That’s… not what I wanted at all.” The thing is, there is a tattoo I want to get. There’s a specific tattoo I want to get, and… I have a couple tattoos. The first tattoo I ever got is on my stomach, and it says, “Do not see Memento.” But there is a tattoo I’ve been meaning to get for years, and I keep pussying out. And I do want to get it eventually, but I want to get a tattoo of Muhammad. You know, not just Muhammad. That’d be inflammatory. You know, I… I would put him… on the back of a milk carton, right? And then it would say, “Have you seen me?” See? So, it’s a clever way to do it. I would do that, but you just don’t want to be in the position where, as the blade was cutting into the jugular, and going, “But you see the irony? Because you wouldn’t…”
All right, yeah. True. It’s not gonna work.
So I was… I was home fairly recently, back in Atlanta, where I’m from, for Thanksgiving… which is our big family holiday that’s… I don’t know why and when it became our big holiday, but it did over the years. I guess we’re not a religious family.
Well, I’m not, I’m an atheist, but my…
That’s pretty weak, guys.
Yeah, even weaker. That’s even sadder. Yeah. Okay, the seven of us will meet afterwards and talk about stuff. That’d be the worst rally in history. No, but yeah, I’m an atheist. I don’t care what anybody else is. I truly don’t, but… the rest of my family are… Just… they’re… They’re Jews. They’re Jews. They’re dirty Jews. And… they just sit in my sister’s condo, and just manipulate the world’s banks and media in their underground bunker at the condo and… It’s hard maintaining that stereotype. It takes work. So anyway, but yeah, Thanksgiving is our… That’s the one where it’s mandated we all gotta come together and hang out. I guess, you know, we do… As a family, we like to observe and celebrate what’s considered the first day of the near genocide of an entire race of peoples. It’s… it’s important to us as Holocaust survivors, you know… to be able to gather for a big feast and go, “Hey, look who we’re doing better than. All right, okay. Pass the potatoes. Yeah. It was touch and go there for a minute, a little iffy. But we pulled through. We persevered.”
But… here’s the thing, my family, like I imagine a lot of people in this room, is fairly dysfunctional. We do not get along that great, and there are dysfunctional elements within it that take the human form, is probably the politest way I can put that, and we… There’s always drama. There always is. There’s always arguments. And it happened again this year, and… And, when you’re arguing with your family, it’s never about the thing you’re arguing about. That has nothing to do with the situation. You’re just using that argument as a way to facilitate the tiniest little release on the pressure that’s built up, 50-plus years of anger and bitter recriminations and severe disappointment, and petty jealousies, and that’s what it is. And so… we got in this really bad argument. It’s the whole point of this story, and… My mom… It was… It was about the dumbest thing. It was the most inane, innocuous… The argument wasn’t… It wasn’t the best way to set up the Roku. Yeah. Yep. It was the best way to find out how to set up the Roku. That’s what the fucking argument was. That’s how it started. It was nothing. And then it so quickly got out of hand. It was crazy. And it was so quickly not about that, and my mom and I were arguing. We’re a very demonstrative, argumentative, loud family. We cuss and everything. And my mom and I start getting into it… And there’s other people, too. It’s not just my family. There’s other guests there. It’s super awkward. And my mom and I are going at it. We are arguing, back and forth, pointing. It’s getting heated. When you are arguing like that, especially with a family member, and there’s no editor. There’s no filter. You’re saying stuff back and forth. It’s all emotional. And occasionally, in those moments, you will learn something about the other person that you never knew before. And when you find that thing out, it changes the dynamic in your relationship forever. That’s what happened.
My mom and I are going at it. It’s getting heated. Yelling, screaming… It’s loud and it’s really awkward. And in the middle of this, we find out that my mom… cannot take a punch. Yeah. True story. True story. But this is, uh… When I was back in Atlanta, at the airport… And this is totally for real. When I was there, I saw that they have a luggage store, a Tumi, T-U-M-I, luggage store inside the airport. It’s… it’s inside… the airport. I mean, ostensibly, the last place you would ever need to purchase luggage, you know? It’d make a bit more sense if it was by the curbside check-in or maybe by the ticket counter or maybe by the security gate there, you know, on the off chance that there are enough people to support a business who are waking up late, going, “Oh, no, I overslept and I gotta get to the airport. Better not take two minutes to throw all this in a suitcase. I’ll just gather it in my hands, and get my lotions, Claritin, nasal spray and gluten-free nuts, and Us Weeklys, and iPod, and belt, inflatable neck pillow and… Taxi! Going to the airport! Yeah, okay, hi. All right. Just throw all that on. Sorry. Run it through. I dropped some of that stuff. I think… Sorry, that’s my belt. What? ‘Cause I’m gonna get a suitcase on the inside. Yeah, all good. Yeah. ‘Cause they sell them on the inside, asshole. What the fuck is with this guy? Fucking attitude.” No, you don’t get to do that. You’re not allowed to do that. You know… So, I guess that there are… enough people who are, you know, checked in, and they’re heading to their gate, and they’re like…
“What? What? Oh, my God. That is the most amazing suitcase I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve got to have that right now. I’ve gotta… Just go on without me! I… Sir, yes, I wanna get that suitcase there, the… No, not the carry-on. I can get that anywhere. The large suitcase. Yes… um… How’s this gonna work? ‘Cause I’m already… I’m checked in, and… So I guess I’ll buy it and then I’ll go back out, and I’ll ask them to hold the plane, pull my luggage, and I could change it… No, I have to buy another ticket and I’ll meet those guys… No, this isn’t gonna work. Come on. There is a way. I know I can figure it out. Come on, David. Think. Oh, I know what! I’m going to be back here in two weeks on my way home. So, let me pay for it now. Here’s my card. There’s probably a 300% markup, and there’s at least half a dozen places to get a suitcase within a mile of my apartment, but this way, I’ll get it, and then I’ll have it, and then… Oh, my God. Yeah, all right. Yeah. Good. Good stuff.”
All right. And now, here’s a question. Um… You know all those vape stores and vape lounges? What do you think they’re gonna be when they go out of business next year? Hmm… Hoverboard shops? Probably Hoverboard shops. Those will last, yeah. And I really don’t get the appeal of that e-tobacco shit, ’cause I smoked for years and years and I don’t ever recall going… “Yeah, that’s okay. But… I wish it tasted like a Cinnabon. Oh, well. I guess, until technology catches up with my desires… I’ll just have to keep dipping it in Air Wick and… rolling it in Pillsbury frosting to… get my vape on.”
So, here’s a little New York anecdote for you. I was actually out, working on this material for this set, and I was hitting a bunch of clubs. And I was coming out of this club in the East Village in New York, and I was gonna head to the subway, go home, and, right as I exit… right as I open the door and come out on the street, a guy goes barreling past me. He’s going, “Motherfucking piece of shit, fucking cocksucker, motherfucking cunt, fucking bitch, piece of shit,” which is not an uncommon thing in New York. But what was interesting was, right away, I could see that, visually, he wasn’t the typical homeless guy or mentally-ill homeless guy you attribute that behavior to. I mean, he looked… He was dressed nicely, I guess, is what I’m saying. Which I know is relative, ’cause, you know, I think I’m doing pretty good right now, but… But he was in a suit is what I’m saying. He was in a suit and he had electronics, and he looked like a businessman guy, and he was definitely not on the phone. We’re walking in the same direction. And, you know, he’s a white guy. “Motherfuckin’ piece of shit, cocksuckin’ son of a bitch. Fuck it, yeah. Okay. Hi, Hitler! Hi, Hitler!” And… I was like… “Did he say, ‘Hi, Hitler’?” And… he crossed the street, so… I crossed the street to follow him.
“Motherfuckin’, cocksuckin’ son of a bitch, fuckin’ cunt, fuckin’ stupid bitch, yeah. Okay. Hi, Hitler! Hi, Hitler!”
And he is, in fact, saying, “Hi, Hitler.” That is what he was saying. Which means one of two things. Either… He was… He clearly had this upsetting experience and he’s venting, and, in the middle of venting, he sees Hitler down the street… so he stops to say hi… be a nice neighbor. Either that, or… this grown man… has lived his entire life… thinking the phrase is “Hi, Hitler.” That the German people… who speak fluent German, FYI, they… Yeah. The German people chose one word of English to use… and that word was a salutation. And that, with all the available archival news reels, and film footage, and fictionalized versions of Hitler’s life, and all the footage of him giving speeches to the hundreds of thousands of people, the citizens and the soldiers, the Luftwaffe, the SS, that in the greatest example of the collective unconscious ever recorded, that all these people would… simultaneously… without consulting one another… suddenly say, “Hi, Hitler!” “Hi, Hitler! It’s me, Joseph, from Hamburg. We met at the patisserie. I don’t… Sorry, guys, I’m trying to say hi. Hi… What? Everybody’s doing it. What is happening? Can you guys give me… Hi, Hitler… What is happening with you people? I’m just… Hi… What is happening?”
I’ll take it. So, I was jerking off this morning… Oh. Usually gets a standing ovation, but all right. Whatever. It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine. To the Statue of Liberty. And… Because I love America. Oh, I love America, y’all. Whenever I see the Statue of Liberty or think of the Statue of Liberty, I immediately get a hard-on, and I got to rub one out… as a way to show my patriotism… or patriot-jism. – No. No. No. No. Absolutely not. That does not leave this room. We’re gonna cut it out of the special. Never happened. Never occurred. I will fucking deny it. You never… No, but I was thinking about the poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty, which reads, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse from your teeming shores. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” And you know what I was thinking? What a beautiful, optimistic… humane ideal to have. And… one that’s quite literally the opposite of what Republicans believe. Literally… the opposite of what their candidate’s platform is. And I can’t… How… What is the cognitive dissonance for those people? I mean, how did the two things… You know, the Statue of Liberty is easily the most iconic symbol of freedom in the entire world, and it’s exactly the opposite of what they… Their heads must explode. I don’t know how they deal with it. And, you know, it’s gonna be awkward for whoever the Republican candidate is.
Trump, please. Please. Please. Please. Because, you know… they’re gonna have to take that photo op in front of the poem, and it’s gonna be awkward for them, and… I do have some empathy for them. And I know it’s a little unfair to have empathy for a person who, that’s literally the one trait they lack. And… Because, well… But that’s what’s… Let’s be honest. That’s what makes America weak, is empathy. When we care about those less fortunate than ourselves, that’s what’s bringing us down. It’s that kind of… altruistic attitude that weakens us as a nation. Sure. Sure. Ask Ayn Rand. She’ll tell you. Ask Ayn Rand. I believe you can still find her ghost haunting the same public housing she died in while on Social Security and Medicare. Public housing, on Social Security and Medicare. Oh! That is what we call in the business, a real hypocritical cunt. That’s what we call it. That’s what that is. But regardless… it is going to be awkward for them to do that photo op in front of the poem, and… You know what it is? You know what? I bet they don’t even know about the poem, you know… ’cause it’s a poem… and poems are for fags. What? That liberal arts, feminist women’s studies… No, thank you. But it’s gonna be weird. They’re gonna find out on the way there. “What? No kidding. I had no idea. Where is it? Over here? Is it a limerick? Oh, I love limericks. Right. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Oh, look at that. Huh?
Wait, what? ‘Wretched refuse’? What? Nobody likes wretched refuse. Is this a joke? Who put this here? Was it Carter? It was probably Carter, right? Yeah. All right. Yeah. Go build another house for a homeless family, loser. Give me the etching acid and we’ll get this back up to speed. Know what? This is gonna take too long. Just add ‘non-brown’ in parenthesis before everything. That’ll get us back up to speed on where we are in 2016. Yeah.” These are exciting times. They’re exciting times. And, you know, it’s so interesting to me how faux mystified everybody is at Donald Trump‘s rise, his ascension. And it’s no mystery to me. This is no mystery at all, you know. I mean, at least 25% of this country has always been ignorant, racist xenophobes who are easily appealed to on an emotional level. That’s it. That’s always been the case. That’s it. They didn’t just pop up once Obama was elected. All this bullshit American exceptionalism just didn’t turn sour like Siggi’s. And it’s great to watch, entertaining, too, to watch the Republican Party and the right-wing media try to retroactively undo what they have been creating for the last 35 years. You know, but it’s too late. It’s too late. That’s America’s id. It’s out of the bottle. They’re trying to tamp it back in, like, “Get that thing… ” But it’s out there and it’s fucking rampaging all over America. And, you know, you can’t spend every single day for seven and a half fucking years telling these people that your president is a Communist Muslim from Kenya who hates America and wants to destroy it, and not expect this result. What the fuck? Of course people are pissed off. Yeah. And everybody’s like, “What’s his appeal? I don’t get it.” Well, look, I… The reason I think so many people like to go to Donald Trump gatherings is because it allows them the opportunity to finally go to a white-power rally without all the guilt, you know?
And you can say what you want about Donald Trump. Personally, I think he’s Klan-tastic. I really do.
And… “‘Cause he’s just tellin’ it like it is. That’s what I love about Donald Trump, son. He’s a man who’s up there tellin’ it like it is, okay? All right? He… All that stuff we supposed to say behind closed doors, he’s sayin’ it out loud. Now we can, too! Yeah. He ain’t gonna put up with this PC nonsense, okay? He’s gonna stand up to them PC bullies, all right? ‘Cause this PC, it’s gotten out of control. It is really crazy. I can’t say certain things without hurtin’ somebody’s feelings, okay? And have my First Amendment rights trampled all over, okay? This PC nonsense has gotten out of hand. It’s crazy that, in the year 2016, I can’t call a thug a nigger without being called a racist. What? What happened? Come on. And those people callin’ me racist are hateful and intolerant. They’re intolerant of my intolerance and that makes them the hypocrites. Yeah. He’s tellin’ it like it is ’cause he wants to take us back, he wants to make America great again. Take us back, Donald. Back to when America was great. Back before a black man could become president. Even further, back to when it was great before the Civil Rights Act. That’s when everything went off the rails. Look what happens now. You got Beyoncé puttin’ a beret on her vagina, marchin’ up and down the Super Bowl, the holiest day of the American year. Good Lord! Yeah. He’s just like me. That’s what I love about Donald Trump. He’s just like me. Born and raised in New York City. Inherited $200 million the day I was born. Yep, he’s just like me in every way possible except in any way possible. Yep.”
And, here’s the thing, Donald Trump… Donald Trump said that he loves the poorly educated because he appeals to the poorly educated. His words, not mine. Although, they’re mine also. They are mine as well. But… of course he does. Who else… How else can an ostentatious billionaire who fucking writes his name in gold over everything he owns, who brags constantly about how much money he has… He has billions of dollars. Who else could get people who are struggling financially to give him money happily? That is fucking genius. That’s… That is a genius we haven’t seen in a long time. And they’re happy to do it. They love it. Here’s the thing, he’s playing these people for suckers. He doesn’t give a shit about them. He is openly contemptuous of these people. He would walk over them in front of Trump Plaza. They’re not getting within five miles of Mar-a-Iago or any of his golf courses, unless they’re bringing the dessert cart. They’re not… I mean, can you imagine the size of the Purell bottle on his private jet that he fucking wallows in after meeting people? He doesn’t like those people. He’s about himself. He’s about his brand. When you listen to his words… ‘Cause he has nothing of substance. You go to his policy page. I’ve been on it. It’s fantasy. It’s garbage. It’ll never work. There’s nothing there. It’s impractical. It’ll never happen. It’s fantasy. Donald Trump, if you listen to his words, sounds like a character in a war movie who is comforting his buddy who… doesn’t understand that the bottom half of him has been exploded off, and he’s only got seconds to die.
He’s like, “Everything’s gonna be all right?”
“It’s gonna be great, phenomenal. You’re gonna love it. It’s gonna be fantastic. Oh, my God. It’s gonna get… “
“And we’re gonna win, right?”
“So hard, it’s gonna make their head spin. Believe me. I know a guy who can make it work. You got nothing to worry about. Just trust me on this.”
“And we’ll keep the Mexicans out, right?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna build a wall. It’s gonna be 30-feet high, a huge wall. You’re gonna love it. Just for you. Don’t worry how. Nobody builds walls like me. I mean, I’m the best wall-builder.”
And here’s the thing, you know the guy who is dying in Donald’s arms? That’s the American intellect. But! But, but, maybe it’s not Donald J. Trump. Maybe it’s Ted Cruz. One of your boys, huh? Yeah, he’s one of your guys. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Ted Cruz is a whole other kettle of shitty fish. Ted Cruz is a man who thinks that God only made one mistake, and that is when he created the clitoris.
“What… What’s it there for? Makes no sense. I don’t get it. That thing’s just causing me nothing but trouble. Don’t want it.”
This is what I imagine has happened behind Ted Cruz’s back, almost on a weekly basis, starting from the age of five up until maybe last week, is this conversation, “Oh, no.”
“What’s wrong, buddy?”
“Man, Ted Cruz found out about the party.”
“Oh, fuck! No! That guy? Ugh! What do we do? Do we cancel? I think we gotta cancel. Nobody wants that smug asshole around. Yeah.”
No. But I… I was jerking off this morning… to the latest gun deaths. ‘Cause I love America. I already said it, I love America. And whenever I read about yet another random, senseless, yet completely avoidable gun death, you know, it gets me hard. ‘Cause I’m a patriot, you know. Is there anything more American than standing firm and resolute in the face of rational thought? I think not. That is American exceptionalism. We do it better than any country. And let me preface… let me preface this next chunk by qualifying what I’m about to say, and that is that I’m pro-gun-control. I’m pro-sensible-safety-measures, okay? I’m not one of these I-wanna-take-all-your-guns-away people. You know why? Because those people don’t exist. Nobody’s fucking saying that. Nobody is saying that. That’s a specious, red herring, bullshit argument the NRA props up. No! Fuck. You wanna hunt? Go hunt. Great. You wanna take your handguns down to the gun range and shoot pretend paper Muslims? Knock yourselves out. That’s great. I don’t give a shit. Good on you. That’s great. I’ve shot guns before, a bunch of times. It’s fucking fun. It’s a fun feeling. I do like it. It’s fun. I’m just talking about sensible… what, to me, are just obvious measures. Like an ID, your thumbprint ID unlocks your gun. That’s a safety measure. The same kind of safety measure we use to unlock our fucking cell phones, maybe we can apply to an instrument of death. How does that impinge on your Second Amendment rights? It doesn’t. Shut the fuck up. It does not. Seriously, why can’t we have that? ‘Cause if we did, maybe we wouldn’t have to read about yet another 12-year-old boy who accidentally shot his eight-year-old son. Come on, Texas, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You know what I’m talking about. Seriously, things that make sense to me, like trying, at least, to close the gun show loophole. You shouldn’t be able to buy a modded-out assault rifle from the trunk of a car from behind a Denny’s from a guy who got it off Craigslist from a guy who walked into Walmart and got it. That doesn’t make any sense. You shouldn’t… We should just make it a little bit more difficult for people with known violent tendencies to be able to get a gun. And I’m not talking about the cops. No. Not talking about the cops. I’m… I’m saying, let’s make it a little bit more difficult for mentally unstable people with known violent tendencies to be able to get a… And again, I’m not talking about the cops. If you can go on their Facebook page and see that this guy is a virulent racist, right? Make it a little more difficult for virulent racists, who are mentally unstable with known violent tendencies, to be able to get… And again, I’m not talking about the cops. Or am I? Hmm. No. I think we can all agree that blue lives murder. – Now… Not all of them, not most of them, but a bunch of ’em murder. They’re murdering us. Well, not us. We’re white, but… You know who doesn’t like that bit? Cops. They don’t like it. They don’t like it. And I think it’s important… I’m being sincere. I think it’s important that we acknowledge, all of us, that there are plenty of good, decent, ethical, very brave cops, who put their lives on the line every day, and they don’t appreciate… Sure. And though… They don’t appreciate being painted with this broad brush as being violent predators just because of the actions of a minority of their brothers. They don’t like being stereotyped so that when you see blue, you just think, “Oh, violent thug.”
They don’t appreciate it. I think I made my point. And after every mass shooting… There was another one today in Ohio. Eight people. Same thing always happens. Always. News media will trot out the victims’ relatives on TV, and whoever it is, the mother, the father, the grieving son or daughter, husband and wife, sister, brother, whoever, same thing always happens. They start crying, and they all say the same thing “How many more innocent people have to be shot to death before we do something in this country?”
And, you know, it’s a valid question, and it deserves an answer. So, I crunched the numbers… and it turns out… 1,776 more people have to die before we do something about it. But there’s a caveat. It’s not cumulative. Has to be all at once. Has to be all at once. This is America. Go big or go home, right? That’s how we do. All right? Yeah. What, Sandy Hook? Twenty kids and six teachers? Didn’t do anything. Fuck that. Had the reverse effect. No, no, no, it’s gotta be big, big, big. And if you’re like-minded, you wanna see gun safety enacted, then what I suggest is we hire somebody to shoot 1,776 people, but we justify it the same way we justified dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and then, three days later, dropping another one on Nagasaki. Yes, we killed 130,000 innocent people. Civilians, not soldiers, yes. But we did it for the greater good, ’cause by doing that, perhaps we got the war to end sooner. And maybe we saved 200,000 lives, half a million lives, a million lives. See? It was for the greater good. So that’s what I’m saying. We pay somebody to go to the next big event. Uh… Kentucky Derby? Kentucky Derby. Let’s say Kentucky Derby. No great loss, really. Maybe some cool hats, but outside of that… We pay somebody to go in Bane-style and take them all. Preferably a white guy. It’s gotta be or it’s gonna set the whole cause back, like, 40 years. And here’s the thing. If we didn’t do anything as a country after Sandy Hook… Twenty kids and six teachers? Had the reverse effect. Donations to the NRA tripled. Gun sales tripled after that. Then we’re fucked. We are fucked, all right? And after Sandy Hook, Wayne LaPierre, the Executive Vice President of the NRA, went on television and had a press conference, and he said the solution was to arm the teachers. That’s what he… Well, see, I get that a lot. You’re thinking emotionally. You’re not thinking intellectually. ‘Cause if you think intellectually, it makes more sense when you think about the temperament and the personality that makes up the kind of person who willfully takes the most thankless job in America for very little money, where the sole satisfaction is to create a good, decent, creative, inquisitive, ethical, moral person and put him out in the world, and potentially shoot them later. Because… that’s what teachers love to do. There are two things teachers love. They love to teach and they love to shoot. Oh, they love shooting. Oh, don’t let them fool you. They love shooting.
“All right, class, so when we last left off, we were talking about homonyms, and a homonym, and… Forgive me, this isn’t my normal writing hand. But… All right. A homonym is a word that sounds the same, but it’s spelled differently… Cody? Cody, open up your mouth. Is that gum in your mouth? Is it? Mmm, it is, isn’t it? Yeah. And did you bring enough for the entire class? Did you bring enough for the entire class? Now, get up here! Get up here! Get up here! That’s right. I want that gum, Cody. Uh-uh. No, no. Don’t spit it out in your hand. I want you to put it on the barrel of the gun… with your mouth. Use your mouth. And then I want… Aw. shit. All right. Go to the principal’s office and have him call your mom, bring you a change of pants.All right. Ah, best teacher’s aide ever.”
No, that doesn’t make any sense. “Arm the teachers.” That’s not gonna do anything. There were armed guards at Columbine. No, you wanna ensure safety and security, you have to arm the students, all right? Every student gets a gun. Every student gets a gun in my America. I know what you’re thinking. “David, at Sandy Hook, they were first graders. They were five, six years old. They can’t handle a Bushmaster. The recoil will take their arm off.” Right. That’s why we give them those Smith & Wesson lady guns. Those little fun guns for ladies. Maybe they wing the shooter, buy some time. That’s when the second and third graders are the ones who come and go, “Freeze, motherfuck… “
You know, that’s how… that’s how it’ll work. Yeah. And, you know, currently… there are only 282 Congressmen and 33 governors and, of course, some state legislators who are beholden to the NRA. You know, they’re venal, craven people and they won’t even allow a bill to come to the floor. They knock it down each time. That’s not a lot of people for a country of over 320 million people. They won’t even allow the bill to come to the floor for a vote. No. No. No. NRA says, “No, not gonna happen.”
I wonder what would happen if… Say whoever the NRA’s highest-rated Congressman was… You know, 100% rating, five golden smiley bullets, whatever the fuck it is… What would happen if they were at work, and it was Take Your Daughter to Work Day, and some crazy motherfucker came in, Kevlar vest, armed to the teeth, modded-out AK-47, Bushmasters, Glocks, magazines that had steel-jacketed, hollow-point, armor-piercing bullets, came in, all stuff he got off of the Internet three days ago, and came in, took out security, got on the floor, took out nine, ten, 11, 12 people before he was shot to death, and one of them… was the Congressman’s daughter? And I wonder what would happen or what he would think as he’s sitting there, cradling his dying daughter in his hands and her body is riddled with bullets, her spine is pierced, and her… She’s drowning in her own fluid ’cause her lung is pierced, and he could see all the bullet holes and the deep, dark, sticky blood that’s pulsing out. It’s spurting up, but it’s getting weaker and weaker with each breath. And this beautiful girl… well, beautiful on the inside, I guess, but beautiful girl… is looking up and she’s trying to say, “Daddy, what happened? What happened?”
But she can’t ’cause her larynx is sliced, so all that’s coming out is a wet gurgle-y wheeze, and he can literally see the light leaving her eyes as she dies in his arms. And I wonder if he would think, “Oh, God. Small price to pay. Freedom isn’t free, honey. Freedom isn’t free. Put the body on the pile, and get that pile out of here. It’s making us look really bad right now. Wait, who’s on the phone? Oh, Jesus. Yes, hello. Hello, Mr. LaPierre. Yeah… No. No, sir. No, it will not happen again. She was my only child. Okay. You know where to wire the money. Okay, thank you.”
Maybe. Maybe he might think that. Or… maybe he might think, “Oh, wow! Now that this tragedy has affected me personally, I can see how awful and wrong it was.” I don’t know. One of the two. One of the two things… Tough to tell. Tough to tell.
Who knows? And another thing people often say is, “You know, why do we… In this country, why do we allow so many of our innocent kids to be shot to death? Why do we allow that as a country?” Why do… Well, not “us.” God. “Why does God… ” We have no control over the situation. It’s in God’s hands. “Why does God… allow so many of our innocent kids to be shot to death and… You know, they’d… I mean… I know he has mysterious ways, y’all, but how do… What is he thinking? What are you thinking, God? Taking all… And I’m not questioning you ’cause I know you have your mysterious ways and you’re omnipotent and all-wise, but it seems like you’re taking an awful lot of our children. What is the thinking behind it? I just… “
It… it is… That’s something that a lot of people ask. Why is God… allowing so many of our innocent kids to be shot to death? And… I have a possible answer… and you’re not going to like it. But maybe… Maybe God is allowing so many of our kids to be shot to death so that they can go to heaven where they then service the ISIS terrorists and suicide bombers as part of the 72 virgins they’re rewarded with.
It’s a possibility. I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in any of that stuff, but I’m sure there’s some Muslims here, some Christians. Y’all argue amongst yourselves. Figure it out. I mean, keep arguing amongst yourselves, for another 1,400 years or so. You’ll be able to get it, I’m sure. Soon. Any minute now.
For those of you still here… It’s… This happens… I’ve been doing this a lot. This is the, I don’t know, 65th show? I have no idea. And people get upset and leave every single show and… I don’t know… I think what happens is… It’s so weird to me, you know, that in… in 2016, at this point, I have, literally, eight-plus hours of my stand-up – available to peruse, check out… Maybe see if we’re on the same page about what subject matters I might broach. Seriously.
I think there are a lot of people like, “Oh, hey, Tobias is in town. I didn’t know he told jokes. What’s he gonna do? Just fucking dress up in blue and fall down on the stage? Say some spoonerisms, some malaprops for an hour?”
“I didn’t come down there to listen to my God being made fun of. Okay. And my God is a frail God, and is very thin-skinned and sensitive. I feel like I have to defend him. Some atheist Jew up there talking about… I’m sorry, you can’t be an atheist. If you a Jew, you a Jew, okay? Making fun of my God.”
And look, let me say that I know that religion can do wonderful things, is responsible for wonderful, magnanimous, charitable deeds, can lift people from the gutter, from these horrible lives, and give them purpose and meaning. I know that. I see it all around me. But I also know, unarguably, that religion is responsible for awful, heinous, vile, vicious, murderous things, as well. I know that. And I know that hundreds of millions of people have died over the years because the selective interpretations of the fever dream of scientifically-ignorant illiterates who were told by their god, lord, messiah or prophet to go kill this guy ’cause he has a different god, lord, messiah, prophet or saw “a sign” from God because a pigeon landed on a fucking pig’s carcass, and he was like, “What does that mean? What? Pigeon, what are you trying to tell me? I should kill the Jews? Kill all the Jews? Or is it the Muslims? They both… Which is it? Pigeon, don’t fly away. There’s millions of lives at stake. Pigeon! Who do I kill? Kill them all. Let God sort them out. Got it, got it. Understood.”
But, you know, as an atheist, I would love to see peace on Earth, world peace, via religions. I’d love to see the religions of the world come together and do the thing that they purport to truly want to do. We keep hearing about it all the time, right around Christmas, Ramadan, Hanukkah… “Oh, they want world peace.” Well, make it happen. Jesus. And… Here is an idea. I’ve had an idea for how to maybe make it happen. What we do is we get all the world’s religious leaders all together, right? We get the pope and all of his archbishops, and the people who in-fight in the Catholic Church, get the Roman Orthodox and the Greek Orthodox and the Church of England, and get them together with the rebbes and rabbis from the different sects in Judaism or ultra-Orthodox Judaism and the Haredi, and get them with the Muslim clerics and the imams the Sunni, the Shī’a and the Wahhabis, and get them with Methodist ministers and Baptist preachers, and get them all together for this, like, Davos, G7-style summit, right? Put ’em all in the same room and they can’t leave for five days. They all have to be together, right? And it… You know, we’ll make it fun. We’ll screen The Revenant at eight o’clock. Whatever, it’ll be great. But… they have to sit there. For five days, they can’t leave, and all be with each other, and then maybe they can start to see each other… as human beings and, maybe instead of focusing on their differences, they can focus on what makes them the same. Their shared values… raping children. And then maybe they’ll come together and they’ll see each other as brothers, kindred spirits, and offer tips on how to best rape children, cover up the crimes and then shame the victims. And then… Maybe then we’ll have peace on Earth. Yeah, all right. Great.
Great. Fantastic. But maybe we’ll have a little bit less of that kind of behavior in the Catholic Church… now that we got a cool pope, right? We got a cool pope. The pope is cool. Yeah! He’s a cool pope! He tweets. The pope has a Twitter account. He’s a cool pope. I can’t turn on the news without hearing about how cool this pope is. Rolling Stone magazine, “The coolest pope of all time.” Yeah, he’s a cool pope. He’s totally cool.
He’s still…
He’s a badass. He’s a real badass, cool guy. He’s a cool pope.
♪ Cool pope Cool pope! ♪
He’s a cool pope. He’s a cool pope. Well, let me remind you, uh… Let me just remind you that the bar for being a cool pope… could not be lower… if it were lying at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Keep that in mind, madam. Yeah. All you have to do to be a cool pope is just be a little bit less of an unrepentant, sexist, homophobe hypocrite. That’s all. Little bit less.
Um… I’m sorry. I have really digressed here. Seriously. I apologize. I was talking about gun control. Yes. I want to get back to that idea of that kind of staunch obstinance I referred to earlier. The… It’s a very American thing. I’m not just talking about the Second Amendment. It’s anything, and I think it’s something that we all share. I’m not being facetious here. I’m being serious. Especially as I travel abroad. And I think it’s that thing that we all share that personality. It’s woven into the fabric of this country and has been since its inception. And it’s that feeling… What it means to be American at its core, which is the idea, when it comes to government, of “Leave me alone.”
All right? I mean, fuck it, this is Texas, for fuck’s sake. I mean, you guys are the kings of “leave me alone.” Jesus Christ, you threaten to secede when you fucking don’t get a minor bill passed. Of all the states… “We don’t want to give poor people health care. Fuck you. We’re gonna be our own country.”
Yeah.
“Leave me alone. Don’t tell me what to do. I don’t want the government to tell me what to do. Okay, I don’t want liberals to tell me what to do. I don’t want the Republican establishment to tell me what to do. I don’t want mass media to tell me what to do. I don’t want the banks to tell me what to do. I don’t want the IRS to tell me what to do. I don’t want the FBI to tell me what to do. I don’t want the ATF to tell me what to do. I don’t want the DEA to tell me what to do. Okay? I don’t want Washington insiders to tell me what to do. I don’t want New York elites to tell me what to do. I don’t want Hollywood to tell me what to do. I don’t want f*ggots to tell me what to do. I don’t want Hollywood f*ggots from New York to tell me what to do. I don’t want blacks to try to tell me what to do. I don’t want Jews to tell me what to do. I don’t want atheist hippies to tell me what to do. I don’t want children to tell me what to do. I don’t want the Internet to tell me what to do. I don’t want Neighborhood Watch programs to tell me what to do. I don’t want nutritional information labels to tell me what to do. I don’t want instructions on fancy Japanese urinals I can’t figure out how to operate to tell me what to do. I don’t want Area 51 guards to tell me what to do. I don’t want my hallucinations to tell me what to do. No, sir. Mmm-mmm. Mmm-mmm. There’s only… There’s only one group of people… There’s only one group of people… Come on now. Come on. There’s only one group of people… Come on. There’s only one group of people that can tell me what to do. Okay, only one group of people I’ll listen to. And that’s the Founding Fathers. They’s the only group. And I’m… I’m so sorry. My heart is so heavy, y’all. When I think about what we done to this country, and what the Founding Fathers would think of us, I kneel in shame. I’m so sorry, Founding Fathers. Y’all must be up in heaven, spinning in y’all’s graves. I know it. I know it. I’m so sorry. What we… They’d be so upset. They’d be so upset with us. The Founding Fathers would be so upset with us.”
That is my all-time favorite inane, hypothetical, waste-of-time argument that people actually engage in. They actually… On TV, they get paid, the left and the right, have a serious debate about what the Founding Fathers would think about whatever the thing is. “I think the Founding Fathers would be furious.” “I disagree. I think they’d be proud.” I was like, “What a waste of fucking time that is.” It was 240 years ago. These people couldn’t conceive of Oregon, all right? What a monumental waste of time. Stupid thing. And even if you could bring ’em back, just for a second… First of all, they’re never gonna stay back. They’d wake up and have a massive coronary on the spot. They’d look around going, “Whoa!” And have a massive coronary. They’d die and we’d go, “Wait,” and bring ’em back. “No, wait, wait a sec.” It’d just be over and over again. It’d be like watching Battlestar Galactica on fast forward. And… even if you could bring ’em back to engage them in this… And they would freak… You know, forget about cell phones and cars and neon lights and electricity and asphalt and space flight and 3D and television. You know, fucking cotton candy would’ve blown their mind.
“Hmm… Pray thee, what is this devil’s filament you’ve given me? It’s… sweet to the taste. It disappears instantly. I don’t… And there’s a color that cannot be found in nature. What is this, pray thee?”
“Oh, we made it in that machine.”
“What’s a machine? What’s a machine? Oh, my God!”
What a… what a dumb… Dude, it’s ridiculous. I mean, think of the analogous situation to us. Let’s just imagine we all go to sleep, and we wake up and it’s 240 years later, and whatever the technological advances that have occurred in 240 years. And you wake up… You’re not even aware that you were dead. And the first thing is a bunch of people going, “Can you believe that Madam President bin Laden is talking about giving next gen synths the right to represent their moon pods in the Underwater Congress?” “What the… fuck did you just say? That… made no sense at all.”
You know. All right. All right. Listen, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I want… I have a very, very special impression that I’d like to do for you. Okay? I do one every six years. Now’s the time. This is my impression of Matthew McConaughey accepting the Best Actor Oscar in the year 2042.
“All right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right… all right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right…”
All right, thank you guys so much. Thank you. I’ll see y’all. Thank you so much. Thank you, guys.
“‘The world as we created it is a result of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.’ Clashing with authorities as a child and writing that the spirit of learning and creative thought was lost in strict rote and repetitive teaching, Albert Einstein went on to challenge conventional wisdom and redefine many of the sacred scientific theories developed and embraced. His great intellectual achievements and originality have made the name Einstein synonymous with genius. And that is the philosophy we embraced to imagine our new tableware collection.”
“Beginning with a quest to develop the perfect plate. Now… we are not trying to claim that our new tableware collection can be compared to Einstein’s theory of relativity… but we do believe that, like the bending of light, with a change of thinking, one can reimagine almost anything… even a plate. Then again, it’s all relative. Thank you for teaching us that, Albert. Carpe diem.”
“Carpe diem.”
Are you…
“Seize the day… with our new tableware collection. Until you’ve purchased a Restoration Hardware plate, your day is hardly seized, madam.”
“Carpe diem. Gary Friedman, Chairman Emeritus, Creator and Curator.”
And total tool. Restoration Hardware.
All right, thanks, you guys. This was fun. Wait, let me take a… I gotta take a picture. Gotta take a picture. Bring up the lights. Thank you so much, man. Had a great time. Thank you. Sorry for being offensive.
